How did this turn out for you?
A ton of improvement since those photos were taken! I honestly can't say for sure what has turned the battle around but I like to attribute it to a few things;
1. Getting a microscope to confirm the suspicion that it was chrysophytes to begin with. For a while I was thinking I had dinos and was treating as such. I know think that owning or having access to a microscope to ID tank problems is pretty much a necessity in this hobby.
2. Replacing my two HOBs with a sump for the 36 gallon display. I saw a big difference from the first day it was plumbed in- the increased flow leading to a ton more mechanical filtration was obviously superior to those two seachem tidals. For the first week I had to swap out filter socks daily because by day's end they would be filled with the foul chrysophyte jelly. I combined this with manual removal from the display tank using a brush (these things came off without much of a fight) I was not sold on the benefits of a sump before I installed one- now I am not sure I would recommend a serious tank build without one.
3. I have pretty crappy nicrew 50 watt hyper reefs on this same 36 gallon build, but I started to notice that all my soft corals, zoas etc were flat against the rocks with not a lot of extension. I decided to lower the intensity of the whites and blues at my tanks' mid -day (I use these two lights with a kessil controller) to see if I was just giving those guys too much light. Well the polyps started to stretch just a bit and as a side benefit I noticed the chystophytes started to recede even more. (Makes sense to me since a less intense photo period should equal less algae)
4. I dosed Brightwell's neo nitrate and neo phos for a while to get a reading above zero. Honestly that made these guys A LOT worse. I think like any other algae they were keeping my readings artificially at NIL because they were literally using every bit of free nitrate and phosphate the tank had. I have since stopped dosing.
5. Particular to my tank I still struggle with getting any readings of nitrate or phosphate and I cannot figure out why. Since the end of my initial cycle a year and a half ago- I have never had any measurable amount of NO4 or PO4 without dosing. I'm sure it's one of the reasons for my slow growing soft corals (and probably the sub-par nicrew- but if I had to turn them down are they really that subpar?) As an aside I'm in the Bahamas so I literally hand picked this live rock from the ocean -did I just stumble upon the best naturally occurring strain of de-nitrifying bacteria in the hobby? I guess it's possible but I want to believe something else is at play. (Any feedback on this please let me know!)
6. I still am at war with the chrysophytes! I just seem to be winning the war at the moment- I constantly struggle to keep a clean sand bed for example, this stuff will coat the bottom in a mat if I don't stir it every other day or so. During my battles I did read / understand that chrysophytes have a cell wall made of silica and an excess of silica may be causing the issue. (It's a really good thing I didn't blindly dose waterglass for dinos! I had almost purchased some out of agitation/ desperation.) From my understanding hobby grade silicate tests aren't that great so I am planning to send out an ICP test in the near future (hard getting tank water from here to the USA though for testing lol.) Remembering my hand collected live rock, I suppose it is totally possible for the rocks to be leaching silicate- prompting my tank's perfect environment for chrysophyte growth.
Nothing happens quickly in this hobby- you have to be in it for the long haul!
