125g 2 in 1 Seagrass Reef

[ThePurple12]

Something I noticed about my dinos is that they mainly grow on living things like hair algae and seagrass. Not so much corals, unless the coral is damaged and the bare skeleton is exposed. They do release into the water column at night, but quickly come back in the day.

[Michael Hoaster]

Agreed. At least a thousand species. Good point about the different genus. That's what I overlooked. Also, your point about dinos being able to thrive in low nutrient environments does make sense. That also applies to seagrasses v algae. Grasses can flourish in low nutrient environments that algae can't, which is why I think grasses make more sense than macros in a reef tank.

The thing that doesn't line up with this low nutrient idea is my own experience, where both of my dino experiences followed high nutrient events. This may point to the scenario of people having algae problems with no excess nutrients showing in their tests. The nutrients are already bound up in the algae.

I do agree that UV was likely the most effective measure I took, but I have no way of knowing for sure, since I did several things. Why are you reluctant to use UV?

Manual removal every other day was also very likely to help.

This is why dinos are so dreaded. There is no clear rule or procedure to beat them, given the many species, and the many anecdotal accounts of success and failure.

Since it seems clear that light plays a big role as well, a blackout is also another effective option, at least in my experience. My battle plan included several measures to wear them down, as well as what I called knock-out punch measures to finish them off.

One thing I saw in every case was that there is no quick fix. Good luck!

[ThePurple12]

The big reason I don't want to use UV is that I want to do this naturally without killing pods or any other beneficial things in the water. Not to mention price...
I've heard plenty of success stories without UV, but UV seems to be the most convenient and fastest way to eliminate dinos.

A blackout is a good idea, it's just that my corals and anemone are recovering from low alkalinity/nutrients/too much light and a 3 day blackout might finish some of them off!

[Michael Hoaster]

I'm with you on expense! If I hadn't already had a UV unit, I may not have tried it. I'm also a big fan of natural methods, and I used several in my battles.

"They do release into the water column at night, but quickly come back in the day." This does support the argument for UV, as you need them in the water column for UV to work. This also points to the reason most pods are unaffected by UV. The vast majority of the pods we have in our tanks are benthic, so they are in little danger. Only the pelagic pods are endangered. If I had a large population of pelagic pods I'd think twice about UV. On the other hand, you can buy more.

I would imagine you'd want your corals to be flourishing before adding the stress of a blackout, so maybe later down the road, when everyone's happy it could work.

[ThePurple12]

Yep, once my corals recover and if I still have dinos a blackout will be a good tool.

I actually do have lots of pelagic pods that I see at night, and I'd really like to keep them. Not sure how I have so many. One thing I might try before UV is hydrogen peroxide, as it's much cheaper and does sort of the same thing. Someone on clay-boa dosed 1 ml per gallon every day (night?) and beat dinos in a week. Others have used hydrogen peroxide with no success.

[ThePurple12]

Clay-boa? Haha, nice one RC! What I tried to say is R 2 R.

[ThePurple12]

Here's a close up pic of the algae that grows on my seagrass.

[ThePurple12]

Next time I'm in Florida I'll have to see if I can find any of this algae growing on the local seagrass. I'm certain it came to my tank when I brought home some turtle and widgeon grass.

[vlangel]

Originally Posted by ThePurple12

Here's a close up pic of the algae that grows on my seagrass.

That looks exactly like the algae that is growing on my grasses.

[ThePurple12]

Originally Posted by vlangel

That looks exactly like the algae that is growing on my grasses.

Wow, I'm both sorry to hear that and glad I'm not the only one fighting it! I'm hoping a fighting conch will clean it up, because manual removal has no chance of success.

[Michael Hoaster]

That's weird. Dawn's grasses came from me, and I don't recall seeing that on the grasses in my tank.

I would snip two thirds of the blade off to export most of it, then cut the rest off when they grow back.

[ThePurple12]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

That's weird. Dawn's grasses came from me, and I don't recall seeing that on the grasses in my tank.

I would snip two thirds of the blade off to export most of it, then cut the rest off when they grow back.

It's worth a shot, but if just one blade of that algae remains, it'll all grow back. I think you're right, though. The seagrass has grown back by now, so I'll give it a try.

[Michael Hoaster]

It worked for me on my manatee grass. I had stuff similar to that on them, but it didn't cover every blade of the plant, so I could cut the whole blade off, knowing the other blades would keep the plant alive.

Maybe try keeping nutrients low for awhile, and providing a fast growing macro to compete, like ulva would help.

In hindsight, I guess I was lucky. It never coated every blade of every plant. This allowed me the luxury of removing whole seagrass plants, if I saw no hope of getting them completely cleaned.

[ThePurple12]

In most other cases I would agree with keeping nutrients low, but this algae doesn't seem to be affected by it. Up until recently the algae scrubber was on full blast, keeping n and p at 0. The red algae was growing just fine.

So my plan is do another simulated grazing event, maybe by a sea turtle this time, assuming they'll eat shoal grass. Then, get a few fighting conchs and hope they eat it.

[ThePurple12]

I think I have a genus ID, thanks to WetWebMedia and Algaebase, for the algae: Polysiphonia. [IMG][/IMG]

[ThePurple12]

The one in the picture is Polysiphonia pacifica, shown growing on some kind of seagrass.

The algaebase picture looks longer/more developed, but if I let it grow for a while it eventually becomes much longer.

[Michael Hoaster]

I forgot you had a scrubber, providing competition and nutrient reduction. So you're all set there. I think you'll have to figure out a long game strategy.

[ThePurple12]

not much of a strategy, but I'm hoping it will work!

[ThePurple12]

After some more research, it's most likely that I have Polysiphonia denudata, which was listed in this paper as one of the top shoal grass epiphytes.
https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley...1984.29.5.1066

The paper also said the top epiphyte eaters are cerith snails, arrow shrimp (not crabs), grass shrimp, amphipods, and anachis snails, which I don't know anything about.

I have a few cerith snails but couldn't find any of them, so I put a trochus snail in a small bowl of water with a blade of seagrass with some Polysiphonia (I think). We'll see if it eats it...

[vlangel]

Originally Posted by ThePurple12

Wow, I'm both sorry to hear that and glad I'm not the only one fighting it! I'm hoping a fighting conch will clean it up, because manual removal has no chance of success.

I also ordered a fighting conch so also am hoping that can help. Yes, it's always comforting to know you are not alone!

[vlangel]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

That's weird. Dawn's grasses came from me, and I don't recall seeing that on the grasses in my tank.

I would snip two thirds of the blade off to export most of it, then cut the rest off when they grow back.

It was not on the grasses that you sent me, it appeared later after the grasses experienced some die back.

I was thinking of snipping the top portion with the algae on it but was afraid that the bottom of the blade would begin to die back too.

[vlangel]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

That's weird. Dawn's grasses came from me, and I don't recall seeing that on the grasses in my tank.

I would snip two thirds of the blade off to export most of it, then cut the rest off when they grow back.

It was not on the grasses that you sent me. It developed as the grasses began to die back.

I thought about snipping the algae portion of the grass off but was afraid that more of the blade would die.

[vlangel]

Originally Posted by ThePurple12

After some more research, it's most likely that I have Polysiphonia denudata, which was listed in this paper as one of the top shoal grass epiphytes.
https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley...1984.29.5.1066

The paper also said the top epiphyte eaters are cerith snails, arrow shrimp (not crabs), grass shrimp, amphipods, and anachis snails, which I don't know anything about.

I have a few cerith snails but couldn't find any of them, so I put a trochus snail in a small bowl of water with a blade of seagrass with some Polysiphonia (I think). We'll see if it eats it...

I have seen my grass shrimp eating the algae on mine!

[vlangel]

Originally Posted by ThePurple12

After some more research, it's most likely that I have Polysiphonia denudata, which was listed in this paper as one of the top shoal grass epiphytes.
https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley...1984.29.5.1066

The paper also said the top epiphyte eaters are cerith snails, arrow shrimp (not crabs), grass shrimp, amphipods, and anachis snails, which I don't know anything about.

I have a few cerith snails but couldn't find any of them, so I put a trochus snail in a small bowl of water with a blade of seagrass with some Polysiphonia (I think). We'll see if it eats it...

I have seen my grass shrimp on the blades eating the algae off of them. Yippee!

[Michael Hoaster]

Ooh, that's good news. I was just typing that I'm pretty sure snipping is the only option for those epiphytes. I think its okay, as long as the plant still has some blade(s) left to photosynthesize. I would think that even a small portion left of the blade would be enough. Remember they have stored energy as well. The key is to get as much as you can out of the tank asap to slow the spread. As you have less and less, it spreads less and less.

I don't know why, but the only thing that shows up on my shoal grass is the calcium precipitate and coralline algae. I pull the whole blade. But I have an abundance, so I can be more destructive/heavy handed.

When thinking about the differences between our tanks, I wonder if the mini strombus snails I have are what's taking care of it. When my lights go out, hundreds of them climb the grasses, top to bottom. I'm not exaggerating! Maybe when the weather gets warmer, we can work something out and I can get y'all some of these lil' monsters.

I don't think the fighting conches are going to help that much, since they can't get to the whole blade, and they seem to prefer micro algae. They are great for sand beds though. Also the grass shrimp sound promising.