rust colered algae

HELP! My live rock suddenly had an outburst of a rust colered algea over the surface. The tank has been cycling for a week and the amonnia levels are still at about 0.25. It appears that the outbust is spreading to the base rocks and also I noticed that the return line from my wet/dry sump has some algae in it also. Any ideas before the entire tank goes rusty?

 

relax it sounds like diatom algae . you must still be cycling its part of the process. you will likely get some more and more. let it cycle. how long has it been running.

 

I added the live rock this time last week. The tank has been running for nearly a month prior to that.

 

ya its cycling. check your params im not too bad matbe you can add a small cleaner crew to keep things in check and dont keep light on as long.

 

Thanks very much! I cut back the light time and keep tabs on the parameters

 

clean up crew or wait it out...diatoms are very easy to get rid of. when they are gone, and film and hair algae come in you will wish you still had them.

 

LMAO!

 

Amen John!!! Amen!!! I have a patch of GHA left...one little patch that I'm sure I'll be taking the tweezers to soon. The hermits are working on it though, so I'm letting them for a little bit...GREAT CLEAN UP CREW took care of the rest of it! That one little patch is all the nuisance algae I have left!

Ginny

 

I got the clean up crew going last weekend and the tank looks good. The hermits have done a good job on the hair algea that was starting to appear on the live rock. So far Im pleased with how the tank is cycling.

 

If it were up to me, I would always have one little patch of GHA. Its a great nitrate/phosphate reducer. Unfortunately it doesnt always stay as a little patch. In my first setup, i battled with GHA. My second, and current setup, im dealing with cyano (plenty of flow and oxygenation)- just one of those things that likes to annoy me, and can't seem to get rid of. Any tank will strive for equilibrium. And by that, I mean that it will find some method to reduce nitrates/phosphates, to which the number one method is the growth of algae (just like the ocean). But overall, I'd take GHA over cyano any day.