What is this stuff?

[qterry22]

I recently just started winning a battle with hair algae. I had a phosphate issue from feeding frozen food. After losing my first and only coral I added a phosphate reactor. Now the hair algae is in recession but I have this new stuff growing on things.

Its brown stringy stuff that can be removed off of rocks, glass, PH's, and whatever else it attaches to with a squirt from the turkey baster. It quickly re-attaches somewhere else. To help remove the stuff I wrapped some netting around egg crate and put in a high flow area in my tank. Its been working pretty well as I blow the stuff off my structures and into the water column.

However I know that this is just a band-aid fix and I need to eliminate the source. But I don't know what it is. Before adding my contraption it would be on the sand, glass, PH's, rocks, and corals. Now its mostly on my rock, corals, contraption used to catch it, egg crate I am using as a frag rack, and my glass. However it is not on my sand anymore. Most of it collects on the contraption and I remove it daily. I will upload some more pics of the stuff.

Thanks for any help and advice in advance.

[qterry22]

pic#2

[qterry22]

Pic 3 & 4

[qterry22]

Water Params are

81 degrees
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 nitrate
0 phosphate (I presume this is being consumed by the stuff)
65 gallon dt, 20 gallon sump, 4 gallon hob refugium,

Tank is 9 months old. I run a UV, phosphate reactor with GFO, and will be adding some carbon in the form of chemi-pure elite tomorrow. I am also aggressively skimming.

[Omen1090]

It looks like cyano.

[Jaffy]

Looks to me like dinoflagellates, if those are little things that look like bubbles growing on it. Google the term and some images, it may be what you have. Your phosphate would very possibly read zero because of it too as you stated. Reading some threads on the Internet, opinions and remedies vary for getting rid of it. Some raise ph to 8.4-8.6, some raise nitrate. Others say do water changes, others say don't. Also some swear by killing the lights for a few days, some say this just hides it and it returns once lighting is back to normal. The only thing I have been able to gather is nobody has a certain answer. Search forums and see what you can come up with!

[qterry22]

Thanks for the info. I looked into dinoflagellates, however the only place mine has bubbles is near the top of my contraption and I assume thats from the flow. There aren't any bubbles anywhere else.

[smartwater101]

+1 cyano. though, some of the pics look a little like a simple diatom algea spread

[Jaffy]

I thought cyano - but hard to tell, I had cyano before and it was more red....

[Jaffy]

For any outbreak I usually would blow it all off with the turkey baster, siphon it out during some water changes and see what happens....as long as you can maintain it or keep it somewhat under control, it may just take time to go away...both cyano and dyano I've read people can have for months and then it just go away (or at least stop spreading)

[qterry22]

I am hoping its not dino...but in any event I will be sticking to my regime of weekly 12 gallon water changes, using my contraption to export what I can collect from the water column, and continuing to blow it off stuff with a baster. I just dont want to lose any more live stock....period...corals or fish. I just started collecting frags before this happened. I got more coming this week from a friend. Good news is both my nems are doing good. So its not bothering them yet. :/

[Fishin204]

i ve got the exact thing happening in my one of my tanks and i am sure it is dinos try lights out for a few days and quit the water changes.

[qterry22]

i ve got the exact thing happening in my one of my tanks and i am sure it is dinos try lights out for a few days and quit the water changes.

Yea I am about to refresh my gfo and also add some chemi-pure. Set up another scraper/collector, and reduce my feedings. I will progress to lights out and increasing PH if necessary.

From what I understand it takes patience and diligence. I understand this could be a looooong road to recovery :rolleyes: