I'm not Diatoms, Dino or Hair Algae, what am I?
- Thread starter EmptyWallet
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OP
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EmptyWallet
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Looks exactly like the roots of a small plant, brown colour and everything. Took me 3 hours to pluck and syphon the whole tank yesterday and I look forward to watching it all grow back vigorously. 
mcarroll
10K Club member
But it's not stiff like the roots of a plant, right? Is it more or less just slimy in consistency? Seems like it could be green algae + diatoms.
I'd run through the elimination tests on my Dino thread:
I'd run through the elimination tests on my Dino thread:
OP
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EmptyWallet
Active Member
Thanks buddy, I watched a bunch of youtubes last night about CUC's and lawnmowers blennies and tuxedo urchins come up a lot as highly recommended. My algae is certainly growing back faster than my lawn, gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to watch 4 hours of work (syphoning it all out) go down the drain as it's grown back in full, browner and uglier than ever over the past 2 days. I even have the middle radion turned off and it doesn't seem to slow the growth
mcarroll
10K Club member
That middle section has more light and less flow....which brings the potential added problem of detritus settling on those rocks. This detritus is an excellent PO4 source for anything that can grow down on the rocks with it. I think this is also why cutting light in the middle didn't seem to help.
Boost that flow and balance those macro nutrients (N and P) with some fertilizers.
Boost that flow and balance those macro nutrients (N and P) with some fertilizers.
OP
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EmptyWallet
Active Member
Hey, thanks for checking in. I'll aim to get some PAR numbers for you tmrw. I got the salt up and bought a jebao cross flow for the middle to boost flow (my vortechs are only a few months old no way I can replace them yet). I ran an experiment and turned off the middle and left lights this week. The algae on the right still under the lights is growing rediculously (photo tmrw it' s lights out here in Aus). I'm not sure it' s lack of nutrients here (well I've halved nopox and will get nitrate up to less than 5 to give 'better algae' a chance) my guess is phosphate leeching from rocks being directly taken by the algae (+ nutrients + waste from fish). I can't grow chaeto under a kessil h380 (as was the case when I had high nitrate and phosphate before nopox and gfo and no light in the display tank) in my fuge with good flow and oxygen (next to skimmer) so something is definitely 'wrong' with my tank! This crappy brown algae was ofcourse thriving in the fuge under 12hrs of kessil power
OP
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EmptyWallet
Active Member
The algae in the dark sections after 6 days hasn't grown at all, but it is identical to how it was after the haircut (I. e. hasn't died back) so I know it will take off as soon as the lights go back on.
I'm hoping to go CUC shopping this weekend too
I'm hoping to go CUC shopping this weekend too
OP
OP
EmptyWallet
Active Member
Does scrubbing the rocks with a toothbrush just 'reset' the process? If we're trying to go from white to brown to green to coralline 'algae evolution' if you will, scrubbing just wipes off the bio film on the rocks and sets it back to day 1 dead rock???
OP
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EmptyWallet
Active Member
Do they eat pods do you know? I'd hate to get one and have it munch them all up before I get a chance to get a Mandarin. Annoyingly I think my Pod culture is where this nasty algae came from (or at least fertilized from)
mcarroll
10K Club member
You're wrong but not wrong!
Lack of phosphates and nitrates in the water is throwing the advantage to anything that can use other forms of N and phosphates from either detritus or that's adsorbed to any exposed aragonite.
Corals and other allies have no or reduced access to these resources. And it's a side note, but the organic carbon that algae exude also tend to favor the wrong microbial allies compared to coral exudates. Different carbohydrates.
Chaeto requires high nutrients. With P or N (or another nutrient like iron) limited I would expect no growth or even to have your chaeto slowly dissolve into the water.
No it doesn't....just don't scrub every square inch of tank.
The idea is actually to purposefully reset the area you scrub in hopes that (at least) the algae will be kept in check by grazers or (at best) be replaced by something better like coraline algae or just a generally healthy Periphyton layer.
OP
OP
EmptyWallet
Active Member
thanks guys. My chaeto never grew even when I had nitrates > 10 ppm and phosphate > 1 ppm. I was fishless cycling my LFS suggested it was due to lack of ammonia, a different LFS suggested iron deficiency. Anywho, I scrubbed some rocks back to bare white, some just got a haircut and some were left looking like chewbacca to see which is best. 2 days later bare rock seems to be putting up the best resistance. I've got my kessil on 24hrs a day now hoping to weight the algae growth in there as it's easy to clean but it loves to grow on chaeto and rock not so much clean glass. I' hoping to hit the stores this weekend and load up on the long awaited clean up crew
mcarroll
10K Club member
If the light wasn't OFF during that timeframe
, then that definitely seems to point to some other limiting element like Iron.Possible, but unusual.
Did water changes seem to give a bump to growth, if you remember?
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