Brown Seaweed and Green Hair Algae

Hi,

I am having problems with Brown Seaweed and Green Hair Algae. In the Brown Seaweed picture you can also see some kind of half circle flat seaweed also. photo(6).jpg is not a great picture but you can see the green algae growing on the right hand side top platform. It has since started to spread to other areas of the tank now. My Nitrates are at about 0.01 and my Phosphates are at 0.04 and yet this stuff is growing like nobodies business. I have been adding RedSea Reef Energy A and B recently so could this be the issue?

Thanks!

 

I can't say the issue for sure. Are you using water?

The brown algae looks kind of like ulva, I think. Its a macro algae that should actually help with bad algae as time goes on. Lots of people like it, and other different types of macros because there are lots of cool types and its a natural user that prevents all the micro alga.

 

I like the look of the brown stuff myself but im just worried its going to start taking over the tank. I have moved the large top rock covered with Algae into the sump (with no light) so hopefully given a week or so it will have died off. Maybe their are Phosphates leaching out of this rock still? The tank is only up and running a few months. Also, its very close to the lights with my tank being so shallow. At the moment im running 3 white, 2 blue and one red T5's. I'm going to swicth one of the whites for a blue to see if that helps the situation.

 

I would switch the red out. That's a big part of your problem. Reds/pinks are in the usable range for algae, hence why plant lights are often pink in freshwater tanks. The ulva shouldn't be a problem, but chances are that you'll need to prune it occasionally.