Can anyone identify these growths?

[jhruppel]

I have my cleanup crew being delivered Wednesday from Reeftopia. I bought their $99 algae control special, plus 50 blue leg crabs. In the mean time, should I be worried about this? There is long seaweed like green stuff, some dark green suff, some brown stuff, some purplish stuff, and some bubble stuff. All in all, at least it's colorfull.

 

[bertoni]

The green seems like a type of hair algae. They sometimes get rather invasive, so you might want to remove it. The bubble stuff is likely bubble algae, and a search will turn up some pictures. I think you could just ignore it for now.

The brown and purple might be diatoms, cyanobacteria, and dinoflagellates, or a mix. I can't tell from the picture. If the rock has a filmy covering that can be blown off with a turkey baster, that's likely the case. Such films are common and often disappear on their own. Again, I'd ignore it for the moment. You could use a turkey baster to remove some of it, and that might speed up the process.

 

[mmgm]

Looks like hair algae and cyano..... Very honestly your tank does not look too good..... How is the circulation? Are your Nitrate levels high? Also, how often do you do water changes? Are you running a protein skimmer?

I would be a little concerned at this point..... JMO

 

[adtravels]

get some air line tubing and siphon it off when changing water
remeber to use narrow bore tubing as it will suck more algae and less water.
it will make you feel alot better about the tank and let light to the rock below.

 

[jhruppel]

I'll try that. I'm going to do a 15 gallon water change tomorrow night. I have a 850 g/hr pump pumping water out of the sump, plus I have a 740 g/hr power head in the oposite corner of the tank. I've been doing a 17 gallon water change every week. I also have a protien skimmer with a 528 g/hr pump in the sump. My ammonia and nitrites are at 0, but I must confess, I need to get a nitrate test kit. (tomorrow) I hope I'm not in danger of killing the snails and crabs I'm getting.

 

[bertoni]

If the ammonia is zero, the snails and crabs should be fine if they're acclimated properly.