What Algae is This and How Can I Beat it?

[Trukingny]

Every day i have this brown film over the top of my rocks and i rub it off every day with a tooth brush. I dont know what else to do. A month ago i had really bad hair algae i did let my maintenance routine go a little but been fighting like hell to get the tank back on track so idk if its just hair algae trying to come back or something else. My po4 is .00-.02 (checked with hanna checker), my no3 is 12 (checked with NYOS). Tank has been up and running for almost 2 years now.

 

[Subsea]

Is this tank bare bottom, started with dry rock and no refugium?

Looks like new tank uglies. Probably diatoms. Check the link and tell us what you have.

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

 

[Trukingny]

It does look like diatoms but how when my tank is almost 2 years old.. yes it was started with dry rock and no refugium.

 

[chayes991]

Hmmm looks like Dino to me. I would get a cheap microscope and have a look to confirm. Do they disappear at night?
Sometimes fighting something like hair algae and driving nutrients down can leave room for Dino with less competition for other stuff. Are you using gfo quite heavily?

 

[Trukingny]

That actually makes sense now that you say that no i have NO gfo or anything like that but i did have very bad hair algae a month ago n i started ripping it out like crazy every day do maybe i ripped it out to fast? What do i do now? Just wait?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Its Dino. Its a milder case than most. Im going to give you a very easy and reliable recipe to beat this. With the age of your tank and the low severity, you may turn off whites and run blue at 15% with same results. At the end of the 5 day period, you can also add .5 of peroxide per 10 gallons at night for 2 weeks (which I did) as an insurance policy

Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15%) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off.
During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as bacter 7) per 10 gallons.
Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX as it is food for dinos.
Day 5,, you can start with blue lights - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly

 

[chayes991]

As vetteguy said that should do it. You’ve kind of caught it early as most people would be thinking it’s algae and stripping nutrients even more which would make it worse.
If all that doesn’t work I would try dr Tim’s method using waste away bacteria. If you google dr Tim’s Dino method you’ll see it. It worked for me alongside using uv.

 

[Schoolfish]

Make sure your nutrients are detectable first, then start the above method. Good luck.

 

[Trukingny]

Make sure your nutrients are detectable first, then start the above method. Good luck.

Do you mean my po4 and no3?

 

[Trukingny]

@vetteguy53081 if i have an anemone will it be ok? Also do i still feed my fish i feed once a day

 

[vetteguy53081]

@vetteguy53081 if i have an anemone will it be ok?

Yes. For the nem, this is where the 10-15% blue will help and they are photosythetic

 

[Trukingny]

Thank you very much gonna start this today for 5 days wont have the mb7 till tomorrow

 

[Schoolfish]

Do you mean my po4 and no3?

Correct.

 

[Dan_P]

Its Dino. Its a milder case than most. Im going to give you a very easy and reliable recipe to beat this. With the age of your tank and the low severity, you may turn off whites and run blue at 15% with same results. At the end of the 5 day period, you can also add .5 of peroxide per 10 gallons at night for 2 weeks (which I did) as an insurance policy

Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15%) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off.
During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as bacter 7) per 10 gallons.
Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX as it is food for dinos.
Day 5,, you can start with blue lights - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly

Hey Vetteguy,

This anti-dino procedure seems well thought out. I was wondering whether you could walk me through it, explaining the purpose of each step. I would find this information useful for my algae biofilm study.

Dan

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hey Vetteguy,

This anti-dino procedure seems well thought out. I was wondering whether you could walk me through it, explaining the purpose of each step. I would find this information useful for my algae biofilm study.

Dan

PM me and I will try to fit in. I am out of town with daughter and this week is a week of traveling and conferences for work)

 

[chayes991]

The general idea is to make it difficult for the Dino to grow by introducing competition on a microbe level. Dino tend to get a foothold when someone has tried to drive nutrients down to fight algae. That then leaves a gap for the Dino to multiply. I had it bad in my tank and had no real idea of what I was doing and continued to drive down nutrients making it far worse. Took about 3 months to beat it. Now I try to find a balance between not driving nutrients down so low but managing algae at the same time

 

[Dan_P]

The general idea is to make it difficult for the Dino to grow by introducing competition on a microbe level. Dino tend to get a foothold when someone has tried to drive nutrients down to fight algae. That then leaves a gap for the Dino to multiply. I had it bad in my tank and had no real idea of what I was doing and continued to drive down nutrients making it far worse. Took about 3 months to beat it. Now I try to find a balance between not driving nutrients down so low but managing algae at the same time

Does it matter which bottled bacteria to use?

 

[chayes991]

I personally used dr Tim’s waste away though I think microbacter7 is pretty much the same kind of thing. I also dumped a small fortune of pods in the tank whilst doing everything else too. It’s helpful to know what Dino you have which you can confirm with a microscope. As some Dino goes into the water column at night and you can employ the help of a uv filter which I’m my case really helped I think. It’s kind of one of those things where you attack it on may fronts