Maroon colored algea?

[davidrupe]

I have a dark red or maroon colored algea growing on many of my rocks and on my sand. What is this? Is it good?

 

[Brian]

Cyano?

 

[Clam Man]

picture ? is there alot of air bubbles

 

[this is me]

sounds like cyano to me. and seeing how you just setting up your tank, it most likely be cyano. If its slimy,and has air bubbles in it, it definitely cyano.
Have fun

 

[Clam Man]

cut back on feeding
more water flow
try sucking out as much as possible with air line
and do water changes
if this fails try tunze or ocean motion set up

 

[Moe_K]

yeah pics would help. if you can get them.
there are several red macro algae that will grow in our tanks. these would be good. cyano is bad.

 

[NateHanson]

I get a thin rust colored algae growing in my quarantine tank sometimes (I use filtered tap water in there, and have low flow). Maybe that helps you, maybe it doesn't. But now you know.

 

[davidrupe]

No pictures. I will take one tonight.
I think it is Cyano. It is full of air and only in lower flow areas.
Why is it bad?

 

[Bidadari]

I don't think Cyano harm corals or fish. It is bad because it looks ugly & it takes a while for cyano to disappear. It took me about 3 months to get rid of cyano from my tank. Definetely, frequent water changes, increase flow & less feeding will help. Good luck.

 

[Brian]

I'm no expert on the stuff but the result of leaving it unchecked is it can virtually disolve corals and or liverock it comes in contact with. It's nasty stuff

 

[Armando]

it could be fish poop

j/k

 

[~Flighty~]

I'm no expert on the stuff but the result of leaving it unchecked is it can virtually disolve corals and or liverock it comes in contact with. It's nasty stuff

Wow, really? I had it for about a month and changing lights has virtually eliminated it. I saw no negative effects. It still grows on the glass a little and there are patches on the sand, but none is growing on the rock or macroalge any more. I can see it would choke corals if you let it sit there, but how could it hurt LR? It never hurt my corals and did sit for quite a while on some hitchhiker cup corals.

 

[Brian]

It may have been something else but the one time I let it cover coral/LR (was on vacation at the time) when I did clean it off the coral and coral structure was gone down to white rock, and it seemed as though it'd somehow managed to "melt" the LR. Any ways, since then I've had it a few times on the glass and sand but always delt with it as swiftly as possible. Just my experance with the stuff, could be different for others...