Algae on rocks - ID help?

[djryan2000]

I've had an algae on my rocks for the last month that I've assumed was diatoms but reading other posts on here has made me question that - particularly that it's common that I see the bubble "œsnot" at the end of it. I don't see it all the time though. My tank has good amount of flow so I've ruled out cyano. My nutrients are very low - my LFS tested my water for me and said I had ~3-5 ppm nitrates, <.1 phosphates "” although the algae could just be pulling it all out of the water.

Here's a pic with the flow turned off and under white light (blues / green / red / violet are on 0)

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[mcgyvr]

Looks like a mix of green hair algae, diatoms and the snot like/yellow may be some dinoflagellates or other type of "golden algae"..

The <.1 reported phosphates makes me think the LFS doesn't have a decent low level test kit either.. I wouldn't consider those reported values for either to be "very low" at all and something you should keep working on getting a bit lower.

 

[Dmorty217]

was the tank was setup with dry rock? I used 500 lbs of dry rock to start my tank years ago and I had all sorts of algae growing in the tank the first 3 months.

 

[djryan2000]

Algae on rocks - ID help?

was the tank was setup with dry rock? I used 500 lbs of dry rock to start my tank years ago and I had all sorts of algae growing in the tank the first 3 months.

Yes and no. I started the tank with live rock from petco, then added live rock from my LFS, and THEN added mined dry rock to add some more rock. The algae in the photos is on the live rock I've had for months.

 

[djryan2000]

Looks like a mix of green hair algae, diatoms and the snot like/yellow may be some dinoflagellates or other type of "golden algae"..

The <.1 reported phosphates makes me think the LFS doesn't have a decent low level test kit either.. I wouldn't consider those reported values for either to be "very low" at all and something you should keep working on getting a bit lower.

Thanks! Is there anything I should do besides try to lower my nutrients?

The LFS said that my phosphates were almost 0. I wrote >.1 because I didn't receive a number and They're not bottomed out. They're also using API so your assertion about the test kit is correct.


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[mcgyvr]

Welcome to a new tank ugly stages..
They will pass with proper tank husbandry..
Manually siphoning out as much of the dinos as you can.. As well as incorporating a proper cleanup crew to do some of the work on the algae/diatoms.
Most of it should pass as the tank "matures" some..

A bit of manual scrubbing with a toothbrush while you siphon wouldn't be a bad idea either usually..

 

[reefinJ]

I've seen those kind of hairy green algae on neighbor's tank which been like that for years. If memory serves me right, he mentioned the rocks were also live rocks.