Mid Day Algae Blooms and Strange Algae

[malders]

My tank consistently gets algae blooms during the peak light hours and then dissipates. I have light set for 250 to 400 par as it's an acro tank. The main display and connected frag exhibited this behavior. I tried to add livesand with rock to a 30 gallon plumbed in refugium but have not seen any improvements after six months. I had a uv running which helped a little but would rather not use as I dont have it plumbed in currently. Also I dont think it's a permanent solution to the problem. The phosphates have been steady around 0.6 and nitrates have been reading around the 1 to 5 range. The algae growth that I am observing on the bottom and back of the tank flakes off easily. Not sure if this is the cause of the blooms. I can't id this algae. While I know I have some dinos in the tank the algae under the microscope is not the dinos. I was using microbacter 7 for a while to but didn't notice any benefits to the algae bloom. The algae seemed to have yellowed the water a bit. I am running carbon but it's not as clear as it was before I ran into this issue. The tank has been lit for 18 months and up and running for 24. The main and frag are barebottom as I wanted to crank the flow once the acros got big enough. Contemplating a biome reboot at this point. The current condition has severely impacted the acros and I am getting losses on colonies that were doing well for over a year. Throwing this out there to see if someone has run into this before and hopefully what solve they have.

 

[JTP424]

Can you provide any photos under white light?

 

[malders]

Frag tank shows the algae the best. I scrapped most of it out of the main display though it will return.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

#reefsquad

 

[tbrown]

Have you looked at it under a microscope?

I'm just spitballing here but it sounds like maybe Dinos, Diatoms, or Cyano? Some forms will show up during the lights on time and disappear at night.

Do you know what your phosphates and nitrates are?

How strongly is it attached to the glass? Can you suck it up with a turkey baster or is attached more?

 

[Rocks reef]

I agree on cyano, possibly dinos.
As mentioned by @tbrown what are your NO3 and PO4?
Does it look more like bubbly snot or is it slime like? Dinos appear as bubby snot... cyano is more slime like.

 

[Üter]

it does not look like you have much flow in there. or rock.