Cyano, Dyno , or my coraline coming back?

[Tadpolesreef]

Hello reef2reef community , in the diatom stage of the cycle (hit one month).

bringing an old tank from the dead with cycled live rock that ran in an established tank for roughly 5 years.

Did my first water change after a couple diatom spots started creeping up. Diatoms are now gone but for some hair algae and this pink growth on a couple rocks.

Currently running: Purigen and phosgaurd with filter floss and additional live rock in the media basket of aio.

Livestock:1 clown, 1 coral beauty, 6 scarlet hermits


Ammonia-0
Nitrates -8
Nitrites-0

My question , is this my corraline algae returning quickly from established rocks? Or is this a cyano or dyno outbreak?

 

[Tadpolesreef]

Also failed to mention but turned the lights on for this photo, running no daylight and blues at 10-20% to avoid algae through the long portion of cycle.

Fixture is a Fluval marine led

 

[ScottR]

It’s definitely not cyano, dinos or diatoms. Coralline typically grows in patches. Like small circles. Are you sure that the rocks aren’t stained? Coralline can stain rocks and even when taken out of water and dried. For example, I have killed corals and took the frag plug out, it dried and retained the purple color.

 

[Tadpolesreef]

That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear
Rocks could definitely be stained, the two areas looking the most pink are where my crabs like to spend the most time so could just be getting through the last bit of algae exposing the old dead coralline stains.

that rock on the right is actually a stone coral that I killed 5ish years ago that was home to a bunch of mushrooms after that.

thanks so much for the reply!

 

[MnFish1]

It looks like normal rock - why are you not running your lights?

 

[Tadpolesreef]

Only 2 fish and no corals yet, I’m slowly ramping up my cuc and didn’t want any nuisance algae that my 5 lone crabs can’t handle.

seems like the wisdom I’ve been seeing as of late is keep low light or lights off through the “ugly stage” I figured since there’s nothing to gain from the lights all day is avoid the algae.

 

[MnFish1]

Only 2 fish and no corals yet, I’m slowly ramping up my cuc and didn’t want any nuisance algae that my 5 lone crabs can’t handle.

seems like the wisdom I’ve been seeing as of late is keep low light or lights off through the “ugly stage” I figured since there’s nothing to gain from the lights all day is avoid the algae.

Once you turn the lights on - you will have the same stages. IMHO - put the lights on. Try to cover the surface with corals/etc.

 

[Tadpolesreef]

Once you turn the lights on - you will have the same stages. IMHO - put the lights on. Try to cover the surface with corals/etc.

Appreciate the wisdom here will start running lights if I’m gonna get ugly phase either way. Diatoms have been way down and I’ve been itching to actually see the tank so this is welcomed advice!