Cyano? It's mustard yellow.

[Salt1972]

Randy-

We have a problem with a mustard yellow growth that started approx. 5 months ago. Initially, it was easily brushed / blown away, but returned within days. Over time, it has killed multiple corals.

• We dose BRS 2 part.
• We stopped dosing vinegar in mid May at the suggestion of some forum members saying this is cyano.
• We started a UV sterilizer 2 weeks ago.
• We've been doing weekly 40g water changes (125g system) with heavy gravel vacuum.
• We use GFO & ROX.8 Carbon in filter bags in the sump
• We change filter pads daily.
• We skim heavy / wet.

It's better, but still far from good.

Parameters:
1.026 salinity - IO switching to Fritz RPM (more desirable dKH)
Temp 79
NO3 - 5
PO4 - .09
Alk - 8.5dKh
Ca - 465
Mag - 1440
pH - 8.2

We have TONS of flow - (2) wave makers + (1) large Gyre type pump + healthy turnover through sump.

Kessil lighting on a 10 hour ramp up/down schedule with very little white.

We're at our wits end. This growth has systematically killed about 20 SPS frags, monti, digitata, cyphastreas, and our duncans and frogspawn are not fully extending anymore.

Any advice? Thank you for your time.

Matt

 

[eggplantparrot]

got any pics? sounds awesome and terrible at the same time

 

[Salt1972]

got any pics? sounds awesome and terrible at the same time

Sure. I thought I had posted 1 in the original post, but it didn't work. Let's try this...

 

[eggplantparrot]

Sure. I thought I had posted 1 in the original post, but it didn't work. Let's try this...

woah thats pretty cool

 

[Salt1972]

woah thats pretty cool

I’ll sell you some cheap...

 

[dbjonesjr]

Following to see opinions. I had the same sh¡t in a cube I’m breaking down because of it.

 

[taricha]

I vote chrysophytes. But I’d feel better about guessing if I saw it under whiter light.

Is it gelatinous? Can you pull some of the slime out of the water?

 

[Bpainter3]

Looks like what we call green slime. Red slime remover will work just fine

 

[Dan_P]

Randy-

We have a problem with a mustard yellow growth that started approx. 5 months ago. Initially, it was easily brushed / blown away, but returned within days. Over time, it has killed multiple corals.

• We dose BRS 2 part.
• We stopped dosing vinegar in mid May at the suggestion of some forum members saying this is cyano.
• We started a UV sterilizer 2 weeks ago.
• We've been doing weekly 40g water changes (125g system) with heavy gravel vacuum.
• We use GFO & ROX.8 Carbon in filter bags in the sump
• We change filter pads daily.
• We skim heavy / wet.

It's better, but still far from good.

Parameters:
1.026 salinity - IO switching to Fritz RPM (more desirable dKH)
Temp 79
NO3 - 5
PO4 - .09
Alk - 8.5dKh
Ca - 465
Mag - 1440
pH - 8.2

We have TONS of flow - (2) wave makers + (1) large Gyre type pump + healthy turnover through sump.

Kessil lighting on a 10 hour ramp up/down schedule with very little white.

We're at our wits end. This growth has systematically killed about 20 SPS frags, monti, digitata, cyphastreas, and our duncans and frogspawn are not fully extending anymore.

Any advice? Thank you for your time.

Matt

Just another perspective...

I am inclined to think the other way round. There is the main problem of dying coral and a secondary problem of unwanted microorganism growth. The second problem might be caused by the coral death.

Instead of focusing on the microorganisms, investigate why the coral are dying.

 

[Bpainter3]

Just another perspective...

I am inclined to think the other way round. There is the main problem of dying coral and a secondary problem of unwanted microorganism growth. The second problem might be caused by the coral death.

Instead of focusing on the microorganisms, investigate why the coral are dying.

He said the coral is dying from the microorganism

 

[Dan_P]

He said the coral is dying from the microorganism

Yes, I know. I am proposing that the hypothesis might be incorrect and to consider another perspective.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed on that

Even though we’ve never collected any invader like this in our common tank headache invasion threads / very low lying not stringy not whorled or bushy growths like chrysophytes / I cannot recall a single matted organism that literally lyses or chemically kills coral polyps

Dinos will overgrow and smother agreed given enough aggregation allowed but once removed polyp is still alive

Same for every variant of cyano we’ve ever seen. They blanket, but just rest on top

Still don’t know what this is get a cheap scope shot high res from amazon toy microscope

Coral specific invasions like bjd won’t take over non living areas they’re tissue invaders

My opinion you have a niche finding rare color hitchhiker tbd and coral loss is separate matter or it’s being allowed to sit on top of corals long enough to restrict normal actions. Can you score rent or find a giant pond uv sterilizer for a few mos, as you hand remove the target and allow zero massing onward

 

[Salt1972]

Just another perspective...

I am inclined to think the other way round. There is the main problem of dying coral and a secondary problem of unwanted microorganism growth. The second problem might be caused by the coral death.

Instead of focusing on the microorganisms, investigate why the coral are dying.

Always appreciate alternate perspectives... and I'm here for advice. The growth appears as tiny bubbles on the rock work and progresses into the yellow slime the next day. It spreads rapidly. As it touches corals, they recede. If I don't brush / blow the growth off of the corals, it kills them within 24 hours. The problem is this stuff can grow overnight. I really believe there is little chance the corals are dying and then this stuff moves in... it seems very apparent to be the opposite. Maybe I'm wrong??

 

[Salt1972]

Agreed on that

Even though we’ve never collected any invader like this in our common tank headache invasion threads / very low lying not stringy not whorled or bushy growths like chrysophytes / I cannot recall a single matted organism that literally lyses or chemically kills coral polyps

Dinos will overgrow and smother agreed given enough aggregation allowed but once removed polyp is still alive

Same for every variant of cyano we’ve ever seen. They blanket, but just rest on top

Still don’t know what this is get a cheap scope shot high res from amazon toy microscope

Coral specific invasions like bjd won’t take over non living areas they’re tissue invaders

My opinion you have a niche finding rare color hitchhiker tbd and coral loss is separate matter or it’s being allowed to sit on top of corals long enough to restrict normal actions. Can you score rent or find a giant pond uv sterilizer for a few mos, as you hand remove the target and allow zero massing onward

There is an accompanying stringy spider web looking stuff that covers our rock and substrate. I don't mind to purchase a microscope, but I won't know what I'm looking at. Are there reasonably priced scopes that would allow a photo so I can post?

We purchased a pond UV sterilizer and put it in line on June 13.

So far, the water changes and vacuuming seems to be having the most effect. We are typically very resistant to dumping chemicals in the tank, but the Chemiclean and/or Red Slime are awfully tempting right now.

 

[brandon429]

I haven't tracked out the cheap scopes but for sure they're about 20-30 on amazon. agreed even if we did ID, not sure how we would aim a for sure cure w you doing all that current prep and good hand guiding to prevent total takeover.

one thing is for certain from our massive peroxide thread: you can do mini modeling here and its much safer for your tank than putting the whole thing/ + nontargets through various stresses

micro model: 5 gal paint bucket, clean water, heat, decent light to mimic what its under now, and an invaded test rock moved over. dose and experiment away in the bucket, use your dilution downscaling to subject the substrate and the X to action X and then only upscale to the main tank what you can incrementally see likely works in the small one.

this is exactly what instant no cycle nano and pico reefs can be used for, portable mine canaries to see what makes outcomes occur or not. There is no need to subject a large complex ecosystem to something that might not even attack the invader.

don't leave out good ol 3% peroxide, we saved like ten thousand tanks with it to the specific delight of all my chem forum mod friends on reefcentral.com

include it as a dose of 2 mls per ten gallons in one of the test approaches it stands a fair chance of targeted kill. levels up to 4 mls / per ten gallons begin to harm coral but still do zero harm to the filtration/biosystem, peroxide isn't as strong as they make it out to be on all bacteria, not those housed in insualting scum layers which is all our filtration bac.

 

[Salt1972]

I haven't tracked out the cheap scopes but for sure they're about 20-30 on amazon. agreed even if we did ID, not sure how we would aim a for sure cure w you doing all that current prep and good hand guiding to prevent total takeover.

one thing is for certain from our massive peroxide thread: you can do mini modeling here and its much safer for your tank than putting the whole thing/ + nontargets through various stresses

micro model: 5 gal paint bucket, clean water, heat, decent light to mimic what its under now, and an invaded test rock moved over. dose and experiment away in the bucket, use your dilution downscaling to subject the substrate and the X to action X and then only upscale to the main tank what you can incrementally see likely works in the small one.

this is exactly what instant no cycle nano and pico reefs can be used for, portable mine canaries to see what makes outcomes occur or not. There is no need to subject a large complex ecosystem to something that might not even attack the invader.

don't leave out good ol 3% peroxide, we saved like ten thousand tanks with it to the specific delight of all my chem forum mod friends on reefcentral.com

include it as a dose of 2 mls per ten gallons in one of the test approaches it stands a fair chance of targeted kill. levels up to 4 mls / per ten gallons begin to harm coral but still do zero harm to the filtration/biosystem, peroxide isn't as strong as they make it out to be on all bacteria, not those housed in insualting scum layers which is all our filtration bac.

What an idea. In all my time reading this forum and studying reefing, I've never heard of or considered transferring rock into a quarantine or bucket to test remedies. You referenced that peroxide won't affect the biosystem in smaller doses. If we were to try Chemi Clean or Red Slime in this manner, we wouldn't know the effect on the biosystem... how do you assess the safety for the display?

 

[brandon429]

Snails who get to ride in the bucket like that one chimp they shot into space in 68 ish lol he did make it back, I think

Chemi clean tends to be ok across systems, they recommend strong aeration and skimming but those well known dosers are mainly tested for target efficacy not so much safety. Even peroxide is a known safe doser by now, not far off from its ten year anniversary as a legit invasion tool but we find in our invasion thread collection that the issue of growback is the real frontier

So many dosers and meds earn the initial kill

But few, few methods work across entrants/ stat significant results to link in threads

People do all the work and get growback months later, even more disheartened I hate to see it so we started test modeling just to eliminate time wasters

Hey can you get a bare white light no fluorescence pic of that target that w help

 

[brandon429]

There’s another level of amplification possible here that comes from the peroxide thread and that’s clean condition only treatment approach. No visual invader is in the tank when you first try your whole tank upscale application, because for five painful hours you hand siphoned, rock-remove cleaned, all the places it now expresses in pics.

We discover the kill agent and dose from the bucket, from rocks that were totally infected. But when it’s application time, we apply that to a total mass-deficient aquarium. Your timed hand work takes the same dose you already know to kill, and now only applies the same safe dose to a system now 98% shy of the target...all your ammo goes to growback prevention only, zero kill and zero absorption in system. It’s more powerful this way, and you already know it to be powerful on the less worked test system. The kill agent action is certainly amplified in these ways yep

It’s amazing you have uv already planned you have a unique invader, it likes some aspect of this tank very much and being equally placed on sand and rock, nothing specific, able to kill corals, fascinating because it elevates your challenge beyond the norm but it’s waaaay preferable to a dinos invasion. I’d take three vials of your X in my reefbowl vs one cell of anyone’s amphidinium

If I was in Vegas I’d bet we can stop that invasion in a 30 gallon nano because we would rip out the sandbed all at once, 50% hiding place now robbed. We’d then blast clean the live rocks externally with jetted saltwater or bucket swishing

We would effect a 100% new water change and set the whole tank up blast cleaned. Run it for proof of fix, then put back in a new sandbed.

That alone fixes 98% of matted invaders but I know your tank is too large for that kind of surgery, it’s just what I would do for a nano and it would work. No matted invader can beat a nano rip clean.


The loss of fish is forcing QT in a big way in our hobby

Imagine how much work we do as a hobby, and $ lost, for non QT substrate issues where we only work on expressed invasions but literally nothing is stopping it transmitting tank to tank like the swinging seventies lol

 

[Salt1972]

Here are some shots with full white.

 

[LOVEROCK]

I’ll sell you some cheap...

Looooll