Nuisance hair like algae

[BGJames]

Hi guys,

 

Struggling to identify this light brown nuisance algae growing from my sandbed. Im getting what looks like diatoms on the surface (they disappear when i stir the sandbed then regrow quickly) and then Im getting this wispy, long hair like algae growing from it and on the rocks. Tank is 6months old with nitrate at .10 and phos at .03, both Salifert kits. 110l tank with 2 clowns, 4 turbo snails. Running a Tunze 9001 skimmer and wavemakers (Berlin method). Have my suspicions but need some confirmation. Thankyou.

[Murphs_Reef]

The second picture does look like green hair algae to be fair. Does it pull off easy?

[Christopher Marks]

Yeah, looks like the start of hair algae @BGJames. Not necessarily unusual in a tank 6 months old.

 

It's a good sign that you can still read some phosphates and nitrates, you don't want those to reach zero.

 

What are your feeding and maintenance routines like? That might help us identify some potential changes you could make.

[Christopher Marks]

Oh, also tell us your lighting system and approximate schedule. Do you have any corals you're keeping currently?

 

Reducing your lighting intensity, particularly the red and white channels, may help slow the algae growth. Sometimes newer tanks need their lighting fine tuned once coral goes in, it's easy to have lighting that is more intense than needed.

[BGJames]

37 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Yeah, looks like the start of hair algae @BGJames. Not necessarily unusual in a tank 6 months old.

 

It's a good sign that you can still read some phosphates and nitrates, you don't want those to reach zero.

 

What are your feeding and maintenance routines like? That might help us identify some potential changes you could make.

Thanks for the help. The skimmer hss only been in two weeks and the nitrate and phos have dropped by about a colour on the chart each. I was using a canister but prefer the idea of a skimmer instead. I usually change 10% a week but have upped that the last 3 weeks to 20% to coincide with the skimmer being added, to lower phos and nitrate. I feed once a day, 6x per week on frozen food (thawed and strained) have an elegence and a very small mushroom under 2x kessil a80s that I was running at 60% intensity. Dropped them to about 40% now with much more blue.

[BGJames]

3 hours ago, Murphych said:

The second picture does look like green hair algae to be fair. Does it pull off easy?

Its hard to grab hold of and feels like hair between my fingers. The more research I do the more I think its hair algae rather than dinos.

[Murphs_Reef]

You should consider getting  it out anyway you can. A little bit of GHA leads to a lot in no time. Then once it's present in patches it can be a beast to get rid of. 

Start manually removing right off the bat. 

 

Good to see the lights being drawn in a bit mate. How long are they on at 40%? Minus ramp up and down? 

[mcarroll]

On 3/1/2021 at 3:20 PM, BGJames said:

thawed and strained

Those little bits and the juices are some of the best parts....I would save yourself the time/effort: just thaw and use.

 

On 3/1/2021 at 3:20 PM, BGJames said:

2x kessil a80s that I was running at 60% intensity. Dropped them to about 40% now with much more blue.

Those don't carry a ton of power to begin with – what are the dimensions of your tank and how high are those lights mounted over it?

 

On 3/1/2021 at 3:22 PM, BGJames said:

Its hard to grab hold of and feels like hair between my fingers. The more research I do the more I think its hair algae rather than dinos.

A microscope comes in really handy in this situation – even a $10 toy microscope will work well for this.  (Just isn't that fun to use...ironic for a toy.)

 

It could very likely be dino's AND hair algae, or cyano AND hair algae.  Hair algae grows epiphytes and hangers-on like crazy.

 

Here's a strand of green algae with epiphytic diatoms chilling out all over it:

From: http://cfb.unh.edu/phycokey/Choices/Chlorophyceae/filaments/unbranched/OEDOGONIUM/Oedogonium_Image_page.html

[BGJames]

On 3/1/2021 at 8:28 PM, Murphych said:

You should consider getting  it out anyway you can. A little bit of GHA leads to a lot in no time. Then once it's present in patches it can be a beast to get rid of. 

Start manually removing right off the bat. 

 

Good to see the lights being drawn in a bit mate. How long are they on at 40%? Minus ramp up and down? 

They dont ramp up and down, I dont have the controller so I just set a plug timer for them to come on. Ive been disturbing the sandbed every day, and trying to pick bits off. Considering taking the rock out and scrubbing it but I imagine trying to see such fine algae out of water will be difficult

[BGJames]

10 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Those little bits and the juices are some of the best parts....I would save yourself the time/effort: just thaw and use.

 

Those don't carry a ton of power to begin with – what are the dimensions of your tank and how high are those lights mounted over it?

 

A microscope comes in really handy in this situation – even a $10 toy microscope will work well for this.  (Just isn't that fun to use...ironic for a toy.)

 

It could very likely be dino's AND hair algae, or cyano AND hair algae.  Hair algae grows epiphytes and hangers-on like crazy.

 

Here's a strand of green algae with epiphytic diatoms chilling out all over it:

From: http://cfb.unh.edu/phycokey/Choices/Chlorophyceae/filaments/unbranched/OEDOGONIUM/Oedogonium_Image_page.html

I might be able to get a microscope from work, see what I can do. The tank dimensions are 80cm long, 40cm tall and about 40cm deep. I bought two as I didnt think one a80 would provide enough coverage

10 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Those little bits and the juices are some of the best parts....I would save yourself the time/effort: just thaw and use.

 

Those don't carry a ton of power to begin with – what are the dimensions of your tank and how high are those lights mounted over it?

 

A microscope comes in really handy in this situation – even a $10 toy microscope will work well for this.  (Just isn't that fun to use...ironic for a toy.)

 

It could very likely be dino's AND hair algae, or cyano AND hair algae.  Hair algae grows epiphytes and hangers-on like crazy.

 

Here's a strand of green algae with epiphytic diatoms chilling out all over it:

From: http://cfb.unh.edu/phycokey/Choices/Chlorophyceae/filaments/unbranched/OEDOGONIUM/Oedogonium_Image_page.html

Theyre about 20cm from the water

[mcarroll]

17 minutes ago, BGJames said:

I might be able to get a microscope from work, see what I can do. The tank dimensions are 80cm long, 40cm tall and about 40cm deep. I bought two as I didnt think one a80 would provide enough coverage

Theyre about 20cm from the water

(A80's have wide 140º lenses like their other lights, right?)

 

My Kessils are at about 10cm and I'm covering more surface area...about 60x40cm.  You could definitely consider lowering yours to get more of their power into the water.  

 

I'd be a little surprised if at 20cm you weren't dumping some light over the tank edges...going by the math at 20cm you should be giving a diameter of coverage at the water line of about 110 cm....half of the tank is only 40x40 though.  Further, Kessil usually recommends running their lights at 100% during peak time...they aren't oversized as so many of the cheap non-name fixtures are.  If you haven't sampled the light from your setup with a meter yet, I would – even a freebie lux meter app on your smartphone can give you an idea, but a cheap handheld from eBay will do it better/more reliably.  Very inexpensive.

[BGJames]

11 hours ago, mcarroll said:

(A80's have wide 140º lenses like their other lights, right?)

 

My Kessils are at about 10cm and I'm covering more surface area...about 60x40cm.  You could definitely consider lowering yours to get more of their power into the water.  

 

I'd be a little surprised if at 20cm you weren't dumping some light over the tank edges...going by the math at 20cm you should be giving a diameter of coverage at the water line of about 110 cm....half of the tank is only 40x40 though.  Further, Kessil usually recommends running their lights at 100% during peak time...they aren't oversized as so many of the cheap non-name fixtures are.  If you haven't sampled the light from your setup with a meter yet, I would – even a freebie lux meter app on your smartphone can give you an idea, but a cheap handheld from eBay will do it better/more reliably.  Very inexpensive.

How would I go about lowering them? I dont fancy hanging them from the ceiling and the goosenecks are tough to work with. I'll have a play with them tomorrow. It doesnt look like Ive got much light overspill, might try an app and see what it comes up with.

[mcarroll]

36 minutes ago, BGJames said:

How would I go about lowering them? I dont fancy hanging them from the ceiling and the goosenecks are tough to work with.

Hm....I have the 90º mounts (sw-e-e-t!) but maybe the goosenecks can't go that low?  Looks like it should be able to from pics online, but I don't have one.  Hm.

[BGJames]

11 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Hm....I have the 90º mounts (sw-e-e-t!) but maybe the goosenecks can't go that low?  Looks like it should be able to from pics online, but I don't have one.  Hm.

I'll have a play with them, they aren't the easiest to manoeuvre though.