Need help identifying this algae, please. Green Hair Algae?

[decena]

Hi guys. I am fighting against this green algae. Water parameters are:

Kh = 7.2 - 7.8
Ca = 415 - 430
Mg = 1300-1450
PO4 = 0.0-0.01
NO3 = 0.0-0.25
Temp = 78-80 F
pH = 8 - 8.3

I use zeovit system. I am using these products: Zeolite, Activated Carbon, Zeofood, ZeoBak, Bio-Mate, CyanoClean, AAHH, Coral Vitalizer, Coral Snow, Eisen, Coral Booster, Flatworm Stop, MacroElements, Easybooster, ReefRoids.

Balling: Seachem reef fusion 1 and 2.

Total Volume: 80 gallons
Return flow: 400 gallons/hour.
2x Vortech MP40QD (40%)
illumination: 2x Radion G4 Pro

I hope you can help me, thanks!!

 

[Brew12]

I use zeovit system. I am using these products: Zeolite, Activated Carbon, Zeofood, ZeoBak, Bio-Mate, CyanoClean, AAHH, Coral Vitalizer, Coral Snow, Eisen, Coral Booster, Flatworm Stop, MacroElements, Easybooster, ReefRoids.

Balling: Seachem reef fusion 1 and 2.

Holy smokes!!!! How do you keep track of that!?!?!?!

I think what you have is GHA with dinoflagellates growing on it.

Unfortunately, I'm more of a simpleton when it comes to reefing and haven't paid much attention to the zeovit system. My gut feel would be to cut back on the powdered/liquid foods and fuels but not sure if you can safely do that running Zeovit.

I feel you should also look at boosting your CuC if you don't have many algae eaters in it.

 

[ReefersDelite]

Best to provide your actual parameters and not a range but the above is right. You could try a 3 day black out for the Dino but the GHA will take time. Find the source of the GHA like over feeding etc. my nasty Dino issue was resolved with Replacement of my RODI filters even though my TDS was at 0. Old filters.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Cut back on amino and probiotic and food supplement components. They dissolve and break down quickly and turn right into ammonia nitrate etc.
so basically the food/color components are acting as fertilizer.
Stop Po4 supplement if you use that.

Def get more hardworking cuc.
Urchin and Turbos or turbans.

Zeo does allow the use of a tooth brush.

 

[decena]

Holy smokes!!!! How do you keep track of that!?!?!?!

I think what you have is GHA with dinoflagellates growing on it.

Unfortunately, I'm more of a simpleton when it comes to reefing and haven't paid much attention to the zeovit system. My gut feel would be to cut back on the powdered/liquid foods and fuels but not sure if you can safely do that running Zeovit.

I feel you should also look at boosting your CuC if you don't have many algae eaters in it.

Hi Brew12, I use very few foods, and my nitrates and phosphates are at zero. I can't stop dosing food.

 

[decena]

Best to provide your actual parameters and not a range but the above is right. You could try a 3 day black out for the Dino but the GHA will take time. Find the source of the GHA like over feeding etc. my nasty Dino issue was resolved with Replacement of my RODI filters even though my TDS was at 0. Old filters.

Hi , My actual parameters are:

Kh = 7.5
Ca = 415
Mg = 1340
PO4 = 0.0
NO3 = 0.0
Temp = 79 F
pH = 8 - 8.3

I increased my CuC a few weeks ago. But I will buy more if necessary . Thanks!!

 

[decena]

Four days later, algae continue growing. What do you think? Bryopsis? New pics:

 

[CjnBrn2]

I have 2 sea hares in my 40g and they do wonders for GHA. I highly recommend getting some! Got mine for only $12 and they are cool little guys.

 

[BestMomEver]

Phosphate and nitrate are reading zero cause algae is consuming it all. Along with other suggestions, I would add chemipure elite to your filtration and a bigger CUC. I have Mexican Turbos but also have Scarlet Hermits. Not the red leg, little hermits but the larger scarlet ones. They are highly underrated. Algae work horses. They are more expensive but three will do the work of 12 little hermits. Urchins work well too but make sure you use the plastic cord protectors. I had an urchin eat the plastic coating off an electric wire. Killed an entire 500 gallon reef.

 

[Brew12]

Hi Brew12, I use very few foods, and my nitrates and phosphates are at zero. I can't stop dosing food.

Zeofood, Bio-Mate, AAHH, Coral Vitalizer, Coral Snow, Coral Booster, Easybooster, and ReefRoids are all forms of food.

I know it is part of their system, but that seems like a lot of nutrients to put into a tank that something like dinoflagellates could thrive on.

 

[brandon429]

The fact you have no sandbed here really positions your rocks and tank for simply hand killing that algae and changing nothing about your chems and dosers.

Plus, you have a way to use a test rock in this approach so you don't have to upscale work to the whole tank until you know it works, are you open to just killing the algae? Once grazer balance is reinstated, they'll be positioned as growback preventers and not the mass removers.

All you do is lift out the bryopsis rock since it's the one that can take over your whole tank, let us run a rasp on the rock to debride it and unanchor the algae, apply the kill step, place back in tank among untreated rocks and see who behaves in a week or two.

* Having algae in place begets more algae unrelated to your water nutrients


Killing the mass can stop the invasion since it's not self feeding any longer. Regardless of your water params, algae fronds grab and hold detritus for on site degradation and feed, actually killing the algae is likely to work as this is just cheating until you find a willing natural grazer. What a test rock would show would be neat, might change course for you using very simple means of direct access.

Self feeding is easily demonstrated. Can turn off all system pumps and still the tank at night... Shine flashlight down on the test area. Pick up anything bearded in algae and shake it a bit underwater. The light will show a food cloud emanating from the shaken test area... being allowed to mass gives algae the incremental ability to resist anything you do to try and starve it. In my system I wouldn't care if your tripled your feeding, params don't affect our after pics only human willingness does. I've collected links of at least 500 tanks running the method in one way or another.

Leaving the mixed communities to add mass is not helpful for any technique, and, once your make your own tank invader free then anything you are about to do now as a water-based mass killer + remover will only have to work half as hard as a preventer. The growths on the bottom will need to be guided out easily with a wooden dowel rod notched at the end with a razor blade epoxied in place, plus a siphon hose zip-tied near the end...a push scraper siphon. The exact method ahead of time is:

Let me have at two different test rocks, one is rasp + kill step the other is just kill step, we check to see if the lesser-worked rock responds as well as the rasped one so we know minimum works for the rest of the tank.

Dowel scrape and siphon all bottom algae after you discover which kill method works on the live rock.

Take the clam out and rasp him carefully around the edges carefully like dental work, dislodge the algae, apply kill step with a q tip and that'll make him free of it quickly. We have multiple clam surgeries on file, scolymias, all kinds.

Detail work around your corals using pinpoint knife rasping and kill step (to be defined after you evaluate the work needed)

Your tank is now skip cycle algae free, proceed with new prevention efforts and if they fail, no big deal as you went bare bottom and that means easy resets any old time. We wouldn't need to know a single thing about your reefing approach to make the tank produce a clean after pic. Our kill step buys you a much slower growback time, so you can evaluate preventatives

 

[Dlealrious]

Sorry to hijack your thread but i just want to get a ID on algae i have in my frag tank which looks the same. Saves raising another thread for same question Very fast growing compared to Bryopsis which i got rid of. Only in Frag due as the hermits struggle to get around on the egg crate i think.

 

[brandon429]

Yep those can be rasped and worked around the edges like we detailed for the clam above, there’s almost no other way to get the job done, see the thread I kicked up in the nuisance algae forum, my peroxide thread

That is the kill step

Notice how in both the algae/bryposis/gha challenges the algae never grows on coral flesh, it’s always on a hard scape item, that means so much to our overall strategy and rationale for why we use direct kill not grazers or nutrient controls...although those are fine preventatives after the big job is done.

 

[Dlealrious]

Yep those can be rasped and worked around the edges like we detailed for the clam above, there’s almost no other way to get the job done, see the thread I kicked up in the nuisance algae forum, my peroxide thread

That is the kill step

Notice how in both the algae/bryposis/gha challenges the algae never grows on coral flesh, it’s always on a hard scape item, that means so much to our overall strategy and rationale for why we use direct kill not grazers or nutrient controls...although those are fine preventatives after the big job is done.

Cheers, I did read that thread. I was using h202 already does a great job on bryopsis when it was small patches. Only reason I used fluco is I'm away for 6 weeks next week so wanted it gone before. Now I got this frag which is 100x worse than the bryopsis I had in the display

 

[brandon429]

I had the same algae for sure on my frags, Id consider the rasp dental surgery more important than the peroxide awesome cheat part...combined, it'll have to be repeated but I stopped mine totally where no more surgery is needed

in nature they're on live rocks with natural space competition vs a gray plug ready for real estate to be taken by a plant, and, in the ocean grazers are doing the detail work we mimic with a steakknife tip.


that's why bryopsis used to grow back on lots of our early peroxide work \

getting initial kills was easy, I sounded the horn and we did a bunch of captn morgan poses ha

then in 3 mos, back!!

enter stage left the rasp, using test rocks to see how deep we must dislodge to truly kill in one pass, and using peroxide just for cleanup of the rasped areas. that's peroxide 2018, spot applied medically accurate and indicated anti algae surgery...its not about dosing the stuff to a whole tank. Its about pure targeting on the target and not an impact at all on nontargets.

our growback levels have dropped tremendously by incorporating the rasp into the peroxide technique. any peroxide approach not rasping is dated, we already tested it for years here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2082359


the only way you can get performance boosts off peroxide without rasping is to go to 35% and its hard to recommend that stuff, one mis drop in the eye is permanent blindness, its so mean it shouldn't be for sale but it is so I use it (carefully) where I don't want to rasp, back when I had to take any action at all

I haven't had to rasp or treat for algae in years and years bc the system was hand guided into pure coralline and coral flesh= that which excludes algae.

How cools is R2R to allow links to reefcentral on a one way street. Now that's a model for the exchange of science...

 

[brandon429]

did you get to at least do a test area with a rasping move before the peroxide part

 

[Dlealrious]

did you get to at least do a test area with a rasping move before the peroxide part

No I didn't try that before. Will give it a go this weekend. my whole frag tank is covered in new algae now. My own fault I found the frag which it came Oon, was hard to see but it spread so fast.