Chrysophytes?! Help me cure it?

taricha

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They don't grow any longer than that. They stay mostly white. But I get no long stringing or bubbles.
That does sound a very good match, though sometimes prorocentrum dinos can appear more yellowish than brown.

And I saw one freakish case of stringy diatoms with similar appearance.
 

Bigfudge

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I'm so glad that I found this thread after @Dimmy007 thought my problem was this and not Dinos. Just finished reading the whole thread - Sticky Worthy IMO.

Just for my sake, can the experts here confirm my suspicions that I am in-fact dealing with Chyso.

Thanks!
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Elwood Dowd

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That does sound a very good match, though sometimes prorocentrum dinos can appear more yellowish than brown.

And I saw one freakish case of stringy diatoms with similar appearance.
I am getting excited here. What I suspected to be chryso's are receeding. Much like how it when with bryopsis. The high light areas are starting to clear up and the lower light stuff seems to be reacting a bit slower. But they are reacting. This is exciting to me.
 

taricha

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I'm so glad that I found this thread after @Dimmy007 thought my problem was this and not Dinos. Just finished reading the whole thread - Sticky Worthy IMO.

Just for my sake, can the experts here confirm my suspicions that I am in-fact dealing with Chyso.

Thanks!

Shape is right, color is right, the distribution is right - these should be embedded in a gelatinous matrix. If this is at high magnification, and these are motionless, then I would say they fit 100% what we are looking at.
 

taricha

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I am getting excited here. What I suspected to be chryso's are receeding. Much like how it when with bryopsis. The high light areas are starting to clear up and the lower light stuff seems to be reacting a bit slower. But they are reacting. This is exciting to me.
Responding to fluco?
 

Bigfudge

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Shape is right, color is right, the distribution is right - these should be embedded in a gelatinous matrix. If this is at high magnification, and these are motionless, then I would say they fit 100% what we are looking at.

Ya I got an AmScope 40-1000x Microscope. Motionless under the scope and they are in gelatinous mass . Thanks for the confirmation! Now I gotta re-read the thread to come up with a plan to get rid of them. Got a sinking suspicion this is the crap thats been covering my rocks as well. Just finished a Chemi-Clean battery that got rid of all the Cyano on the sand bed before I got the scope.
 
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taricha

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So I got a sample of chrysophytes from @MentalNote and I wanted to check to compare them vs the zooxanthellae from corals, because of their size and shape these chrysophytes were at first suggested to be something like the dinoflagellates that grow in our corals. Every picture I've seen looks too light gold but light in photos can be funny so I wanted to compare in the same shot.
20190424_160022.jpg 20190424_160411.jpg 20190424_160428.jpg 20190424_160325.jpg

This is zooxanthellae (symbiodinium dinos) from a coral as the reddish brown cells vs the Chrysophytes which are much more yellow.
Almost certain these chrysophytes aren't any sort of dinoflagellate, despite their slimy snotty appearance in a tank. the pigment sets are so totally different.
 

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Thanks to this thread, I just confirmed ID on the brown snotty algae plaguing my brs reefsaver in my 6 month old tank. 50lbs of pukani has zero trace, but 80 lbs of reefsaver is covered. Purple urchins are making s huge dent in it, but not enough.

Going to reread, but I’ll be ordering fluconazole snd starting treatment as soon as I can

Thanks
 

BoSalman

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Awakening an old thread after positive ID of chrystos in my system which gave me headaches for the past 4 months or so!

What do you guys suggest as a course of action? My first blackout did knock them.out only to have them back after 3 months!

Do i need to start GFO to pull out silicates? Or do i begin treating with fluco?

I'm somewhat confused between few threads suggesting dosing N and P (i have high levels already), and between GFO/Fluco..etc?

Any updates are highly appreciated!
 

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Ill tell you how I’m approaching it. Ymmv

1) I have zero detectable nitrate. Dosing potassium nitrate to 5ppm

2) phosphates at 0.4. I’m running a gfo reactor for 24 hours, at the 8g/ gallon suggested on the label of brs premium. Silicate removal. I’ll probably run it 48 to drop phosphate a bit too

3) manual removal by scrubbing and filtering.

4) no blackout

5) no fluc

6) thinking of dosing ARC coraline spores in a bottle for niche competition.


I’m hoping the initial scrub induces the remainder to try to repopulate, but the lack of silicate will inhibit. Then the raised nitrate s d some phosphate will allow GHA to colonize. I’ll then rely on my two tangs and mag Foxface to keep that in check.

I don’t know/

I’ll see how it goes. Aiming to scrub and run gfo by mid week
 

bwomac44

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This is definitely what I have. Motionless..
Isn’t bothering my corals, so I’m thankful it’s not Dinos.. had stingy brown dinos (stn’d A couple birds eat frags, bad stuff) and this golden fluffy snot at the same time. Had undetectable phosphates so I dosed Aquavitro Activate which really helped rid the Dinos. Now I’ve gotta let the phosphates creep back down to a reasonable (detectable) number and continue sucking this stuff out during water changes (I use airline tubing and get 90% of it each water change with twice a week 5 gallon changes (120 gallon tank)).

I have a feeling that the manual removal and letting my nutrients settle in at lower (still detectable) consistent levels will cycle this stuff out.

The first year of your first tank is ridiculous.... life lessons being learned.. Understanding patience and research is the answer

Not finding as much as I would hope on this topic. Suppose it is because this stuff is not all that common (from what I’m reading).

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cmcoker

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I had this, I ran 2 rounds of gfo for 24 hours, while vacuuming sand bed. I did 5g of vacuuming a day for 3 days, as well as suck what I could off the rocks.
I had high nitrate, low po4 so I have been dosing po4.
I also changed my di resin, it was starting to get a little color change. I use Spectrapures silicate buster resin, so I think it was past due for a change.

Tank has been clear of them since I did this about 6 weeks ago
 

taricha

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The first year of your first tank is ridiculous.... life lessons being learned.. Understanding patience and research is the answer

Not finding as much as I would hope on this topic. Suppose it is because this stuff is not all that common (from what I’m reading).
Ya gotta realize how crazy this is. We're suggesting that a photosynthetic pest that blooms in our tanks is not a chlorophyte green algae, rhodophyte red algae, nor a Cyanobacteria or a diatom or a dinoflagellate. None of the common things.
But is instead a member of a totally different class which scientific lit usually only refers to in freshwater.

It's a pretty outrageous claim, but the best info we have points here. :)
Also first year in the hobby? You totally have permission to just call it "the uglies" and ignore everything that you don't like.
 

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Ill tell you how I’m approaching it. Ymmv

1) I have zero detectable nitrate. Dosing potassium nitrate to 5ppm

2) phosphates at 0.4. I’m running a gfo reactor for 24 hours, at the 8g/ gallon suggested on the label of brs premium. Silicate removal. I’ll probably run it 48 to drop phosphate a bit too

3) manual removal by scrubbing and filtering.

4) no blackout

5) no fluc

6) thinking of dosing ARC coraline spores in a bottle for niche competition.


I’m hoping the initial scrub induces the remainder to try to repopulate, but the lack of silicate will inhibit. Then the raised nitrate s d some phosphate will allow GHA to colonize. I’ll then rely on my two tangs and mag Foxface to keep that in check.

I don’t know/

I’ll see how it goes. Aiming to scrub and run gfo by mid week

I kinda forgot to update this thread.

So- my approach didn’t work.

I did a huge manual scrub and filter out the particles using a brs dual reactor filled with floss. I also ran GFO for the 24 hours to remove silicates

Two days after starting gfo I did a 60% water change, siphoned any remaining patches, then dosed nitrate to 7ppm using potassium nitrate. Phosphates were down to 0.05 after the gfo.

Anyway- I was back to square 1 after maybe 3 weeks. Did that cycle of treatment twice in 2 weeks but it grew back. I do have 1 patch on my rock that isn’t covered- possible my elevated nutrients are stopping rapid new growth Precehting colonization but still enough to grow in place. Current stuff is looser and easier to siphon off but comes back in a werk


I’m now considering either peroxide treatment (dosing in tank) or fluconazole. I’m unsure if the fluconazole dosage though- any tips?

Thanks
 

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I had this, I ran 2 rounds of gfo for 24 hours, while vacuuming sand bed. I did 5g of vacuuming a day for 3 days, as well as suck what I could off the rocks.
I had high nitrate, low po4 so I have been dosing po4.
I also changed my di resin, it was starting to get a little color change. I use Spectrapures silicate buster resin, so I think it was past due for a change.

Tank has been clear of them since I did this about 6 weeks ago
What are you using to dose phosphate?

Thanks

Glad you got over it- it’s a tough one
 

Graffiti Spot

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I have to go back and read this thread. This is probably what has been piping up randomly in my tank. It’s pretty annoying and seems to pop up when nutrients rise. Some of it will float to the water surface when it gets bad, lots of bubbles and slimey stuff. Normally it goes away if I tend to it and turn lights off for a day but I would love to figure out how to push it out of the tank for good or st least keep it from exploding randomly.
 

LARedstickreefer

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This looks like the mess that I fight with. When it shows up, it’s no joke. It really upsets any corals that it gets near.

My current battle began when I went to town with food and dosing nitrates and phosphates. I turned off my skimmer and bought the WRONG Hanna reagents for phosphate.

ICP test showed I had 0.22ppm phosphate when my Hanna (with the wrong reagent) showed 0.02ppm.

I’ve since stopped over feeding, got my skimmer going, and keep putting my snails in the mess to encourage eating it.

I didn’t want to let nutrients bottom out, so I got some Tropic Marin Plus NP to keep some phosphate and nitrates present while I skim and floss this mess away.
 
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