Green spot, brown diatoms, blue-green (actually cyanobacteria), hair algae – I’ve had them all. I tell you how to identify each type by appearance and what imbalance (light, CO2, nutrients) caused it. Then how to fix it.
Look, everyone wants that purple-pink crust on their live rock. It’s the holy grail of reef tanks. But here’s the thing — coralline algae doesn’t just show up because you wish for it. It’s basically a badge of honor that says “my tank is stable
Sooner or later, no matter how hard we try, but every aquarium gets algae. There is no way around it, especially if you are going for a planted tank and you are running highlights. In general, algae are harmless other than the fact that it