Algae ID

[CookieRdReef]

I have been battling this brown hair algae for a few months now. First I thought it was cyano, then I thought diatoms, now I'm not sure. It is mostly on the sandbed and lower rockwork. It has coated and irritated some corals. It does not just blow off with a turkey baster. In fact it's kind of hard to remove my hand.

I've done 2 rounds of Chemiclean and 3 day blackouts twice. Also been dosing Vibrant 2x/wk.

Each time the algae goes away for a few days before returning.

I've been trying to keep parameters above 0:

NO3 - 2 ppm
PO4- .13 ppm

Any suggestions? I was about to begin dosing hydrogen peroxide before I read about harm to cleaner shrimp :/

 

[CookieRdReef]

Bump

 

[Afrashz]

My guess is cyano, I would cut out the vibrant as cyano is often a side effect of using it.

 

[CookieRdReef]

My guess is cyano, I would cut out the vibrant as cyano is often a side effect of using it.

Thanks for the reply. It's definitely more of a brown than a red color which made me think more diatoms/dino. I will try stopping the Vibrant.