Chrysophytes? GHA?

[Gold1]

Hey everybody - adding my pictures and question to a long line of others trying to figure out what's going on in their tank. I've been battling whatever this is for weeks. It doesn't look as stringy as GHA or BHA but there are some stringy parts. I'll toothbrush it off, clean it from my overflow vents and back wall, etc. and it's back the next day. My clowns love sleeping in it, and it doesn't seem to bother any of the other fish (Tomini tang and Coral beauty angel pick at it once in a while) but it just looks ugly and clogs up my filters. It's also hard to tell if my CUC - 4 turbo snails, 6 trochus snails, 12 bumblebee snails, 4 hermit crabs, 2 emerald crabs care about it at all (but none appear to be starving).

Tank is a red sea max S500 and has been running for 6 months. Running Red Sea skimmer that drains back to the sump. I have an extra wave maker in there to move water from side to side. Refugium with chaeto and (what I believe is) codium. 78F, 8.0-8.1 ph 1.025 Salinity, 8 dkH alkalinity. I have 0 phosphates (Hanna ULR) and 0 Nitrates (API). I run my day lights on a 10 hour cycle, refugium at night for 9 hours. I feel quite lost reading up on ways to fix things. A lot says overfeeding leads to algae growth but then I see 0 phosphates and nitrates need more food and dosing. I purchased trisodium phosphate to try dosing to get any sign to show up on the meter which will arrive over the weekend since I heard that could cause issues to have 0 phosphate but I also do want to make the situation worse.

Would appreciate a more experienced hand weighing in on possible fixes.

 

[Dan_P]

Hey everybody - adding my pictures and question to a long line of others trying to figure out what's going on in their tank. I've been battling whatever this is for weeks. It doesn't look as stringy as GHA or BHA but there are some stringy parts. I'll toothbrush it off, clean it from my overflow vents and back wall, etc. and it's back the next day. My clowns love sleeping in it, and it doesn't seem to bother any of the other fish (Tomini tang and Coral beauty angel pick at it once in a while) but it just looks ugly and clogs up my filters. It's also hard to tell if my CUC - 4 turbo snails, 6 trochus snails, 12 bumblebee snails, 4 hermit crabs, 2 emerald crabs care about it at all (but none appear to be starving).

Tank is a red sea max S500 and has been running for 6 months. Running Red Sea skimmer that drains back to the sump. I have an extra wave maker in there to move water from side to side. Refugium with chaeto and (what I believe is) codium. 78F, 8.0-8.1 ph 1.025 Salinity, 8 dkH alkalinity. I have 0 phosphates (Hanna ULR) and 0 Nitrates (API). I run my day lights on a 10 hour cycle, refugium at night for 9 hours. I feel quite lost reading up on ways to fix things. A lot says overfeeding leads to algae growth but then I see 0 phosphates and nitrates need more food and dosing. I purchased trisodium phosphate to try dosing to get any sign to show up on the meter which will arrive over the weekend since I heard that could cause issues to have 0 phosphate but I also do want to make the situation worse.

Would appreciate a more experienced hand weighing in on possible fixes.

Looks like a massive cyanobacteria bloom

 

[Gold1]

Looks like a massive cyanobacteria bloom

Thanks - I wondered that as well but didn't seem to get many of the same hits as I saw for other folks with cyano. Mine is stringy, no air bubbles, and golden-brownish. It is on rocks and the sand bed so I could see that being a +1 to cyano. The water is clear though and there's no red or blue-green in the growth. But I'm also not opposed to treating it as if it were cyano and seeing what happens.

 

[Ethan789987]

Thanks - I wondered that as well but didn't seem to get many of the same hits as I saw for other folks with cyano. Mine is stringy, no air bubbles, and golden-brownish. It is on rocks and the sand bed so I could see that being a +1 to cyano. The water is clear though and there's no red or blue-green in the growth. But I'm also not opposed to treating it as if it were cyano and seeing what happens.

Did you ever figure out what this is or get rid of it? I have been dealing with the same issue.

 

[markron]

Hey everybody - adding my pictures and question to a long line of others trying to figure out what's going on in their tank. I've been battling whatever this is for weeks. It doesn't look as stringy as GHA or BHA but there are some stringy parts. I'll toothbrush it off, clean it from my overflow vents and back wall, etc. and it's back the next day. My clowns love sleeping in it, and it doesn't seem to bother any of the other fish (Tomini tang and Coral beauty angel pick at it once in a while) but it just looks ugly and clogs up my filters. It's also hard to tell if my CUC - 4 turbo snails, 6 trochus snails, 12 bumblebee snails, 4 hermit crabs, 2 emerald crabs care about it at all (but none appear to be starving).

https://lldcalculator.com/how-to-get-mutagon-in-loomian-legacy/
Tank is a red sea max S500 and has been running for 6 months. Running Red Sea skimmer that drains back to the sump. I have an extra wave maker in there to move water from side to side. Refugium with chaeto and (what I believe is) codium. 78F, 8.0-8.1 ph 1.025 Salinity, 8 dkH alkalinity. I have 0 phosphates (Hanna ULR) and 0 Nitrates (API). I run my day lights on a 10 hour cycle, refugium at night for 9 hours. I feel quite lost reading up on ways to fix things. A lot says overfeeding leads to algae growth but then I see 0 phosphates and nitrates need more food and dosing. I purchased trisodium phosphate to try dosing to get any sign to show up on the meter which will arrive over the weekend since I heard that could cause issues to have 0 phosphate but I also do want to make the situation worse.

Would appreciate a more experienced hand weighing in on possible fixes.

I didn't pay enough attention until about a month ago I suddenly realized this algae has taken over about half of my rocks

To be honest, I'm not sure when it started...

45G tank, no sump, HOB skimmer (wet skimming). Almost 3 years old tank.
I switched to a new BRS RODI unit about maybe 3 months ago.
I feed once every other day with frozen food and occasional reef chili. I stopped using pellet food last month since I thought that could be introducing Phosphate.

Temperature: 78F
CA: ~450
KH: ~9.4
MG: ~1350

1. I have then removed a few small pieces of the rocks that were covered by the algae.
2. Over the Labor day weekend I did 3 consecutive large water changes with some heavy manual removal.
3. CUC: 1 emerald crab and about 10 snails (mix of astrea and margarita), they don't seem to help that much.
4. Last week, reduced lighting period by 2 hours, i think it's at 8 hours now (LED).

Pictures showing the algae. It's soft to touch and doesn't seem to grow too long. Some spots I can easily "peel" it off of the rocks.

It does not seem to grow on the underside of the rocks.

I also have a bit of cyano issue on the bottom corners of the tank, but not very severe.

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!