Brown Stringy Alage on my Corals

C_mo97 · Sep 13, 2019

Hey guys so I woke up this morning and the alage that was around my corals is now on them and spreading fast. Any tips or tricks on how to get rid of it.

gtrider · Sep 13, 2019

Welcome to Reef2Reef! It would be very helpful for the community to diagnose and help if you posted more about your tank and it's parameters.

C_mo97 · Sep 13, 2019

It’s a 20 G tank with paramters as follows.

Temp: 76
Salinity: 1.025
Ammonia: 0
pH: 8.0
Nitrate: 10 ppm
Nitrite: 0
KH: 214.8
Calcium: 340
Phosphate: 0
Magnesium: 650

gtrider · Sep 13, 2019

How old is the tank? lighting?

gtrider · Sep 13, 2019

what type of filtration? media?

C_mo97 · Sep 13, 2019

The tank is about 3 months old and I have an AI prime light.

C_mo97 · Sep 13, 2019

C_mo97 said:
The tank is about 3 months old and I have an AI prime light.

gtrider said:
what type of filtration? media?

It has the Max Nano Protein Skimmer, Carbon, Skimmer Outlet Sponge, Bubble Trap Sponge, and a micron filter Bag. I also set up a little refugium.

gtrider · Sep 13, 2019

It looks like dinos to me. Have you read this? - http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

C_mo97 · Sep 13, 2019

gtrider said:
It looks like dinos to me. Have you read this? - http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

No, I have not but I will momentaraly. Thanks.

gtrider · Sep 13, 2019

It's a good place to start. See if any questions come up after reviewing that. You parameters and set-up seem pretty normal so it's hard to say. Being that it's only 3mo old, you most likely will battle some algae. don't get frustrated.

Mikedawg · Sep 13, 2019

+ 1 on dinos; good luck getting them under control.

MixedFruitBasket · Sep 13, 2019

Also keep in mind your tank is three months old. Tanks often go through the uglies off and on the first year. It’s normal. Just do you water changes and regular maintenance and it should balance out eventually. If you start throwing stuff at it you may cause more problems down the road. Just my 2 cents. Well 5 cause of inflation.

John3 · Sep 15, 2019

I’m dealing with this currently too but I don’t know if it’s dinos for sure. I battled dinos before and it was much worse. This stuff is more of a dark red in color. It’s stringy but not everywhere.

I let my nitrates creep up well above 50 and I think that is the cause. I’ve been bringing my nitrates back down(goal is 10-15) slowly. My skimmer needing s good cleaning which I think was the main nitrate issue. As they have been coming down I am seeing less of this stuff. It almost reminds me of cyano in color.

Also my tank is pretty established at almost 3 years now. My dinos were brown and covered everything with stringy snot. This is def different.

C_mo97 · Sep 15, 2019

John3 said:
I’m dealing with this currently too but I don’t know if it’s dinos for sure. I battled dinos before and it was much worse. This stuff is more of a dark red in color. It’s stringy but not everywhere.

I let my nitrates creep up well above 50 and I think that is the cause. I’ve been bringing my nitrates back down(goal is 10-15) slowly. My skimmer needing s good cleaning which I think was the main nitrate issue. As they have been coming down I am seeing less of this stuff. It almost reminds me of cyano in color.

Also my tank is pretty established at almost 3 years now. My dinos were brown and covered everything with stringy snot. This is def different.

Yeah it defiantly isn’t over everything and when this first happened my nitrates were near 20-30ppm.

FlowGod · Sep 15, 2019

I think it's a mix of green hair algae and diatoms. Make sure to clear that off your corals or it can kill the coral. A lot of my beginning coral died due to that stupid algae. I used a toothbrush to clean off frag plugs and a syringe to blow it off polyps. It will go away with time just stay up to date on maintenance.