Algae ID and advice please

[Hardboiled]

Hi folks,

I have an algae in my tank that I need help identifying. I am relatively new to reef tanks at 1 year this month, so please don't assume I would know all the common knowledge of reefing.

Aside from an ID, I would like advice on how to treat or control this algae. Here is everything to date.

Tank Reefer 170 Setup

• Hydra 26 HDs. All blues @ ~65% power, only 2% on red, green, white.
  • 12 hours on 9am - 9pm. Everything ramps up from 0 to peak at 2pm, then ramps down to 9pm.
• 1 Hikari mysis shrimp cube per day (was 2 per day until about 2 weeks ago). Reef Roids 1/wk spread over corals.
• 6 small fish, Shrimp, cleaning crew
• Softies, LPS and clam. No SPS corals.
• Bubble Magnus Skimmer (24/7)
• Two little fishies reactor (usage described later)
• 5 gallon water change per week

Water conditions

• Salinity 1.025 (normal, stable)
• Alk 8.8 (slightly elevated, normally 8.5)
• PO4 .26 (very high)
• CA 490 (slightly elevated, normally 470)
• PH 8.2 (no consistent track record to compare)
• NO3 20 (very high)
• NO2 .2 (no consistent track record to compare)
• NH3/NH4 ~0

About 6 weeks ago I noticed by Phosphates were very high. I started using Nopox, but did not see any results. I then switched to SeaChem PhosGuard in my reactor which would reduce PO4 slightly, but nothing that held. It was about 3 weeks ago I noticed the Algae on the back of the rock. I wanted to treat it quickly with a chemical, but knew I needed to reduce the PO4 as well. To treat the algae I used Ultralife Red Slime. This had no effect as I likely did not identify the algae correctly. It did have the effect of making my protein skimmer go crazy which it continues to do today, even after a week and 1/3 water change. I am now running SeaChem carbon and Phosban in the reactor to see if that will help pull out the chemicals and reduce the Phospates. Nothing in the tank is dying, the fish and corals all seem fine. I have a 1.5" bed. I have never sifted it, cleaned or moved it in any way for the past year. I do all of my water changing in the sump. There are 4 or so nassarius snals in the bed. The bed looks fine, but is clearly full of life, lots of thin hairs almost that hold it together now. Also, I know about the Aiptasia in the photo. I am treating them with Aiptasia-X which works very well. The downside is I think I will be hand treating them forever, new ones always seem to pop up a week later. All of that said, I would not say I have any plan for success currently or am doing anything that I would expect to reduce or kill the algae. Please offer up any advice on what I might try.


Thank you.

 

[Ranjib]

I thini its green hair algae. Whats your water change schedule? You have to get your nitrate and phosphate levels down. Do you have refugium/skimmer? Reduce feeding.

 

[Hardboiled]

The tank holds ~ 45g. I do a 5g change every weekend. I have a skimmer that runs all of the time. However, for the past week+ it has not been doing its job since it is still reacting to the ultralife red slime treatment.
I will look into GHA solutions.

Thanks
Tom