coraline hair algae?

[feixjai]

is there such thing as coraline hair algae? i was lookiing at my tank and noticed that im starting to have coraline growth iin my sand bed. when i look closer, i see what looks like stringy red things that i assume is algae. is this a good thing? i also noticed that i have bubbles under the sand bed. is this also a good thing or bad? should i get a stick and put the sand so the bubbles come out?

 

[airforceb2]

The bubbles are normal and nothing to worry about. As for the algae, can you get a picture of it? It sounds more like cyano than coraline. Is it purple or red?

 

[feixjai]

it is a little purple and a little red for the stringy things but the spots under the sand its red. is cyano good or bad? i never really heard about this before

 

[airforceb2]

It is bad. Read this post...
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/show...ighlight=cyano

 

[dhughesz28]

Thats an awsome post, I also have a patch of sand in my tank about 4x4" that is covered in this dark green slimy hair algae/cyno... I looked at my timer and OMG I didnt realize that it comes on for 11 hours a day!! So I have put it down to 4h a day. The tank is a 12g with only 1 damsel, so the tank doesnt really need that much light anyway. But Ill try the turkey bster thing and feeding less also. Ill report back with my results!

 

[feixjai]

alrite so i read that thread on thursday and decided to do something about it even though it was 11 in the morning and i had school the next day. so i came back from a weekend and stayed at our san jose house. cut my light timer to half which is at 6 hours right now. i didnt feed them for 2 days since i was gone. ok came home looked at my tank and lights were off. it was on at 2 and then off at 7. and i only noticed about 2 strands of this cyano. got a turkey blaster and took it out. is that a good sign that there are less and less. and i also put another powerhead one that is shooting water behind the rocks. should i now increse the light time by 1 hour?

 

[feixjai]

anyone? i noticed today that i dont have any more but i want to make sure that i have killed it. should i do a water change? im going to the lfs tomarrow to buy remixed water

 

[airforceb2]

You should be good to go. You can increase the extra hour but I wouldn't go much longer than that. If you see algae starting to grow again, cut the lights back down till you find a happy median. I would say noon to 6 or 7 would be sufficient.