hair like brown algee

[polar1]

My 125 gal. reef has been up and running for 4 mo. now. All water paremeters are normal and all the inhabitants are doing fine. The only problem I have is this stringy brown, hair like algee. It grows everewhere at a moderate rate. It accmulates on the waters surface, is easilly detached from the rocks, sand and glass and breakes up easilly. I just net it up and sweep the rest in to the over flows. It can grow in to strings over 3" long. My snails and or hermits do seem to eat it but they don't keep up. Any sugestions?

 

[2poor2reef]

Sounds more like cyanobactre to me. Do a search on "cyano" and you can read all the war stories.

 

[polar1]

I don't think it's cyno-bact. I had an uncontrolable outbreak of that on my last reef when I used silica sand. This is a light brown algee which accumulates on the surface after easilly breaking free under water

 

[pathos]

cyano. do a massive water change and replace that goby!

 

[S]

You're experiencing dinoflagellates it's also called (snot algae)that's what it looks like when it floats to the top towards the end of the day.Fish and inverts don't eat it from what I saw in my own tank otherwise they would die because it's a toxic bacteria.I've been fighting this nuisance algae since April,I had a very bad case though it's under control now but it still have some.One of the reasons why you have dinos is because of accumulated nutrients due to over feeding and therfore you need to export those nutrients by skimming,lots of water changes and carbon. Do you have a dsb ? if not you should consider one, it's a very good way to export nutrients . Try growing caulerpa,cut down on feeding and stop putting additives.All of those should help in eliminating the dinoflagellates.You can do a search on dinoflagellates or nuisance for more info.

Good luck

Robert

 

[Anonymous]

I've had this problem before. Increasing circulation did the trick for me.

Glenn

 

[S]

Increasing water mouvement will help the symptom but not the root of the problem.You need a way to export the nutrients.
Robert

 

[polar1]

After cycling my uncured LR 4 mo. ago, I did a 100% water change with natural sea water. Since then I have done 3 20% water changes. My nitrates are 0. The only additives I add are B-Ionic, Stront & moldum and Iodine. At night I see thousands of pods and worms swimming about and in the substrate. I only feed 1-2 times a day which the inhabitants consume in under 5 min. I have a large population of snails and hermits, 2 stars and 2 shrimp which quickly eat anything the fish miss. My fish load is medium: 1 med. yellow tang, 1 flame angel, 1 med. hippo tang, 1 small scooter blenny, 1 banded goby and 2 sm. perk clowns. My circulation is light though, 1 mag 1200 primary return from sump through 2ea. 2' spray bars.

 

[polar1]

Forgot to add: 3" aragonite DSB, 140 lbs. LR, RO water, 2ea. Iwaki 400 W MH, 2ea 72" VHO atinics, Aqua-C 150, SG 1.25, PH 8.3, Temp. 80-84 F.