Reef Hypochondriac

could very well be dinos. just not the typical ones with stringy gas bubbles.

doesnt look like cyano. id put a scoop of chemiclean in that beaker and see what it does after you swirl it gently

how invasive is it?
can you get a pic of it with a 45 degree angle up to catch any of these bubbles better?
 
I am 1000% sure of the source


non QT

there are two invaders among every invader you read about online that can come from non hitchhiking vectors

green hair algae and cyano (can come in on airborn flotsam, aerosols, vectored in on skin cells and other wafts, vectored in through water changes not ran through uv, on and on)

if we are dealing with an invader that is not cyano or GHA variations or microalgae dot variations, we are dealing with a requisite hitchhiker.

Its cause was import and never nutrients, although for sure these organisms seek nutrients for sustenance in some form or another and will capitalize on what we tend to store up and leak out slowly in our tanks.

Im all for nutrient control when it comes to any organism. But it is not the cause of any invasion really, a form of import is to blame

Owing to that definitive list, debatable to many and only claimed by moi lol, any invader not cyano or gha can be beaten independent of nutrient levels by making the DNA not exist in the tank. As mentioned in Russ' thread, the reason my own tank is immune to every invader except cyano and GHA and micro algae regardless of my nutrient levels is because im through stocking 3 yrs ago. zero imports occur. Whatever is gummy to the sides of the water holding vats at my LFS change water station is what can ride into my tank, but not:

macro algae
dinos
bryozoans or cousins
brush algae
valonia
bryopsis
et al

so....that little test cup you have there. mind squirting about 10 drops of peroxide into it and lemme know what happens. no im not hinting at a full tank dosing i just want to attack the cup
B
lol that would have been my test b. we think alike.
 
Oops sorry I did the peroxide first.

I filled the vial with more tank water and added 10 drops of peroxide.

10 minutes later, nothing noticed to be affecting it.

20150826_122208_zps8stpfxab.jpg
 
i was curious as to after several hours what the low dose affects if any

that mimics what a low level full tank run would be like, this is a fine test container. pure guesstimation. this invader might respond to heavier po4 scrubbing via gfo, or lights out taped, or even a hard manual removal and then some bright strong UV

the last pic you posted on the sb does look like them, it dawned on me that you might have concomitant invasions going on, in the initial pic we can see a few genera anyway. no reason one of them couldnt be dinos that express better on the sandbed for pics, or during certain hours of the day better, this is how the ocean goes. on some live rock, 10,000 genera lol
 
maybe it's a different strain of cyan0 as there are many strains some we have not seen or experienced yet. The best way to deal with any algae is usually lights out for 3 days. Sometimes water changes feed the monster so I wouldn't do that quite yet. You can see the alage is resistent to the shaded area which indicates your advantage.
 
Ok so what about this guys. Add some chemiclean to the tank, 50% of the recommended instructions, and see what happens?

Last week when I used chemiclean it got rid of that stuff.

OR

Water change right now, get rid of most i can and then see what happens.

So I do not have many bubbles on the "infestation" due to me cutting off my main lighting. I still have my hydras on but few bubbles.
 
What do you use for water storage containers? Years ago I had Brute garbage bins that I used for one of my tanks and had an outbreak of the same algae with next to no nutrients in the tank. I switched to the blue Rubbermaid ones and the issue went away. It looks like the bin was leaching something into the top up water that the algae thrived on.

Some of your first pictures look like some kind of turf algae with another algae growing on it. Sometimes another algae like diatoms or cryno will grow on hair\turf algae so it makes it hard to ID. Because it is two types of algae that look like one.
 
What do you use for water storage containers? Years ago I had Brute garbage bins that I used for one of my tanks and had an outbreak of the same algae with next to no nutrients in the tank. I switched to the blue Rubbermaid ones and the issue went away. It looks like the bin was leaching something into the top up water that the algae thrived on.

Some of your first pictures look like some kind of turf algae with another algae growing on it. Sometimes another algae like diatoms or cryno will grow on hair\turf algae so it makes it hard to ID. Because it is two types of algae that look like one.

You know...you may be onto something. My Brute container is in my garage where it gets 115 plus. Last week I cleaned my Brute can because at the very bottom was this clear sludge. I cleaned it and it was like clear snot.

From now on, when I make RODI water I will be bringing jugs inside the house.
 
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id only do that in the test cup, not the whole tank. if it takes two days and nothing happens in the test cup its no loss, its been weeks here anyway. i sure hate to blast the tank as guess work

what Wet wrote about the Brute container was excellent call i remember a thread on that from like 5 yrs ago. i would not have remembered that, any clue helps.
 
I did and it looked a little more lighter. I don't know.

Nah no microscope. Always wanted one.

So I am going to do a 20% water change right now and skim out as much as I can. Then I will use some chemiclean as I am pretty sure that will fix this problem. It did last week.

So I think the RODI container in my garage may have been the source.
 
id only do that in the test cup, not the whole tank. if it takes two days and nothing happens in the test cup its no loss, its been weeks here anyway. i sure hate to blast the tank as guess work

what Wet wrote about the Brute container was excellent call i remember a thread on that from like 5 yrs ago. i would not have remembered that, any clue helps.
I tried getting another blob but cannot locate any that just falls off like that sample did. I will try to get another piece during my water change to test.
 
I tried getting another blob but cannot locate any that just falls off like that sample did. I will try to get another piece during my water change to test.
Haha I will pay you to send some to me!
What's your price??
 
Okay 20% water change completed. I gravel vacuumed the top layer of the sand and had some nasty jugs after it. 85% of the sand "issue" was taken out of the tank.

I also dumped any RODI water I had in the garage and will start a fresh batch and immediately bring it inside.

I would start my GFO but have undetectable PO4 so I will leave that off still.

20150826_141747_zpsqfu9rdic.jpg
 
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Okay 20% water change completed. I gravel vacuumed the top layer of the sand and had some nasty jugs after it. 85% of the sand "issue" was taken out of the tank.

I also dumped any RODI water I had in the garage and will start a fresh batch and immediately bring it inside.

I would start my GFO but have undetectable PO4 so I will leave that off still.

20150826_141747_zpsqfu9rdic.jpg
Love your rockwork! Great planning went into your tank I see :-)
 
I notice your sand looks very fine. Do you have an issue with anaerobic bacteria building up in the sand bed. Just mention it because over the years I always have less problems with course sand than fine sand.
 

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