Project nightmare begins (1 Viewer)

[sultros]

I have a few more things to pick up at the store but i basically have everything to begin my live rock move.

My battle with dictyoa has led me down this awful road of pulling live rock. I have about 100lbs to transfer to the 55 i just set up in the garage. I figure 2 months with no light should kill it off.

In the meantime ill be chizeling porites, tweezering palythoa and zoa colonies, and breaking up and cleaning a few rocks that used to be covered in mushrooms.

This battle has really taken its toll. Ive been close to giving up for months now but I refuse to simply quit. I want my tank back. I want to look in and see rocks, corraline, and coral not algae bushes with corals peeking out.

After speaking with Eric B, it seems "cooking" my rock or simply tossing it out is the only option at this point. This battle has nothing to do with advanced nutrient levels. Unfortunately few things aggressivly graze on dictyoa.


Hopefully ill have things under control by the time the swap meet hits.

Id love to trade some purple ricordias but I wouldnt dare hand out a frag with even the slightest micro piece of dictyoa on it.

For those that dont know what dictyota is..search...learn...and exterminate. I warned John at global that he had some in one of his tanks but he didnt care. This stuff always starts out slow...then boom...its everywhere. It grows almost an inch a week. The worst part is that the small pieces that float into the water column..they are always breaking off...either make it to unseen areas of the tank to cause an unseen outbreak or end up clogging up powerheads and overflows. I have to clean mine every week.

Wish me luck everyone.

 

[Guest]

Good luck! Make sure to put some emerald crabs in there too. If that algae is the only thing to eat, maybe they'll start dining.

 

[Guest]

I ran a web search for dictyoa, but nothing turned up. Are you sure you're spelling it correctly?

 

[yellowbelley]

its spelt dictyota i think..

 

[cparka23]

yeah, there's a second t there. got it spelled correctly at the end. there's a few different looking growths of it. is yours like this?

or is it more like this?

 

[sultros]

Its exactly like the second pic.

 

[sultros]

Woot!!

All the rock...errr...most of it anyway has been moved now.

No sign of my pistol or watchman. By the time I got to their rock the tank was a dust cloud

Nothing beats getting stuck 3 times by your black urchin OWIE!!!

The next phase will be cleaning all Dictyota from the power heads and all excess pieces floating loose.

I love this hobby =P

 

[Guest]

I'm going to be doing the same thing, pulling all LR and LS from my tank to kill off some algae I can't beat..... Nothing will eat it.......

 

[sultros]

Well here is an update on my live rock cooking project.


Most of the live rock placed in the 55 in my garage is clean of algae except for a few pieces that remain covered in what look like "runners".

I spent the past month scraping off powerheads and over flow while my algae eaters went to work. My Urchin has done a fabulous job clearing out the bit that remained on my corals. Both Tangs stepped up in their part as well.

With a few hours of re-aquascaping, my tank finally looks like it was supposed to months ago...any I only bumped the Urchin 4 times


I'll try and get a friend to stop by today with his digital camera so I can snap some shots. I really wish I would have taken some before and after so you could realize how bad the infestation was.