What am I battling here?

[StrangeDejavu]

For the last month or so i've been battling what I thought was hair algae until today. I cut my feedings in half, began running GFO and started skimming a bit wetter. I can clean the tank of this stuff and it's everywhere again in 2 - 3 days. Glass can be cleaned with a MagFloat but 48 hours later you can barely see through because of the brown stuff on the glass. My hermits don't appear to touch it but Trochus snails are mowing it down on the rock. Could this be chrysophytes? It looks like hair algae and even anchors like it, but it's golden/brown and looks like this under the microscope:

I don't know what else to do. I do weekly 25% WCs with Reef Crystals, all the filters on my RODI were recently changed. I have 160 TDS in and 0 TDS out. Tank is a BioCube 29 with an InTank media basket running floss, GFO and ROX carbon. Floss gets changed every 3 days. Tunze 9001 skimmer. I feed a very small amount of LRS nano reef frenzy once a day. Livestock is 1x Clownfish, 1x Bangaii, 1x Cleaner shrimp. Tank is 6 months old. My parameters are:

Salinity 1.026
Temp 79
pH 7.8
Cal 475
Alk 8.4
Mag 1440
PO4 zero
NO3 zero

What am I fighting here?

 

[Doob]

Following. I'm in a similar boat. I haven't inspected mine under a microscope, but it sounds similar. Also a young tank, I set mine up in April. I made the mistake of letting it get a good foothold using the logic that it's just a phase of the uglies and will pass.

I'm still optimistic that it will. That wait though...

 

[Sabellafella]

@twilliard im pretty positive he plays with the scope

 

[reeferfoxx]

For the last month or so i've been battling what I thought was hair algae until today. I cut my feedings in half, began running GFO and started skimming a bit wetter. I can clean the tank of this stuff and it's everywhere again in 2 - 3 days. Glass can be cleaned with a MagFloat but 48 hours later you can barely see through because of the brown stuff on the glass. My hermits don't appear to touch it but Trochus snails are mowing it down on the rock. Could this be chrysophytes? It looks like hair algae and even anchors like it, but it's golden/brown and looks like this under the microscope:

I don't know what else to do. I do weekly 25% WCs with Reef Crystals, all the filters on my RODI were recently changed. I have 160 TDS in and 0 TDS out. Tank is a BioCube 29 with an InTank media basket running floss, GFO and ROX carbon. Floss gets changed every 3 days. Tunze 9001 skimmer. I feed a very small amount of LRS nano reef frenzy once a day. Livestock is 1x Clownfish, 1x Bangaii, 1x Cleaner shrimp. Tank is 6 months old. My parameters are:

Salinity 1.026
Temp 79
pH 7.8
Cal 475
Alk 8.4
Mag 1440
PO4 zero
NO3 zero

What am I fighting here?

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag....microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/wimsmall/diadr.html

 

[Animagus]

Even though it's not really green, I still would have guessed GHA.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-07/nftt/index.php

 

[reeferfoxx]

I would increase clean up crew and reduce water changes to 10-15% every 2 weeks. Get some hermits and astrea snails

 

[StrangeDejavu]

What's bizarre is it's hairy and grows in tufts, but if I rip it out and put it on a microscope slide all I see are diatoms. Pretty confused on this one, lol. It also grows up the entire back wall like carpet and waves around in the current. I DO have a little hair algae in the tank and that looks much different under the microscope.

For comparison sake, here's hair algae from my tank:

 

[reeferfoxx]

Maybe use a tooth brush and do some manual cleaning along with more CUC. You might have some excess nutrients that haven't all been removed. Since you are running GFO, I recommend reducing water changes. You need some nitrates and phosphates for micro fauna to thrive. That will also help reduce nutrients. So eventually you can remove the GFO and get parameters back in line.

 

[StrangeDejavu]

Nevermind

I don't carbon dose, but I did start running GFO a little while back thinking this was hair algae. I also cut the amount I feed in half. Fish are getting skinny, the few spots of GHA that I did see are mostly gone now but this stuff is flourishing. I'm beginning to think it's a silicate problem because I just discovered two huge pineapple sponges (1 inch long each) and another sponge that's grown quite a bit in my rockwork. I'm at a loss as to how it's getting in though because my DI isn't even half exhausted yet.

I get in every water change and spend hours removing it all with a toothbrush and it's all back again within 3 - 4 days.

 

[reeferfoxx]

I don't carbon dose, but I did start running GFO a little while back thinking this was hair algae. I also cut the amount I feed in half. Fish are getting skinny, the few spots of GHA that I did see are mostly gone now but this stuff is flourishing. I'm beginning to think it's a silicate problem because I just discovered two huge pineapple sponges (1 inch long each) and another sponge that's grown quite a bit in my rockwork. I'm at a loss as to how it's getting in though because my DI isn't even half exhausted yet.

GFO will remove silicates. Does a pretty good job at it too. I think you are adding silicates with your water changes. Not a lot is added but typically a fresh mix of salt will have about 3ppm silicates. That amount is also found in the ocean, from what I understand. Reducing water changes will help reduce any trace of silicates.

 

[twilliard]

Diatom algae

 

[Jp978]

i had the same issue when I removed some rock rubble from my sump

 

[LC8Sumi]

Looking at your pictures (1,2,3) I think I have the same algae as you had, did you ever figure it out?

 

[Niels Verstappen]

Looking at your pictures (1,2,3) I think I have the same algae as you had, did you ever figure it out?

Hi did you find a solution? Got the same stuff

 

[LC8Sumi]

Hi did you find a solution? Got the same stuff

Not really. I still kind of have it:/ But if I clean the glass often, it can’t really grow. So now it is limited to growing on my powerheads mainly, and the tangs somewhat nip at it. I just learned to live with it. With aggressive vibrant and flucanozole dosing I can make it go away for a month or so, but it always comes back

 

[Niels Verstappen]

Not really. I still kind of have it:/ But if I clean the glass often, it can’t really grow. So now it is limited to growing on my powerheads mainly, and the tangs somewhat nip at it. I just learned to live with it. With aggressive vibrant and flucanozole dosing I can make it go away for a month or so, but it always comes back

Strange it seems to be rare and i’m not even sure if these are diatoms, i’m gonna try a bigger clean up crew, I did read silicate in the tank strange enough since I get 0tds