lovely_trequartista
New Member
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2019
- Messages
- 21
- Reaction score
- 17
- What state or country do you live in
- California
Hi, I'm dealing with my first algae issue and I'm trying to determine what exactly I'm dealing with.
Tank has been running since December.
For months my nutrient levels were at zero, but in the last 5-6 weeks I've noticed nitrates and phosphates going up as I began to max out my tank with fish livestock as well beginning to both broadcast and target feed ReefRoids to a growing coral population.
Phosphates currently at 0.02 ppm, nitrates might be as high as 10ppm.
I use both the Red Sea and Salifert test kits and it's difficult for me to tell the difference between readings of 2, 5, and 10 ppm with the Salifert kit.
Red Sea low range test indicates 4 ppm but I'm guessing that just means > 4. I can't tell the difference in color for readings of 4, 8, 12 and even 16 ppm using the high range test.
I don't know my pH. Nest a test kit for that.
Tank is a 25g AIO from Innovative Marine. Fish inhabitants are 2 true perculia clownfish, 1 pygmy flameback angelfish and a juvenile cortez angelfish.
Anyway I first noticed a reddish film starting to form in the front left of my tank last week. It's look slimy and kind of lays down over the sand like a carpet. There are little air bubbles in spots where the algae is thickest. In some areas particularly, lighter areas, you can see short individual hairs. It's a rusty reddish color. The red us much more vibrant than it appears in the video.
At first it was only forming where the sand met the tank glass in a few spots. With a day or two it started to cover all the open sand in the front left corner of the tank while slowly spreading and lighter pocket beginning to grow through out the tank.
I did a watcher change last Thursday and vacuumed the sand until it appeared to be gone. The next day it was back in the same spots.
I ended up doing another water change overt the weekend and experienced the same result.
Something strange happened this morning. I woke up to hardly any visible algae on the sand and thought to my self, "that wasn't too bad, it's already going away on it it's own."
Within 30 minutes to an hour the amount of algae covering sand had grown by 500%.
That's when I capture the video. This as dense and and as far distributed throughout the tank the algae has been in the week I've been monitoring the situation.
Can anyone help confirm what organism I'm dealing with here?
Thanks!
Tank has been running since December.
For months my nutrient levels were at zero, but in the last 5-6 weeks I've noticed nitrates and phosphates going up as I began to max out my tank with fish livestock as well beginning to both broadcast and target feed ReefRoids to a growing coral population.
Phosphates currently at 0.02 ppm, nitrates might be as high as 10ppm.
I use both the Red Sea and Salifert test kits and it's difficult for me to tell the difference between readings of 2, 5, and 10 ppm with the Salifert kit.
Red Sea low range test indicates 4 ppm but I'm guessing that just means > 4. I can't tell the difference in color for readings of 4, 8, 12 and even 16 ppm using the high range test.
I don't know my pH. Nest a test kit for that.
Tank is a 25g AIO from Innovative Marine. Fish inhabitants are 2 true perculia clownfish, 1 pygmy flameback angelfish and a juvenile cortez angelfish.
Anyway I first noticed a reddish film starting to form in the front left of my tank last week. It's look slimy and kind of lays down over the sand like a carpet. There are little air bubbles in spots where the algae is thickest. In some areas particularly, lighter areas, you can see short individual hairs. It's a rusty reddish color. The red us much more vibrant than it appears in the video.
At first it was only forming where the sand met the tank glass in a few spots. With a day or two it started to cover all the open sand in the front left corner of the tank while slowly spreading and lighter pocket beginning to grow through out the tank.
I did a watcher change last Thursday and vacuumed the sand until it appeared to be gone. The next day it was back in the same spots.
I ended up doing another water change overt the weekend and experienced the same result.
Something strange happened this morning. I woke up to hardly any visible algae on the sand and thought to my self, "that wasn't too bad, it's already going away on it it's own."
Within 30 minutes to an hour the amount of algae covering sand had grown by 500%.
That's when I capture the video. This as dense and and as far distributed throughout the tank the algae has been in the week I've been monitoring the situation.
Can anyone help confirm what organism I'm dealing with here?
Thanks!
Last edited:
