Dinos or Cyano or Brown Algae?

[Islandoftiki]

I'm pretty sure this is dinos or brown algae, but two points of interest. No bubbles on it and it doesn't change at all at night.

 

First, the vital stats:

 

10 gallon tank, about three months old.

One juvenile sixline, one very small yellow watchman goby and pistol shrimp and two large cleaner shrimp.

CUC includes 5 florida ceriths, 2 large nerites and 3 small ones, four nassarius, one trochus snail, 4 dwarf blue leg hermits, one scarlet reef hermit, one mexican red leg hermit and one turbo snail.

 

The turbo snail is the only one that seems to make a dent in this stuff.

 

I'm feeding as little as possible. Everything is consumed in about 3-5 minutes.

 

Actinics come on at 7am. Daylights on at 8 am. Daylights off at 5:30pm. Actinics off at 6:30pm. LED Moonlights on at night.

 

Parameters: Alk 7. Calc 460. Mag 1410. Phos 0. Amo 0. Nitrite 0. Nitrate 0. Temp 78.6

 

I'm running chemipure elite, purigen, a fist size ball of chaeto and for the past two weeks I've been running a phosphate adsorbtion media and changing it every couple days. I change the filter floss every two days.

 

The stuff doesn't really seem to have much of a visible structure. Closest thing would be GHA, but it's not very green. It's more of a brownish green and doesn't really look like hair per se.

**Video of the stuff in my tank**

 

Any thoughts? The turbo snail loves the stuff, but can't quite keep up with it.

[Islandoftiki]

Been talking to some local reefers and we're thinking maybe just "Brown Algae" that often comes with a new tank.

[Degener8]

yup looks like brown algae .. thought.. get more turbo snails.. its likely no nitrates register because of the excess algae. i would remove as much as possible every time you do a water change to aid it getting it under control.

[Islandoftiki]

Yeah, I suspect any nitrates are getting locked up in this stuff before it ever hits the filter media or chaeto. This would probably be great stuff for an algae scrubber.

[drunkenmonk21]

Lyngbya sp? Its a form of cyano

 

 

Check half way down on this page - Algae ID

[Mr Pants]

Looks diatom-y to me (brown algae).

[drunkenmonk21]

diatoms dont grow like hair stings ... It could be diatoms growing on gha

[Islandoftiki]

We've got it narrowed down to a couple possible subspecies of brown algae. Since the turbo snails seem to love the stuff, I'm going to add one more turbo snail for a little while until it gets cleared up. Then I'll drop back to just one turbo.

 

It's just a new tank algae bloom.