Bryopsis or hair?

[ScottF]

Tank is a few months old. Just put coral in it. Nitrates are 0 and phosphates 0.01. I've been dosing NeoNitro because from what I understand it is bad to have 0/0. Trying to give some nitrogen to my corals and chaeto, but it seems like when I dose NeoNitro in the late morning/early afternoon the nuisance algae sucks it all up during the day and the chaeto finishes it off over night. It is at 0 nitrates again by the time my TridentNP tests at 5:00 AM.

I am trying to get more fish in the tank, but it is taking longer than expected for my order from marine collectors to come in. So I only have one gold-rimmed tang and two gobies in a 250 gallon tank.

I had a dusting of brown on the rocks and sand that just exploded into either bryopsis or hair algae right after I added the coral. I stopped dosing the NeoNitro even though my nitrates are at 0. How long is it safe to have 0 nitrates before corals and chaeto suffer? Should I resume dosing NeoNitro? I scrubbed as much as I could from the rocks with a toothbrush.

Is this bryopsis or another hair algae?

 

[splunty]

I'm no expert and can't tell you for sure what that is, but I am sure it isn't bryposis.

It does look like some kind of hair algae, but trying to starve it of nitrates is most likely going to cause a cyano outbreak. (The little bubbles getting 'caught' in the algae are an indicator of cyano presence, even if you can't see it.)

Regardless, you should get nitrates up to 3-10 and phosphates up to .03 - .1 and stable. Zero is looking for trouble.

 

[ScottF]

As the evening progresses it gets more and more covered in bubbles and then starts to break off and float to the surface. My roller mat is wearing itself out pulling all of it out of the water.

 

[ScottF]

The joys of being colorblind. My wife informed me today that the green algae in my tank is actually red.

 

[ScottF]

actually, after further review the strings of algae are brown and the dusting on the rocks is green.

 

[PharmrJohn]

Bryopsis looks like little flat ferns in your tank. That's its structure. This looks like hair algae.

 

[ScottF]

That's what I was thinking. Though it doesn't seem to form into hairs as much as clump into a straggly strings that often just break off and float to the surface.

 

[ScottF]

Though to be honest there may be a couple of different things going on.