Bryopsis or hair algae?

[96tommy]

5-week old 90 gal FOWLER tank with 2-small clowns & a small damsel. Lots of live and base rock. Used Seachem Stability. Cycle going well. pH 8.2, Ammonia 0.0, Nitrite 0.0, Nitrate 10, temp 82°. Had diatoms after a couple of weeks, but no other algae. Put a new live rock in Saturday a week ago (looked clean). Did a 15% water change Tuesday before leaving on Thursday. (I use Instant Ocean salt).

Left for 4-day weekend. Used auto feeder and ran my lights 9 hrs/day. Came home to find these guys scattered all over the sand bed. No big clumps, just lots of mostly single strands like the pics. I’ve scoured the internet and am still between a bryopsis, or simpler green hair algae. Any help appreciated. (Newbie to saltwater - had an awesome cichlid setup in that tank for 24 years.)

 

[vetteguy53081]

Bryopsis. Bryopsis is fern-like which your great pics show. It is important to remove before it becomes a jungle. Pull by hand and scrape off the root off bottom and net it up. Additionally, reduce white light intensity a few days and add Large turbo/cerith/astrea snails to help with control.

 

[gentlefish]

I lean towards Bryopsis, too. A giveaway is also that the CUC won’t eat it. If all else fails, Fluconazole.

 

[96tommy]

I lean towards Bryopsis, too. A giveaway is also that the CUC won’t eat it. If all else fails, Fluconazole.

No CUC yet. I thought Bryopsis, but there’s none on the rocks, and no clumps (yet) in the sand. Just mostly single shoots. I’ll start trying some manual removal tomorrow and see what happens.