Please help!

[legendary]

Can someone please Id these algae for me? Also, what is the best way to eradicate them by using fish/inverts?

 

[legendary]

Also, I know the first pic shows some red planaria. I already have that identified and working on getting rid of them.

 

[legendary]

bump.

 

[ritter6788]

Cyanobacteria. Nothing really eats/controls it. It's more of a nutrient issue. The last pic looks like some hair algae. Snails/hermits/algae eating fish may help but it's sometimes hit or miss if they eat it or not.

 

[fishroomlady]

you'll need to manually remove as much as you can increase the flow in your tank. You'll also want to identify why your nutrients are high which contributes to it.

 

[Dan1789]

I've heard mollies will eat cyano, but it's really about fixing the problems that caused it. I have used chemi clean, followed by a water change and fresh GFO. As well as increasing flow to combat cyano.

 

[SantaMonica]

This might help...

Nutrient Export

What do all algae (and cyano too) need to survive? Nutrients. What are nutrients? Ammonia/ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and urea are the major ones. Which ones cause most of the algae in your tank? These same ones. Why can't you just remove these nutrients and eliminate all the algae in your tank? Because these nutrients are the result of the animals you keep.

So how do your animals "make" these nutrients? Well a large part the nutrients come from pee (urea). Pee is very high in urea and ammonia, and these are a favorite food of algae and some bacteria. This is why your glass will always need cleaning; because the pee hits the glass before anything else, and algae on the glass consume the ammonia and urea immediately (using photosynthesis) and grow more. In the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton consume the ammonia and urea in open water, and seaweed consume it in shallow areas, but in a tank you don't have enough space or water volume for this, and, your other filters or animals often remove or kill the phytoplankton or seaweed anyway. So, the nutrients stay in your tank.

Then the ammonia/ammonium hits your rocks, and the periphyton on the rocks consumes more ammonia and urea. Periphyton is both algae and animals, and is the reason your rocks change color after a few weeks. Then the ammonia goes inside the rock, or hits your sand, and bacteria there convert it into nitrite and nitrate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.

Also let's not forget phosphate, which comes from solid organic food particles. When these particles are eaten by microbes and clean up crew, the organic phosphorus in them is converted into phosphate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.

So whenever you have algae "problems", you simply have not exported enough nutrients compared to how much you have been feeding (note: live rock can absorb phosphate for up to a year, making it seem like there was never a problem. Then, there is a problem).

So just increase your nutrient exports. You could also reduce feeding, and this has the same effect, but it's certainly not fun when you want to feed your animals

 

[GoReef165]

This might help...

Nutrient Export

What do all algae (and cyano too) need to survive? Nutrients. What are nutrients? Ammonia/ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and urea are the major ones. Which ones cause most of the algae in your tank? These same ones. Why can't you just remove these nutrients and eliminate all the algae in your tank? Because these nutrients are the result of the animals you keep.

So how do your animals "make" these nutrients? Well a large part the nutrients come from pee (urea). Pee is very high in urea and ammonia, and these are a favorite food of algae and some bacteria. This is why your glass will always need cleaning; because the pee hits the glass before anything else, and algae on the glass consume the ammonia and urea immediately (using photosynthesis) and grow more. In the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton consume the ammonia and urea in open water, and seaweed consume it in shallow areas, but in a tank you don't have enough space or water volume for this, and, your other filters or animals often remove or kill the phytoplankton or seaweed anyway. So, the nutrients stay in your tank.

Then the ammonia/ammonium hits your rocks, and the periphyton on the rocks consumes more ammonia and urea. Periphyton is both algae and animals, and is the reason your rocks change color after a few weeks. Then the ammonia goes inside the rock, or hits your sand, and bacteria there convert it into nitrite and nitrate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.

Also let's not forget phosphate, which comes from solid organic food particles. When these particles are eaten by microbes and clean up crew, the organic phosphorus in them is converted into phosphate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.

So whenever you have algae "problems", you simply have not exported enough nutrients compared to how much you have been feeding (note: live rock can absorb phosphate for up to a year, making it seem like there was never a problem. Then, there is a problem).

So just increase your nutrient exports. You could also reduce feeding, and this has the same effect, but it's certainly not fun when you want to feed your animals

Perfect thread for me right now. I was just researching algae problems. I have this brownish green soft flowing hairy algae. Here's a grain photo. I've fought this for years but it's just now getting overwhelming. So do you think I can rid this from my tank once and for all? I have a 165 gallon and there's a little all over my entire tank. All the rock work and any frag plug that doesn't have coral growing on it gets covered too. I'm at the point of starting over and removing all the rock, selling my fish and coral and either buying new rock or drying out my old and cooking it. What would you do at this point?

 

[SantaMonica]

Any tank can export enough nutrients to get rid of all the algae. It's just a matter of how much rock you have, how much phosphate is soaked in, how many phosphate exports you have, how much you feed, and how many months you want it to take.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Is it just me or does it also look like there may be red planaria in there as well?

 

[DaniSLOelle]

Seahorsekeeper I was thinking the same