Stringy?? Can’t identify this?

charliedarling · Apr 2, 2024

Have been thinking this is green hair algae, but starting to think it might be something else??

Newer to reefing & tank is about 4 months old. Nano 5 gal Macroalgae mixed reef.

This “algae” has taken over and even 5+ hours of manual removal weekly isn’t keeping up. Very “brown” not very “green” in color! 25+ snails/inverts aren’t making a dent either.

Nitrates are roughly 2.3ppm
Phosphates 0.04 & just threw in some GFO

Is GHA normally this stringy? Gets full of bubbles during the day too! Very hard to scrub off and increased flow is no match for it. It’s starting to take over and really test my patience…

Dan_P · Apr 2, 2024

charliedarling said:
Have been thinking this is green hair algae, but starting to think it might be something else??

Newer to reefing & tank is about 4 months old. Nano 5 gal Macroalgae mixed reef.

This “algae” has taken over and even 5+ hours of manual removal weekly isn’t keeping up. Very “brown” not very “green” in color! 25+ snails/inverts aren’t making a dent either.

Nitrates are roughly 2.3ppm
Phosphates 0.04 & just threw in some GFO

Is GHA normally this stringy? Gets full of bubbles during the day too! Very hard to scrub off and increased flow is no match for it. It’s starting to take over and really test my patience…

You have many things growing . There is the typical PITA green hair algae plus, maybe Chrysophytes, cyanobacteria, diatoms and dinoflagellates. Macro algae, including GHA, that are stressed from poor growing conditions become feeding grounds for other nuisance algae. Things seem to have gotten out of hand.

charliedarling · Apr 2, 2024

Dan_P said:
You have many things growing . There is the typical PITA green hair algae plus, maybe Chrysophytes, cyanobacteria, diatoms and dinoflagellates. Macro algae, including GHA, that are stressed from poor growing conditions become feeding grounds for other nuisance algae. Things seem to have gotten out of hand.

Definitely, thanks for the insight. I pulled the rocks out and scrubbed everything down not even two weeks ago and this is the result of growth in only that time frame. Nothing I seem to do seems to slow it down or control it.