Type of Algae?

[Okinawa_Reefer]

I've been having some sort of growth on my rocks and I can't quite ID it. Under the blue lights it looks like a brown color, but as you can see in the pictures below, with lights off the growth on the rocks looks lime green. I've done all sorts of research trying to narrow down what this could actually be. I've read that coralline algae can sometimes begin as green, and then in time it will transition into that beautiful purple. But as you can see in the 2nd picture, there are some hairs sprouting up. There are these hairs in quite a few locations throughout the tank, but not enough for me to say that it's hair algae. For a while I thought maybe it was brown hair algae. I even have a bit of brown algae on the sand bed, which I thought might be an additional diatom bloom, but it began to grow up and hairy a little bit. Last water change, I syphoned a lot of that out so now it just looks like diatoms again.

 

 

Tank perimeters:

ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 0 (API test kit)

Ca: steady 420

Alk: steady 9dkh

Magnesium: haven't tested this week but I can tonight

Phosphate: between 0 and 0.03 (red sea test kit and telling the difference between these low levels is next to impossible. Hanna checker is soon to come)

 

Tank is a biocube 29. Established the first of the year. Currently only livestock is one royal gramma (clown fish in QT) and for coral I have one hammer coral, and 5 pieces of SPS. Back chambers has media rack with filter floss, purigen, and chemipure elite. Eshopps nano protein skimmer. And just about 9 days ago I have begun running biopellets in the first chamber in attempts to combat this problem in assumption that maybe I did have too many nutrients. I just got a new order of purigen and chemipure elite thinking that maybe my media is exhausted. So I will swap those out tonight after I get off work.

[Okinawa_Reefer]

Have I really stumped everyone? Maybe there's some additional questions I can answer to help?

[Clown79]

From the pics looks kind of like a turf algae but then i see branches which makes me think a bryopsis

 

Can you get a close up pic

[seabass]

Can you blast it off with a turkey baster, or siphon it up?  If so, it could by cyano.

 

It's not coralline and doesn't look like diatoms or even hair algae.  Although it could be some sort of hair algae covered in cyano.

 

Have you tried brushing it off with a toothbrush?  What does your cleanup crew consists of?

[Okinawa_Reefer]

7 hours ago, Clown79 said:

From the pics looks kind of like a turf algae but then i see branches which makes me think a bryopsis

 

Can you get a close up pic

Those could possibly be it. I don't think I've let it grow enough to truly see what it is. Like most, I hate nuisance algae so I'm always trying to get it out. I'll see if I can get some better pictures today or tomorrow. 

 

3 hours ago, seabass said:

Can you blast it off with a turkey baster, or siphon it up?  If so, it could by cyano.

 

It's not coralline and doesn't look like diatoms or even hair algae.  Although it could be some sort of hair algae covered in cyano.

 

Have you tried brushing it off with a toothbrush?  What does your cleanup crew consists of?

When I blast with turkey baster I get the usual junk to stir up. I can, and have, scrubbed the rocks with a toothbrush and it gets off the hair bits of algae but not the lime green stuff that's on the rocks. My cleanup crew is a little on the light side but I figured that I probably don't need much since I have been feeding so lightly. Only a few pellets for the fish every other day and a super small bit of reef chili once a week (not even a full scoop). Cleanup crew is one hermit, two trochus snails, two cerith snails, and one nosarius snail. Maybe I should try an emerald crab?

[Clown79]

If you scrub it in tank it will spread unless you syphon it out

[Okinawa_Reefer]

13 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

If you scrub it in tank it will spread unless you syphon it out

Correct, I only scrub it in tank just prior to doing water change. But that doesn't mean that I syphon it all out so I'm sure that's probably why it might be spreading.

[seabass]

I'm sure some of it is just micro algae.  You know, the type that grows on your tank walls which you scrape off every week.

 

Yeah, if you can brush it off in a 5 gallon bucket of water, that'd be best.  I like use water from the last water change.

 

Feeding light might dictate a small cleanup crew of carnivores.  However, the amount of algae in your tank should dictate your cleanup crew of herbivores.  Unless you are dealing with bubble algae, I'm not a huge fan of emerald crabs.  And even then, they tend to spread it as much as they eat it.  Plus, they tend to be more opportunistic than hermit crabs.  You might try a turbo snail instead.

 

That said, it's natural to have some algae in your tank.  You just want to be able to keep it under control.