Algae help

[afish70]

Can someone please help me identify and then eliminate whatever this is in my tank?

 

[mtnbike101]

It looks like cyano to me.

nuisance algae

 

[kharmaguru]

I see hair or possibly bryopsis mixed with crysophytes or dinoflagelettes with a side of diatoms. I bet your nitrate and phosphate measure zero. How old is this tank?

 

[afish70]

Everything is at zero in this tank. The tank is a little over a year old. I am running a IM UV since this is a IM lagoon tank. Where do I start?

 

[mtnbike101]

dinoflagellates-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether

You need some nutrients (PO4 and NO3).

 

[kharmaguru]

Everything is at zero in this tank. The tank is a little over a year old. I am running a IM UV since this is a IM lagoon tank. Where do I start?

Ya that mix of stuff you have are consuming your nutrients before they can register. I'm also going to guess you started with sterile rock? You definitely need some microbial competition. Adding some rock from an established healthy tank or even get some new corals (something tough like frogspawn, duncans, mushrooms, palys) from different sources could add some competition. Could also dose some microbacter7 and Tim's one and only.

I would start by doing a slow water change with a narrow hose so you can can concentrate on sucking out the goopy stuff first and then snipping off the hair algae while sucking it out if you have any drain time left. Then add some cerith snails (they're slow but they eat stuff nothing else likes) and do the above addition of rock and/or corals. It's definitely not going to fix overnight.

What size is the tank?

 

[cal_stir]

Caribsea ocean direct live sand will add some biome to your sand bed and get some pods and +1 for kharmaguru, your tank needs microfauna