Algae ID and treatment

ReefSlice · May 5, 2022

This algae exploded in my 4 month old tank 2 months ago after adding a bunch of frags. I thought it was just a hair algae bloom, but it grows differently and is much more brown than any hair algae I've ever experienced. My nutrients have also always been in check, PO4 never over .06 and NO3 never over 10. Ever since this algae started growing everywhere, my corals have lost a ton of color and aren't growing very well, as well as coralline growth coming to a halt, almost like the algae is stealing all the nutrition they need. PO4 has also bottomed out because of this, and I've been dosing it to keep it around .03, and then today my nitrates bottomed out as well (trending downward from 8 since this algae started growing). I plan on dosing nitrate now as well, but no matter how many water changes and how clean I keep the tank, this algae just grows right back after being scrubbed away in about a week. I know the tank is very young and started with dry rock, but I have never had an algae bloom like this in my past tanks, especially when my nutrients were consistently in perfect range. I know there are a few stalks of typical bryopsis strewn about, but is this all just bryopsis, a different form of GHA than I've seen, or something totally different? I've just been keeping the tank stable hoping it would disappear over time, but I am thinking of taking more drastic measures at this point, maybe a round of fluconazole if this is a form of bryopsis. I appreciate any help!

vetteguy53081 · May 5, 2022

Top pic too blue to confirm but other is Flagellates - NOT dinoflagellates and can easily be cleaned with a magnet scraper or edge of old credit card and siphoned up
Comes from inorganics and other compounds

ReefSlice · May 5, 2022

vetteguy53081 said:
Top pic too blue to confirm but other is Flagellates - NOT dinoflagellates and can easily be cleaned with a magnet scraper or edge of old credit card and siphoned up
Comes from inorganics and other compounds

Here's some pics with a filter of the same rock and the one next to it. You can see the algae has long, distinct stalks rather than masses of long hairs like regular GHA. It looks very cottony in other areas. And the back glass is the only thing I haven't cleaned, plan on scraping it in this weeks water change and siphoning it up. But flagellates are hairs like that? I get the typical film algae on my glass every day or two, but this is way different. Thanks for the help.

vetteguy53081 · May 5, 2022

ReefSlice said:
Here's some pics with a filter of the same rock and the one next to it. You can see the algae has long, distinct stalks rather than masses of long hairs like regular GHA. It looks very cottony in other areas. And the back glass is the only thing I haven't cleaned, plan on scraping it in this weeks water change and siphoning it up. But flagellates are hairs like that? I get the typical film algae on my glass every day or two, but this is way different. Thanks for the help.

Now this may be the start of dino.
try to scrub off rock outside of tank with a firm toothbrush. If it returns within 48 hours:
Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15% IF you have light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off.
During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons.
Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX as it is food for dinos.
Day 5,, you can start with blue lights - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly

ReefSlice · May 5, 2022

It's not dinos, it's a filamentous algae that grows back in about a weeks time after being brushed off. It doesn't blow/suck off with water pressure at all. Late in the day the carpet of algae creates a few air bubbles on those 2 rocks but I'm confident it's not dinos. There are very small amounts of cyano contained to a few small areas of the sand, but I'm not too worried about that as that seems pretty normal for a newer tank. I dose biodigest every week and have since I started cycling the rock in December, as well as microbacter and xlm bacteria during the cycle. Hard to tell the exact consistency from the pictures, I'll try to get one more closeup. But it's short, brown hairs carpeting some of the rock with longer distinct stalks coming out all over. There's also a few of the typical palm tree looking patches of bryopsis here and there but they haven't spread (or so I thought) since they appeared a few months ago.