Almost 4 month old tank with a new ugly phase?

[NitroJoe]

Is there a preferred place to find these snails and urchins? Don’t think my LFS will have them.

Further, to scrub my rocks more than I did tonight (which I did for several hours, between the rocks, gyre pumps and refugium), I would need to drain the tank into containers, move the livestock and scrub the rocks in the empty tank. I don’t think I have the stones for it. ‍*facepalm*

 

[NitroJoe]

Update: A few changes to my livestock, including getting rid of a bully clown surgeonfish, adding a few Halloween hermit crabs and a foxface and now the starry blenny and the desjardin tang are wandering openly around eating algae. Under the scope, it appears to have changed to green and brown algaes in mixed flora. For a short while I had some dinos in there too. I shortened the day, reduced white light to very low and did 5 gallon water changes daily for 5/7 days and dropped the pH to 8.4.

I am prepared to wait this out and let nature do its thing. I don’t seem to have the Chrysophytes anymore and I didn’t do anything drastic. Just enjoying the journey.