Low nutrient white fuzzy algae

[KGV]

4 months old tank, finished cycling 2 months ago. The NO3 and PO4 has been steadily falling and are now undetectable. Rocks are covered by white furry looking algae that doesn’t get long than 1 cm. Was surprised when I looked under the microscope, see below at 100x. The strands of the algae a remarkably segmented, with only a few chloroplasts in the center of each segment. Any idea?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Its Callothrix. These appear as a light slimy yet hairy/fuzzy nastiness that loosely attaches to your rock work. Air bubbles are usually trapped while escaping the algae. Calothrix is a type of algae that looks somewhat similar to Dinos. To clean up, remove the rock and scrub, and then fine tune with a toothbrush.
Let cleaners get the rest. It helps to use a net to collect the debris that will occur as a result of the toothbrushing. Some suggested cleaners would be Chitons, Nerite snails, margarita snails, cerith snails and even a pincushion urchin.

 

[KGV]

Its Callothrix. These appear as a light slimy yet hairy/fuzzy nastiness that loosely attaches to your rock work. Air bubbles are usually trapped while escaping the algae. Calothrix is a type of algae that looks somewhat similar to Dinos. To clean up, remove the rock and scrub, and then fine tune with a toothbrush.
Let cleaners get the rest. It helps to use a net to collect the debris that will occur as a result of the toothbrushing. Some suggested cleaners would be Chitons, Nerite snails, margarita snails, cerith snails and even a pincushion urchin.

Could be, but after googling some microscope pictures of callothrix, I am not entirely convinced yet. It doesn't look quite the same.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Sounds like you have fuzzy film algae. Its just something that blows right off? Or...
You have light on your display? Im gonna guess it will turn green and dark and grow longer with light... aka. Hair algae.
But hopefully not. Lol
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

You are seeing green algae or cladaphora.

 

[Dan_P]

4 months old tank, finished cycling 2 months ago. The NO3 and PO4 has been steadily falling and are now undetectable. Rocks are covered by white furry looking algae that doesn’t get long than 1 cm. Was surprised when I looked under the microscope, see below at 100x. The strands of the algae a remarkably segmented, with only a few chloroplasts in the center of each segment. Any idea?

This organism looks like a string of single cells. Some diatoms have this appearance. The white appearance though makes me think this is a bacteria. I am confused.

 

[KGV]

Man, before I started to look into this, I had no idea how many different algae could possibly grow in a reef tank .

This is a photo of a patch of this stuff. Note that there is also some GHA in the top left. But the encircled patch is pretty much only the mystery algae that I posted the microscope picture of. It doesn't look slimy, but rather furry and fluffy, you'd almost want to stroke it. And it is pretty much only white/transparent. You can see on the microscope pictures that there is only very little chloroplasts, and only in the middle of one segment (= 1 cell?). So not green at all, perhaps at most a little hint of green.

And as you can see, it's caribsea rock dead "live" rock.

 

[KGV]

I once thought that it would be great to have a standardised repository of macro- and microscopic pictures of reef aquarium algae, but now I am thinking that's an endless job.

 

[KGV]

You are seeing green algae or cladaphora.

I don't think it's cladophora. My stuff doesn't branch, and its chloroplasts are few and stacked in the centre of a cell.

 

[KGV]

I really don't think these are bacteria, but instead so-called "filamentous algae".

"Filamentous algae are single algae cells that form long visible chains, threads, or filaments."​

But that only marginally narrows it down ))

 

[vetteguy53081]

Could be, but after googling some microscope pictures of callothrix, I am not entirely convinced yet. It doesn't look quite the same.

Other option would then be a fungi in the phylum of Ascomycota. It is associated with algae growth. It should remove with a toothbrush and peroxide this case

 

[KGV]

Other option would then be a fungi in the phylum of Ascomycota. It is associated with algae growth. It should remove with a toothbrush and peroxide this case

I am pretty sure that the grains in the middle of the cells are chloroplasts. Their are green-ish and look like the chloroplasts in green hair algae. If these grains are chloroplasts, then it can't a fungus (by definition).