What exactly is this...?

mdbronco · Feb 8, 2019

Hi,

I have this spongy, flaky algae (presumably) that is slowly covering all of one shelf piece, as well as appearing on a couple of frags and power heads. It's soft to the touch, but hard to actually remove as it really is attached firmly. We you are able to get a piece off, it comes off as a single flake. On the rock you can press it and as an attached mat it moves up and down and is quite spongy and soft. The color is generally blue on the top-side, and brown on the under side.

Is this cyano or algae (or something else) and is there something I should be doing? I recently had a Triton test done (last week) and no major red flags were evident, although also keen to here what others think:

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/57587/

Sorry for the pics but they were the best I could do with the zoom on my iPhone.

Thanks!

reef lover · Feb 8, 2019

Looks the same as this guys...https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/blue-hypnea.552186/

mdbronco · Feb 8, 2019

Yeah it's tough to tell tbh. I looked up blue ochtodes and the real stuff looks much bluer than mine. Mine is closer to a steel gray blue versus this type it seems. It's hard to describe and clearly my photos don't help much. It is this same blue under whites as well however. Mine also doesn't seem to grow up but more spreads/out.

mdbronco · Feb 8, 2019

A couple more shots. I came home from work and it was noticeably larger already, even though this has been going on for several months. Maybe a better question is what it isn't? Is this cyano at all, or something that it obviously isn't?

reef lover · Feb 8, 2019

#reefsquad

Ron Reefman · Feb 8, 2019

I've never seen anything like it, sorry and good luck.

mdbronco · Feb 8, 2019

this is turning out to be kind of a cool little mystery then!

TriggerFinger · Feb 8, 2019

reef lover said:
Looks the same as this guys...https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/blue-hypnea.552186/

I haven’t touched mine but I have a much smaller amount. Mine appears leaf like, not spongy or flaky looking.
Btw, I’m a girl

reef lover · Feb 9, 2019

Ok...this persons then...wasnt stating that u were a guy just using it as a broad descricption...like dude...anything can be a dude...lol...im a girl too...btw...

mdbronco · Feb 9, 2019

I took in some photos to my LFS and he suggested to get rid of it slowly over the course of the next week or so. No one seems to know what this is, and while I like the look it is spreading and I’m not sure if it will eventually overgrow and crash the tank.

mdbronco · Feb 10, 2019

So my LFS suggested I start to remove it (they also didn’t know what it was) and I removed a small patch. It def looks like algae, which is a bit of relief. My Kole won’t touch it and snails don’t really seem interested. Any use keeping or should I keep trimming? It’s a nice blue color when in the tank but not sure if it’s worth having since nothing seems to be that interested in it and it doesn’t bush up but mat.

reef lover · Feb 10, 2019

Looking at that i think dictyota....

mdbronco · Feb 10, 2019

Yeah that’s the consensus that’s building. I’ve heard two things about this - #1 if you’re into this type and you have means to control it, people want it. And #2 everyone else seems to hate it lol.

reef lover · Feb 10, 2019

My book says ...not palatable to most herbivores . Fast growing in good water quality conditions seems to have a positive effect on water quality and best removed by hand and diadema urchin and mithraculus crabs....

TriggerFinger · Feb 10, 2019

reef lover said:
My book says ...not palatable to most herbivores . Fast growing in good water quality conditions seems to have a positive effect on water quality and best removed by hand and diadema urchin and mithraculus crabs....

What book is this?

TriggerFinger · Feb 10, 2019

Where did your rock come from bronco?

mdbronco · Feb 10, 2019

The rock was a dry shelf piece but this started in the exact spot that I had a stag frag that had encrusted to the rock but unfortunately died. So when I removed the frag, this started. Been slowly growing for the past four months or so.

TriggerFinger · Feb 10, 2019

Interesting. I got live rock from the Florida keys. It died off and took a few months to start growing again. I have a very small patch of this stuff but it looks a lot like what you have now that I can see the pics out of the tank.

mdbronco · Feb 10, 2019

I’m on the fence about this tbh. I love the look but people have seemed to try hard to also get rid of it. I’ve had some offer me trades and money for it and some that claim it’s the worst thing they’ve ever encountered. I think removing entirely will be impossible, so will try and trim it down and keep an eye on it. I like and have some other macro algae in my display, but it generally branches and is easy to trim. Because this mats, it’s harder to trim cleanly.