Microscope Photos - Algae ID please?

[squarereefer]

I have been fighting what I presumed to be dinoflagellates for months now. The last two photos below are from back when the algae was at its worst and managed to completely suffocate and kill my Santosa and harm the montipora in the photo. I have avoided chemical warfare, and chosen to take the slow approach of dosing up nitrates and trying to hold 5ppm, a complete 3-day blackout early on, a reduced lighting schedule, manual removal, and routine additions of Microbacter 7. The situation is much better, but I am still seeing algae forming on the sand bed and stuck mostly to any SPS in the tank. I finally got my hands on a microsope last night and to my surprise, it does not look like the dino photos I have seen. What might I be fighting instead?

 

[Subsea]

So, display is 2 years young. What herbivores are in the tank? Fish or cuc?

You also mentioned that phosphate & nitrate were both zero. How is that working out for you? I add ammonia to my mature systems because they need nitrogen to grow.

 

[drivingmecrazy]

I pulled this picture from google belongs to algae base. You are going to have to determine if its Green Hair Algae (GHA) or Bryopsis if it spreads out like a fern as shown in the picture. Hope this helps.

 

[taricha]

I don't see any fernlike structure, but instead the fairly normal GHA aka derbesia.

 

[DaJMasta]

From the pics I don't see bryopsis, I see hair algae. Bryopsis will show at least some forking of the strands (especially in a single plane with multiple branches on at least one side), but also shows as slight blue flecks in it when blowing in the flow.

More herbivores, manual removal, watch your phosphates, fluconazole as the "I need a solution now" option.

 

[squarereefer]

From the pics I don't see bryopsis, I see hair algae. Bryopsis will show at least some forking of the strands (especially in a single plane with multiple branches on at least one side), but also shows as slight blue flecks in it when blowing in the flow.

More herbivores, manual removal, watch your phosphates, fluconazole as the "I need a solution now" option.I

 

[squarereefer]

I agree and I don't think it is bryopsis. I could use a clean up crew refresh as I only have a few snails now and a Tomini Tang that pulls its weight on algae patrol. I wonder if it was dinos at first, given the bubble like tips in the older photo, and the Dinos were eventually replaced by standard GHA? I will add more CuC asap.