Can anyone ID this (please and thank you)?

[Marcus Rodriguez]

I have yet to get a sample under a microscope, but that's where I'm headed next. In the meantime, does anyone recognize this stuff? It's brownish and accumulates everywhere. Whenever I do a water change it flies all around until it finally settles on the rocks, without the powerhead on, it kind of just floats in the water looking like fatty clumps or it settles along the bottom of the tank.

 

[Gil03]

looks like regular ol detritus to me...if it's settling on your rock work then you should probably re-think your flow in your DT.

 

[dansreef]

My guess... detritus.. fish poop and other organic waste build up... Of course... only a guess without knowing more about your tank and what you have in it.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

While it does look like normal detritus to me too, it's pretty uniform in shape, size, and color, much more than I would expect detritus to be. Have you tried increasing flow in conjunction with filter socks/foam to try and catch it all? You can also siphon it out of the tank during a water change.

What sort of food are you feeding? When I used omega one pellets this sort of brown residue would build up in the corner of my tank in the sandbed which looked similar to what you posted above.

 

[Marcus Rodriguez]

Of course, my apologies. It's a 16 gallon, with 2 clowns and a lawnmower blenny. I have a small frogspawn frag and a mushroom that don't seem to mind. I have 5 ceriths, a scarlet hermit, a couple of astras, and an emerald crab - nothing that I thought could produce that kind of waste. As much as I can siphon out with water changes, it seems to come back in increasing amounts.

EDIT: I'm running a Reef Breeders Nano light and feeding OSI brine shrimp flakes or New Life Spectrum pellets, but again, I'm not feeding much at all since it's just the clowns.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Hmm that's odd then, I would be very interested in seeing the microscope picture if you get the chance to get one