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Facinating Occurance

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by
Paul B
, 12-18-2011 at 02:13 PM (1364 Views)
I have this bubble algae growing in a few places in my tank and in some places it is very heavy. I am not worried about it and kind of like it, but anyway, I noticed that it is just growing on my home made cement rock or the cement on bottles and none of it is growing on any real rock.
It started in my algae trough which is a screen coated in cement. The trough was so filled with this bubble algae that it overflowed and the entire thing fell into the tank from the weight.
I find this extreamly facinating that "rocks" made with cement that have been in the tank for many years, some decades could still leach something into the water to attract or at least allow these forms of algaes to live.
My cement algae trough was so covered in this bubble algae that I removed the screen and threw it away and replaced it with a clean screen with no cement on it but I think that was a mistake. I am going to replace that screen with a cement coated screen for two reasons. I don't want my reef covered in this bubble algae (although I like it in some places) but it "may" be beneficial for the water.
I love this stuff.

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  1. melev's Avatar
    That red valonia stuff can be excessive. I've seen a tank inundated with the same species, but eventually it died off (ebb and flow type of deal).

    My frag tank is overgrown with green valonia, so much so that I feel like taking the corals out and cleaning out as much as I can manually. I've added emerald crabs but it hasn't helped even slow it down.
  2. Paul B's Avatar
    Melev, this particular stuff does not seem to grow any more than it already grew and I kind of like it. But I am really excited that it only grows on cement rocks and not real rocks. I am experimenting to find out why. I also want to find out if cement will help with growing other forms of life. I love it when something out of the ordinary happens so I can test different things.
  3. Paul B's Avatar
    Randy gave me an Idea and suggested that it "may" be the iron that is attracting the algae to the cement. It could be another chemical in cement but I will try iron first.
    I made a slab of cement about 6 square inches and I ground up some nails with a grinder into the surface of the wet cement. I will let it cure for a week then put it in my algae trough. The trough is there to grow algae anyway and I want to see if I can enhance that ability with iron filings.
    I want as much algae growing in the trough as can fit.
    I love this stuff.