What algae is this?

[J-Dog]

Is this cyano? At first it was just reddish looking and growing on small sections of my sandbed, but now it's both red and green and its spreading to all of my sandbed. I've tried having my lights out, but it grows much better in just ambient room light. It dies back at night, grows like crazy in the morning (with ambient light), then dies off again when the lights come on (not totally, but a lot of it). My big question is how do I get rid of it? It's a horrible eyesore!

 

[ritter6788]

Yes. Cyano. Can go away by lowering nutrient levels.


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[ChristopherKriens]

Yep, excess nutrients are almost always the cause.. other things to check are lighting (old bulbs or daytime schedule too long), temperature (a bit too high), or flow (too low).

 

[Atg]

Chem clean worked for me to get under control then started feeding less and cut back light time and hasn't came back

 

[J-Dog]

My nitrates test 0 and my phosphates are around 0.03-0.06. Are my phosphates too high? I was running GFO for a while, but it didn't seem to help

 

[YVR]

In the short term you can siphon the areas where the cyano is growing. In the long term you should look at possible causes of the cyano growth. There are some commercial dry foods also contain excess nutrients and other undesirable things like nitrates, phosphates etc so I strain/rinse my fresh/frozen foods before feeding my tank. You may want to consider feeding your fish less often. Also, changing your photo period, light bulbs, adding more flow, using RO/DI water. Adding a phosphate remover like Tropic Marin Elimi-Phos and increasing flow in your tank may help too.

 

[J-Dog]

I think my problem is nutrients, but why would I be testing 0 for nitrates and still have algae issues?

 

[bct15]

I think my problem is nutrients, but why would I be testing 0 for nitrates and still have algae issues?

The algae is causing your test to read out a false zero, it's sucking it out of the water to fast.


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