ID Algae if poss

[Twoddler]

I've been battling nitrates for the last few mths 100ppm + ,slowly reduced to around 40ppm. Now I have an outbreak of this green algae. In parts appears to have transparent bubbles on it. It does blow of with a turkey baster, and after substrate vacuum and water change comes back with avengence

Phosphate has dropped to 0.03ppm

Anybody any ideas what type it could be and how to treat.

 

[Twoddler]

Tried to get a better pic

 

[Teen reefer]

That is cyano or Dino either way I would recommend doing a 50% water change

 

[Twoddler]

That is cyano or Dino either way I would recommend doing a 50% water change

I can't do 50% that would be 110 gal, but I have been doing around 30 gal twice a wk and no change, I blow it off the rock and vac out during waterchage

 

[Teen reefer]

Ok that is fine.

 

[ScottB]

Yes, it looks like green cyano. It is common to get this when the balance between NO3 and PO4 is shifting or shifted significantly. I know it is annoying, but just keep up with the manual removal while you get your nutrient levels to a happy and stable place for a while. Something else will then displace them -- hopefully coralline.

 

[littlebeard]

Looks like the start of blue-green cyno. I just finished battling it(hopefully). I eventually had to resort to chemiclean as mine got out of control.

 

[BloopFish]

Ironically the reason you are probably seeing cyanobacteria is the decrease in nitrates, cyanobacteria has a competitive advantage in lower nitrate environments (which, technically yours isn't really quite low though). I'd imagine if you lowered your nitrates too low, the cyanobacteria would take more of a hold than it is now.

There's like three routes you could pursue:
1. Use an antibiotic/antibacterial like chemiclean (despite the label, I'm pretty sure most of our chemistry forum gurus are positive its a form of antibiotic). This may lead to the cyano coming back again, and you having to dose it again.
2. Let a competitor take hold by either:
a. Let cyanobacteria run its course, but manually clean it and remove it from the tank. Eventually a different algae species will outcompete it (hopefully).
b. Dose certain things in the tank that will encourage these competitor algae. This one is a bit more nuanced. The simplest method I prefer is to dose sodium silicate, it causes diatoms to take over. Diatoms are much more preferred than cyanobacteria imo. This may involve some math, but usually you can't really overdose sodium silicate unless you go super crazy with it.

2. a. Is probably the simplest and most straightforward way with the lowest chance of something going terribly wrong.

 

[Twoddler]

Ironically the reason you are probably seeing cyanobacteria is the decrease in nitrates, cyanobacteria has a competitive advantage in lower nitrate environments (which, technically yours isn't really quite low though). I'd imagine if you lowered your nitrates too low, the cyanobacteria would take more of a hold than it is now.

There's like three routes you could pursue:
1. Use an antibiotic/antibacterial like chemiclean (despite the label, I'm pretty sure most of our chemistry forum gurus are positive its a form of antibiotic). This may lead to the cyano coming back again, and you having to dose it again.
2. Let a competitor take hold by either:
a. Let cyanobacteria run its course, but manually clean it and remove it from the tank. Eventually a different algae species will outcompete it (hopefully).
b. Dose certain things in the tank that will encourage these competitor algae. This one is a bit more nuanced. The simplest method I prefer is to dose sodium silicate, it causes diatoms to take over. Diatoms are much more preferred than cyanobacteria imo. This may involve some math, but usually you can't really overdose sodium silicate unless you go super crazy with it.

2. a. Is probably the simplest and most straightforward way with the lowest chance of something going terribly wrong.

Yeah some good advice here, I think I'll leave it to run its coarse, but with the help of manual removing see what comes along next, still need to lower nitrate and raise phos