• Help identify the type of algae.

  • Kyle

Hello. Please help me decide. I'm starting a marine tank, the volume is very small, 27 liters. As soon as the nitrites, nitrates, and phosphates became zero, this stuff started appearing... First, the walls of the aquarium turned green, unfortunately, I don't have a photo of that, then the rocks started having issues, Iā€™m attaching a photo... I repeat, nitrites, nitrates, and phosphates are zero! I didn't turn on the lighting for one day, and immediately "this" decreased, but some white spots appeared, even looking with my own eyes I can't figure out what it is, maybe the rock just looks whiter against the rusty background?! Diatoms supposedly don't like light, but here it's the opposite, and it looks just like diatoms! I don't understand! And what can they feed on with zero nitrate levels? When there were a lot of nitrites and nitrates, everything was as clean as a glass! I'm confused?

John

And why are you enlightening an empty aquarium? You don't have any corals there, do you?

Joshua9847

Diatoms or something like that. Algae will be present even with zero phosphates and nitrates, they will appear anyway. Moreover, with zero levels, scary dinoflagellates are more likely to appear. Your aquarium is just maturing. I believe that an aquarium matures more properly when there are small amounts of nitrates and phosphates, as there is a certain bacterial mass that is ready to constantly convert ammonia from fish into nitrate.