What type of algae is this and how do I best treat it?

[Hannahhhh]

What is this brown film that’s covering parts of my sand? None of my clean up crew seems particularly interested in eating it. I tried to siphon it out but it was kinda heavy and didn’t want to get pulled out of the tank. 

[SaltyBuddha]

Cyanobacteria. Caused by excess nutrients and low flow.

 

I used tweezers and scooped it into a fish net to remove when my new tank had it.

 

This is my go to resource for common algae/bacteria problems:

https://www.reefcleaners.org/nuisance-algae-id-guide

 

[Hannahhhh]

1 hour ago, SaltyBuddha said:

Cyanobacteria. Caused by excess nutrients and low flow.

 

I used tweezers and scooped it into a fish net to remove when my new tank had it.

 

This is my go to resource for common algae/bacteria problems:

https://www.reefcleaners.org/nuisance-algae-id-guide

 

Thanks! 

[mcarroll]

On 4/26/2019 at 6:06 PM, Hannahhhh said:

What is this brown film that’s covering parts of my sand?

In a new tank, it's a normal phase and is not generally caused by too many nutrients.  You can clean it up as you see fit, but it's only ugly not harmful, and should pass as a phase without you doing much if the tank is developing normally.  You'd hope to start seeing green algae and start boosting up your CUC to match that growth.

 

In older tanks, cyano is caused by unbalanced nutrients.  Most often it's a lack of nitrates keeping green algae from growing and allowing cyanobacteria to flourish.

 

It's more red than brown, right?

 

If it's really more brown then you might be looking at something worse than cyano, so let us know for sure one way or the other on the color.

 

If your tank isn't that new and you still haven't seen any green algae growth, then you might have a nutrient problem or system setup problem.

 

Can you post your most recent test results for alkalinity, phosphates and nitrates?  (Everything else too if you're testing more.)

 

What's in your CUC right now?