stringy brown algae

[bobfish4black]

Hi

I have upgraded my tank from a 120 to 180, went with Tonga branch rock aqua-scaping and i was going to go bare bottom. tank was running well other than I was having issue of low nutrients, running ZeoVit, but my wife gave me so much flack about the bare bottom so I put a thin layer of coral sand. Now I have stringy brown algae growing on every thing.

Two things I have change in past couple of weeks, the sand, which I washed till there was nothing left to come out of it. the other is i used a SenEye to calibrate my apex temp probe, which increased my temp by .8 degree increase. The algae is covering everything choking my corals, I am manually blowing it off and turning off lights except when i turn them on to feed fish. Lowered temp from 78.8 to 78.

Alk 7.3
PH 8.0 currently but generally 8.0 to 8.3 lights off to lights on
Mag 1340
Cal 440
Potassium 400
PO4 0 by Hanna checker
NO3 0 by Selfert

 

[FoxFace Fish]

Picture? (No blue channel)

 

[nereefpat]

Yep. Get us a picture if you can.

Could be dinoflagellates or cyanobacteria. "Choking my corals" makes me think dinos.

 

[JohnnyHildo]

it's not unusual to see a diatom bloom after adding new substrate so that would be my first hunch. however, in my personal experience a sudden shift to the biological balance along with a lack of nutrients is what opened my system to dinoflagellates as well which also appear brown and stringy/slimy.

 

[Boochika]

I know this is an older thread, but I was curious about your progress. I'm starting to get brown stringy stuff in my tank, and although I only have a couple clowns and some CUC, it's started getting worse since I started NOPOX dosing.

Parameters are
78-79 degrees
8.2ph
10dKH
0Ammo
2ppm No3
0Po4

Since I added fish from QT to tank it's increased (likely with increased feeding). Doesn't look like diatoms which i'm familiar with from freshwater tanks, since there is some stringiness developing on the algae.

 

[bobfish4black]

Well I am starting to see an end to the Dino, I have gone to a lower light pattern, and I have been using hydrogen peroxide, this seems to have put a good dent in them. I am now using Vibrant Liquid Aquarium Cleaner... I think it is been the best thing I have used. I will be back up to full lights in a day, and then I will see. I do not see anymore Dino in my refugium.