lime green algae?

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philc21

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Nov 6, 2003
Messages
122
Location
rutherford nj
my tank is covered in a lime green algae its a 16 gallon tank with 5 watts per gallon and ive got a 20 gallon cleaning crew in the tank they took care of all the algae for a while but then this lime green stuff started showing up and they dont eat it they eat all the hair and slime algae and all the rest but they leave alone this lime green stuff wut is this and is there anything i can do about it
 
Sounds like the beginnings of coralline to me. Nice.
 
thats wut i thought but how long would it take to turn to the purple cause its been lime green for probly a week
 
Well calcareous algae comes in all kinds of colours, so it may or may not change. It could have something to do with the spectrum of light it's receiving.
 
o damn it kinda looks bad with the bright neon lime green i hope itll change i have had sum purple coralline grow so maybe this will become purple eventually too or sumthing
 
The actinic might encourage it to turn purple over time, but it could just be that you have too much light for darker coralline.
 
Atari is exactly right. There are different species and they have their preferences for lighting spectrum and intensity. One species will not change into another but it does tend to produce a base that is easier for other species to populate on top of. That's why it can seem like they change colors.

I had some Marshall Island LR that had green coralline. It also had an awesome dark purple that only thrived in the shade. Anything dark purple exposed to my MH's died off rather quickly. It only lived in the shaded areas.

You have to think like a farmer...if you want corn, ya gotta plant corn seeds. If you want wheat, ya gotta plant wheat seeds.

If you want pink and red coralline, it's a good idea to scrape pink and red coralline algae in front of a powerhead to spread the spores. If you don't already have any of those colors, it's a good practice to borrow a rock from a friend and scrape.

However, if you want it to really take off you need to keep your calcium and alkalinity parameters balanced and phosphates low as well.
 
dose it look like this..... if so I say its a type of cyno bacteria. I thought mine was an algae till it started getting bubbles trapped in it like in red cyno. Several member of my reef club also say its cyno. I hope your is different.
 
its not as thick as that cyno its very thinly spread almost like an algae its not even as thick as a coralline ill try scraping it and see what happens
 
it doesnt scrape off easily so idk if i knew how to post pics id put one up here its just a thin coloration to the rocks that is like a lime green color its not a thick growth like the other purple corralline i have
 
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I also have green algae that I thought was coralline growing on the glass and rocks, I am having doubts now that I have started scraping off gree from the glass to. I wonder if all coralline grows in blotches like the purple?
 
That looks like a small microalgae bloom and not green coralline. I would recommend that you watch water parameters (particularly Nitrates and Phosphates) and buy some more snails.
 
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