Mystery Brown Algae. Dino?

Hello 3reef! I'm a noob to posting here, but have followed a lot of threads here, and have been a huge fan for a while! I apologize for not having any of my tank details up in my profile yet, so I'll do my best in this thread to give the info needed.

Well about 4ish months ago I decided to give bio pellets a shot. Started with about 1/6th the amount and slowly added more. A couple months into the bio pellets I noticed a strange brown algae growing ONLY on the base rock I added to the tank. None of this algae has moved to the live rock added, only the dry rock. It feel kind of "snotty" and is removed very easily from the rock. Some of it has little air bubbles to it (which scares me into thinking its Dino) but most of it doesn't. I've been syphoning it out when I do w/c weekly, and usually won't grow back very thick by the next week, if any at all.

Now, a little about the tank...
125 gallon with 40 gallon sump
Weekly 15% water changes
Used to have a Super Skimmer 125 until 3 weeks ago, now has a Bubble Magus NAC-77 (rated for 210-315gal)

Current Stock:
1 - 3.5" Yellow Tang
1 - 3.5-4" One-spot Foxface
1 - 2" black & white clown
And up until a week ago it also had a sixline wrasse who jumped into the overflow box and rode down into the sump, swam in there I'd say for a day or so then got caught in the intake to the pump feeding the bio pellets (it was uncovered because I didn't think something like this would happen lol)

SG is 1.026
Ph is 8.0, 7.9 at night.
The rest of the test results I'll post tonight after I get off work

And now for the pics:

 

One major thing I forgot to add... The tank has been up and running for 1.5 years, maybe a little longer

 

Cant say for sure, but.. its dino, unfortunately. Welcome to 3reef tho!

 

Way too many water changes for one thing. Secondly, where did you get the base rock? When did you add it? Same time you started using the pellets? Before?

Frankly, and I know I'll catch heat for this, but I hate additives. Less is more. Always. People always buy things and change things and add things so often that they do far more harm than good.

Does it rain every day in the ocean? Nope. That's why the gold standard has always been 10 to 15% each month. You're doing 60. Your water doesn't even have time to complete a life cycle and actually work before you're getting rid of it.

Less is more. Let the reef rock and water do it's job. Just sit back, do nothing, add nothing, and watch nature at work.

Forgot to add: The skimmer is a bit much. Bigger is not better. What happens with much larger skimmers is that they wind up NOT WORKING AT ALL until proteins and waste materials get to a level they're designed to run against. In effect, you're putting a 750 cfm carburetor on an engine that can only move 450 cfm. That will cause blooms big time. The skimmer will sit idle (not extracting) or barely extracting and you get a bloom. By the time that happens, all of a sudden your skimmer will start boiling over. Try to get a size designed for your tank, not a tank 2 to 3 times larger than your tank. Again, less is more.

 

All the base rock was in the tank before the water was even added. Then the live rock came a few weeks later. I haven't added any rock since all that at the very beginning of the tank. The tank cycled for probably 3 months I'd say at least before the first thing added. About 60-70 lbs live rock, 100 lbs base. All my rock was acquired from Premium Aquatics. The base rock was Marco Rock, and the LR was Manado Premium. I've got a dozen or so hermits, and a dozen or so assorted snails.

The reason for the large skimmer is because I'm working my way to doing a predator tank, and I know they can be very very messy eater. That rating is the manufacturers rating, and from all the research I did on it, the general consensus was itd be truly rated for 150-200 gallon slightly heavy bio load... So I wanted to have a little head room in case I stock heavy.

And thank you guys for the quick responses!! Any and all info is welcome!!

 

Sorry to have to ask you this, but can you get another image of a different spot or angle.

It all sounds very odd, especially the part about it not growing on the live rock and not growing back fast.

I would be very tempted to remove the bio-pellets all together since your intent is a fish only tank. It can not hurt to remove them and it might some how be feeding what ever this is. Hazard to guess it's bacterial and not Dino, but I have noooooooooo research or scientific facts to base that on.

 

I sure can. I'm about to head home from work and I'll see what I can do. I too found it very strange it's only on the base rock. And I have also been wondering if its the pellets feeding it since it didn't show up until I put them in. I don't have the full amount for the size of tank I have, so will it do any damage to take them fully offline at once? I'll get some new pics up here soon. That one is about a month old. It's one I've used to show different forums and people at my LFS, and NO ONE has a clue what it actually is. Hence why I came to 3reef... U guys seem the most knowledgable of anyone I've asked.

 

Here's a pic of the rock in my sump where it grows the fastest. And this is after about 2 weeks of not being syphoned.

 

That is not Dino.

Looks to be an algae, another reefer on here just recently posted a thread with what looks like almost the exact same issue.

I will look around and see if I can find it.

 

Does this look the same?

http://www.3reef.com/forums/id/weird-yellow-growth-rocks-143118.html

Now I will look around for an ID, that should be difficult but I like a challenge.