Cyanobacteria or just hair algea

[Strawman]

What is this algea?

 

[paulace2372]

Hair Algae. Nitrates and Phosphates are likely to be the cause although a test of your water will usually show low nitrate levels as the algae is consuming nitrates.
A good source of RO/DI water should prevent this from occurring, until then you may be better off removing the algae manually either by pulling it off the rocks or just removing the rocks and scrubbing them down to remove the algae.

 

[Richy35]

Hair Algae. Nitrates and Phosphates are likely to be the cause although a test of your water will usually show low nitrate levels as the algae is consuming nitrates.
A good source of RO/DI water should prevent this from occurring, until then you may be better off removing the algae manually either by pulling it off the rocks or just removing the rocks and scrubbing them down to remove the algae.

+1 I agree.

 

[J19Reynolds]

Hair Algae. Nitrates and Phosphates are likely to be the cause although a test of your water will usually show low nitrate levels as the algae is consuming nitrates.
A good source of RO/DI water should prevent this from occurring, until then you may be better off removing the algae manually either by pulling it off the rocks or just removing the rocks and scrubbing them down to remove the algae.

What is RO/DI water actually ?

 

[paulace2372]

Reverse osmosis water or distilled water, or some RO units have an additional distiller on them also but are pricey where I'm from.

 

[joy13]

That is one nasty case of algae. Water changes run something to help take out the phosphates I use phosoban, reduce lights if possible and more water changes. I find it best to do several small ones rather than one large one on my tanks when I get something like that happening. Test your ro water and your container you mix in for tds too.

What type of cuc do you have and how big is your tank?

 

[Sniperhank]

The worst part is that isn't that bad from what my LFS reef tank. I bought a candy cane frag off of them and didn't realize how bad it was until I put it in my tank. It had 10 trumpeting heads and it was all surrounded and covered with the stuff. It didn't survive.

 

[joy13]

If you get coral with hair algae on it there is a dip you can use coral rx it helps with filament algae Product Infomation - New Dipping Alternative|Soft Treatment|Revive Coral Dip - CoralRX

 

[EriksFish315]

Grab 10 Astraea snails and they will get rid of that in a week.

 

[Sniperhank]

If you get coral with hair algae on it there is a dip you can use coral rx it helps with filament algae Product Infomation - New Dipping Alternative|Soft Treatment|Revive Coral Dip - CoralRX

Sadly it wouldn't have helped. It was on its way out and I just didn't notice.

 

[Strawman]

Fifty five gallon. I had a decent clean up crew but I have this infestation of snails that seemed to be one reproduction steroids. So they beat everyone out. As for an ro/Di unit that's next on the list.

 

[paulace2372]

It will certainly help avoid this problem in the future.

 

[Gregcoyote]

Candy cane is really sensitive to even low levels of organics in the water. What is your phosphate, nitrate, etc? The algae indicates there is a source of nitrogen in the water, so that can come from poor makeup water, overfeeding, poor filtration, or the tank could be cycling. Try to remove it and monitor water quality.