fuzz stuff

So, it thrives on silicates and nutrients like other PITA algaes? I'm having the same problem with diatoms instead and I'm looking for a way to get rid of silicates. Nutrients are thought to be under control as well. Got a skimmer, gfo/carbon reactor chaeto and all that jazz. So I'll be tagging along here if you don't mind. When you find a solution to your problem I will find one for mine as well.

- Mag.

 

So, does anyone have a way of getting rid of this stuff?

 

that looks like that light hair like stuff I got too (I also have coral from GM ).

I had this pseudochromi that kept my bicolor blenny from really adventuring out much.

i got rid of the pseudo.

now my blenny is all over the place and I don't see this stuff anymore...

So, my suggestion is a bi-colory blenny

 

Except for the bubbles, it looks like bacteria. Could be a mix, do you dose any carbon source? Also, could be dinoflagellates, they can also sometimes be whitish. If you turn off all your flow do they expand and kind of show up everywhere? It does look like chrysophytes, they don't seem to be very common though. Don't know much about them What are your parameters? Do you use RO/DI and run GFO? If you run RO/DI and GFO and your tank is established, it seems extremely unlikely you would have any significant silicates. They are consumed quick in an established tank.

 

RODI (0 TDS) with Red Sea's new formula salt (insane new growth on my SPS since I started it, BTW) for changes, no GFO. I'm 99% sure it's chrysophytes, as it was literally all over GMan's tank and I took a bit of rock that had some (quite a big chunk, really) on it, and it spread like this all over my tank over about 2 weeks. No added silicates or change in added nutrients, either, unless the Red Sea mix is loaded up with junk.

No problems with algae for months before this, as I had a dual system of cyano and chaeto working on that in the fuge. No more cyano, as I think this stuff choked it out.

 

I don't know what is in the Red Sea salt. GFO will reduce silica though once phosphate is low enough. For what it's worth though, I dose silica once a week to bring my levels up to about 1ppm, within about 3 days it's undetectable again. It's consumed quick, that's why I tend not to think it's a silica issue. I don't know much about chrysophytes really, so not sure what else helps....

 

I can only add that I have heard it's treatment is similar to that used to treat dino and that is did run it's course in my friends tank after about 3 months. He however did not have any corals in the tank at the time, so I do not know if it affects corals negatively.

 

Oh my god, I almost died while I was doing my normal testing. My alk dropped from 8 to 4.3 this last week! This stuff must suck up Alk like nothing else, because there's no way it'd drop like that otherwise.

 

It is still growing? No die back yet.

OMG is right.

 

No die back. Dunno if it's still growing. Maybe it sucked up mag and that caused a precipitation, but it sucked up something out of the water.