What is this algae?

[Stepheng101]

I think it is dinoflaggettes? I also have hair algae in the tank.

 

[jsker]

I would go with dino's also

#Reefsquad lets help confirm this.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

GHA n dino top pic. Dino bottom most likely.

 

[saltyhog]

Agree. Get a sample under a microscope and post the picture. That will confirm dinos and help ID the species so a better plan can be formulated.

 

[guy35199]

dinos for sure

 

[Ron Reefman]

Stepheng101, I agree with the above IDs. Both can be kind of a pain to get out of the tank.

The hairy algae can be picked out by hand and every time it grows back pick it out again and it seems to grow back slower and less volume every time. Getting a good algae eater like a tang or a lawn mower blenny can be a huge help.

The dino is trickier and others with more experience here than me may have other (better) ways to get rid of it than mine. I've only had it twice in 15 years. I used a very, VERY fine net and netted out what I could. It tends to fall apart and disintegrate even in a fine net. Because it disintegrates into the water of the tank I also bumped up the skimmer and changes filter socks every day about an hour after I netted out the dino. I also cut back on feeding the fish and corals. The process was slowly being successful but I wanted more, so I went to a personal alternative to the 3 days of lights out. Rather than 3 days with no light which is hard on almost everything in the tank, I ran my leds with only the blue and violet leds, no white, red or green. As I understand it (and I'm not a scientist) the algae in the coral uses blue light for photosynthesis and the algae, like terrestrial plants, uses red and yellow light for photosynthesis. So for 10 days I ran just the blues and violet. The corals all polyped out and looked happy, but the algae which I still removed daily, grew less and less. By the last few days I didn't have any.

Good luck.

 

[Stepheng101]

I am getting these pink spots, is it coralline algae? I got a lawnmower blenny too. Thanks for the help!

 

[Stepheng101]

Stepheng101, I agree with the above IDs. Both can be kind of a pain to get out of the tank.

The hairy algae can be picked out by hand and every time it grows back pick it out again and it seems to grow back slower and less volume every time. Getting a good algae eater like a tang or a lawn mower blenny can be a huge help.

The dino is trickier and others with more experience here than me may have other (better) ways to get rid of it than mine. I've only had it twice in 15 years. I used a very, VERY fine net and netted out what I could. It tends to fall apart and disintegrate even in a fine net. Because it disintegrates into the water of the tank I also bumped up the skimmer and changes filter socks every day about an hour after I netted out the dino. I also cut back on feeding the fish and corals. The process was slowly being successful but I wanted more, so I went to a personal alternative to the 3 days of lights out. Rather than 3 days with no light which is hard on almost everything in the tank, I ran my leds with only the blue and violet leds, no white, red or green. As I understand it (and I'm not a scientist) the algae in the coral uses blue light for photosynthesis and the algae, like terrestrial plants, uses red and yellow light for photosynthesis. So for 10 days I ran just the blues and violet. The corals all polyped out and looked happy, but the algae which I still removed daily, grew less and less. By the last few days I didn't have any.

Good luck.

I hear that dinos have trouble growing with higher nitrates, so I stopped doing water changes. Then the hair algae started to grow because of the 15 nitrates? I have been removing the hair algae to stop the growth of dinos. It hasn't really stopped them. I think I might try the blue lights for a week to see if it stops growth

 

[Ron Reefman]

I hear that dinos have trouble growing with higher nitrates, so I stopped doing water changes. Then the hair algae started to grow because of the 15 nitrates? I have been removing the hair algae to stop the growth of dinos. It hasn't really stopped them. I think I might try the blue lights for a week to see if it stops growth

I believe dinos are a type of algae and therefore having higher nitrates would only help feed them, just like the hairy algae.

I'm one of the last people who would recommend any kind of chemical to use on an aquarium (I almost never use any). But with dinos, I think you might find that Chemipure will help.

 

[diverpat]

An alternative to the dino ID could be Chrysophytes. I had my dino scare but it was ID’d as chrysophytes after putting it under the microscope. It looks very similar to your pic.