I know this is not Bryopsis, but what is this thing?

[africangrey]

Has anyone seen this thing before, none of my snails, rabbit fish would touch it.
Been running a full scale zeovit system in the beginning 7-8 month ago, the tank has gone through many algae problems including dinos.

I know some of you will say my nutrient is the issue but I can tell you that my PO4 is 0.00-0.02 with Hanna ULR and yes I tested that every week, my nitrate is little high at 12-25 mg/L. it has been like that since day 1 with zeovit system.

Do you guys think this just part of new tank syndrome, and eventually the tank will get over it.

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/spencerwu/algae%20outbreak/20160825_175653_zpsfphia996.jpg (http://s152.photobucket.com/user/spencerwu/media/algae%20outbreak/20160825_175653_zpsfphia996.jpg.html)

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/spencerwu/algae%20outbreak/20160825_175635_zps7txtva8d.jpg (http://s152.photobucket.com/user/spencerwu/media/algae%20outbreak/20160825_175635_zps7txtva8d.jpg.html)

[C.Eymann]

derbesia hair algae, getting/borrowing a sea hare would be a quick fix, but then you need to figure out your nutrient issue to keep it from returning.
What kind of rocks are these? if marco or man made- did you "cook" them?

[thegrun]

It's hair algae and the growth of the algae reduces the amount of nutrients your test kits are showing. It takes both phosphates and nitrates for the algae to grow, without either you would not have algae.

[africangrey]

derbesia hair algae, getting/borrowing a sea hare would be a quick fix, but then you need to figure out your nutrient issue to keep it from returning.
What kind of rocks are these? if marco or man made- did you "cook" them?

Just checked derbesia is a fancy name of the common hair algae right? I thought zeovit method should take care of it. But what perplexing is that none of the turbo snails won't even touch any of these.

The rocks were cooked for a year soaked with lanthanum chloride, but the rocks were recycled from a tank that were 5 years ago and were left in my back yards with sun and rain, and went through 5 winters and summers before going to the DT running with zeovit system with 14 day cycle.

[anthonys51]

turbo snails or any snails wont touch hair algae when it grows that long. you need to manually take it out once it gets that long. cut back on feeding and increase water changes. will take a while but should get it under control. also do you have sand in your tank. if you dont clean your sand it could be a nutrient factory.

[africangrey]

turbo snails or any snails wont touch hair algae when it grows that long. you need to manually take it out once it gets that long. cut back on feeding and increase water changes. will take a while but should get it under control. also do you have sand in your tank. if you dont clean your sand it could be a nutrient factory.

As shown on the picture, the algae is growing in every square inch of sand bed!

[anthonys51]

Oh that was a sand bed. Though that was rock. I took my sand out. I have 12 fish in a 57 reef tank and I found it was hard to keep Nutrients down with the sand in it. Now I point 2 powerheads facing the bottom 2 on the top so detrious never gets a chance to settle. So far it's working for me. You might want to consider taking the sand out imo


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[mcgyvr]

my nitrate is little high at 12-25 mg/L.

THAT is 100% your problem..
Get it below 10 or lower and the hair will slowly start to die out.. It will usually just turn brown and really not go away much on its own unless given a long time (months)..
Anything over .5mg/l of nitrates can be enough to have a hair algae problem so the lower you can get those nitrates the better..

Now I don't know what the rules of the "zeovit religion" are but you need to get those nitrates down.. (water changes/carbon dosing w/skimming,etc...) Then you can siphon out the sand bed top layer during water changes to remove whats in the sand.. Any rocks can be removed and either just mechanical removal of the algae via a toothbrush,etc.. in a bucket w/tank water or you can really go at it with 50% tank water/50% hydrogen peroxide and a toothbrush.. A 10-15 minute soak while you are scrubbing is plenty.. The peroxide kills the algae (and other stuff on the rock I'm sure) but it works WELL..

But yes as stated above typically snails won't touch it when it gets long.. Picky little buggers..
Get those nitrates down..

[africangrey]

THAT is 100% your problem..
Get it below 10 or lower and the hair will slowly start to die out.. It will usually just turn brown and really not go away much on its own unless given a long time (months)..
Anything over .5mg/l of nitrates can be enough to have a hair algae problem so the lower you can get those nitrates the better..

Now I don't know what the rules of the "zeovit religion" are but you need to get those nitrates down.. (water changes/carbon dosing w/skimming,etc...) Then you can siphon out the sand bed top layer during water changes to remove whats in the sand.. Any rocks can be removed and either just mechanical removal of the algae via a toothbrush,etc.. in a bucket w/tank water or you can really go at it with 50% tank water/50% hydrogen peroxide and a toothbrush.. A 10-15 minute soak while you are scrubbing is plenty.. The peroxide kills the algae (and other stuff on the rock I'm sure) but it works WELL..

But yes as stated above typically snails won't touch it when it gets long.. Picky little buggers..
Get those nitrates down..

Ok thanks for the advise, will get H2O2 and scrub the hell out of the rocks. or I could get a sea hare to take care of it naturally. But rabbit fish suppose to take care it right?
Don't really know what is wrong with my zeovit system, but I see people running zeovit with little to non detectable NO3 and PO4, I could get PO4 down but the nitrate won't budge at all.

[mcgyvr]

Do one rock at a time (maybe one every couple days/a week) to avoid too much of change/loss of fauna