This algae looks... Bad.

[dianapickles]

Hi everyone

Long time lurking first time posting. This is my first reef tank and it's been up for about 2-3 months. So, fairly new and still stabilising I'm guessing.

I understand algae, diatom blooms etc are completely normal especially in new tanks but I'm a little worried about this algae in particular. It's thick and stringy and almost looks like it has a mind of it's own.
I've tried to clean as much of it as possible but it keeps growing back.

I'm only specifically worried because to me it doesn't look normal (although what would, I am completely new after all)

At the advice of my lfs, I'm dosing 6ml nopox and also dosing reef energy.
My water params are where they should be (tested at my lfs) although my nitrates are at 10ppm.

Should I just let it run it's course or is there something I should do while it's in it's early stages?

Thanks

[dianapickles]

Heres a close up of the algae and my tank.
The only fish I have in there is a yellow tang.

[shifty51008]

I hate to say it but it looks like dino's. I would wait for others to reply but dino's can be a huge pain to remove. Best to remove if you can take the rock out scrub it really good and let it dry out for a week.

[dianapickles]

Yeah, that's exactly what I was worried about. I'm really hoping it's not that. Being my first tank and all idk how I'm gunna handle it.

I really really hope it's not that.

[Billy1205]

Sorry to say that, but it looks like dinoflagellates.
Although I got no experience on it, but I did do some research on their basic characteristic.
This link might help you out:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

[dianapickles]

This is my whole tank.

I've cleaned some of the rocks so it looks ok right now but still a bit worrisome. It appears quickly after cleaning but doesn't spread around quick if that makes sense.

Idk if I've just been keeping it at bay or if it Is just slow spreading.

[Timfish]

Looks to me like it might be a Lungbia spp cyano, one of the clean water cyanobacteria that can show up. it usually goes through a typical cycle of 2 - 4 months then dissappears. You need to be pretty aggressive in siphoning out as much as possible as it can produce toxins that can harm your corals. Running activated carbon will help but the more aggressive you are at siphoning it out the faster you'll get through the cycle.

[Quiet_Ivy]

That does look like dinos but I'm still guessing cyano. Dinos have a lot of side effects: they drop your nitrate and phosphate to zero, and often kill snails. (And that's just their opening act) Raising nitrates is actually an effective treatment for dinos.

I'd siphon it very aggressively. If it's contained, spot treat with hydrogen peroxide (out of the tank if possible), increase flow if possible, drop phosphate (cyano won't care about nitrate), consider chemi-clean. After you do all those try a few days with lights out. Pick up some copepods and macro algae, and phyto. Doesn't have to be live phyto.

There is a very long thread in the Reef Chem forum on how to treat dinos. I don't recommend it unless you're sure you have them because it will scare you half to death.

hope that helps a bit,
ivy