What are these weird hairs? Can't find a match.

Seashelly · Jan 5, 2021

Hi Everyone,

Newbie here. Sorry in advance.

I turned the whites on my frag tank and realized the "uglies" are overtaking it. There is a green film as well as short (less than 1cm) brown strings anchored to the floor and walls. It's everywhere, including between zoa polyps. It doesn't look like hair algae or cyano, but I know nothing. I can't find pictures of anything like this.

The tank is a fully cycled 5g fluval spec. Been running for a month. I do regular weekly water changes.

What do I do?

I am planning a porch pick up of some astrea snails on Thursday, but I don't have any CUC yet. Should I get something else? If it's dinos, will it kill the snails?

Please help! Thank you!

ThePurple12 · Jan 5, 2021

That is some sort of algae, I can tell you that. I've had it too, and I think it's just part of the ugly stage.

Seashelly · Jan 5, 2021

ThePurple12 said:
That is some sort of algae, I can tell you that. I've had it too, and I think it's just part of the ugly stage.

Thanks so much for the response. So you're pretty sure it's not dinos? That's my big concern.

If it's just algae, I'm assuming I should try to manually remove what I can and then wait it out. Is that right?

ThePurple12 · Jan 5, 2021

No, definitely not dinos. Yes, just remove it and wait it out, and snails should help.

vetteguy53081 · Jan 5, 2021

Algae spores. This is also an indicator that you have little to no clean up crew.
Add the following snails and reduce white light intensity a little
snails:

3 turbo
3 astrea
3 nassarius

Are you using RODI or tap water from the faucet ?

Seashelly · Jan 5, 2021

vetteguy53081 said:
Algae spores. This is also an indicator that you have little to no clean up crew.
Add the following snails and reduce white light intensity a little
snails:

3 turbo
3 astrea
3 nassarius

Are you using RODI or tap water from the faucet ?

You are 100% correct I have no clean up crew yet. Tricky to shop right now under lockdown, but hoping to get some snails later this week. Thanks for the suggestions.

I am using RODI water made at home. 0 TDS.