Help me ID this algae?

[N2950H]

Several weeks ago I dealt with Ostreopsis dinos in my 4 month old tank. They came and went pretty quickly with little intervention on my part beyond manual removal. Now I'm seeing a heavy matting of algae all over my sand and rocks. When I put it under the microscope it looks very filamentous. Interestingly, although I see bubbles forming under the algae (like last time), I see no dinos in the sample I took last night. I am able to roll the algae off the top of the sand kinda like a fruit roll up and then remove it but it comes right back a day or two later. Can someone please identify this?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Looks like pre-stage oh hair algae which has grown over diatoms. I personally would vacuum and removed before you get a blanket of it which begins to root itself

 

[N2950H]

If that's hair algae then I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. I feel like my watar parameters are more conducive to dinos at this point than an algae bloom...0 NH3, 0 NO2, 0 N03 (all per my Salifert kits that are not expired), and 0.22 PO4 per my Hanna checker.

 

[VKP01]

Looks like green cyano, it doesn’t have the texture of hair algae

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

Blue lights make ID difficult. Can you post pictures with whites on?

 

[N2950H]

Blue lights make ID difficult. Can you post pictures with whites on?

Ok, trying again without the blues. I already cleaned up what was in the previous pics so this is from a different part of the tank.

 

[N2950H]

Looks like green cyano, it doesn’t have the texture of hair algae

I think you are correct. Guess I'm well on my way through the ugly stages.

 

[OpenOcean33]

Cyano Bacteria for sure. You are going through the ugly phases I would let it run its course. I heard chime clean can cause Dinos... not sure the truth behind it but I wo

 

[drivingmecrazy]

Do you have ample water circulation? If not consider a wave maker.

 

[N2950H]

I do have a pair of XF330 gyres which feels sufficient for my tank (waterbox frag 80 which is 48x24x12) even though I have them turned down to like 20%. It seems if I turn them up any higher my clowns get blown all over the place.

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

Snails can take care of cyanobacteria. If most of it is in the sand then I recommend cerith snails.

 

[N2950H]

I added about 20 more snails and have some more hermits coming soon.

Last night I vacuumed the top layer of sand up and scrubbed everything off the rocks (outside of the tank). What's the best way to clean all the sand that came out with the algae before dumping it back into the tank? I have maybe 3-4 lbs that I don't really want to throw away.

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

Mix it around with some RODI water and let it soak for 15 minutes. The right snails will clean it for you in future.