I shut down a tank because of this “algae” ... what is it?

[Robert Binz]

I’ve asked for an ID on this stuff a few times and no one seems to know.

It’s Definitely photosynthetic and doesn’t look like Cyano or Dinos. Any ideas?

It started off slow and could’ve been mistaken for diatoms but then exploded and took over everything.

 

[Alexreefer]

Im not sure, Maybe hair algae maybe not. If you have a microscope we can id the algae. Lets also get #reefsquad's opinion

 

[BeMoto]

Have you tried any algae idification websites? I'm not an expert, but it's always hard to tell with pictures.

Maybe describing them as detailed as possible would help also.

Nuisance Algae ID Guide- Reef Cleaners

Nuisance Algae ID Guide. Red Slime, Cyano, Cyanobacteria. Green Film Algae, Film Algae. Green Hair Algae. Green Turf Algae. Bryopsis pennata and B. plumosa. Bubble Algae, Valonia. Lobophora. Blue Green Cyano.

www.reefcleaners.org

 

[tehmadreefer]

Possibly lyngbyga. Which is not an algae, but a cyano bacteria. Did have have 0 nutrients by chance? Is it’s mushy/slimy and grown in clumps?

 

[Robert Binz]

Possibly lyngbyga. Which is not an algae, but a cyano bacteria. Did have have 0 nutrients by chance? Is it’s mushy/slimy and grown in clumps?

Yeah that’s a perfect description. It was mushy and slimy and very clumpy once it started to mature

 

[Robert Binz]

Possibly lyngbyga. Which is not an algae, but a cyano bacteria. Did have have 0 nutrients by chance? Is it’s mushy/slimy and grown in clumps?

The tank was also very low nutrient because there was no fish and I spot fed reef roids + ran chemipure blue with weekly 30% water changes

 

[tehmadreefer]

What your describing is pretty much a type of lyngbya. Very very difficult to get rid of, many have tore down and restarted. I recently alkost did the same...

what worked for me is since it’s a bacteria. I begrudgingly did a chemiclean treatment, which did knock it back considerably, than did lights out for like 2 days as it feeds off of light, then I got Dino’s which outcompeted the lyngbya, then raised nutrients for about a month and the Dino’s went away.

long process but did get my tank back in order without a complete tear down. I also did remove quite a bit of my sand bed.

 

[Robert Binz]

What your describing is pretty much a type of lyngbya. Very very difficult to get rid of, many have tore down and restarted. I recently alkost did the same...

what worked for me is since it’s a bacteria. I begrudgingly did a chemiclean treatment, which did knock it back consider my, than did lights out for like 2 days as it feeds off of light, then I got Dino’s which outcompeted the lyngbya, then raised nutrients for about a month and the Dino’s went away.

long process but did get my tank back in order without a complete tear down. I also did remove quite a bit of my sand bed.

Yeah that must be what it was because I could not beat it. Ultimately it was easier to just restart the 5 gallon.

I am worried about it coming back though since I just moved my corals straight over to the new tank.

Hopefully my new dirtier system (with a blue damsel) can out-compete any of the lyngbya that may have hitched a ride over.

 

[taricha]

barring a microscope examination, I still lean toward this...

Light yellow to golden to brown blobby gelatinous stuff that holds shape mostly even out of water.

Going to say this is chrysophytes.

Chrysophytes?! Help me cure it?

Chrysophyta (golden-brown algae) The Chrysophyta are the golden-brown algae and diatoms, which respectively account for 1,100 and 40,000-100,000 species of unicellular algae. These algae occur in both marine and fresh waters, although most species are marine. The cell walls of golden-brown algae...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

It would be easy to fix this tank if it's fifty gallons or less

That's an easy invader to just kill out of the tank and be done.

Volume?

 

[brandon429]

Algae Identification

its a little different, on our sand rinse thread we dont remove the sand while water is in the tank, we disassemble the entire system down to an empty aquarium. we dont do that to always take the long road its specifically to keep you from clouding up the tank while corals are in there. a 45 is...

www.reef2reef.com

If you run our access vs ID and parameter method, you get same after pics, pretty easy choice imo