Algae I've had Enough

[mojoreef]

Min cooking the LR is putting it in a dark container and leaving it with out light for weeks. With razor calurpa I have tried that (6 weeks) Me and abotu 5 buddies picked every little peice I we could find, I even took a torch to the holes where it was to get them. it went white and disappeared, but 2 weeks after being back in the tank it was back in full force. Cooking LR will not cause the tank to cycle.

Now for a more drastic method you could boil the rock in hot water. I have a done this also. It basically kills all life on the rock and turns it bone white. You could then put it back in with some new lr and the new would seed the boiled stuff back. Takes a few months but saves having to buy a new.
When adding a neew peice of LR to my established tank this is what I always do. I didnt want to risk parasite/algae/cycle to the tank. It looks kinda weird being bone white, but it is like a brand new Apartment building waiting to be occupied. After a couple of month you couldnt tell it from any other rock in the tank.

mike

 

[MINIATUS]

I think I will try the cook method first. If that dont work I try the boil method, but as a last resort. I have 25 lbs of corraline covered rock at a friends place to re vitaliize if I end up boiling it..
Should I put a filter on the tank for the corals while I cook the rock. In other words the corals will survive without rock in the tank.

Thanks again

MINIATUS :idea:

 

[mojoreef]

If you can spare a peice or two of LR for filtration go ahead, if not a filter should do the job with the low bioload you have. Give the stuff a good scrub and rince before you put the LR into the bins for cooking.

Mike

 

[Elmo18]

I put in a One spot Foxface and that ate grape caulerpa, razor caulerpa, feather caulerpa.

I had decided to put grape caulerpa in my main tank about year and half ago. I have before and after shots. I never cooked my rock, nothing like that. I run skimmerless, just live rocks and a sand bed.

Here's a before and after shots.

Beginning phase when i decided to add rock and caulerpa. This was my intention.

Here's the tank with green caulerpa in nook and crannies:

Here's a closeup of what I was up with:

And here is my tank almost a year from then, nice and no grape caulerpa everywhere. I have not seen any grape caulerpa, except now in the fuge/sump.

So there are other ways of dealing with algae problems. Certainly one is to cook the rock without light, etc. However, I decided on natural predation of them using fish. Not all fish are the same, and one individual may have a taste of some algae, while another does not. What I do know from experience is that because i added the foxface, it has 'taught' my yellow tang to eat caulerpa also. A couple months before adding a foxface, which i have given away, my yellow tang would never touch any macro algae. Now if i take some macros from the fuge, the yellow tang will eat it.

Goodluck in your pursuits.

- Elmo

 

[MINIATUS]

UpDate
I finished scrubbing my rockand have started the cooking process this weekend, Should have done it a few weeks ago but other things got in the way. Now I'll play the waiting game.
2 questions
1-how do you tell when the cooking rock is ready to be put back.
2-I still have a few large pieces in the tank because I have had Zoos take hold and can't get them off without damaging them. How do you deal with this because these rocks have more algae than all the stuff I took out. I pulled as much as I could off of them and placed every snail I have on these rocks. Please help.

MINIATUS :?:

 

[Curtswearing]

1. The LR will start shedding detritus which needs to be blown off with a turkey baster and siphoned off the bottom. Once you start seeing less detritus at the bottom, then you know the cooking is nearly done.

2. If you want to, you can frag the zoanthids off of the LR and glue them to some rubble. Then you can cook that rock. Alternatively, you can break that rock and cook the portion that doesn't have zoanthids.

Here's an article by our very own Cougra on Fragging Zoanthids

 

[MINIATUS]

Im going to have to break the rock a sthe ZOOs are imbedded on the Rock. Also my blushing coral is impossilble to remove without damaging it.

I have set up another container exactly like the one the cooking rock is in, then in a weeks time I can blow the rock off and tranfer it to fresh salt water.I'll do this for 4 to 6 weeks. Will this be ok to do.

MINIATUS :?:

 

[Elmo18]

I hope all your work will pay off

- Elmo

 

[Curtswearing]

Sounds good Min.

 

[cronicreef]

I see most the members from fragexchange are also over here!

I guess I'm just taging along trying to learn something. I kinda have the same proplem as min

 

[Scooterman]

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3617

I had to link over the algae thread, hope we can discuss this a little deeper. Curt has some good information about cooking LR, at some point this may be necessary, it may also lead to the next desperate step!

 

[Scooterman]

cronicreef , Welcome it is good to have new ideas & thoughts aboard, jump in Knee Deep!

 

[WaterDogs]

Waterdogs...I don't understand why you take pleasure in someone else getting algae. I have had algae before and I try my darndest to help others with this problem.

Min...this is a good thing. Your macro's are taking a lot of nasties out of the water and when you yank them out, your skimmer takes over. Once all of the Caulerpa's are gone, your skimmer has proven it can do the job.

Curtswearing,

Just saw this post tonight. You took it wrong, I was not "taking pleasure in someone else getting algae" I was commenting/laughing at the fact someone went so far as to use a Blow Torch to get rid of it, I'm sure you can see the humor in that?

 

[Angelscrx]

Blow torch is that a new coral? ;-)

 

[Scooterman]

That blow torch thing is funny by his methods used to remove the stuff.