Help identifying algae and a cure?

[david.hatton]

Hi everyone, firstly I'm new to the forum so thankyou for having me.

I have my first 500 litre saltwater tank that has been up and running for about 6 months.
Fully cycled, all parameters are great, apart from alkalinity which I'm currently dosing redsea foundation to raise.

I am running t5 marine lights on the tank for 5 hours a day. (2 blue and 2 white)

Ive battled a fair bit of algae off already with various clean up crew, lots of diatoms and green algae, I'm aware the tank is still maturing and going through the ugly stage but I'd like help identifying and finding a 'cure' for this ugly annoying hair algae, it's a brown/purple colour, even if I pull it out it seems to come back, when I water change and syphon it out it comes back.

Any help will be much appreciated
Thankyou in advance

 

[Tahoe61]

Hi and Welcome to R2R.

Looks like Cyanobacteria and a mixture of diatoms in that image.
Are you testing nitrates and phosphates? Is there enough flow?
In some instances water changes will feed or promote the algae so for now I would back off the water changes.
Consider replacing a white bulb with a coral plus or similar.
What interventions have you already tried as far as product goes? I personally like Microbactor7.

 

[david.hatton]

Hi and Welcome to R2R.

Looks like Cyanobacteria and a mixture of diatoms in that image.
Are you testing nitrates and phosphates? Is there enough flow?
In some instances water changes will feed or promote the algae so for now I would back off the water changes.
Consider replacing a white bulb with a coral plus or similar.
What interventions have you already tried as far as product goes? I personally like Microbactor7.

Yeah my nitrates are at 5ppm
Phosphates are at 0.25.
I have started to keep the white lights off and just use the blue at the moment.
Ive only really tried crabs and snails, but they don't seem interested in it at all.
Will it do any harm manually removing it? Or should I leave it and let the tank deal with it on its own?
I do have some prodibio bioptim if that's any use? But I can grab some Microbactor7 from work on Tuesday.

 

[Tahoe61]

Manual removal, get it into the water column and then clean the mechanical filters once it settles. A turkey baster is a great tool.
No amino acid products. Try to work those phosphate down without doing water changes but do so slowly. Bump up the nitrates slowly.
If you're feeding frozen foods cut back and rinse prior to introducing to the tank. Roids drives up phosphates as well.

 

[david.hatton]

Manual removal, get it into the water column and then clean the mechanical filters once it settles. A turkey baster is a great tool.
No amino acid products. Try to work those phosphate down without doing water changes but do so slowly. Bump up the nitrates slowly.
If you're feeding frozen foods cut back and rinse prior to introducing to the tank. Roids drives up phosphates as well.

Thankyou very much for your help. I did remove quite a lot last week and then it came back this week. Ill just try keep on top of that daily and then add Microbactor7 accordingly.

Can I use tap water to rinse the frozen food? Or ro water? Would it be better to move over to pellets and flake for a week or so?

 

[Tahoe61]

Thankyou very much for your help. I did remove quite a lot last week and then it came back this week. Ill just try keep on top of that daily and then add Microbactor7 accordingly.

Can I use tap water to rinse the frozen food? Or ro water? Would it be better to move over to pellets and flake for a week or so?

That's really dependent on fish types and frequency of feedings. I am more of a coral keeper than fish. Perhaps start a thread on the topic. I don't feed frozen but it definitely has huge benefits.
Personally in most cases I believe you can just use tap to rinse.
It's a slow process and common issue with tanks. Balancing N/P values and adding microbacter has worked for me.

:-)