I'm new to this forum/thread/message group thing, so bear with me if I'm not doing something right.
I've been in the reef game for quite some time and have seen many strange and wonderful things in my tank, but this one has got me stumped.
I'm trying to identify a nuisance algae in my tank, and I'm guessing it is an algae. One LFS thought it might be a hydroid from just my verbal description, but I tend to disagree. It is rust, brown colored. It grows along a thin filiamentous stem, and has a small tuft or polyp at its end, maybe 1/8 inch in diameter. The stem spider-webs its way along the rocks and you end up with small colonies of rust colored tufts all over your tank. I have to admit, they are nice to look at in small quantities, but when they attach to every rock you have, they get to be a nuisance.
Does anyone know what these are, and more importantly, how to control them?
My tank has 3 tangs-- Blue, Yellow, and Purple, a Flame angel, a Flame-back angel, Bullseye dragonette goby, Spirengiri Pseudochromis, Flame hawk, an engineer goby, Pair of Oscellaris Clowns --- and none of these are interested in eating the polyps.
There is also red-legged, blue-legged and black and white-legged hermits, astrea snails, a mint green biscuit star (species unknown), a cleaner shrimp, emerald crabs ---none of these seem to touch them either.
The tank is a full-blown reef with soft, hard and SPS corals, so chemical treatment is limited.
The polyps are not easily removed from the rock. The best way I've found so far is to manually siphon them off with a hose--but they come back. They also seem to 'sting' my green star polyp colonies causing the polyps to stay retracted when they touch.
Any ideas for their removal??
I've been in the reef game for quite some time and have seen many strange and wonderful things in my tank, but this one has got me stumped.
I'm trying to identify a nuisance algae in my tank, and I'm guessing it is an algae. One LFS thought it might be a hydroid from just my verbal description, but I tend to disagree. It is rust, brown colored. It grows along a thin filiamentous stem, and has a small tuft or polyp at its end, maybe 1/8 inch in diameter. The stem spider-webs its way along the rocks and you end up with small colonies of rust colored tufts all over your tank. I have to admit, they are nice to look at in small quantities, but when they attach to every rock you have, they get to be a nuisance.
Does anyone know what these are, and more importantly, how to control them?
My tank has 3 tangs-- Blue, Yellow, and Purple, a Flame angel, a Flame-back angel, Bullseye dragonette goby, Spirengiri Pseudochromis, Flame hawk, an engineer goby, Pair of Oscellaris Clowns --- and none of these are interested in eating the polyps.
There is also red-legged, blue-legged and black and white-legged hermits, astrea snails, a mint green biscuit star (species unknown), a cleaner shrimp, emerald crabs ---none of these seem to touch them either.
The tank is a full-blown reef with soft, hard and SPS corals, so chemical treatment is limited.
The polyps are not easily removed from the rock. The best way I've found so far is to manually siphon them off with a hose--but they come back. They also seem to 'sting' my green star polyp colonies causing the polyps to stay retracted when they touch.
Any ideas for their removal??
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