Stringy algae growing out of control and hurting corals! Please help.

[Turkey head]

Over the last few months I’ve had both of what you described. The ones that break up are gone / under control. The stuff I’m dealing with now stay stringy. The majority of the stuff in the back is algae of some sort I’m pretty certain. It’s not as clingy as the GHA that I has in my older tank. Meaning it comes off pretty easily but is still fairly stringy. In the display portion, in a few days I’ll be able to make a better assessment not having the stuff in the back complicating things. I’ll check out the pdf. Thanks

 

[dommythaGOAT]

When you suck it out, does it stay stringy or break into lots of little pieces? If it breaks up, then I think there is a really good chance it is dinos. This document has a good description of different dinos besides just the microscope pics. Maybe it will help. Also, if it doesn't come off of the corals very well with the baster, a dollar store makeup brush works really well.

I have thought for a while it is Dino’s as well but can’t really get a definitive answer. When I remove it from the tank it generally stays together and doesn’t break up easily necessarily but I’m not sure at this point lol.

also, I had been dosing vibrant every other week to the tank prior to the outbreak, and for a time I had thought that maybe I got Dino’s due to low nutrients due to frequent water changes and the vibrant dosing, but over the last few months I have done less of this and increased the nutrients (nitrate/phosphate), but there is still not much of a change. And the more I read about this I seem to think maybe it is a nuisance algae, so I think I am going to try dosing vibrant again and see if that helps to reduce it. If that doesn’t work i may go ahead and try dosing hydrogen peroxide down the line. If anyone else had any suggestions I am all ears

 

[Just John]

If you thinks it's dinos, In my experience, they won't go away just by increasing nutrients. I had a phosphate test go bad and, long story short, my phos went from 0 to about .40, so up to 40 times more than what most people aim for. I got dinos when it was at 0 and accidentally dosed it up to .40 because the test kept saying it was low. It didn't make the dinos go away. Instead I got a huge gha outbreak and dinos at the same time. They are about gone now and along with other things, I dosed 1.5 ml hydrogen peroxide (3% strength) twice a day. It didn't bother my softies or my few lps. Lots of posts on here about doing that and the dose.

Here is my microscope. I suppose you could use it once and return it.


If you decide to buy one to keep, make sure it has slides, or buy something like this. The microscope above does not come with slides. You would need to put your sample on the side of one of the pre-prepared slides.

 

[dommythaGOAT]

Here are some updated photos. I have been dosing about 2-3ml of hydrogen peroxide daily along with using a turkey baster to remove what is growing. they also seem to grow back in the exact same spot as previously and the tank has not improved after weekly dosing of hydrogen peroxide 3%. If anyone has ideas I am all ears! Thanks