Yet another alage ID thread

[nim6us]

Hey All!

So I’ve been fighting with this brown algae in my 120g for a while. The tank is about 8 months old, started from dry rock. I had what I thought was diatoms and then they cleared. But about 3 months ago it came back. Unfortunately I had a case of ich or velvet that wiped my tank. So I’ve been running it fallow 2 months now. I thought for sure that would clear my algae issue. I’ve got some soft corals and the only thing I’m feeding the tank is Reef Roids once a week.

The brown alage is my sand, glass, powerheads. It seemed kinda dusty in texture, but if I get really close I can see some tiny string bits on the bigger patches. It’s photoreactive because it disappears at night.

Phosphates and nitrates are low, I’ve turned the light intensity down by half and to a bluer spectrum. I’ve also been running carbon and GFO, along with vacuuming the sand bed. But I’m just not seeing improvement. It’s not covering the rocks, so I guess the snails are keeping them clean. Can anyone identify this and offer possible treatment.

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

If it dinos they thrive in low phosphate and nitrate conditions. The first thing that I would do is remove the GFO and start trying to raise these levels to encourage other algae to grow in your display which will out compete the dinos.

 

[nim6us]

Wow so much to learn in this hobby! I’d always heard “keep those phosphates and nitrates low” and thought that was a hard and fast rule. Now hearing I should raise them to get rid of nusiance algae.. crazy!!

Thanks for the advice

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

Wow so much to learn in this hobby! I’d always heard “keep those phosphates and nitrates low” and thought that was a hard and fast rule. Now hearing I should raise them to get rid of nusiance algae.. crazy!!

Thanks for the advice

The first thing you need to do is identify positively what you have. The only way to be 100% certain is with a microscope, just a very Amazon cheep one will do. Then, if it is dinos, you need to find out what strain you have as different strains need different forms of attack.
Have a look at the sticky thread about dinos. It is incredibly informative.

 

[nim6us]

So will a microscope also be able to tell me if it's just diatoms, or is that only to tell if it's cyano or dinos?

 

[._Z_.]

So will a microscope also be able to tell me if it's just diatoms, or is that only to tell if it's cyano or dinos?

Microscope will help ID diatoms as well as the others

 

[nim6us]

FYI if anyone finds this thread, I got a micrscope it was dinos, I treated with Dino X and within 10 days dinos are all gone and my tank is looking sharp once more