What is this and how do I get rid of it?

[wyrmslayer121]

I was having problems keeping softies alive, I asked you guys for some advice because all my water levels were ideal, and you suggested I needed different lights. I was reluctant, but it worked!! Everything is growing again!

....everything is growing....

I bought another anemone a few months ago, then this stuff started showing up. I haven't put any additives in my water, and the frag rock that the anemone came in on looked clean.

If I suck the bubbles out, they come back by the end of the next day. I have re-tested my water, and have ideal conditions. This is a 36g bow front tank with 75+lbs of rock, 4 fishies with a HOB and skimmer rated for 75gal. I'm using the larger set of MARSAQUA leds.

What is this and how do I get rid of it?

Please and thanks!

 

[Rybren]

First of all, please post your actual test results. Saying you have ideal conditions doesn't really help - and your idea of ideal might not be quite the same as someone else's idea of ideal.

It's hard to tell from your photo, but it looks like you have a case of either cyanobacteria or dinoflageletes. I'm leaning toward the latter.

Try siphoning out as much as possible on a regular (daily) basis and while you're at it, siphon out as much detritus as possible.

How old is the tank?

 

[zelie_dad]

I'm saying dino, and making the assumption that your have a newish tank. I went through a similar issue few months back, they cleared up on there after a little while. Haven't seen them since.

I also have the 300 watt MA lights. How high do you have the lights turned up? Both my blue and white channel are blow the threshold for the fans to come on and everything in my tank is doing fine.

 

[lifeoffaith]

If you have dinos, you're on the right track for cleaning them up. Regular water changes will also be important. Mine held on forever, even with water changes regularly and sucking them out every chance I had.

 

[MondoBongo]

red stuff on the rocks with bubbles clinging to it? probably blows off fairly easily with turkey baster or pipette?

probably cyano.

increasing the amount of flow in those areas can help.

limiting your nutrients can also help.
(adjusting feeding, nutrient removal with something like GFO aka granulated ferric oxide, nutrient export via a refugium aka fuge, etc...)

sometimes adjusting your cycle can help as well.
(depending on the type of lights you usually only want them at peak intensity for like 4 - 6 hours. if you have a gas type lighting system - metal halide or t5 - then changing old bulbs can help sometimes too)

addressing water quality.
(make sure you're doing regular water changes, and using fresh water for both top off and making saltwater that is squeaky clean. 0 PPM coming out of the filter system. i'm battling a nasty hair algae outbreak right now fueled in large part by me not realizing my RODI system had quickly gone from 0 PPM to 20 PPM. yikes.)

often times it is a combination of these things that will help stamp out nuisance algae like this, or others. as other posters have also noted, these things tend to happen more in newer tanks as things grow, mature, and stabilize, and you get more comfortable with maintenance routines.

 

[wyrmslayer121]

First of all, please post your actual test results. Saying you have ideal conditions doesn't really help - and your idea of ideal might not be quite the same as someone else's idea of ideal.

It's hard to tell from your photo, but it looks like you have a case of either cyanobacteria or dinoflageletes. I'm leaning toward the latter.

Try siphoning out as much as possible on a regular (daily) basis and while you're at it, siphon out as much detritus as possible.

How old is the tank?

Here are my test results. I did not take the time to retake pictures as the results were exactly the same.

I'm saying dino, and making the assumption that your have a newish tank. I went through a similar issue few months back, they cleared up on there after a little while. Haven't seen them since.

I also have the 300 watt MA lights. How high do you have the lights turned up? Both my blue and white channel are blow the threshold for the fans to come on and everything in my tank is doing fine.

The tank is almost 2 years old. All fish are 5+, softies are less than 6mo. We have the lights turned up around 60/40 blue/white. This is the highest without bleaching. The fans are on, but not spinning at max.

If you have dinos, you're on the right track for cleaning them up. Regular water changes will also be important. Mine held on forever, even with water changes regularly and sucking them out every chance I had.

I'll keep doing changes and see what happens :/

red stuff on the rocks with bubbles clinging to it? probably blows off fairly easily with turkey baster or pipette?

probably cyano.

increasing the amount of flow in those areas can help.

limiting your nutrients can also help.
(adjusting feeding, nutrient removal with something like GFO aka granulated ferric oxide, nutrient export via a refugium aka fuge, etc...)

sometimes adjusting your cycle can help as well.
(depending on the type of lights you usually only want them at peak intensity for like 4 - 6 hours. if you have a gas type lighting system - metal halide or t5 - then changing old bulbs can help sometimes too)

addressing water quality.
(make sure you're doing regular water changes, and using fresh water for both top off and making saltwater that is squeaky clean. 0 PPM coming out of the filter system. i'm battling a nasty hair algae outbreak right now fueled in large part by me not realizing my RODI system had quickly gone from 0 PPM to 20 PPM. yikes.)

often times it is a combination of these things that will help stamp out nuisance algae like this, or others. as other posters have also noted, these things tend to happen more in newer tanks as things grow, mature, and stabilize, and you get more comfortable with maintenance routines.

Thanks for the info! The algae I'm questioning is the algae that's giving off bubbles. It's stringy and makes any softies close up when it gets near.

Since the tank is small (36g) with only 4 fish, we feed every other day. I need to do more water changes, right now we do a 5g swap every other week.

 

[heathlindner25]

With the bad picture, I vote dinos.