At My Wit's End -- What is this stuff?!

[wingman48]

Hey All,

I've been a fishkeeper since I was a little kid, but it's all been freshwater up until recently. We made a move that required me to sell off all of my freshwater tanks so I'm starting clean and decided to give salt a try. It was all going wonderfully splendid until...

To give you a little back story, I found a deal on a 185 complete setup with sump and all. It already had a nice sump with healthy chaeto growth for the filter and I added two Kessil AP700s and 4 Jebao RW-8 wavemakers.

I moved the tank with good success. Had a small crash but the parameters settled down really well after a couple months and i started slowly adding livestock. Things were going really really well at that point. My rocks were coated in wonderful coraline, the fish were doing great, the handful of small corals and Zoas I had in the tank were growing, etc.

Then I added a frag from a LFS that apparently came with some dinoflagelates. The nasty stuff took over like crazy and I couldn't get ris of it without a 7 day total blackout. Didn't lose any fish, and only lost one small coral. Everything else recovered ok, and the dinos didn't come back (at least not as the bubbly brown slime form anyway)

Since then, however, I've gotten growth of what looks & feels like a white version of green hair algae. It has taken over the tank and I can't seem to kill it so I'm looking to you all for guidance. Help keep me in this hobby!

Here's an album of pictures I could get of the stuff: White Fuzz (https://photos.app.goo.gl/iSUvGuINznZxnHUM2)

Sorry for the poor quality, I'm struggling to get any decent photos with my phone.

It's not soft like dinos, I can't brush it off at all, it's firm as hell like GHA. It also seems to thrive on light. There are some darker spots where I have coraline coming in, but this stuff dominates the tops of the rocks. Over the past 4 months it has taken over the tank, the top of every rock is coated.

My zoas are also not doing well (there's a pic of them in the link too). They seem retracted and aren't extending like they should be.

Let me know if you have any questions. I've tested the water for pH, Salinity, Nitrates (0), Phosphates (almost zero), magnesium, calcium, etc. The only test that read off at all was calcium, and it read slightly low so i'm dosing a bit of kalk.

I do water changes every 2 weeks at around 40 gallons with R/O at 0-1 TDS. Any suggestions you guys can offer would be incredibly beneficial, please help keep me in the hobby, i'm really struggling here. Thanks everyone!

[Sk8r]

Well, I have good and bad news. I've seen this stuff develop in a fairly new setup by a guy I'd call super-expert, and it just happens, then goes away, given good water parameters (see sticky above). Oceanic tanks get blooms of things that happen, then go, so don't pin it too tightly to either something you imported or a treatment you used. Best thing is stay the course, maintain the water quality, keep phosphate at trace levels, keep nitrate down (good skimmer helps) and just try to keep it all even keel. Kalk, however, isn't something you dose to raise calcium: it's a steady feed you put into your topoff water to maintain your calcium levels IN THE PRESENCE OF STONY CORAL OR CLAMS...which eat a lot of it. Zoas aren't going to react to low calcium, but will to an 'off' alkalinity: they don't eat calcium the way stony does. Get that water back in balance: for calcium as a direct dose (you don't use kalk until you have enough stony to use it) I like Kent Turbo Calcium, a dry dose by spoonfuls. Mix with a cup of tank water before adding. Hope that helps. It's likely just the newness of the tank.

[ReeferNoob4ever]

First of all it doesn't look that bad. I have seriously seen tanks that looked like toupee factories. Always remember, with the exception of bubble algae, there is always fluconazole as a last ditch effort. Like sk8r said, keep the course and things will change. I wouldn't give up (ever) or certainly not until I had exhausted all possible options.

[swiftvision]

Normal.

[fijisrfr]

If that puts you at your wits end, it’s gonna be a long hard road!


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[homer1475]

If that puts you at your wits end, it’s gonna be a long hard road!


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+1000

If a little algae has you at your wits end, you might want to consider quitting now. It doesn't get any easier then the initial setup and ugly stage.

FWIW A 7 day blackout will not kill bryopsis, so I highly doubt you had it to begin with. probably just regular algae with air bubbles trapped in it.

Looks like the beginnings of GHA. Nutrient export, algae scrubber, fluconazole, GFO, all things you might want to consider reading up on.

[rjjr1963]

I had the same stuff. No one really knew what it was. After 3 or 4 months I was dipping rock in hydrogen peroxide. It killed the fuzz but it came right back. Eventually I did one course of fluconazole and it went away.

[Daddi0]

Are you dosing carbon - vinegar/vodka?
Cheers! Mark

[wingman48]

Well, I have good and bad news. I've seen this stuff develop in a fairly new setup by a guy I'd call super-expert, and it just happens, then goes away, given good water parameters (see sticky above). Oceanic tanks get blooms of things that happen, then go, so don't pin it too tightly to either something you imported or a treatment you used. Best thing is stay the course, maintain the water quality, keep phosphate at trace levels, keep nitrate down (good skimmer helps) and just try to keep it all even keel. Kalk, however, isn't something you dose to raise calcium: it's a steady feed you put into your topoff water to maintain your calcium levels IN THE PRESENCE OF STONY CORAL OR CLAMS...which eat a lot of it. Zoas aren't going to react to low calcium, but will to an 'off' alkalinity: they don't eat calcium the way stony does. Get that water back in balance: for calcium as a direct dose (you don't use kalk until you have enough stony to use it) I like Kent Turbo Calcium, a dry dose by spoonfuls. Mix with a cup of tank water before adding. Hope that helps. It's likely just the newness of the tank.

Just realized my old post made it online here. Still fighting the stuff: https://photos.app.goo.gl/iSUvGuINznZxnHUM2

To help answer some questions, water quality has held (by all of the tests I'm running), yet this stuff won't go away -- and my zoas, leathers, and one type of GSP are not coming out like they should.

Right next to them, I've got montipora, a few other stony corals, some cabbage corals, and a few other things that are thriving.

To provide a bit more color on the "balance" as well. This tank has been running for 9 months at my place. The dino mess happened about 6 months ago and I've been fighting this white stuff since then.

[wingman48]

If that puts you at your wits end, it’s gonna be a long hard road!

I've been a fishkeeper for decades (just relatively new to salt), so I've got relatively stable "wits". Can't find any good info on the web for this stuff though, and "staying the course" isn't working.

[wingman48]

I had the same stuff. No one really knew what it was. After 3 or 4 months I was dipping rock in hydrogen peroxide. It killed the fuzz but it came right back. Eventually I did one course of fluconazole and it went away.

I have fluconazole, but I'm hesitant to dose that. It's a an antifungal, and this stuff is most definitely light sensitive. (It's not growing on the bottoms of the rocks). Was yours on the tops and bottoms of the rocks?

[wingman48]

Are you dosing carbon - vinegar/vodka?
Cheers! Mark

No carbon/vinegar dosing. I've heard of vodka dosing for carbon. Wouldn't vinegar dosing just lower your pH a bunch?

[wingman48]

Thanks for all the help by the way. I really do appreciate the extra insight, and I'm not afraid of putting in the work.

[Bent]

I think it’s just a hair algae species with a non green pigmented chlorophyll combined with the light color.

Stay the course, don’t do anything drastic I don’t think anything abnormal or sinister is happening.

Exactly how old is this rock that this is growing on? Where did you get it? How long has it been wet? Did you “cook” it?

[rjjr1963]

I have fluconazole, but I'm hesitant to dose that. It's a an antifungal, and this stuff is most definitely light sensitive. (It's not growing on the bottoms of the rocks). Was yours on the tops and bottoms of the rocks?

It wasn't on the bottom of the rocks. I developed a GHA problem along with the white fuzz which is why I dosed Fluc. I haven't witnessed any negative side effects with Fluc.

[wingman48]

I think it’s just a hair algae species with a non green pigmented chlorophyll combined with the light color.

Stay the course, don’t do anything drastic I don’t think anything abnormal or sinister is happening.

Exactly how old is this rock that this is growing on? Where did you get it? How long has it been wet? Did you “cook” it?

The rock all came with the tank when I got it 9 months ago. Hasn’t ever been dry. Was covered in lots of beautiful coralline before the dinos came into the picture.

[Bent]

The rock all came with the tank when I got it 9 months ago. Hasn’t ever been dry. [b]Was covered in lots of beautiful coralline before the dinos came into the picture.[\b]

That’s the giveaway right there.

Coraline algae has the same needs as any other algae. Meaning it takes up organics in much the same way.

Now that the competition for the space is gone, another undesirable species has moved in.

Stay the course.

I would start looking at ways to export more nutrients. Skim wetter, run some GFO, and even maybe start carbon dosing.

What is the tds of your RO output BEFORE it goes through the DI?

[MrNurse]

chrysophytes?