Identification

Anyone knows what kind of Algae is this ? It took over my aquarium and has air bubble trapped. Hanna Phosphate reader = 0

Is it Dinoflagellates or Calothrix?

 

I'm not familiar with calothrix. Could you get a closer shot of it?

 

Welcome to 3reef Potager.

Looks like it could be Chrysophytes, does not really look like the types of Dino I have experience with.

Good Luck I hope you get a good ID.

This might help a little:
http://www.3reef.com/forums/diseases/dinoflagellates-calothrix-107599.html

 

Is it better ?

 

wow, Corailline is amazing in finding applicable threads Doesn't look like dinos to me either.

 

kinda looks like what I got..

 

have you been able to find something to help it? I think on some of the threads it says to run carbon, manual removal with water changes.......

 

I actually saw something similar to this in a LFS display tank. Absolutely took over, the guy I usually deal with said he took all the coral out and dipped them/ scrubbed all the rocks and pvc displays and it came back within hours. Might need some pretty drastic algae management plans. For example, getting the flow up, GFO, manually scraping it off rocks, maybe a vingear/peroxide bath?

 

I had something VERY similar to this years ago. It was very "snot" like. I never did find out what type or how to get rid of it. Water params were always perfect, no nitrates or phosphates. Always stumped me. Problem is if I cleaned it off, the spores just ended up floating around in the water column until it settled and started growing again. I could scrape the glass and it would be back the next day. I ended up taking that tank down. lol.

Here was my unsolved and not-updated thread. http://www.3reef.com/forums/algae/dinoflagellates-calothrix-98973.html

edit* there was one peculuar thing that seemed to make a difference. When I dosed the tank with Maracyn (erythromycin) to treat cyano, this algae went away for a few days (like it was working) but them came back as if the dose wasnt strong enough (took care of the cyano problem though)

This made me believe it was not algae but some type of bacteria or species of dinoflagellates. I always wanted to try Dr. Tims balancing bacteria for long term maintenance, but never got around to it.

 

I just did a little reading on a thread where the person's issue looked like yours. Advice was run GFO, carbon, reduce the lighting period and do a few water changes or a couple of larger ones while manually removing it when you do a water change. Someone also mentioned it could be a type of bacterial "mat" like bloom......HTH