Well, I gotta admit, this stuff is persistent

[SallyWho]

I still have this weird stuff growing on my rocks. I've increased water changes, shortened my photoperiod, fed a little less, skimmed a bit more. I pulled all the affected rocks and scrubbed them clean, but it managed to stick around and has popped up on other rocks that weren't connected to the left-hand structure. Anybody know what it is, and how to get rid of it?

 

[Big G]

Bump

 

[SallyWho]

Saturday morning bump-er-oo! Nobody has any ideas what it might be? Is there an #algae master on site? I know the #reefsquad usually deals with other kinds of stuff, but maybe they know somebody?

 

[EmdeReef]

Looks like it could be some kind of a sponge or possibly even bacterial growth.

Do you dose carbon?

Try to take about 2ml of 3% peroxide, stop all flow in tank and inject it as close as you can in the the yellow thing. If it starts to turn white “burn” and float to the top of the tank then it’s likely some kind of bacteria.

 

[Sallstrom]

Could it be Gracilaria salicornia? That a red algae.
Do a google search on them. Cool stuff :)

 

[SallyWho]

Ooh, that's a good idea! I just spent about a half hour scrubbing this batch of stuff off, but I'm sure I missed some somewhere. When it crops up again in a few days, I'll squirt some peroxide on it. Will it hurt the nearby zoas, or just cause some temporary irritation?

 

[EmdeReef]

Ooh, that's a good idea! I just spent about a half hour scrubbing this batch of stuff off, but I'm sure I missed some somewhere. When it crops up again in a few days, I'll squirt some peroxide on it. Will it hurt the nearby zoas, or just cause some temporary irritation?

Try to avoid the zoas as much as you can but at such small diluted quantities they may at worst get irritated. You can also try the same thing by taking out a small piece and submerging it in peroxide to see how it disintegrates.

 

[SallyWho]

Could it be Gracilaria salicornia? That a red algae.
Do a google search on them. Cool stuff :)

That IS some cool stuff! But I don't think that's what I've got. When it first popped up, I took a scraping to work and put it under the 'scope. Looks like this. There wasn't any movement, but it had had been out of the tank for hours, so it might have been dead by the time I got a chance to look at it.

 

[Brew12]

That is some crazy looking stuff. What size tank do you have, and what do you have in your CuC? I would expect some types of snails feast on this stuff.

 

[Scubabeth]

I believe those are chrysophytes. Check out this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/chrysophytes-help-me-cure-it.263759/

 

[SallyWho]

That is some crazy looking stuff. What size tank do you have, and what do you have in your CuC? I would expect some types of snails feast on this stuff.

It's a 120 with 40b sump, approximately 6 months old. CUC is two hermits, and a mixture of trochus, astraea, cerinth (the big 'uns and the dwarf varieties), and nassarius. None of them seem particularly interested. :/ Even the foxface is ignoring it.

I believe those are chrysophytes. Check out this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/chrysophytes-help-me-cure-it.263759/

Dang, I think you're right! According to that thread, it shouldn't be a total nightmare to address. Thorough manual removal, 24 hrs of GFO, and a 3 day blackout. Some zoas and a trumpet frag should survive a blackout, right? And I can just stick a media bag of GFO in the overflow box, right? I'm not quite ready to face plumbing in a reactor right now.

 

[Scubabeth]

I haven't had them myself, but we went through a time of dinos in our tank, and folks posted some microscope pics of chrysophytes in that thread looking for an ID. They are much preferable to deal with than dinos! :) Your zoas will be fine, as ours went though a 3 day blackout; I don't have any experience with trumpets and blackout, though. Any corals should not experience damage from a 3 day black out. Good luck!

 

[SallyWho]

So here's kind of a dumb question. When I do the blackout, do I also black out the sump, or is it only the display that goes dark? I figured I'd just wrap it in heavy duty black trash bags, even over the top, and count on the skimmer to keep everything oxygenated.

 

[Scubabeth]

When we did a blackout, we wrapped the display only. Our sump is in a closed stand. There was a bit of a gap at the back of the stand, so it wasn't 100% blacked out. You could message Reeferfoxx directly and ask her about this, since she has tackled chrysophytes in her tank. She's great; I'm sure she will answer you!

 

[MTBake]

I had this in my tank last year sometime. It disappeared as fast as it showed up.