Algae turning white

[carriej]

Algae turning white
Hi Folks,

My tank has been running since October. Not much in there, a handful of nassarius snails, 1 trochus snail and a couple scarlet hermits. Also have two little reef chromis.

Tank Info :
125 gallon (72x18x24)
150 lbs marco rock
25lbs live rock
120lbs live sand

Currently just using two koralia powerheads (the big ones, what are they.. 1400gph?) while I wait for my overflow/sump/skimmer to come in.

Levels are:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - <5 (almost untraceable)

Initially, I had a big diatom bloom (this was about a month or so ago) and it went away relatively fast. I then got some various types of algae in varying shades of green.

I had this filament algae (grew in short little bushels) and some of them got quite long. I noticed the past week or so (I didnt bother scraping anywhere but the front glass) that all of it has turned white. Everything seems to be fine otherwise. It's just a bit weird seeing all this white algae. The one trochus snail I have is eating it, but I mean it's just one snail.

Just wanted to know if this is normal, or if theres something I should be concerned about.

[Proteus]

Big nose on the forum here once had same thing. MSG him and see what his remedy was

[FragIt Dan]

Possible your algae has gone reproductive. Many algae have several life stages, so it may have just move from one to another. Given no other significant changes I would say this is likely what has happened and have seen it happen in my tank years ago. There would be many possible reasons for it doing so, none of which would concern me were it my tank. You might want to do a water change just as an opportunity to get some if that biological material out of the tank while it is suspended in the water column or sluffing off your rocks. Alternatively you may get a bit of nitrate build up as it decays.