Algae ID: The Problem with Vacation

[ValleyReef]

Hey all,

Got some nuisance algae that started during a lengthy vacation and unfortunately my tank sitter didn’t know any different. I’ve since been doing regular water changes like normal, but this species of algae seems to be resistant to solely removing nutrients from the water column.

I have a fairly large porcupine puffer who is of course a very messy eater, but also enjoys making quick work of clean up crews.

I’ve got two types of algae in the tank at the moment. Both seem resistant to my current stock of turbo snails and various emerald carbs that are likely down in the rock work somewhere. The hair type algae seems particularly coarse and not like your typical hair. I’ve got a long spine urchin who will chow down on the “turf” type algae, but he’s is very…very slow.

Looking for an ID on these types of algae so I can appropriately pick out maybe some fish that can make a dent in the issue.

Current tank stock includes a pile of Lyretails, Chromis, a Golden Head Sleeper Goby and of course the Porcupine.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers!

 

[Gman83]

I'm not an expert on algae, but I looked on reefcleaners.org, under their nusance algae and your pictures look similar to cladophoropsis, green wiry algae, to me. May want to try searching "cladophoropsis" to see what R2R members have done, or if they have posted picks to try to confirm if that is what you have. Sorry, I couldn't help more but maybe someone more versed in algae will chime in.