Cant get rid of Stringy Brown algae

JoeBore · Apr 3, 2019

Hi,
I have been trying to get rid of this algae for a few weeks now, but it just comes back within a couple of days. It is brown, stringy and grows where ever there is light. It seems to be on the glass and substrate mainly. Its on the rocks but seems to be going around corals. My inverts love eatting it and my corals are looking fine.

I reduced my lights from 8 hours to 4 hours
I have added new GFO
I have removed GFO
I have added new carbon
Im doing water changes every week
My filter has a UV built in so ive had that on 24/7.

I have read all different methods of getting rid of it but i dont know what works

Any help would be appreciated

Joe

Flippers4pups · Apr 3, 2019

Looks like dinoflagellates. What's your water parameters?

JoeBore · Apr 3, 2019

Flippers4pups said:
Looks like dinoflagellates. What's your water parameters?

Ammonia nitrate and nitrite 0
Ph 8.4
Phosphate 0 (just took GFO out so expecting it to rise)
Tank temp 26 C

I have just found a corner of the tank where the substrate was filthy (alot of crap was getting sucked up) could that have been the issue?

e34stx · Apr 4, 2019

im having this issue and i think its due to nutrients zeroing out. remove any control media and let the no3 and p04 rise. this should allow competition to take over. mine were 0 now my no3 is 5ppm and po4 is 0.03ppm so far. although it appears to be getting worse at the moment but i will keep a close eye. hopefully more experienced reefers will add some valueable info...
regards

JoeBore · Apr 5, 2019

e34stx said:
im having this issue and i think its due to nutrients zeroing out. remove any control media and let the no3 and p04 rise. this should allow competition to take over. mine were 0 now my no3 is 5ppm and po4 is 0.03ppm so far. although it appears to be getting worse at the moment but i will keep a close eye. hopefully more experienced reefers will add some valueable info...
regards

Yeah im trying the same thing at the moment, im going to hold back on the water changes fron weekly to every 2-3 weeks and take out as much as i can manually