What algae is this?

[allof fish]

why bright white rocks look horrible

I agree. My old tank I started with dry Marco rock and it looked awful. I’ll never set up another tank with that again

 

[DmitryB]

I agree. My old tank I started with dry Marco rock and it looked awful. I’ll never set up another tank with that again

Mine is a mix of live Florida rock + Australia branch + dry Pukani from Marco + Marco shelves.

 

[mmorrison55]

I agree. My old tank I started with dry Marco rock and it looked awful. I’ll never set up another tank with that again

I think if there was some way for them to stay white, that would be cool. But that’s a pipe dream, and as soon as algae starts to accumulate, the white underneath looks horrible, so agree that I wouldn’t do that again. If I were starting brand new, I’d apply the purple type dye or get the pre dyed rock.

 

[DmitryB]

So earlier this week I rolled up my sleeves and went harvesting hair algae. After two hours in the tank I got a fair amount removed. Today I went back in. Something interesting about the algae though: it was much more brittle and easier to pull off rocks. Last time it was a struggle to get anything. Now even shorter algae was much easier to remove. I wonder what changed in the chemistry of the algae to change it. Or maybe what happened to the chemistry of the tank to change the algae. The only differences between first removal and now is I added a huge CUC crew. And because my Nitrates bottomed out, I dosed some Nitrates and it went up. Any thoughts on this?

 

[dvgyfresh]

I think lower phosphate concentrations tend to make algae weaker, and stronger if higher concentrations. You removed a bunch of algae = less phosphate = less phosphate for algae. I like to dose LaCl before removing algae for the same reasoning

 

[DmitryB]

Ok so - the hair algae is - surprisingly! - under control. I've picked off a bunch, then used a toothbrush to scrape off a bunch, and it's about 90% better than it was. So I'm feeling good about that! (I also started dosing for Nitrates, which bottomed out. Not sure if that has anything to do with the improvement.)

HOWEVER, today I was cleaning my powerhead and perhaps because the flow was disturbed - this thing in the phot came floating. Is this bubble algae?!?! Where the heck did this come from????

 

[DmitryB]

So is that an actual bubble algae in the pic above??

Also, getting a Two Spot Bristletooth Tang was a success (from DrReef) because today I saw it eating the hair algae!

 

[DmitryB]

I seem to be cycling through all the algae stages! Hair algae - mostly dealt with (a few rocks have hair carpets, but they seem largely contained and the Golden Nugget Clown is hosting one of them.) Then I had cyano that smothered a few corals - did Chemiclean and that took care of it. Now I seem to be in the Dino stage. I had emailed a photo for coral I got from Top Shelf Aquatics to them to check on its health and the guy says "The coral is fine, but I'm concerned about that Dino in your tank." I knew this was in there, but kind of tried to ignore it. I blow it off the rocks with a baster and it breaks off easily. But - I should address this issue. The thing is, I took my readings yesterday to check Nitrate and Phosphate, and they are not bottomed out and also not alarmingly high. Other suggestions were "You need a better biome," but this is mostly ocean live rock, ocean live sand, and I added silt a few weeks ago too. So probably not it.... if it's not Nitrate and Phosphate, and it's not the diversity of biome - what else can it be? Just a natural stage? Keep blowing it off the rocks? (Parameters are similar in the 170 and the 40 gallon, and similar algae issues in both tanks.)

My UV situation remains in limbo. I have one to set up but plumbing is tricky and I'm not an expert so this keeps getting delayed and delayed.

(Oh there's also bubble algae in there and I'm getting a platoon of emeralds (getting 10) and pitho (getting 5).

 

[EnterName]

I seem to be cycling through all the algae stages! Hair algae - mostly dealt with (a few rocks have hair carpets, but they seem largely contained and the Golden Nugget Clown is hosting one of them.) Then I had cyano that smothered a few corals - did Chemiclean and that took care of it. Now I seem to be in the Dino stage. I had emailed a photo for coral I got from Top Shelf Aquatics to them to check on its health and the guy says "The coral is fine, but I'm concerned about that Dino in your tank." I knew this was in there, but kind of tried to ignore it. I blow it off the rocks with a baster and it breaks off easily. But - I should address this issue. The thing is, I took my readings yesterday to check Nitrate and Phosphate, and they are not bottomed out and also not alarmingly high. Other suggestions were "You need a better biome," but this is mostly ocean live rock, ocean live sand, and I added silt a few weeks ago too. So probably not it.... if it's not Nitrate and Phosphate, and it's not the diversity of biome - what else can it be? Just a natural stage? Keep blowing it off the rocks? (Parameters are similar in the 170 and the 40 gallon, and similar algae issues in both tanks.)

My UV situation remains in limbo. I have one to set up but plumbing is tricky and I'm not an expert so this keeps getting delayed and delayed.

(Oh there's also bubble algae in there and I'm getting a platoon of emeralds (getting 10) and pitho (getting 5).

While live rock certainly provides a diverse microbiome, the microbes are in a constant battle over surface area, nutrients and, in some cases, light. If the microbiome never changed, you would never have reached the ugly phase in the first place, since these rocks already came covered in microbes and algae.

In my opinion it's just a matter of time and patience

Dinos are quite normal in the first year, and by throwing an antibiotic at your tank (Chemiclean) the microbiome has certainly changed a bit. We don't really understand what exactly causes dino growth, or why they sometimes grow in one spot but not in another within the same tank. Still, I think a correlation to the periphyton (basically the microbiome of a surface) isn't too far-fetched for the benthic dinoflagellates we see in our tanks. So I would say you will just have to be patient. Doesn't mean you can't try to remove the dinos you see manually or install a UV filter, but I can't tell you if it really will be beneficial.