Help IDing algae or bacteria.

[Slingshot357]

Not sure what this is so not sure how to approach a solution. It a brown, dusty coating sort of like diatoms. It covers power heads, heaters, some sand and gets in between Zoa polyps which annoys them. I thought it was diatoms at first but I checked and there’s no silica in my water. I only use RODI water and have a 3 stage DI unit. The tank is also over 2 years old. ICP test only showed Aluminum in small quantities which I think I got from cheap GFO but unsure. Running Rowaphos now to get rid of it.

Here is the best pic I could get of it coating my flow pump.

 

[EmdeReef]

Looks like algae. Can it be easily removed or is it rooted? What’s the consistency like?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Its algae and best cleaning method is to soak it in water/vinegar combo for 4-8 hours and rinse then return to tank

 

[vetteguy53081]

Its algae and best cleaning method is to soak it in water/vinegar combo for 4-8 hours and rinse then return to tank

 

[Slingshot357]

Looks like algae. Can it be easily removed or is it rooted? What’s the consistency like?

It comes right off. It's not hard to clean. It's slimy in consistency. It comes back fairly quickly after cleaning.

Its algae and best cleaning method is to soak it in water/vinegar combo for 4-8 hours and rinse then return to tank

That's usually what I do with heaters and power heads except I use citric acid.

Only thing is it get in between frag polyps and on plugs causing them to close up. I don't think they would like a vinegar or citric acid bath too much. Right now I blow them off with a turkey baster but I can't keep doing that every couple days, they are getting stressed out. And the one Zoa I did a hydrogen peroxide dip cleaned right up and looked great for about 5 days and started getting coated again.

So if the consensus is that it's just some form of algae I'll try a more frequent and aggressive dose of vibrant along with citric acid cleaning of equipment and blowing off my frags and see what happens I tried vibrant before and it didn't appear to work, or at least work that well and it just came right back.

Is there another product like vibrant that works better on different strains of algae and still not kill chaeto? Or will I need to go blackout if vibrant doesn't work?

Pic of same power head, just wiped it off with my finger. Comes off easy enough. also comes right back in a few days.

pick of one of my frags, you can see the brown in between the polyps.