HELP! ALGAE ID NEEDED...Microscope Pictures Included!!

[DoctaReef]

Hello Algae Detectives-
So I have an algae issue that is just getting worse by the day, and I need everyone’s help with an ID so I can start to fix it!

I’ve tried to be as complete with my current situation here, with tank and microscope pictures, as well as with all my current parameters... This one has me stumped right now, so I need some real detective work!

First the Images....
Here’s what I’m dealing with:

...And under the Microscope...

So the differential diagnosis, to be clinical about it, is: 1) Hair Algae, 2) Turf Algae or 3.) Bryopsis.

Observations:

1. Of interest to me in these images is the lack of branching; the algae seems to be single strands. This is pointing me away from Bryopsis.

2. I’m interested in those triangle shaped “spores,” which I think is the key to the diagnosis.

3. My CUC doesn’t touch the stuff... pointing me away from hair algae. If I remove the algae, they wont even clean the rock that has whatever residual strands of algae is left.

4. If I pull on it, it seems to release from the rock relatively easily, but doing so makes it spread.

5. It seems to irritate some of the corals it touches: for instance, in the third tank shot, you can see its beating up on a once healthy hammer...

6. I started noticing this algae last year AFTER I dosed Vibrant to get rid of bubble algae...and yes, the bubble algae is still gone. I was dosing weekly at the time.

In the tank, my algae army consists of:
1. Astraea snails
2. Cerith snails
3. Florida Cerits (approx 1”)
4. Dwarf ceriths
5. 2 Tuxedo Urchins
6. 1 Mexican Turbo snail
7. Two black mollies
(8. Fox face- Currently in my QT tank, and may or may not make it...)

Here’s my tank parameters, because I know you’re all going to ask!

The tank is a RSR 425XL, 88 gal DT and 20 Gal sump.
-I have Chaeto growing in the sump, and very well, the light cycle is offset from the tank.
-Everything runs on an Apex + Trident
Salinity: 34.5 (Tropic Marin Pro)
pH: 8.25 Fluxuates between about 8.15 and 8.35 daily.
Temp: Varies between 77.8 and 79
Alk: 8.25 (Trident controlled dosing)
Ca: 411 (Trident controlled dosing)
Mg: 1349 (Trident controlled dosing)
Phosphate (Hannah) .09ppm
Nitrate: Virtually undetectable using a Nyos test Kit.... Not surprising its near 0 due to the amount of Algae, chaeto, coral, and coralline algae growth.
I also have an ICP test from a month ago that I could post, and a second one was just sent.

I also try to do “all the things”:
-I use a BRS 7 stage RODI unit.
-I change my filter socks every Thursday and Sunday religiously.
-Water changes: I use a Neptune DOS and automatically change 2 Gal per day- so 14 Gal/wk or about 13%.
-Feeding: I have an Neptune automatic feeder that dumps reef nutrition pellets in the tank 3x per day, and I use small pellets on the smallest setting, with 1 drum rotation. I feed a cube of either frozen Mysis or brine shrimp every other day, on average.
-Nutrient control: I have a Refugium growing chaeto very well, and I also am running Rowaphos and Carbon in a BRS dual reactor.
-Phyto/pods: I dumped pods from Algae Barn in my sump a few weeks ago, and have been dosing Oceanmagik daily for about 3 weeks.

The only other issue i can say is I had a nutrient spike in January up to .5ppm Phosphate, which I’ve gotten down to .09 now. Maybe this contrubuted to the overall algae load, but its growing just as well and as fast as ever.

I’m at the point of dosing Vibrant again (I did last year to get rid of bubble algae, which is non-existant in the tank currently) or if the diagnosis is bryopsis, hitting the tank with fluconozole.

So basically I’m stumped.... what is it? Where would you go from here if you were me?

Thanks!!

 

[Fish Think Pink]

Hello Algae Detectives-
So I have an algae issue that is just getting worse by the day, and I need everyone’s help with an ID so I can start to fix it!

I’ve tried to be as complete with my current situation here, with tank and microscope pictures, as well as with all my current parameters... This one has me stumped right now, so I need some real detective work!

First the Images....
Here’s what I’m dealing with:

...And under the Microscope...

So the differential diagnosis, to be clinical about it, is: 1) Hair Algae, 2) Turf Algae or 3.) Bryopsis.

Observations:

1. Of interest to me in these images is the lack of branching; the algae seems to be single strands. This is pointing me away from Bryopsis.

2. I’m interested in those triangle shaped “spores,” which I think is the key to the diagnosis.

3. My CUC doesn’t touch the stuff... pointing me away from hair algae. If I remove the algae, they wont even clean the rock that has whatever residual strands of algae is left.

4. If I pull on it, it seems to release from the rock relatively easily, but doing so makes it spread.

5. It seems to irritate some of the corals it touches: for instance, in the third tank shot, you can see its beating up on a once healthy hammer...

6. I started noticing this algae last year AFTER I dosed Vibrant to get rid of bubble algae...and yes, the bubble algae is still gone. I was dosing weekly at the time.

In the tank, my algae army consists of:
1. Astraea snails
2. Cerith snails
3. Florida Cerits (approx 1”)
4. Dwarf ceriths
5. 2 Tuxedo Urchins
6. 1 Mexican Turbo snail
7. Two black mollies
(8. Fox face- Currently in my QT tank, and may or may not make it...)

Here’s my tank parameters, because I know you’re all going to ask!

The tank is a RSR 425XL, 88 gal DT and 20 Gal sump.
-I have Chaeto growing in the sump, and very well, the light cycle is offset from the tank.
-Everything runs on an Apex + Trident
Salinity: 34.5 (Tropic Marin Pro)
pH: 8.25 Fluxuates between about 8.15 and 8.35 daily.
Temp: Varies between 77.8 and 79
Alk: 8.25 (Trident controlled dosing)
Ca: 411 (Trident controlled dosing)
Mg: 1349 (Trident controlled dosing)
Phosphate (Hannah) .09ppm
Nitrate: Virtually undetectable using a Nyos test Kit.... Not surprising its near 0 due to the amount of Algae, chaeto, coral, and coralline algae growth.
I also have an ICP test from a month ago that I could post, and a second one was just sent.

I also try to do “all the things”:
-I use a BRS 7 stage RODI unit.
-I change my filter socks every Thursday and Sunday religiously.
-Water changes: I use a Neptune DOS and automatically change 2 Gal per day- so 14 Gal/wk or about 13%.
-Feeding: I have an Neptune automatic feeder that dumps reef nutrition pellets in the tank 3x per day, and I use small pellets on the smallest setting, with 1 drum rotation. I feed a cube of either frozen Mysis or brine shrimp every other day, on average.
-Nutrient control: I have a Refugium growing chaeto very well, and I also am running Rowaphos and Carbon in a BRS dual reactor.
-Phyto/pods: I dumped pods from Algae Barn in my sump a few weeks ago, and have been dosing Oceanmagik daily for about 3 weeks.

The only other issue i can say is I had a nutrient spike in January up to .5ppm Phosphate, which I’ve gotten down to .09 now. Maybe this contrubuted to the overall algae load, but its growing just as well and as fast as ever.

I’m at the point of dosing Vibrant again (I did last year to get rid of bubble algae, which is non-existant in the tank currently) or if the diagnosis is bryopsis, hitting the tank with fluconozole.

So basically I’m stumped.... what is it? Where would you go from here if you were me?

Thanks!!

+1 vote fluconozole ... I used Reef Flux brand .. because I'm voting bryopsis but defer to others ... you don't mention fish other than QT re: algae so guessing no yellow tang worries (my yellow tang had to go "vacation" in QT (else die in DT) while Reef Flux in use)

 

[DoctaReef]

+1 vote fluconozole ... I used Reef Flux brand .. because I'm voting bryopsis but defer to others ... you don't mention fish other than QT re: algae so guessing no yellow tang worries (my yellow tang had to go "vacation" in QT (else die in DT) while Reef Flux in use)

Right forgot the fish:
2 springeri Damsels
2 clowns- they’re laying eggs, so my water can’t be THAT bad.
2 Black Mollies (also breeding regularly)
1 Red Lined Wrasse
1 Lyretail Anthias.

I don’t think this is a huge bio load...right?

 

[Dan_P]

+1 vote fluconozole ... I used Reef Flux brand .. because I'm voting bryopsis but defer to others ... you don't mention fish other than QT re: algae so guessing no yellow tang worries (my yellow tang had to go "vacation" in QT (else die in DT) while Reef Flux in use)

I am leaning towards hair algae covered with diatoms (the triangular organisms)

 

[saltyhog]

The "pizza slices" are definitely diatoms and are not toxic at all. If this is causing problems with your coral it's not the diatoms doing it. Check for sources of silicate(new sand, dry rock, RO/DI water) as that's what drives diatoms. The macro algae looks like hair algae to me.

 

[DoctaReef]

The "pizza slices" are definitely diatoms and are not toxic at all. If this is causing problems with your coral it's not the diatoms doing it. Check for sources of silicate(new sand, dry rock, RO/DI water) as that's what drives diatoms. The macro algae looks like hair algae to me.

So normally I agree with you, and I do have some diatoms in my tank, but they don't look like those, also, these dont move at all, which normal diatoms do under the scope. Also, when I sample the patch of diatoms I do have, these triangles are not present at all.

I have an ICP test out, but the last one I did, Silicates weren't terribly high. Tank is 2 years old. No new rock, no new sand. Same BRS 7 stage RODI unit.

At any rate, whether they're diatoms or not, they're not the major issue. The "hair" algae is what's killing me right now...

 

[saltyhog]

Trust me, those are diatoms. They are one of the more common types of diatoms. Look at the bright side, at least you don't have dinoflagellates!!!

 

[DoctaReef]

Trust me, those are diatoms. They are one of the more common types of diatoms. Look at the bright side, at least you don't have dinoflagellates!!!

...yet. I still have to solve this problem...

 

[DoctaReef]

The "pizza slices" are definitely diatoms and are not toxic at all. If this is causing problems with your coral it's not the diatoms doing it. Check for sources of silicate(new sand, dry rock, RO/DI water) as that's what drives diatoms. The macro algae looks like hair algae to me.

So what do you think I should do to rid myself of the hair algae? I'm already running GFO and doing nightly water changes. My CUC isn't touching it... Vibrant? Fluconazole?

 

[saltyhog]

Not many critters eat the stuff. (I'm extremely lucky to have a single tang that eats it like candy). One that does for sure is a Sea Hare. The only thing is, that's about all it eats and it would need to be removed when the hair algae is gone.

Manual removal as much as possible. I never had any luck with bacterial supplements like Vibrant. Fluconazole is worth a try IMO.

 

[DoctaReef]

Not many critters eat the stuff. (I'm extremely lucky to have a single tang that eats it like candy). One that does for sure is a Sea Hare. The only thing is, that's about all it eats and it would need to be removed when the hair algae is gone.

Manual removal as much as possible. I never had any luck with bacterial supplements like Vibrant. Fluconazole is worth a try IMO.

I've got some fluconazole on order from BRS, planning on hitting it on Thursday. Funny thing is that this algae actually showed up when I started dosing Vibrant for bubble algae, and I'm hesitant to start it again for fear of Dinos....

Thanks for your input!

 

[Suohhen]

Diatoms are a normal part of every system, they just don't typically get out of control unless it is a new tank with little competition or when conditions are right for algae to get out of control in an established tank. When algae is out of control it is very typical to see two things, zero nutrients, and very little predation by the CuC.
Nutrients stay at zero because the algae consumes them at such a rate, this is obviously a very well known and stated fact but I do want to make clear it does not mean that excess nutrients were necessarily the root cause. Since you have recently battled other nuisance algae and observed excessively high nutrients it is very possible that nutrients are part of the issue but regardless very few people have success starving out established nuisance algae in mature systems.
To me it appears as though you have GHA, Bryopsis, and diatoms. The issue is that there are way too many forms of GHA for me to make a concrete assessment since I know nothing about microscope ID.
What I can say is I'm concerned with the little amount of coralline for such a mature tank. There is no coralline on the sides of any of the rocks indicating that you may have an issue with lighting or Alkalinity. You say your using a trident but how long has this been for? And did the coralline die off from something in the recent past. The growth I'm seeing looks like only a few months worth.
The lighting issue goes both ways with coralline, It can generally handle pretty low light but if your lighting is super directional it may be that the shaded sides of your rocks are getting very little light. More typically it seems like these days overlighting is the issue since leds are very easy to overdo and fiddle with, which coralline does not like. Reef tanks benefit from stability and coralline is the Canary in the reef mine.
On to nutrients dry food is generally much easier to overfeed than frozen and often has elevated phosphate levels to boot. I feed my 100gal tank 2 cubes of frozen and 3 turns of TDO/Seaweed extreme with the auto feeder per day, each turn puts out almost a 1/8tsp of food which is 270% the dry weight of a normal frozen cube. TDO is 1.5% phosphorus by weight, Seaweed extreme is .5% (which is hard to believe, companies list Phos as min% and the total values of their analysis equal 70% (TDO's numbers total 92.3%, algae is also typically very high in Phosphorus) So I'd say the average of the two is 1 to 1.5% while the % in frozen mysis is typically .18% by dry weight. So that means I am putting in somewhere between 22 and 33 times the amount of phosphorus from the three turns of dry vs the two cubes of frozen. Also it is pretty typical for frozen to be either. 01% or .1% phosphorus which is 10x. I don't know how much your feeder is putting out but my tank has plenty of filtration to handle this and I have to dose nitrate to keep them from being undetectable. Funny thing is I have tried changing up the feeding regimen to higher and lower po4 and the numbers don't budge, they sit at .03ppm no matter what I do outside of dosing sodium phosphate which does have a more lasting effect. I see about a .005ppm drop in po4 per day when dosing above .03ppm, however the exact number is hard to say as I use the Salifert Phos kit, I've been waiting for my lfs to bring in my Hanna Po4 checker order for a while. I know this is a ton of info on nutrients, and nutrients are the most confounding part of the fight against algae so everything has to be taken with a grain of salt, however this is also why I prefer to give such great detail as that is what I feel is lacking from the typical conversation which typically revolves around the validity of po4 readings and what high or low numbers truly mean.
The final issue is removal, Vibrant clearly works but most people in your shoes report the same situation where it makes one algae go away only to have another take it's place. The thinking these days is centering more around biodiversity which can't be added with a mix. The tried and true method to biodiversity is to manually remove as much as possible as frequently as needed and wait but it is hard to wait when you have a tank full of corals and fish so we thirst for a better option. Some people report success with microbacter7 others by adding wild caught corals, and interestingly enough Ryan from BRS just fixed his issue by dumping a bunch of ocean direct live sand into his tank. And when I say dump, I mean he covered the rocks, the coral, the fish, it was reportedly quite the Darude Sandstorm
;Droid.
BRS is setting up an experiment to see what the effects live sand, and live rock have on biodiversity so it shouldn't be long before we have some hard evidence to drive this discussion.
My apologies for the length of this post, I have a place in my heart for those who have dedicated years to this hobby only to be lost in a hopeless battle against algae and have the internet tell you that you aren't managing nutrients or your husbandry is lacking. Believe me it happens to the best of us, I battled algae for years before finally deciding to break the system down and restart. It's great that we have new tricks in the toolkit these days but we are clearly not quite all the way there and husbandry continues to play first fiddle in overcoming nuisance algae. That is unless it is time to que the
sandstorm
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun
Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun