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Thread: What type of algae / bacteria is this?

  1. #1

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    What type of algae / bacteria is this?

    Can anyone tell me what type of algae or bacteria this is? It doesn't come off the sand easy and is not red so I don't think it is cyanobacteria but I could be wrong. It grows fast.

    video

    Also will the hog.5 be enough to remove this? The faq stated that you need a lot of algae scrubber to remove cyanobacteria.

    Thanks you.

  2. #2
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    Your rocks don't have a covering of periphyton yet, so you'll be getting things covering the sand for a while. Is usually dino's or diatoms.

  3. #3
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    Looks like cyno to me

  4. #4

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    How long has the tank been up? If it's slimy it's bacteria.

  5. #5

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    Its been up about 2 1/2 months although I moved everything from one tank to the next a month after setting it up. It doesn't seem slimy. Its kind of like a paper fabric with long whisps. I think some of it is starting to grow in my scrubber. What should I do about that?

  6. #6

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    Looks like dinoflagellates if they are brown.
    if they are purple then its cyanobacteria i think the lighting is making them look purple

    My cure for dinos was virtually plug and play when Phosphate fell too low while running a scrubber they would appear
    -Elevated organics( not necessarily nitrate)
    -very low phosphate

    Cyano is caused by a combination of
    Low oxygen
    Low flow
    High dissolved
    And particulate organics

  7. #7
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    Moving kills a lot of the periphyton on the rocks, so you lose a lot of filtering. Post a scrubber pic when you can.

  8. #8

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    Is there anyway you can take a picture under lighting between 6000 and 10000k that would help identify it

  9. #9

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    I'm pretty sure its purple. There was some stuff that is brown but not much. Unfortunately, I don't have any other lights to view it under. On the scrubber I was getting a lot of growth around the outside of the grabber material. Most of it was dark with long leaf like strands. I also have some bright green algae that is just starting on the grabber surface. I thought the dark stuff might not be what I want so I scrubbed it off after the water change this week. I'll try to post a picture when it grows back. I couldn't get rid of all the dark algae on the scrubber surface. It looks like it is covering some of the green algae. Also, the middle of the surface is starting to fill in.

  10. #10

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    red/purple algae

    Just because it is purple does not mean that it is bacterial.
    I have a purple short hair algae. That grows well on my scrubber. And in my fresh water tank.
    I have had many people assume that it is cyno. I wish I could tell you more. Infomation on it is rather vague.

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