Can someone identify this green stuff on my dry rock?

[anthonyhdo]

My tank is a Red Sea Max e -170 AIO with no sump, it's about 3 months old and I seem to have this bright green algae on my dry rock, I tried scraping it off with no results. It is covering my dry rock and sand, I was planning to do a water change and sift the sand. is this a good idea?

my parameters are..

PH - 8.4
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 20ppm
Alkinity - 6.9
Calcium - 490
Phosphate - 0.05
Mag - 1480


Anyone know what i'm dealing with? do I need to do anything or it will disappear?

 

[garetjax65]

Green Hair algae?

 

[Camino Reefer]

Could be part of the "ugly" stage of a new tank. When I started my tank, I had mostly brown-colored diatom blooms. I never got the green that you have. It stayed brown and then eventually the purple coraline algae started growing.

One thing I did was to limit the light schedule in the first few months to a very dim setting. I think I had my lights at no more than 15% intensity. Then I limited the amount of hours they stay on to 6 hours a day. The reason I think I didn't get the algae blooms was I allowed my tank to mature before ramping my lighting schedule and intensity up. I read that if you give your tank time for the beneficial bacteria to grown on them, it will be less likely to develop nuisance algae. Those are my two cents. Hope that helps.

 

[Hypan]

Is this tank in direct sunlight?

 

[anthonyhdo]

Is this tank in direct sunlight?

No, in my office with no sunlight

 

[anthonyhdo]

Could be part of the "ugly" stage of a new tank. When I started my tank, I had mostly brown-colored diatom blooms. I never got the green that you have. It stayed brown and then eventually the purple coraline algae started growing.

One thing I did was to limit the light schedule in the first few months to a very dim setting. I think I had my lights at no more than 15% intensity. Then I limited the amount of hours they stay on to 6 hours a day. The reason I think I didn't get the algae blooms was I allowed my tank to mature before ramping my lighting schedule and intensity up. I read that if you give your tank time for the beneficial bacteria to grown on them, it will be less likely to develop nuisance algae. Those are my two cents. Hope that helps.

I lowered my light intensity from 80 to 60%, I’ll see if that helps. At what point do I start getting my coralline? I always thought for dry rock I needed to scrap some off a live rock then added it to my rocks. I didn’t know I could grow it naturally on my dry rock.

 

[anthonyhdo]

Green Hair algae?

I do not see any type of hair, it’s on the rock and I can’t even scrap it off.

 

[codycolina707]

I lowered my light intensity from 80 to 60%, I’ll see if that helps. At what point do I start getting my coralline? I always thought for dry rock I needed to scrap some off a live rock then added it to my rocks. I didn’t know I could grow it naturally on my dry rock.

i think you need to introduce it but most hermits shells have them on it or frags and mine started showing up around 6 months

 

[Camino Reefer]

I lowered my light intensity from 80 to 60%, I’ll see if that helps. At what point do I start getting my coralline? I always thought for dry rock I needed to scrap some off a live rock then added it to my rocks. I didn’t know I could grow it naturally on my dry rock.

In my opinion, 60% is still too bright for a new tank. New rock is basically a magnet for nuisance algae. I just noticed you have what looks like either a torch or hammer coral. Their light demand is not as high as most sps corals, so you should be able to lower the light intensity but I would do it slowly over some days.

I did add some coraline-covered rock along with my new rock. If you don't have coraline in the tank somehow, it won't show up. Even a snail with coraline on its shell will cause it to grow in the tank eventually.

Do you have any clean-up crew members (snails or hermit crabs)? They are good at helping to keep algae at bay.

 

[Hemmdog]

Phyto plankton. Pods will start eating it. Snails too.

 

[anthonyhdo]

Phyto plankton. Pods will start eating it. Snails too.

My snails don’t seem to interested in the green stuff.

 

[anthonyhdo]

In my opinion, 60% is still too bright for a new tank. New rock is basically a magnet for nuisance algae. I just noticed you have what looks like either a torch or hammer coral. Their light demand is not as high as most sps corals, so you should be able to lower the light intensity but I would do it slowly over some days.

I did add some coraline-covered rock along with my new rock. If you don't have coraline in the tank somehow, it won't show up. Even a snail with coraline on its shell will cause it to grow in the tank eventually.

Do you have any clean-up crew members (snails or hermit crabs)? They are good at helping to keep algae at bay.

I have a few Cuc left..

2 scarlet hermit (I had a bunch they all slaughter each other)
3 banded Snail
3 Astraea snail
2 Tongan nassarius
2 cerith snails

 

[New&no clue]

I’d up your cuc, skip the hermits and focus on the snails

 

[UncleSalty]

I think this is dead coralline. In the past when I have bleached live rocks to kill everything - the places that had coralline all turned that exact green color.