large amounts of algea on rocks

skorte09

Member
My tank has been set up for about 2 months now and there is a lot of purple algea covering the rocks. Is this bad?
 

sergeant

Member
As long as that algea is not cyano bacteria you should be good.
Check your water parameters and if the numbers are good then add a cleanup crew.
 

trigger78

Member
Sounds like cyano, IMO. If it is then you could get lucky and catch it fast or it can spread thoughout the tank. There are a bunch of post on this board to search for help. I have been trying to get rid of a bad case of Red Slime, "Cyano" for quite a while. I've been doing more water changes, and I have decreased the lights down from 10/day to 5/day over two weeks time then increased the lights back to 10/day after 85% of it was gone. There is now a spot thats about the size of a half dollar after close to 8 weeks. Good luck in any case.
 

lion_crazz

Active Member
Check your levels. Cyno is usually from poor water conditions, overfeeding, etc.
How easy is the stuff to scrape off? If it is difficult, I highly doubt it is cyno. Cyno is usually very easily removed, whereas coralline algae (purple algae) is not.
Sounds like cyno to me too, but check your water parameters just to make sure. This way, you can correct your problem as well.
 

skorte09

Member
I did all the tests and everything was okay except the salinity was a little high. The plankton stuff is everywhere. The rocks, sand bed, glass, and is very easy to remove. Thanks for the help. It actually looks more dark red then dark purple.
 

liquidskys

Member
sounds like Red slime for sure
Ive had pretty good luck with Marine SAT
cleared my tank up quickly and nicely.. and had no problems untill i was braindead and added 40+ lbs of liverock to my tank along with a few new corals.. :nope: not good caused a huge cycle..

but yeah red slim isnt that hard to tame as long as you get on top of it soon!
do you use RO/DI water or tap?
 

skorte09

Member
Thanks for the help. I guess the lighting is on way to long so im goint to shorten it. By the way i use tap water.
 
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