Purple pink hairy algae

[BOHICA1023]

I have a lot of purple pinkish growth on my rock. Fluval 32 g flex tank. What is this and how harmful is this to? Doing a water change this weekend just need to know if I should do something to get rid of algae if it is bad. I’ve attached pics. Any help appreciated.

 

[Saltyreef]

You have a whole bunch of algae and bacteria issues.
Mainly cyano and hair algae.

Easy plan of attack here.

During your water change, use a siphon tube with your finger over the end so you can target all the red cyano to suck out without removing too much water.

After, manually remove all the hair algae you can with your fingers while under water. It makes it much easier to grab the tufts and pull.

Once you remove all the hair algae you can, do your water change...100% wont hurt. You wanna get all that suspended algae out.

Then go to your LFS and get a couple of the biggest mexican turbo snails you can.
They'll help mow down what they can.

Reasess after this task to see what comes back and further action may be needed with use of further cleaning.

Do you have any powerheads in the tank?

 

[BOHICA1023]

You have a whole bunch of algae and bacteria issues.
Mainly cyano and hair algae.

Easy plan of attack here.

During your water change, use a siphon tube with your finger over the end so you can target all the red cyano to suck out without removing too much water.

After, manually remove all the hair algae you can with your fingers while under water. It makes it much easier to grab the tufts and pull.

Once you remove all the hair algae you can, do your water change...100% wont hurt. You wanna get all that suspended algae out.

Then go to your LFS and get a couple of the biggest mexican turbo snails you can.
They'll help mow down what they can.

Reasess after this task to see what comes back and further action may be needed with use of further cleaning.

Do you have any powerheads in the tank?

Thank you for the advice. I do have 2 power heads. One on each side of tank. Sicce Nano 1000.
I will head to store tomorrow to see what they got. Planning on doing 15 gallon change.

 

[Saltyreef]

Thank you for the advice. I do have 2 power heads. One on each side of tank. Sicce Nano 1000.
I will head to store tomorrow to see what they got. Planning on doing 15 gallon change.

Flow doesnt seem to be your issue then.

What size tank and what is your nutrient load at N&P?

How old is the tank?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

As @Saltyreef suggested, manual removal is a must. No fish or inverts will be able to handle that amount of algae, etc.

Another method to remove it is by taking any rocks that aren't glued to the scape and scrubbing the algae off in old tank water during/after a water change.

*I can see a hammer or frogspawn frag that's covered in algae... Pull that frag (and any others similarly affected) and manually remove as much algae as you can from the skeleton. Toothbrush, tweezers, etc will help. And you can apply some hydrogen peroxide to the skeleton to kill anything you miss. I usually do this with qtips when using full strength H2O2 to prevent it from getting on healthy tissue.

If your tank is relatively new (less than 6 months), then you should expect the possibility of continued algae growth as the tank is still maturing.

 

[ryanjohn1]

That’s so much algae and red slime. Got goosebumps.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

That’s so much algae and red slime. Got goosebumps.

The strange thing is that the sand looks pristine

 

[ryanjohn1]

Yeah. Think you’d see slime on sand bed too

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Yeah. Think you’d see slime on sand bed too

Not always, but yeah.