Should I remove this algae?

[Firefish15]

Hey all,

 

I've got a little patch of some sort of algae growing in my sand bed. It's isolated and has been growing pretty slowly. It's less than an inch tall right now. What is it, and should I remove it? I'm not currently inclined to take it out, as it hasn't made a nuisance of itself so far. Nice bit of movement. If it will be a problem though, I will. I have a decent-sized emerald crab, but he hasn't noticed it yet. 

 

 

 

[banasophia]

I would remove and look for some nice corals with movement to add to your tank. 

[Firefish15]

1 minute ago, banasophia said:

I would remove and look for some nice corals with movement to add to your tank. 

Haha, yes that is the long-term plan.  I will be adding corals in mid-January after winter break ends. I don't want to get new corals and leave the tank with someone else for a month. Do you have an idea of what the alga is though?

[Joevember]

Possibly a type of bryopsis. Looks thicker than most hair algaes. I'd remove it.

[Oldsalt01]

Dosen’t look “friily” enough to be bryopsis to me. Looks more like GHA, but im looking at it on my phone so its hard to tell. JMHO.

[mcarroll]

I have this in my tank too I, think.  Is it sorta wiry and tough if you try to pull if off the substrate it's on?   (Might be tricky to know if it's only connected to sand or detritus, but try to pull a piece in half.)

 

It went nuts for a while in my tank, so (like any algae) don't leave it unchecked - if it matures it will do its best to spread to any/all open spaces.  Either find something that likes to eat it, or pull it out.  And make sure coraline algae is DOING WELL in your tank....the least open rock space, the better.

 

FYI, folks have suggested to me that this is a filamentous type of cyanobacteria, but I have'nt been able to ID it with any scientific sources like PhycoKey so far.  (google it....it's a visual algae ID guide)

 

This link appears to be a chapter from a book that may be by Hans Paerl...can't tell what the origin book of this chapter is tho: 

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0ebc/eff9249ac3c2dc025142e06b89f0a1f4794e.pdf

 

Lotsa good basic info about cyano there....better than most sources I've seen on the topic prior.

[mcarroll]

Wow....Lyngbia doesn't contain heterocysts for N2 fixation, which I had read before.  But it sez here that it's capable of nighttime N2 fixation in spite of not having heterocysts!

 

Quote

However, some species of Lyngbya and Oscillatoria are capable of diazotrophy, mostly during darkness and/or in oxygen-deplete microenvironments (aggregates, bio films, mats, and as endosymbionts) (Zehr and Paerl 2008 )

I'm also wondering again after reading this whether we have some Trichodesmium in our tanks even though it's known as an open-ocean (vs coastal) algae.   

 

I still haven't seen verifiable pics of another cyano besides Trichodesmium that LOOKS like the maroon stuff in our tanks.....for what that's worth.  (Check out the pics on p.131 for examples of both its forms. IMO Tricho. in mat form is dead-on for the cyano mats in my tank.)

[Firefish15]

It's not really feathery like most byropsis images I've seen. It's mostly just straight, fairly thick stems. A lot more substantial than hair algae too. I did pull it out during my WC today, and it came out of the sand all in one clump. Pulled out easily. I set it in a specimen container with the emerald crab, and he didn't touch it. I guess I'll just stick to manual removal. There are a few other sprigs of the same stuff left.