Pink algae on sand on some rock.

[RickB]

Never seen this before, it is like a thin layer of pink algae that is slowly starting to cover the sand and part of a rock in the center of my tank.

Is best removal to disturb and syphon?

What could be causing it, overfeeding? overstocking or too many nutrients?

Tank is 60(l) x 40(w) x 45(h) and has 2x 24w t5 ho tubes, external ef 1000 filter, co2 at 2 bps set at 40ppm, ferts are tnc complete 3 x 7ml a week, 50% water change weekly.

Livestock is 8 neon tetra, 2 dwarf gourami, 1 bolivian ram, 5 zebra danio, 6 oto, 4 amano shrimp.

 

[zozo]

Hard to say, the cause is always introduction for the rest it is just a guess.. There are quite some algae sp. around and probably more not yet described or reported in aqaurium. I had a simular one roaming my tank for a few weeks it covered a piece of wood with in weeks with a red flufy coating, sticking out like a soar thumb.. Never found out what kind of algae it was, probably a sp. of rodophyta, which commenly shows as BBA in our tanks and usualy this algae turn red when it's dead. In my case it was growing and only got more red every day..

This was only the beginning. I have more and clearer pics of it, but unfortunately not accessible at the time (crashed hdd) This pic was taken before any spot treatment..

After some time and spot treatment it went away on it's own.. I remeber it develop shortly after using some medication in the tank that was deluted in alcohol. It's just a guess if there was a relation to it, adding alcohol is adding extra organic carbon. Could be just coincidence.. I even do not realy know if it was algae or some kind of fungus or a bacterial biofilm. Also never saw it before and never saw it again..

What you could do is kill it with H2O2 spot treatment to prevent it from spreading.

 

[RickB]

thanks for the reply zozo, it is almost like a flakey texture to look at and looks almost like it is creeping.

Edit: I think I just answered my own question there, it probably is left over food that has settled in a possible dead spot for flow and this is the result.

On Wednesday I am planning to eliminate dead spots by adding a spine of rock through the center of the tank to direct flow around the outside, I will also cut down on the amount of flakes I use.