[04V10]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to relay an experience that I've had with my 20gal reef that I have set up. It does not have a sump, running under a radion, has a HOB skimmer, as well as a HOB filter.

I recieved some coral from a friend last summer for free and I was happy to have them as he was moving out of town and wanted me to hold onto some coral for him until he sets his new tank up. The coral that came from his tank were in a 150gal tank, so he had all the proper cleanup crew in the tank including a few tangs.

Fast forward to August of last year. I start to get an algae break out that looks like cabage. it is really thick, and seemed to be filling all of the cavities on the rocks, and the stalks of my candycanes. It was weird, it wouldn't grow in direct light, but lower in the tank where the light is less intense. So I did the usual, freak out and begin to manually remove it, but also look into chemical warfare that could help me out. I use chemi-pure elite in the tank, but it didn't seem to be cutting it, so I picked up some phosguard as well and began to run it as well. With all the chemistry I threw at it, I couldn't stop the spread of this cabage, eventhough my parameters were good.

So, I decided I was going to leave it and see what happened with it. It continued to grow, but not to the point where it was bothering anything. However, recently in the last 3-4 weeks I began to notice it was receding and not growing as crazy and as fast as it was before. So I continued to watch it, and now I have one little dime sized piece of it on some live rock that I'm waiting to die off. It is absolutely all gone!! No changes on my part with water changes or any parameter changes. I just continued my regular routine scheduled maintenance and it took care of itself!

It makes me wonder about alot of tanks on here where people are complaining of algae breakouts and begin to throw chemistry at it, as well as water changes like crazy, should we really take action all of the time? Or let it run it's course, like mine did..... This is also evident with some red wire algae that I used to have that originally came on the rock that went away last spring.. I know for the future, if I have something come along, as long as it isn't causing harm to any corals, inverts, or fish, I think I will leave it, monitor it, and see if it will run it's course before I do anything drastic with it.