Please ID (3 components) !

[Idech]

I had dinos for months but don’t see anymore on the sand. I haven’t checked it on the microscope though. Tank was 2+ years old when upgraded 5 months ago.

Now I have this brownish/orange clump on some of my rocks. It disappears at night. I am wondering what it is, if it’s detrimental to the reef and what I should do about it. I thought it was cyano but not sure after seeing it under microscope.

To get a sample, I had to blow hard on it with a long pipette and then collect pieces that flew around. It is not like powder; it stays in clumps of different sizes.

There are three components to whatever this is :

1- the brownish/orange clump itself
2- hair like strings around the clump (they move)
3- tons of microscopic creatures swimming into it (eating it ?). They are a lot smaller than dinos.

Here are two different views of it :


Thanks for your help !

 

[Weaverjay101]

If it disappears each night I'd recommend increasing flow and running UV. That's helped me solve numerous mystery problems

 

[GSPClown94]

The swaying hair like strands look like Oscillatoria Cyanobacteria . Not really sure about the rest.

 

[Idech]

If it disappears each night I'd recommend increasing flow and running UV. That's helped me solve numerous mystery problems

I do have a UV running 24/7. I have just ordered a gyre type wave maker that will increase flow a lot. I will get it in 7-10 days.

The swaying hair like strands look like Oscillatoria Cyanobacteria . Not really sure about the rest.

Thanks, I’ll look into that.

 

[Idech]

@taricha do you have any idea ?

 

[taricha]

@taricha do you have any idea ?

This is a cyano mat.
The cyano holds it together, but as you can tell it's got other members of the community.
The type of cyano is spirulina, there's a spiraling coil structure to it that causes the ends to wave.
There's also diatoms I can see living in the mat and another tiny zooming thing that I can't ID.