Algae (GHA?) taking over

[msalganik]

This is a 2.5 month old reefer 170 deluxe that I cycled with fritz turbo. I have setup a refugium in the sump with lots of chaeto and a dedicated Kessil H80 fuge light. The chaeto has been growing so well that I've had to trim it back and have shared some with a local reefer. My nitrates and phosphate read 0.0
Soooo, with all of that out of the way, I have something that looks like GHA but is brown/semi-translucent taking over my tank. I had classic GHA (very green) in my old 250 max and ultimately an urchin took it out but so far we've tried turbo snails and a pin-cushion urchin with little effect. The urchin scrapes the rock but he almost seems to be going around the patches of whatever this is.

I've trimmed the stuff back a few times simply because it was starting to encroach on my coral frags (which are otherwise growing like gangbusters).

So can anyone:

A) confirm is this GHA (not green that's why I'm wavering) or something else?
B) Tell me what do I do in my situation.

I already run carbon. Lighting is the Hydra 26 ~about 11hrs total but maybe 6-8 at peak intensity - fuge light is on at night for 12hrs). I'm really not feeding the tank all that much so there isn't much room to "reduce" (a few pellets for cleanup crew until my fish are ready to come over from qt and algaebarn phyto feed to keep up the copepod population - there are a ton). On the food front my nitrate and phosphate are 0 so again, I'm not sure how that could help and I've already got a fuge. What am I missing? As a side note, the tank was started with dry rock (mix of pukani and tonga shelf). If anyone else has seen this and especially if anyone has seen this and beaten it, please chime in! Alternately, if I just need to wait and give the urchin more time (he's had a week and the stuff grows faster than he eats it... if he eats it).

 

[Justfebreezeit]

Tank is still young and its dry pukani. Just a normal phase in the ageing of your tank. Just keep everything consistent and you can mechanically remove it with a toothbrush or your fingers if it bothers you.

 

[msalganik]

If I leave "as is" will it burn itself out and go away or will I need to remove it at some point? When I had GHA bloom in my old 250max I was also running Nitrates 10-20ppm. I figured by keeping those low with a fuge, I could maybe avoid this. Was I wrong? And is this GHA or something else?

 

[Maritimer]

That stuff is fairly pale to be showing such luxuriant growth . . . #reefsquad, have you folks seen this sort of algae before? Anything to worry about, or new-tank uglies?

~Bruce

 

[DSC reef]

Possibly gha and bacteria?

 

[GoVols]

Could it be calothrix (cyano)?
@saltyfilmfolks

Salty,
Got any thoughts?

Thanks, Freddie

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Double check the rodi , add diverse snails too. try dosing some dr Tim’s for a week or two. Def get the tooth brush out. Most cuc IMO will not eat a patch. But will keep stuff mowed down.
Fluconazole is worth a try.

 

[WWIII]

Out of curiosity, do you know what your alkalinity is?

 

[msalganik]

It was suggested elsewhere that this might be Chrysophytes/golden hair algae which isn't really algae? Does that sound plausible to everyone. This stuff grows mainly on the rock in tuffts but also shows on the sand bed (to a much lesser degree - mainly on the rock). I've got some nerite and cerith snails coming because the supposedly eat this stuff. I've already got a number of trochus and about 5 large snails that are supposed to be equivalent to turbos - forgot the name. This is on top of a purple pincushion urchin and a few blue claw and red claw hermits. Alk fluctuates between 9 and 10dKh. I have been putting kalk in my top off, but it's not quite enough, so I make up the difference with Red Sea B and Sea Chem Cal. Cal is kept 420-450, but has dipped as low as 390. Mag is 1330-1360. I've tested the RO/DI and it's 0.0 for both Nitrates (Red Sea kit) and phosphates (NYOS kit). The phosphates and nitrates used to be higher about 6-7 weeks ago but as soon as I set up the refugium with chaeto they plummeted and stayed at 0. I was phyto-feeding every night to maintain copepods. I''m cutting that back to 2x a week.

 

[WWIII]

Sounds like your doing all the right things. I was asking about alk because I think there is sometimes a correlation between algae and low alkalinity in these new tanks sometimes. Definitely not the case here, if you are in the 9 to 10 range.

If it were me, I would limit the lighting period to 8 hours or less and scrub the rocks every week or so. I would also just keep doing regular water changes biweekly. It's not fun, but generally the battle is won sooner or later. I would also continue to test nitrate/phosphate occasionally along with keeping the other main parameters in line. You could try fluconazole, but if it's not too much of a pain I would do the scrubbing and normal waterchanges to see if it goes away.

Maybe someone else has some better ideas? Hope it gets better rather than worse soon!

 

[msalganik]

Yea, I waved the white flag and scrubbed the hell out of most of my rock (as much as I could with it still in the tank). It's far from perfect but the tank looks a lot better now. I had to empty/clean my filter sock like 4 times. Did a 10% WC after that (even though I did a 5% a couple of days ago). I hadn't seen this stuff before and initially thought it was a weird GHA. When the usual CUC suspects didn't touch it the way they do GHA, I figured it was time to post here and make sure I wasn't missing something.

 

[WWIII]

Yea, I waved the white flag and scrubbed the hell out of most of my rock (as much as I could with it still in the tank). It's far from perfect but the tank looks a lot better now. I had to empty/clean my filter sock like 4 times. Did a 10% WC after that (even though I did a 5% a couple of days ago). I hadn't seen this stuff before and initially thought it was a weird GHA. When the usual CUC suspects didn't touch it the way they do GHA, I figured it was time to post here and make sure I wasn't missing something.

There's some guys on here that know a lot about bacterias and algaes that may be able to offer some insight. I know a lot of the time it's hard to figure out, especially without a true identification.

 

[CarChase]

My tank is 3.5 months old and I have what looks to be the same type of brownish hair algae. I used a tooth brush and a finger nail brush to scrape it off every time I did a water change. I had it in check for a few weeks but it recently came back. My nitrate levels were super high (40 ppm)when it first appeared (which i believe was due to me adding a bag of Caribsea live sand). Once it got established its been tough to control. I started using GFO which helped keep it in check. I stopped using GFO and it came back. I set up a small HOB fuge with some Cheto about 3 weeks ago. The Cheto portion I bought from the LFS was to large for the fugue so I put a large portion in the main display tank which doesn't look great but it's keeping the hair algae in check. Also, I only have two small corals, a clown fish, fire fish and clean up crew in this tank (30 Gallon standard tank) so there isn't much to look at anyway.

 

[msalganik]

Yes, I've been surprised by this stuff because it grew when my the nitrates/phosphates in the water column dropped (presumably due to the chaeto in the fuge). Perhaps the rock is leaching some nutrients? I did start with dry pukani. If that's the case, then it should burn itself out, right?

 

[GucciYoni]

e what do I do in my situation.

This is a 2.5 month old reefer 170 deluxe that I cycled with fritz turbo. I have setup a refugium in the sump with lots of chaeto and a dedicated Kessil H80 fuge light. The chaeto has been growing so well that I've had to trim it back and have shared some with a local reefer. My nitrates and phosphate read 0.0
Soooo, with all of that out of the way, I have something that looks like GHA but is brown/semi-translucent taking over my tank. I had classic GHA (very green) in my old 250 max and ultimately an urchin took it out but so far we've tried turbo snails and a pin-cushion urchin with little effect. The urchin scrapes the rock but he almost seems to be going around the patches of whatever this is.

I've trimmed the stuff back a few times simply because it was starting to encroach on my coral frags (which are otherwise growing like gangbusters).

So can anyone:

A) confirm is this GHA (not green that's why I'm wavering) or something else?
B) Tell me what do I do in my situation.

I already run carbon. Lighting is the Hydra 26 ~about 11hrs total but maybe 6-8 at peak intensity - fuge light is on at night for 12hrs). I'm really not feeding the tank all that much so there isn't much room to "reduce" (a few pellets for cleanup crew until my fish are ready to come over from qt and algaebarn phyto feed to keep up the copepod population - there are a ton). On the food front my nitrate and phosphate are 0 so again, I'm not sure how that could help and I've already got a fuge. What am I missing? As a side note, the tank was started with dry rock (mix of pukani and tonga shelf). If anyone else has seen this and especially if anyone has seen this and beaten it, please chime in! Alternately, if I just need to wait and give the urchin more time (he's had a week and the stuff grows faster than he eats it... if he eats it).

Phosphate and Nitrate being 0 is just your macro in the photos having absorbed them.