Need help IDing these brown tufts of algae please!

[Jaelowen]

For the last two months or so I have been fighting this brown algae without much success...




It all started during a series of unfortunate events that my tank is still recovering from (tank crashed due to roommate spraying lysol at it, three days later had to move the tank to my new place, then three days after that I left the country for three weeks and the tank was at the girlfriend's mercy...)

I have managed to get most of the other types of algae that developed at the under control through light feeding and diligent upkeep, but these brown tufts are persistent. I'm unable to find almost any other photos of this stuff anywhere online and I'm at my wits end.

The algae is firmly secured to the rock and a standard toothbrush doesn't phase it in the slightest. I purchased a nylon bristle heavy duty grout brush that has been getting the job done however

My N03 and P are both undetectable on my test kit and have been undetectable for a few weeks now, but no matter how much I scrub this stuff of the rock it keeps coming back.

It is worth noting that when I moved I upgraded to a larger tank and added some rock that had been dry that i had cured for about a month and a half before adding. The brown tufts originally mainly grew on this rock and not on the rock with established coraline (presumably due either to it not having to "fight" the coraline for space there or because the new rock was/is leaching phosphates)

My turbos wont tuch the stuff and only the asterina and hermits seem to go for it as far as inverts go. My molly miller blenny also seems to eat it, but the CUC is not keeping it in check, nor are my efforts.

I've been dosing hydrogen peroxide at 1.25ml/gallon every 12 hours for the last 3 weeks and it seems to be doing nothing to hinder growth. I have attempted dipping frag plugs that have the algae directly in straight hydrogen peroxide for 2 minutes at a time, and this seems to temporarily knock the stuff out but not eradicate it (the filaments turn from brown to clear for a few days, then regain color afterwards)

I have attempted to get some microscopic photos of some of the filaments using my toy microscope from when I was a kid (I dug it out of my parents basement for this sole purpose haha) but you can see that the quality is not great.






Other than this stuff, the tank seems to be thriving. All of my coral other than my zoas are growing faster than ever before (LPS, SPS and shrooms). I'm assuming the zoas are being irritated by this stuff which Is why they aren't growing as fast, as the tufts are growing quite close to them.


Sorry for such a long post, I am just really hoping to get an ID on this stuff so I can formulate a plan to take it out. This stuff has finally driven me to the point that I had to come out of lurking and create an account and ask.

I'd really appreciate any help! Even if it's just to resources for me to ID this stuff myself (although I've been unable to find anything quite like it in any of the "nuisance algae guides" here or elsewhere)

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

It’s a cotton candy algae. A 100% is wont help much as the course of action is the same. It’s a nasty nasty algae. You’ll honestly want to look into An actual algecide. Algae x or vibrant.
Yea I wish therewere a better way. But.

 

[Jaelowen]

It’s a cotton candy algae. A 100% is wont help much as the course of action is the same. It’s a nasty nasty algae. You’ll honestly want to look into An actual algecide. Algae x or vibrant.
Yea I wish therewere a better way. But.

I appreciate the feedback but its definitely not like any cotton candy algae I've seen (I was struggling with it too, but hydrogen peroxide and my turbo snails have seemed to do it all in). Rather than bunching up into a puffy looking bunches like cotton candy algae does, as this stuff grows it forms longer strands that flow in the current and look similar to hair algae

Here are a couple of pictures I just took showing what I mean

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I appreciate the feedback but its definitely not like any cotton candy algae I've seen (I was struggling with it too, but hydrogen peroxide and my turbo snails have seemed to do it all in). Rather than bunching up into a puffy looking bunches like cotton candy algae does, as this stuff grows it forms longer strands that flow in the current and look similar to hair algae

Here are a couple of pictures I just took showing what I mean

That’s a much better picture.
That look like a chrystophytes strain.
We just had a member with the exact same thing.

Not truly an Algae.

Let me phone a friend.
@reeferfoxx

 

[Jaelowen]

That’s a much better picture.
That look like a chrystophytes strain.
We just had a member with the exact same thing.

Not truly an Algae.

Let me phone a friend.
@reeferfoxx

I've wondered if it could be a strain of chysyophyte, but I was doubtful since under a microscope it doesn't seem to look like any micro photos I can find, but then again I was using a $20 microscope for children so it was hard to get things in focus. Unfortunately it's also a quite large group with thousands of species so I dont really know where to begin....

 

[tvu]

I’ve had this with several new tank builds around 4-6 months. It eventually goes away on its own given good water conditions. At least it did for me.

 

[Jaelowen]

I’ve had this with several new tank builds around 4-6 months. It eventually goes away on its own given good water conditions. At least it did for me.

That's what I was hoping for, but unfortunately it's only been getting worse and worse despite having no detectable nutrients in the tank. How long has it generally taken them to go away for you? The tipping point for me is that now it's starting to bother the zoas and grow around frags slowing down their encrusting

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Chrysto. In may forms, has been observed here on R2r quite a bit in nutrient limited tanks. They like a few others seem to like and thrive by dropping the nutrients as a method to out compete other organisms including bacterias.
One method that has worked had been to increase nutrients to detectable levels , by dosin no3 Po4 directly , or increasing feeding. While manually removing them, supplementing bacteria and sometimes peroxide. Similar to the method of dino removal in the big Dino thread.
Some , like Dino’s , have had luck with peroxide , dino x algae x limiting photoperiod or blackouts or combinations of the above.