Reef nutrition

What is this algae?

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BlueSallymandr

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Okay, so I thought that my bryopsis was back, but it's not responding to fluconazole this time (I tried two rounds of treatment). @psidriven thinks it might be hair algae instead. If so it's MONSTER hair algae. It's not feathery but grows long.

20250420_200120.jpg

Above, taken with macro lens. Below, in it's natural habitat after I hand pulled a lot of it.
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Here's an incomplete list of livestock that refuse to eat it:
  • tuxedo urchin
  • cerith snails
  • trochus snails
  • tailspot blenny
  • Hector's goby
  • Pygmy angelfish
  • sailfin molly
  • lettuce sea slug
  • pitho crab
(My tank is 40 gallons and full of fish, so no tangs) Any ideas what it is or how to get rid of it?
 
Huh, that's an interesting gizmo! I usually do all my manual removal/scrubbing first and only then start siphoning. Then I use a net to catch all the drifting stuff that didn't get siphoned...
 
psidriven said:
It’s Rapunzel’s hair algae. Recommend doing during a water change and siphon it out while you scrub. I insert a rigid pipe into your siphon hose and tape/rubber band a brush to the end so it’ll suck away the algae while you scrub.
Click to expand...
If you also siphon that into filter socks in the sump you can do it for as long as you need to without being limited by the amount of water you are changing
 
Agree it definitely isn’t Bryopsis, and looks like some kind of green hair algae.

Why are your herbivores not eating it? I don’t know. I’ve never actually had much luck with herbivores eating unwanted algae to the point of controlling it. Despite the current in vogue trend that they are always the answer. I’m not saying they never eat it, but that you still have to roll up your sleeves and do aggressive manual removal. Like how you can have lots of snails that eat film algae, but they will never keep your glass clean to the point that you don’t dramatically improve things by manually cleaning the glass.
 
Ur structures/ rocks don't look that big..Do a large water change like 15-20 gallons with the nsw you use.. After you drain two 5g buckets pull out the rocks and scrub hard with bristle pot scrubber and rinse/ shake in the second bucket then pop back in the tank white buckets work the best since more light....Then continue sucking out depri in the tank into other buckets etc. Use bright lights/ headlamp so you can scrub around the corals with toothbrushes. Squares bins work good since gives you more room to work in scrubbing ..This way the water in the tank stays pretty clean better for the inhabitants! With small tanks at times Ive also tossed fish in the first water change bucket with bubbler or a small extra tank laying around if I think the tank will turn pea soup disturbing the rock sorta all depends. Just don't like exposing fish to cloudy dirty water if I can help it..I have lost inverts scrubbing rocks in tanks that got cloudy think they maybe more vulnerable somehow since there at ground zero of the man made geo storm! One of the benefits of bare bottom but man I do miss sand & cc..Just stay on top of manual removal.. Uv can help down the road..Also take another look how many times a day your feeding and what volumes of food( #frozen cubes, algea wafers & dry) any idea? At times I'll use measuring spoons to get a feel and track... how many hours of light daily? Some light spectrums & high power can really pump up the algea! Oh fyi Dolabella sea hares do an amazing job Kenny usually has a few just pass them along when the algea is gone otherwise they may starve..
Good luck
 
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