crazy bacteria or algea growth.. slim string on sps

[chicago]

Ok..so after 30 years .. i have not seen stuff like this.. i posted this a week back.. but here are some fresh pics.. I am thinking of pulling all the frags... saving some of the water and cleaning out the whole tank.. wipe down the frag stand.. the tank ect.. and put back in.. problem will be fresh salt water... i can get the parameters close.. I am already losing frags like crazy to RTN and STN..

take a look...

 

[chicago]

comes off easy with a wipe or turkey baster blast.. thinking its bacterial....

 

[Graffiti Spot]

What carbon sources are you using? Looks bacterial but the pics are bad... better ones will help. If its slimey and goey its is probably bacteria.

 

[chicago]

Yes sorry about the pics I’ll try and do better but it’s brownish gray. The filter flosses turning a brown from filtering out the stuff

 

[chicago]

So here’s the crazy thing it’s a frag QT tank no carbon source..No fish either

 

[ajcanale]

I’ve dealt with this same exact stuff before. I’ve looked at under microscope and all I could conclude is that it didn’t appear to be dinoflagellate, but did appear to be phototrophic. Regular siphoning as well as utilization of chaeto reactor and turf scrubber help me eradicate it.

 

[chicago]

Thanks for your comments. InhVe nonidea of its food source. Will see what happens with a complete cleaning of the frag tank.

 

[Xanthurum]

I had the exact same thing recently in my frag tank. My frag tank is identical, no fish, no carbon source. I did a complete tear down, scrub down including filling it with fresh water and running the pump and skimmer for about 2 hours while I dipped corals and used a toothbrush to clean all plugs. Whatever it is I haven’t had it come back and my corals have recovered nicely.

 

[chicago]

yep.. i will be spending my sunday doing the same thing.. i think this is bacterial. need the good to outrun the bad.. when you did your tear down did you keep any of the old water...or totally fresh new made up water? i have fresh batch of ESV salt made up and ready..

 

[Xanthurum]

I used all new

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

If it’s bacteria, it’ll fall apart immediately upon touching it like slime.

If it’s s chrystophytes , it’ll have some structure.

If it’s an odd ball diatom,( yes some look like that), it’ll be very difficult to determine.

If you’re doing a treat down and clean , I’d follow it with a BUNCH of snails. They’ll eat the diatoms.

This kind of thing appears to be a much more common occurrence nowadays with dry rock big skimmers and lots of chem media - bio pellets etc. pelletes being a carbon source.

 

[chicago]

ok... so i clean up this 30 gallon.. .. what bunch of slim under the frag racks.. looking clear and clean now.. all new water and i did some frag brushing also. I think so how i had a bacteria issue.. or perhaps so slime algea.. or both.. I did remove my marine pure blocks .. or a least parts of a block.. cut up block...i should say.. i had my frag QT water tested by ATI.... came back with Aluminium of 117 ug/l...so thought why not pull it out .. just in case..

 

[waxhawreefer]

It looks like bacteria flock, I posted a pic pic of mine that I recently found in my overflow, I’ve been dosing nopox, it’s just excess bacteria, mine anyway, not on my rocks but in my sump, long stringy, White,brown, orangish, I remember getting stuff like that from biopellets, just cut down ur dose if ur dosing!

 

[chicago]

intersesting you mentioned .. bio pellets... i used those in the past.. and thinking back now.. i would say this stuff is very similar to what the bio pellets were producing.. but again,... here is the interesting part.. this is a frag QT.. no fish.. no food added to the tank... maybe it was some Aqua forest with the bio bacteria that started it.. time will tell.