Hairy purple algae spreading fast

[Bill Sprake]

How can you get rid of this stuff? It is all over; on and in the sand and on the walls and LR too. How do you make it go away please? Thanks, Bill

[Big_Pun]

is it purple or dark red, sounds like red slim. need info on your tank to help, how old is tank whats in it, also what are you using as a filter and for flow

[Bill Sprake]

Purple Algae.jpg
This is a pic of the stuff. Hard to tell what color - looks purple to me. The stuff in the water flow is long and stringy. I have 1 Flame Ang, 3 clowns, some hermits, 6 or so nassarius snails, 2 clearner shrimps, two clams and a chocolate star in the 45 g. I have a 200 Penguim bio-wheele and a Regent power heads for flow. I'll get my tank measurements soon...

[txav8r]

Thats cyano.

[Bill Sprake]

Thats cyano.

Jack et al, how do you eradicate?

[txav8r]

It's caused by high nitrates. Feed less, do water changes(RODI) and cut down on lighting for a bit.

[Europhyllia]

cyano will grow in conditions where even most real algae can't make it. I couldn't keep my macro alive because my nutrients were too low but I still can sustain cyano...

[Big_Pun]

It's caused by high nitrates. Feed less, do water changes(RODI) and cut down on lighting for a bit.

yup what TXav8r said,maybe add some kind of filter media like bag of chemipure elite to help with nutrients or phosban

[Bill Sprake]

Should I simply scoop it out, stir the substrate and get a bag of chemipure elite and let the filtration process? I guess the power head could be adjusted differently for better or different flow...

[Big_Pun]

yea you can suck it out also, but as long as you have a nutrient problem it will come back, did you upgrade lights or anything recently, my pico went thru this when i went to LEDs, and it had been setup for 4-5 months before upgrade