Making headway against turf and cotton like algae

[slojmn1]

I posted a while back about this horrible brown/black/dark green short turf like algae that had basically overtaken every bit of light exposed rock in my tank. I also noted that I had this pink/purple cotton looking algae in the darker crevices of my rock. Here is recent shot of a frag in my tank and you can see the turf algae. Sorry this shot is so small, but I think you get the general idea. No pretty pink/purple coralline algae framing this lovely frag.

Between these two algaes my tank has looked awful, IMHO. I added a bunch of macro algaes to my refugium and have noticed growth over the past two months. I became more careful with feedings. I increased my alk from 8-9dkH to about 9.8-10.5dkH. This past two weeks I have increased my pH from a range of 7.9ish-8.3ish to 8.2ish-8.6ish each day. I accomplished this by adding a NURCE top off unit that doses kalkwasser, this is in addition to my calcium reactor. In the past two weeks I have noticed that the turf algae is dying off a bit. By this I mean I can see more rock exposed and when I use a tooth brush to clean and scrub this crap off my rocks it is coming off much easier than a month ago. I noticed that the cotton algae(that is my scientific name for this stuff) started to get covered by a gross brown powdery algae all over. I saw it basically dying off. I think the brown stuff is either another type of algae or the pink stuff deteriorating. At any rate, I see light at the end of the tunnel. I have been battling these two algaes for 7 out of the 10 months this reef has been set up. I am afraid to get my hopes up to much, but I am seeing a difference. I have also found that under the turf algae amazingly enough there are many pockets of pink, yellow, and orange coralline algae. A lot of the rock is just whitish/gray though. But now the coralline algae will have some room to really get going. This was a long winded way of posting a positive battle against this ugly, disgusting algae.

 

[XXX]

I had a bunch of that cotton candy mess in my tank the first three months after I set it up. I still have a couple of crevices where I can see a small amount of it.

Do you have theory as to why you have had such a problem with these algaes? Your parameters certainly don't look to have been out of line. And from reading many of your posts over the last year+ I have seen you definantly know what you're doing.

Good luck.

Steve

 

[slojmn1]

XXX, Thanks for the compliment regarding my competence. I owe what competence I do have to the people on the boards and learning from my mistakes over the years. As far as the question where this stuff came from...I suspect enthusiastic feedings over the first 5 months of establishing this tank, especially with the Golden Pearls and DT's. I tried very hard to ramp up slowly and feed according to what was in my tank, but it seems that excess nutrients can be the only thing. My refugium macros really never took off until this past 2 months so the turf algae which popped up on one rock in month 2 had no competition. As you stated my parameters have been great on this tank, some lower than desireable pH and alk readings, but certainly within normal limits. I can only guess excess nutrients. I have become more prudent in my feedings and the increased macro growth in my refugium must be helping. I suspect it will take some months for this stuff to really go away but this is a step in the right direction

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