For the last month or so I’ve had these black spots popping up on my rocks. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now it appears to be spreading a bit quicker. After doing some research, I believe its a species of Lobophora. I’ve read its near impossible to get rid of but I’ve come up with some options and wanted some opinions. Its probably hard to tell, but here are some photos in case I am wrong:
I am going to pull some of the rocks out and put hydrogen peroxide on as much as i can get to. Ill see how effective this is first, but without scraping it off the rock, it will likely come back.
My “tank” is a 3g pico and i can pretty much do whatever i have to do to get rid of it. Here are the options I came up with. Let me know what you would do:
A. Leave it alone for now. Hopefully it will go away as the tank matures. It doesnt seem to bother any of the coral(yet), and i can always go with option C later.
B. Get an emerald crab. Ive read theres a good chance they will eat lobophora. He should be able to do a pretty good job in a 3 gallon tank and at least keep it under control, and if theres any issues with him picking at stuff, i have another tank for him to go into.
C. The extreme route, but easier than scraping it all: Replace all of the rock/water with new rock/water, scrape and peroxide on any of the frag plugs and essentially start over. I’d like to keep the sand for bacteria/pods etc... but i’d probably take all of the sand out and rinse it too.
D. Any other ideas or solutions?
All in all I’ve been trying to do whats best for my corals, and would hate for this to become a big enough issue to kill something. Thanks for any input.
I am going to pull some of the rocks out and put hydrogen peroxide on as much as i can get to. Ill see how effective this is first, but without scraping it off the rock, it will likely come back.
My “tank” is a 3g pico and i can pretty much do whatever i have to do to get rid of it. Here are the options I came up with. Let me know what you would do:
A. Leave it alone for now. Hopefully it will go away as the tank matures. It doesnt seem to bother any of the coral(yet), and i can always go with option C later.
B. Get an emerald crab. Ive read theres a good chance they will eat lobophora. He should be able to do a pretty good job in a 3 gallon tank and at least keep it under control, and if theres any issues with him picking at stuff, i have another tank for him to go into.
C. The extreme route, but easier than scraping it all: Replace all of the rock/water with new rock/water, scrape and peroxide on any of the frag plugs and essentially start over. I’d like to keep the sand for bacteria/pods etc... but i’d probably take all of the sand out and rinse it too.
D. Any other ideas or solutions?
All in all I’ve been trying to do whats best for my corals, and would hate for this to become a big enough issue to kill something. Thanks for any input.
