Green Film Algae or not? (pics)

[Makers Marc]

Experts,

I need help determining what this green algae is. Tank is 5 months old.

It blows off easily from the rocks and glass. Comes back after 3-4 days. Just want ppl to physically look at it and tell me if it looks like natural part of the cycle or green cyano/dinos?

180g
No3=4ppm (red sea)
Po4=0 (Hanna ulr)
Cured Pukani with Lanthamum for 30 days prior to tank start; 80% dry reef grade sand 20% arag alive sand
1 cup of GDP monthly

 

[Makers Marc]

C'mon guys! 27 views. No one wants to take a shot?

50 or shot in Rock and Jock. No harm , no foul.

 

[chefjpaul]

C'mon guys! 27 views. No one wants to take a shot?

50 or shot in Rock and Jock. No harm , no foul.

Better to wait for the right answers rather a dozen wrong or guessing.

@reefsquad
@ Jose Mayo

 

[Makers Marc]

3 wk later bump.

I still need to siphon, not daily but every 3 days now before it gets out of control again.

 

[Dennis McGrath]

I'm not an expert, but it looks like regular algae to me. You're not overfeeding? Do you have a UV sterilizer? What's your flow like?

 

[Makers Marc]

I wouldn't consider it overfeeding but I guess that's all relative. Only big eaters/poopers are a 4 inch Blonde Naso and a 3 inch Hippo tang. 12 fish total.

Manually feeding of 1x1 frozen cube of fish roe (A.M.), nori on clip during day (gone in 30 mins), 2x1 piece of Hikari mysis at night with an occasional cyclopeeze cube, or sprinkle of maybe 25 NLS pellets which my hippo tang.eats about 75% of.

If overfeeding, my no3 shouldn't always be struggling to stay above 2ppm using Hanna. I manually dose Spectracide 2x/week.

Flow is strong by design, using 2x Maxspect Gyres with minimalistic aquascaping. One side is either on from 75-100% while the other is at 30-50%, rotates every 3 mins.

Good questions. Ask more if needed.

 

[Makers Marc]

Forgot to mention:

1. No UV sterilizer
2. Urchins/snails/conch/tangs pretty much ignore it. Many snails look lethargic

 

[Dennis McGrath]

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in here, but that amount of food seems like a lot to me, but maybe I'm wrong.
How many snails do you have? Any hermit crabs?

 

[ReefandSwim]

lets see if we get rid of this . I see that for that reef, you don't have too much fishes as me on my 70G. Could be this the reason? and this kind of algae grows well on a reef with low bio load?

 

[Diesel]

Slow down on the fish food for two weeks.
Feed once in the three days some oyster feast to boast bacteria growth.
Manual removal if getting out of hand will be also a good friend.
FYI, my tank is ip and running since 2012 and yet I see patches of this popping up so now and then.
Sometimes I clean glass once in the 3 or 4 days and sometimes twice a day.

 

[Makers Marc]

Slow down on the fish food for two weeks.
Feed once in the three days some oyster feast to boast bacteria growth.
Manual removal if getting out of hand will be also a good friend.
FYI, my tank is ip and running since 2012 and yet I see patches of this popping up so now and then.
Sometimes I clean glass once in the 3 or 4 days and sometimes twice a day.

I do manual removal every 3 days for the past month. Used to be every day the month prior.

So do you also think I should cut back on dosing no3 (spectracide) and using my gfo reactor (1 cup BRS/month) ? My no3 will drop to 0 after a week of not dosing spectracide.

Never heard the oyster feast suggestion. Thought it was similar to phytofeast and was a p04 nightmare?

 

[Diesel]

Sometimes you got to feed the right stuff to get back on track.
IMO your red field ratio is off as result you have no control on issues like this.
Let me tag in here my German friend Andre who did right a interesting article about this.
@PSXerholic

 

[PSXerholic]

Wow. Weird stuff.
Best guess is some usual type of turf algae as we typically find it on an algae scrubber!
Usual on glass and bright substrate.

Can the light spectrum play a role here? Maybe old bulbs or something?

What is Helping the algae is that the Redfield ratio is out of whack.
I would give a refreshment of bacteria and bring some phosphates in ;-)

What is bringing Po4 down so far?

Andre

 

[Makers Marc]

Wow. Weird stuff.
Best guess is some usual type of turf algae as we typically find it on an algae scrubber!
Usual on glass and bright substrate.

Can the light spectrum play a role here? Maybe old bulbs or something?

What is Helping the algae is that the Redfield ratio is out of whack.
I would give a refreshment of bacteria and bring some phosphates in ;-)

What is bringing Po4 down so far?

Andre

I use LED only, 2 x Kessil AP700s that max at 70% currently. Do have a longer light cycle of 14 hrs although 4 of those hours are mainly all blue at 15%.

PHOSPHATE: using 1 cup of BRS GFO (normal) in a reactor, replaced monthly. Measures 1-3 ppb on Hanna ULR.

NITRATE: dosing spectracide 2x/week to keep levels at 4ppm.

Started everything dry, both pukani and majority of sand. Added just a bottle of bacteria in the beginning. Slowly added 2-3 fish each month.

I have to scrape the film off my glass every 2 days.

 

[Makers Marc]

Sometimes you got to feed the right stuff to get back on track.
IMO your red field ratio is off as result you have no control on issues like this.
Let me tag in here my German friend Andre who did right a interesting article about this.
@PSXerholic

So what to do with my GFO?

 

[PSXerholic]

So what to do with my GFO?

Well, put it into a nice looking glass jar in your living room and tell people it's marsian sand, lol.

But don't put it into the tank system, you simply won't need any apparently.
As long you can keep po4 so low with your bacteria in the substrate you won't need any GFO.

See this redfield ratio table below as a guide where you should be, to have the least issues with algae.
From experience, the easiest way to handle the ratio is when nitrates are in the 2-4 range.

Check my build thread, I keep my tanks free of algae usually, mostly to clean ;-)

 

[reeferfoxx]

Are you using RO/DI water or something else? The green coloration and the lethargic snails might point to a more toxic cyano as it doesn't look filamentous.

 

[Makers Marc]

Yes. 3 stage brs 75 gps

Are you using RO/DI water or something else? The green coloration and the lethargic snails might point to a more toxic cyano as it doesn't look filamentous.

 

[Diesel]

Just to drop this here as many think that Cyano is a product from over feeding or to high in one nutrient.
Many cases it's the opposite results of poor water quality with low nutrients.

I ran my frag tanks on no water changes and no additives for elements and BOOM cyano was a fact.
When I started to dose elements and nutrients to get back in the red field the cyano just disappeared like diatoms in cycling a tank.
You can run low nutrients and still be in the redfield ratio and have no issues than only the pastel colors on your corals.
Andre, came many times to my house to pick up some corals but imo he did that to get a water sample to figure out why I get these colors and yet my # weren't even close to many standards.

 

[Makers Marc]

Well, put it into a nice looking glass jar in your living room and tell people it's marsian sand, lol.

But don't put it into the tank system, you simply won't need any apparently.
As long you can keep po4 so low with your bacteria in the substrate you won't need any GFO.

See this redfield ratio table below as a guide where you should be, to have the least issues with algae.
From experience, the easiest way to handle the ratio is when nitrates are in the 2-4 range.

Check my build thread, I keep my tanks free of algae usually, mostly to clean ;-)

So... Diesel was suggesting that I reduce my feeding to once every 3 days. Then is the oyster feast the only way to get my p04 to rise?