Unsure of what I’m dealing with...

[JBKReef]

This algae/bacteria/fungus has followed me from a previous tank. I’m hoping for an ID and/or plan of action.

This substance appeared after a fairly substantial Alk drop in my display. Nothing new had been added to the tank in over a year.

That tank was broken down and moved to a new home, I had a cycled tank using dry rock and fresh sand. Within a month, the small amount of material attached to the old rocks has now propagated into the new tank. Covering both 4 year old live rock and <6 mo old dry rock. The tank was seeded with a bio brick from the first tank and the

I struggle to maintain detectable nitrate/phosphate. Normally I am <1 nitrate and phosphate around .03 at most. I feed frozen food, and periodically dose RedSea AB+. I have lately been maintaining Major elements using All For Reef.

I have not done a water change in about a month, however this issue did seem to coincide with a new source of my RODI water. I still produce 0 TDS water, cut could something else be getting through? I don’t believe this to be the cause because I have two additional tanks, that have no cross contamination with the display that are not having this issue.

Any suggestions/guesses? If these photos are not clear enough or too blue I’ll find my orange filter and take some more. Color is a dull brown.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hard to detect under blue light being heavy. It appears to be
Calothrix. These species and relative of cyano often appear as a light slimy yet hairy/fuzzy nastiness that loosely attaches to your rock work. Air bubbles are usually trapped while escaping the "algae", Calothrix is a type of blue green algae that looks very similar to Dinos. To clean this up:
Remove the rock and scrub, and then fine tune with a toothbrush. Let the cleaners get the rest. It helps to use a net to collect the debris that will occur as a result of the toothbrushing.
You can also starve it out in the process by adding a pouch of chemipure elite. If you have a nitrate problem too, you can add more live rock or rubble to the tank, do some more water changes and add the following cleaner crew: Chitons, Nerite snails and other cyano cleaners such as cerith, nassarius, trochus and margarita snails plus a few blue leg hermit crabs.

 

[dedragon]

i had this while using microbacter 7 and other brightwell bacteria (i forget which). Any chance you started your tank with that as well?

 

[JBKReef]

i had this while using microbacter 7 and other brightwell bacteria (i forget which). Any chance you started your tank with that as well?

Yes, I had used MicroBacter 7 to seed the first tank a year prior and used XLM start on this tank maybe 4 months ago

 

[JBKReef]

Hard to detect under blue light being heavy. It appears to be
Calothrix. These species and relative of cyano often appear as a light slimy yet hairy/fuzzy nastiness that loosely attaches to your rock work. Air bubbles are usually trapped while escaping the "algae", Calothrix is a type of blue green algae that looks very similar to Dinos. To clean this up:
Remove the rock and scrub, and then fine tune with a toothbrush. Let the cleaners get the rest. It helps to use a net to collect the debris that will occur as a result of the toothbrushing.
You can also starve it out in the process by adding a pouch of chemipure elite. If you have a nitrate problem too, you can add more live rock or rubble to the tank, do some more water changes and add the following cleaner crew: Chitons, Nerite snails and other cyano cleaners such as cerith, nassarius, trochus and margarita snails plus a few blue leg hermit crabs.

Thank you for the advice, could this be because of low nutrients (Nitrate / Phosphate) they are nearly undetectable

 

[BranchingHammer]

I had this algae for the first year of my tank. It slowly faded with time as my tank matured. I did, however, scrub it off of my rocks while outside of my tank and during water changes.

 

[dedragon]

Yep those are the two I used, now im suspecting an issue with microbacter products. Though this is just anecdotal evidence it is suspicious

 

[BranchingHammer]

Oh, and I never used the microbacter products to start up that specific tank if that helps.

 

[dedragon]

Thank you for adding that Branching, i think it is probably easy to get other ways. i just had a feeling myself that it might be an issue

 

[Duffer]

Thank you for the advice, could this be because of low nutrients (Nitrate / Phosphate) they are nearly undetectable

Unfortunately when you have algae your nutrients are higher than what your test results are showing, false test results. What is happening is the algae is consuming your nutrients and giving you low results. ( the algae is actually feeding off your phosphates) Whatever you decide to do to get rid of this keep in mind your phosphates are probably high and you will need to take care of that also.

 

[vetteguy53081]

In part but mainly bacterial and lack of flow

Thank you for the advice, could this be because of low nutrients (Nitrate / Phosphate) they are nearly undetectable

is one cause. Poor filtration, over feeding- many others

 

[JBKReef]

Photos with the orange filter

 

[BranchingHammer]

Photos with the orange filter

I would recommend scrubbing the rocks outside of the tank.

 

[saltyhog]

Does it blow off easily with a turkey baster?

 

[JBKReef]

Does it blow off easily with a turkey baster?

Not as easy as say siphoning sand, but yea with a moderate “puff” from a turkey baster it comes off.

i’ll be putting it under a microscope here in the next couple days.

 

[saltyhog]

Not as easy as say siphoning sand, but yea with a moderate “puff” from a turkey baster it comes off.

i’ll be putting it under a microscope here in the next couple days.

Please post a picture. I was just thinking there was an outside chance it was chrysophytes.

 

[JBKReef]

@saltyhog @BranchingHammer @vetteguy53081

photos of what I’m dealing with...

no movement (I had dinos once that spun in a different tank; these are still)

 

[saltyhog]

Chrysophytes. They are dependent on silicates and usually run their course much like diatoms. Manual removal and look for a source of silicates (RO/DI water, salt mix, new sand or dry rock,etc.). These are not toxic.....very ugly but not toxic.

 

[JBKReef]

Chrysophytes. They are dependent on silicates and usually run their course much like diatoms. Manual removal and look for a source of silicates (RO/DI water, salt mix, new sand or dry rock,etc.). These are not toxic.....very ugly but not toxic.

They seem to annoy corals so I’ll move towards manual removal.

for these to all of a sudden explode in a year old tank using almost 4 year old live rock would you think that points towards an RODI issue? (Even with 0 TDS displayed)

 

[saltyhog]

I've been told that silicates don't necessarily show up on your TDS meter. At least one ICP test adds an analysis of your RO/DI for free. That's one thing to rule out.

They don't seem to bother corals in my tank but I've never had them to this extent. Let's get @taricha to look at those microscopic pictures just to be sure.