Fuzzy brown algae on back wall ID?

[george9]

Hi everyone,
I have a biocube that’s been set up since November last year. Basically its entire existence I’ve had this brown algae slowly accumulate on the back wall that continuously comes back after manual removal during a water chance. It’s slow growing, in the image I posted below it’s about 2 weeks of growth but even with weekly water changes it’s come back. My power heads also have a little bit of it but it mainly likes to grow on the back wall. There’s not a trace of any type of algae on any of my rock work whatsoever which is why I’ve somewhat ignored it for a while. I’m beginning to think it will steal valuable space from coralline algae which I would love to take the brown algae’s place. The algae is nearly invisible when viewing the tank from front on, so I included a more sideways shot that shows the furry nature of it.

On a related note, I have been dealing with mild amphidum dinos (see second pic) just on my sandbed for the last 1.5 months or so that cropped up after dosing tiny amounts of amino acids. I am planning to get more serious in my fight against the dinos with increased nutrients and adding more biodiversity for now (pods, phyto, bottled bacteria) but am worried if I increase nutrients too much it will cause this back wall algae to blow up. Im more interested in taking the long haul approach in getting everything balanced rather than dose a million algaecides and chemicals

My nutrients now are out of wack this week:
5 PPM NO3
0 PPM NO4 on ULR Hanna tester (going to start dosing tiny bits of PO4 to bring this up)

for the vast majority of the tank’s life my PO4 has been steady .06 while nitrate swings were my biggest problem. I’ve gotten my nitrates stable at 5 ppm for the last couple months but now phosphates have bottomed out which could be why i’ve seen an uptick in sandbed based dinos recently


Anyways, my current plan of attack is to first get nutrients balanced and nonzero and additional biodiversity to outcompete the dinos, but an ID on this back wall algae will help in the overall process. Again, I have no algae growth on the rockwork and my corals are doing well, it’s mainly just the back wall and sand bed that’s beginning to drive me crazy.

Thinking Microbacter Clean might help all around once my nutrients are balanced?

Thanks for any advice!

 

[blaxsun]

Do you have any trochus snails? I'd add a half dozen and put them to work on the back of the tank.

 

[george9]

Do you have any trochus snails? I'd add a half dozen and put them to work on the back of the tank.

Definitely thinking I need a bigger clean up crew. I have just a few snails now that dona good job but they don’t really touch any type of brown algae on the glass, they like green hair algae and film algae only.

As I increase nutrients over the past month and dose phyto to starve out the amphidium dino’s on the sandbed which has been working. The dinos are almost gone but the back wall is kind of looking even more dark brown/reddish brown. I haven’t done a water change or scraped it in a month. I eventually want this back wall covered in coralline but I still have none sprouting up.

Is this just the precursor to eventual coralline growth? I see tanks all the time with clean back walls and great coralline growth and eventually want to get to that point but it probably takes some time. I started this tank with 100% dry rock so I’m guessing this is just what I have to go through for a while. Working on maintaining steady nutrients now and will do a water change soon when I’m confident the dinos won’t come roaring back.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hi everyone,
I have a biocube that’s been set up since November last year. Basically its entire existence I’ve had this brown algae slowly accumulate on the back wall that continuously comes back after manual removal during a water chance. It’s slow growing, in the image I posted below it’s about 2 weeks of growth but even with weekly water changes it’s come back. My power heads also have a little bit of it but it mainly likes to grow on the back wall. There’s not a trace of any type of algae on any of my rock work whatsoever which is why I’ve somewhat ignored it for a while. I’m beginning to think it will steal valuable space from coralline algae which I would love to take the brown algae’s place. The algae is nearly invisible when viewing the tank from front on, so I included a more sideways shot that shows the furry nature of it.

On a related note, I have been dealing with mild amphidum dinos (see second pic) just on my sandbed for the last 1.5 months or so that cropped up after dosing tiny amounts of amino acids. I am planning to get more serious in my fight against the dinos with increased nutrients and adding more biodiversity for now (pods, phyto, bottled bacteria) but am worried if I increase nutrients too much it will cause this back wall algae to blow up. Im more interested in taking the long haul approach in getting everything balanced rather than dose a million algaecides and chemicals

My nutrients now are out of wack this week:
5 PPM NO3
0 PPM NO4 on ULR Hanna tester (going to start dosing tiny bits of PO4 to bring this up)

for the vast majority of the tank’s life my PO4 has been steady .06 while nitrate swings were my biggest problem. I’ve gotten my nitrates stable at 5 ppm for the last couple months but now phosphates have bottomed out which could be why i’ve seen an uptick in sandbed based dinos recently


Anyways, my current plan of attack is to first get nutrients balanced and nonzero and additional biodiversity to outcompete the dinos, but an ID on this back wall algae will help in the overall process. Again, I have no algae growth on the rockwork and my corals are doing well, it’s mainly just the back wall and sand bed that’s beginning to drive me crazy.

Thinking Microbacter Clean might help all around once my nutrients are balanced?

Thanks for any advice!

It's a bit hard to tell under purple light, but if it looks like what I get (below photo), it grows on the back because it seems to like the black background. That's about 2 weeks growth.

I put it down to diatoms, and the above comment is correct - more snails. I'm adding another 10 today and telling them to stay on the back wall

 

[george9]

It's a bit hard to tell under purple light, but if it looks like what I get (below photo), it grows on the back because it seems to like the black background. That's about 2 weeks growth.

I put it down to diatoms, and the above comment is correct - more snails. I'm adding another 10 today and telling them to stay on the back wall

I have a bunch of dwarf cerith for the rocks and only 3 nerites for the glass/walls. I definitely need some trochus but what other types have you added to your tank?

 

[gbroadbridge]

I have a bunch of dwarf cerith for the rocks and only 3 nerites for the glass/walls. I definitely need some trochus but what other types have you added to your tank?

Mines' a 75 gal display, and I have 25 Trochus Snails for the rocks, 4 Stombus snails (conches) and 10 nassarius snails for the substrate.

Need more

 

[tnw50cal]

It's a bit hard to tell under purple light, but if it looks like what I get (below photo), it grows on the back because it seems to like the black background. That's about 2 weeks growth.

I put it down to diatoms, and the above comment is correct - more snails. I'm adding another 10 today and telling them to stay on the back wall

If was diatoms, copepods would eat the s#$% out of it.

 

[gbroadbridge]

If was diatoms, copepods would eat the s#$% out of it.

There are no copepods in my tank - the sand sifting star gets them first.

 

[kevgib67]

I have a tuxedo urchin in my 32g, along with ceriths , trochus, nassarius and an emerald crab. All are good cuc but nothing comes close to removing algae like the urchin. Just a warning tuxedo urchins do eat coralline algae also. I have a lot on my back wall but it continuously increases even with it eating. It was currently on my back wall when I left this morning.

 

[tnw50cal]

There are no copepods in my tank - the sand sifting star gets them first.

Those are amphipods, not copepods.

 

[blaxsun]

Definitely thinking I need a bigger clean up crew. I have just a few snails now that dona good job but they don’t really touch any type of brown algae on the glass, they like green hair algae and film algae only.

It's not necessarily a precursor to coralline, but it's entirely possible that you start seeing small patches of magenta and purple in the mix.

 

[george9]

I am noticing more splotches of a brown carpet like “slimy” algae on some of my rocks too now as I run elevated phosphate to combat the sand-based dinos. It looks very similar to what is on the back wall and blows off easily in little pieces. Not snotty and has no air bubbles so to me it looks like some sort of brown cyano? What do you guys think? This tank really hasn’t gone through much of an ugly stage yet even though it’s nearing the 8 month mark so it could be flaring up now. Im hopeful this is the post-dino’s cyanobacteria bloom. When I scrape it off it looks like little torn pieces of brown paper.