Brown blob taking over my live rock!

That looks like the stuff! I'll have to do some research on lobophora. Thanks! Oh, and how many lightfoot crabs do you have working on it?

 

As with almost everything,the subject was brought up on RC.That where i found out about using sallys.

Reef Central Online Community - Brown Wafer algae

 

Great link, thanks!

 

NP find out what works to get rid of this horrible stuff,before it over takes your tank.My rocks are white and have been running in my tanks for years.The algae got so bad it smothered my coraline and it all died,i swear by sallys,just use them with caution if you have small fish.

 

Well, if you don't have coraline (I'm still not convinced you don't) here is a site well renowned;The Brown Algae and look for that "lobophora" and you will see it looks nothing like what you have.

 

Yeah, I also believe it's just corraline algae (it comes in all the colors of the rainbow, and also some colors of the darkest most disgusting sewers- unfortunately). If its encrusted, then any live growth would have no problem growing over it - which is the major concern with any other type of algae. Aside from it's not so glamorous color, it is likely very safe to let it be.

 

any updates to this as i beleive i have the same thing

my writeup

I am unable to id this algae that has been spreading across my live rock for the last 2 weeks. I have spent days searching before posting this and I can’t find anything that resembles it.

VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFOOEt6B1t4
PICS
http://picasaweb.google.com/jfarabaugh/Algae#


It is a dark brownish color (more towards brown). It has a very low profile, and very very tough to remove. Trying to scrap it will only leave a line of where the attempt was made. Reminds me somewhat of coralline but a little thicker.

I had a small outbreak of cyano about 2 months ago and that looked much different and was very easy to remove even with jets of water where as hitting this with a jet of water does nothing.

Tank has running since the beginning June 09.

PH 8.0 ish lights off / 8.2 ish at end of light cycle (this was running high 8.6-8.8 about a week ago as I had low alkalinity. Now alkalinity is higher and ph has dropped some )

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0 (nitrate reactor running)
CA 450 ish
dKH 9 ( was about 7ish a week ago)
phosphate < 0.1 but detectable
in house RO/DI water (installed 4 weeks ago, was using LFS RO water before)
Switched to Seachem Reefsalt about 4 weeks ago (tonight will be my 4th water change with it)


UPDATE


Got hands on after work today with my issue.
It has a dry hard rubber like feeling to the touch
Taking a toothbrush to it does nothing (see the end of the video)
Scraping it with a knife only removes where the scraping is taking place. It does not come off in sheets

I decided to see how it feels compared to some of my purple coralline.
To me the coralline feels the same…like dry hard rubber
The coralline also scrapes the same with a knife.

If this is coralline I have never seen any with the same color and this is sure taking off much faster and more aggressive then the purple is.

 

Yep, that's exactly the way mine looked. I was able to get rid of it completely by adding a black longspine urchin and 2 sally light foot crabs. I sold the urchin about a month ago and it's starting to come back now

I guess I should have kept him! They definitely work.

 

Thanks for replying.

did it ever start to form plates?