Algae ID

[Ralph823]

Hi all,

I set up this tank almost a year ago and initially everything went great, month 2 we went through our ugly stage which lasted about two months and then rocks started to clear up and I had some coralline growth coming in, recently I have what looks to me like turf algae taking over the rocks and I really only see new coralline on the glass (Which I scrape off). can anyone confirm is this is truf algae or not? growing up my parents had 8 pristine reef tanks in our house and I have been doing this on my own for a decade and I still don't feel confident in my nuisance algae ID. all fish and corals are doing great except a Duncan colony but I pulled it up to look at it and it has 3 new heads sprouting out so I assume its bulbed up from splitting.

- SG 1.025
- NO3 - 25
- PHOS - 0.1
- Mag 1350
- Calcium 400
- ALK 10
- PH 8.2

its a 180 Gallon DT with a 55 sump 40 gallons of said sump is a divided refugium half chaeto and half calupera

Stock list
- purple tang
- orange shoulder tang
- Blue hippo tang
- Tomini tang
- Sailfin tang
- One spot fox face
- Royal gramma
-2 Maroon clowns
- 2 Sergeant majors

the tangs and fox face graze all day but don't seem to make a dent

CUC (from what I counted this morning)

- 2 Pincushion urchins
- 20 Dwarf hermits
- 20 Cerith snails
- 3 Mexican turbos
- sand sifting star
- coral banded shrimp
- skunk cleaner shrimp
- 2 large sargassum shrimp

Feeding
- 2x Nori sheets every day
- sinking pellets 1-2x a day
- meaty foods (mysis, clams, chopped shrimp, and wild caught Mahi, seatrout, snapper or whatever else i catch eggs) 2x week

flow is 33 X turn over of DT volume
protein skimmer 4X water volume

Sorry about the long read I just want to make sure all bases are covered and sorry about the grainy ness of the last pic its from my tank cam that I look at at the office.

Thanks in advanced

 

[Reefer Matt]

This could be hair algae. I suggest bumping up your cuc a lot if this is a 180 gallon. I’d get about 100 astrea or trochus snails to start. Try “Reef Cleaners” for a good price. I aim for one snail per gallon in my tanks. Also a few more urchins will help too. I have three pincushions in a 75 gallon with about 100 snails. Cool tank!

 

[Ralph823]

This could be hair algae. I suggest bumping up your cuc a lot if this is a 180 gallon. I’d get about 100 astrea or trochus snails to start. Try “Reef Cleaners” for a good price. I aim for one snail per gallon in my tanks. Also a few more urchins will help too. I have three pincushions in a 75 gallon with about 100 snails. Cool tank!

Thank you! I will head to the LFS tomorrow and get some more CUC, the blue legs I get from the beach I can easily get 20-50 in a couple minutes so I'll see if I can find some time to do that this weekend.

 

[Reefer Matt]

Thank you! I will head to the LFS tomorrow and get some more CUC, the blue legs I get from the beach I can easily get 20-50 in a couple minutes so I'll see if I can find some time to do that this weekend.

Those will help too. I just like snails because they can clean the glass too. But feel free to try a mixup that suits your budget and situation.

 

[Ralph823]

This could be hair algae. I suggest bumping up your cuc a lot if this is a 180 gallon. I’d get about 100 astrea or trochus snails to start. Try “Reef Cleaners” for a good price. I aim for one snail per gallon in my tanks. Also a few more urchins will help too. I have three pincushions in a 75 gallon with about 100 snails. Cool tank!

here are some clearer pictures

 

[Ralph823]

Those will help too. I just like snails because they can clean the glass too. But feel free to try a mixup that suits your budget and situation.

went and bought 80 astrea snails (what the LFS had ) to add to the CUC and they seem to be making a difference