Help Identifying Algae or Bacteria

[coachabower]

Hey all, first time posting, but have found tons of help in reading the threads here, great community.

I'd like some help identifying this algae/bacteria and thoughts on why it's here and how to get rid of it. I think it's either some form of cyano or dino. It's all over the rocks, back glass, powerhead and heater (in the DT). I don't see any in the sump.

This is my first tank, 75g with fish and a few corals so far, about 4 months in. Diatom phase came and went pretty quickly around cycle time and has seemed pretty healthy since. I had/have coralline starting to develop, but this new algae is making it hard to see and maybe impacting its growth? I have a BubbleMagus skimmer, which had been going strong for a while, but now doesn't seem to be picking much up. I have a small fuge with Chaeto growing well, harvesting maybe a basketball size every two weeks. No other filtration. I had a decent pod population, though I think I went too long without dosing phyto, so may be thinning (been dosing daily over the past week though). CUC is about 6 blue leg hermits, 3 Mexican turbo snails, 5 Nessarius snails, 1 Conch, about 10 other snails (cerith, turbo), a diamond goby, foxface rabbitfish and recently added a lawnmower blenny.

I'm dosing 2 part. Alk at 8.8, Cal around 430, Mag around 1330. Phosphorus at 6ppb, which I guess equates to ~0.018 ppm phosphate. Nitrate I don't have a precision measurement, but using Reef Master API seems very close to 0.

I had an accident with food, spilled half of an auto feeder worth of algae pellets maybe a week ago. I syphoned it out pretty well, took out about 25g of water in the process, so got a good water change at the same time. Seems like that event could be related, but Nitrate and Phosphorus haven't spiked, so makes me think I got most of it.

I also recently switched from the regular instant ocean salt mix to reef crystals now that I'm adding corals and keeping those chemical levels up. Those levels were fairly low to start, so I've increased them over the past month or so, starting at 7 alk, 330 cal and about 1150 mag up to their current levels.

I have an RO/DI 4 stage I've been using since the beginning. I have two Noopsych K7 Pro IIIs and have played with the spectrum a few times, currently doing Blues at 60% and White/Red at 15% for 8 hours peak, plus 2 hour ramps on either end.

Also, I've been struggling to find the right flow. I think the way my rocks are setup, the flow seems pretty much the same everywhere. I have it pretty low right now for the frogspawn and hammer. From the return pump, probably 300gph, and maybe another 150-200 from the powerheads (2 wide angle pumps which run most of the day and 1 gyre that runs 20 mins every 2 hours).

 

[Dan_P]

Hey all, first time posting, but have found tons of help in reading the threads here, great community.

I'd like some help identifying this algae/bacteria and thoughts on why it's here and how to get rid of it. I think it's either some form of cyano or dino. It's all over the rocks, back glass, powerhead and heater (in the DT). I don't see any in the sump.

This is my first tank, 75g with fish and a few corals so far, about 4 months in. Diatom phase came and went pretty quickly around cycle time and has seemed pretty healthy since. I had/have coralline starting to develop, but this new algae is making it hard to see and maybe impacting its growth? I have a BubbleMagus skimmer, which had been going strong for a while, but now doesn't seem to be picking much up. I have a small fuge with Chaeto growing well, harvesting maybe a basketball size every two weeks. No other filtration. I had a decent pod population, though I think I went too long without dosing phyto, so may be thinning (been dosing daily over the past week though). CUC is about 6 blue leg hermits, 3 Mexican turbo snails, 5 Nessarius snails, 1 Conch, about 10 other snails (cerith, turbo), a diamond goby, foxface rabbitfish and recently added a lawnmower blenny.

I'm dosing 2 part. Alk at 8.8, Cal around 430, Mag around 1330. Phosphorus at 6ppb, which I guess equates to ~0.018 ppm phosphate. Nitrate I don't have a precision measurement, but using Reef Master API seems very close to 0.

I had an accident with food, spilled half of an auto feeder worth of algae pellets maybe a week ago. I syphoned it out pretty well, took out about 25g of water in the process, so got a good water change at the same time. Seems like that event could be related, but Nitrate and Phosphorus haven't spiked, so makes me think I got most of it.

I also recently switched from the regular instant ocean salt mix to reef crystals now that I'm adding corals and keeping those chemical levels up. Those levels were fairly low to start, so I've increased them over the past month or so, starting at 7 alk, 330 cal and about 1150 mag up to their current levels.

I have an RO/DI 4 stage I've been using since the beginning. I have two Noopsych K7 Pro IIIs and have played with the spectrum a few times, currently doing Blues at 60% and White/Red at 15% for 8 hours peak, plus 2 hour ramps on either end.

Also, I've been struggling to find the right flow. I think the way my rocks are setup, the flow seems pretty much the same everywhere. I have it pretty low right now for the frogspawn and hammer. From the return pump, probably 300gph, and maybe another 150-200 from the powerheads (2 wide angle pumps which run most of the day and 1 gyre that runs 20 mins every 2 hours).

Were the rocks initially dead or live?

 

[coachabower]

Were the rocks initially dead or live?

The rocks were dead and sand was live (bagged, I forget the manufacturer). Most of the CUC was from the LFS, which keeps very clean tanks, but I got a few snails from liveaquaria, which I think is where the coralline came from and possibly the initial seed of this new algae. Those were added around two months ago and I may have had early stages of this in the form of a powdery coating on the rocks, which I may have misclassified as coralline spores (or maybe I was right, not sure). A lot of the snails are cruising across the algae, lawnmower and foxface nipping at it, nothing seems sick, but also not making a dent in it.

 

[legionofdoon]

If those are bubbles probably dinos.

 

[Dan_P]

The rocks were dead and sand was live (bagged, I forget the manufacturer). Most of the CUC was from the LFS, which keeps very clean tanks, but I got a few snails from liveaquaria, which I think is where the coralline came from and possibly the initial seed of this new algae. Those were added around two months ago and I may have had early stages of this in the form of a powdery coating on the rocks, which I may have misclassified as coralline spores (or maybe I was right, not sure). A lot of the snails are cruising across the algae, lawnmower and foxface nipping at it, nothing seems sick, but also not making a dent in it.

A good is bet is that every living thing you add to the aquarium brings in all sorts of microorganisms, even the fish.

I asked about the rocks being “live” because the growth seemed widespread and heavy. I would guess this growth started two months ago based on how complex it looks. It is probably not just hair algae growing but a wide collection of organisms, for example, diatoms, dinoflagellates, cyanobacteria, along with hair algae. If this is correct, the algae eaters may not find this mess very appetizing. I think it might be up to you to clean the rocks.

 

[coachabower]

A good is bet is that every living thing you add to the aquarium brings in all sorts of microorganisms, even the fish.

I asked about the rocks being “live” because the growth seemed widespread and heavy. I would guess this growth started two months ago based on how complex it looks. It is probably not just hair algae growing but a wide collection of organisms, for example, diatoms, dinoflagellates, cyanobacteria, along with hair algae. If this is correct, the algae eaters may not find this mess very appetizing. I think it might be up to you to clean the rocks.

Cool, thank you. Do you think it's better to clean the rocks while in the water and siphon the debris, or pull them out completely and scrub? Is boiling the rocks a real thing? Couldn't tell if people were joking about that or a real suggestion, mainly because it's on the glass and overflow too and can't really boil those, so thinking if that's required I couldn't realistically get it out anyway.

Also, I thought a lot of these organism thrive on nitrate and phosphate, so am surprised it's this advanced when those values are very low. Any thoughts on that?

 

[Dan_P]

Cool, thank you. Do you think it's better to clean the rocks while in the water and siphon the debris, or pull them out completely and scrub? Is boiling the rocks a real thing? Couldn't tell if people were joking about that or a real suggestion, mainly because it's on the glass and overflow too and can't really boil those, so thinking if that's required I couldn't realistically get it out anyway.

I can’t say which approach for rock cleaning will work for you. Some aquarists do pull the rocks and scrub them clean. Maybe you can try the easiest and least invasive method and ramp up the treatment as needed. It will likely be a long process no matter.

Also, I thought a lot of these organism thrive on nitrate and phosphate, so am surprised it's this advanced when those values are very low. Any thoughts on that?

I think the paradox arises from assuming that nuisance algae growth is correlated to nitrate and phosphate in the water. An aquarium can become a mess with no measurable nitrate and phosphate because the algae consumes it all. Also, the average aquarist cannot see nuisance algae growth until quite a bit has already accumulated, by which point a relatively short time is needed for it to double it’s size.