Algae and amino acids

[kmwcane]

Hello everyone! I posted a similar topic on the nuisance algae board but wanted to post in here with additional questions to get all of your thoughts. First, does anyone know what type of algae this might be? It feels like a piece of moss when I touch it - very wiry and tough. Does not look or feel like GHA or bryopsis to me.

My tank is now 8 months old and my current water parameters are as follows (I am working on bringing my nitrates up):

Phos: .04
Nitrate: undetectable to maybe .5
Alk: 8.0
Cal: 400
Mag: 1320

My lighting is provided by two Redsea Reef LED90s (tank is a Reefer 350) on an 11-hour schedule, one hour ramp up and one hour ramp down, with the blue lights at 60% and whites at 30% intensity.

The algae has really started to spread over the past 2-3 weeks. The only change I made during this time was to begin dosing Brightwell amino acids in the recommended amount on a daily basis; prior to this I had been dosing twice to three times a week but upped my dosage based on perceived results from my coral. My suspicion is that the increased aminos have caused this outbreak - your thoughts? If so, will cutting back on the amino acids cause the algae to recede? Or is it too late once the cat is out of the bag?

Sorry for the long post but I am hoping for some feedback before I make any hasty decisions on how to deal with this algae. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[BloopFish]

Amino acids are a nitrogen source, so it could potentially be fueling your algae problem. Nothing requires amino acid supplementation to live in a typical reef tank, so I would personally cut back/ofd the amino acids and see what happens. This combined with physical removal may solve the issue, though once algae takes a hold it isn't usually as simple as reversing what you did wrong.... basically an ounce of prevention is worth... you get the gist.

 

[lapin]

This might help

Turf Algae Nightmare

I’ve about had it with what people have told me is Turf algae. The only thing in my 90gal tank that will eat this stuff is my emerald crab. Kole Tang, snails, and crabs won’t touch it. I’ve been dosing Vibrant twice per week for 5 weeks. I only have to clean my glass once per week. I dosed...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[kmwcane]

So removing and scrubbing the rocks isn't really an option for this aquarium. Have others had success with flucanozole and this type of algae? Would a pincushion urchin be a better approach?

 

[HB AL]

Lower your dosing of aminos, or even stop for a while it’s definitely contributing to the uptick in the algae growth.