What's this stuff?

ItsAName · Jan 28, 2019

Started spreading over the last month. It's a little soft, flakes off when I scrap it. I've been just trying to rub it off the rocks when doing a water change. However, now it's growing on top of my Zoas.

It's a coating on the rocks, but also in some places it looks like tassels hanging off the rock.

justmee · Jan 28, 2019

Red slime algae, cyano...

Florida Sunshine · Jan 28, 2019

ItsAName · Jan 28, 2019

So... something like this? https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/chemi-clean-red-cyano-remover-boyd-enterprises.html

I think I have a giant crab that died and can't find it for the last month. Maybe thats why it's blooming

justmee · Jan 28, 2019

ItsAName said:
So... something like this? https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/chemi-clean-red-cyano-remover-boyd-enterprises.html

I think I have a giant crab that died and can't find it for the last month. Maybe thats why it's blooming

Yes, and yes...

ItsAName · Mar 4, 2019

So I used chemi clean today (I was manually removing it without success, kept coming back in days) and can't turn my skimmer back on. It instantly overflows, even at the max setting. How long does this last for and anyway to fix this? I put in extra powerheads to increase the O2 flow, but would feel better with the skimmer on introducing more O2 too.

Dancingmad · Mar 4, 2019

What are you using for nutrient control? How stable are your nutrient levels? What are your feeding practices - what do you feed and how often? Regarding the skimmer - Max setting in regards to air injection or pump/water injection? Has it ever been 'dialed in' before? What sort of Clean up crew and fish are you rockin?

Sorry, lots of questions

. The more the community knows, the better advice folks can give.

ItsAName · Mar 4, 2019

For nutrient control I use water changes and Ulva in the refugium. I feed twice a day, pellets only. I'm 99% sure that what caused the outbreak was two big dead crabs in my refugium that went unknown for a long time and not a feeding issue. I did a super thorough cleaning 2 weeks. The max setting on the skimmer is the air injection, I've always had it dialed in before. My clean up crew is tuxedo urchin, lots of mexican snails, trochus snails, and nassarius snails. I also have a blood shrimp, emerald crab, and starry blenny to help with the clean up.

With the skimmer, as soon as I turn it on, it's bubbles everywhere ever since I added the chemi clean. Never saw that before

Dancingmad · Mar 4, 2019

Well, I'm not too familiar w/ chemi clean - but here is what I pulled from BRS, which explains the skimmer going buck wild.

For the best results, turn off or remove any carbon filtration source, UV sterilizers, protein skimmers, and ozone before administering Chemi Clean to the aquarium. After treatment is complete perform a 20% water change, after that point any carbon filtration, UV, protein skimmers*, or ozone may be turned back on.

*It is very common for protein skimmers to over skim for a period of time after treatment is complete and is completely normal. We suggest monitoring the skimmer cup and removing any collected skimmate from the aquarium and not letting it drain back into your aquarium. If your skimmer is overflowing too fast, you can try restricting the air supply feeding the skimmer and that will decrease the amount of bubbles being formed or simply physically raising the skimmer body will allow for a faster drain and a dryer skimmate to be produced. Replace any removed water with freshly mixed saltwater.

To solve my algae problems I usually go w/ manual removal and 'opening' my rock's pores by blasting them with a pump, kicking up as much detritus as possible then doing a water change with all the mess in suspension + running some mechanical filtration like a filter sock for an indeterminate amount of time.

Ceriths snails are some of my favs for a CUC too - they get after all kinds of waste/algae, can right themselves if flipped and small enough to get those nooks and crannies of the rocks.

Side note - I had a blood shrimp for 2+ years - such a cool shrimp.

ItsAName · Mar 5, 2019

Thank you for that. The instructions in the box had the first part of what you posted but not the second part (the helpful part!)

I'm going to try physically blocking the air intake and raising it.

Love the blood shrimp, we call him the grumpy old man. He has a little cave that he pops out of and I swear you can hear him yelling at the other fish "get off my lawn!"

I had cerith, I liked them, and then my wrasse ate them all. I need to get rid of my melanurus wrasse but none of the fish stores around here do credit, so I've been deciding for awhile what to do. I'll probably just take the lost and return him.

Dancingmad · Mar 5, 2019

ItsAName said:
I had cerith, I liked them, and then my wrasse ate them all. I need to get rid of my melanurus wrasse but none of the fish stores around here do credit, so I've been deciding for awhile what to do. I'll probably just take the lost and return him.

Yep yep, I've had a Melanurus wrasse too - they'll tear those cerith's up. Did you get lucky enough to see yours grab the larger ceriths and smash the shell up against a rock? That totally happens. Smart fish.

I had a macro algae tank for a while that turned into a foster tank for a reefing buddy - he had a brand new leopard wrasse that I attribute its survival to having an out of control dwarf cerith population in the macro tank. He really evened out the population without wiping them all out. Wrasses can be hard to make sure they're getting enough food...especially when new, so I'm thankful I had the population for him to snack on. First sign of trouble: Peace out, into the sand. Stranger Danger alert! Once they know you're the bringer of food, they'll hassle you as much as a tang

.

Anyway, hope your cyano problem clears itself up. Happy reefin' buddy!

ItsAName · Mar 6, 2019

Dancingmad said:
Yep yep, I've had a Melanurus wrasse too - they'll tear those cerith's up. Did you get lucky enough to see yours grab the larger ceriths and smash the shell up against a rock? That totally happens. Smart fish.

I had a macro algae tank for a while that turned into a foster tank for a reefing buddy - he had a brand new leopard wrasse that I attribute its survival to having an out of control dwarf cerith population in the macro tank. He really evened out the population without wiping them all out. Wrasses can be hard to make sure they're getting enough food...especially when new, so I'm thankful I had the population for him to snack on. First sign of trouble: Peace out, into the sand. Stranger Danger alert! Once they know you're the bringer of food, they'll hassle you as much as a tang .

Anyway, hope your cyano problem clears itself up. Happy reefin' buddy!

Haven't seen that yet! I accidentally hurt him cleaning the sand, left a scratch on him, but it went away 2 weeks later. I didnt realize he had ducked under the sand and I put the python into the sand to clean it and got him. Now I'm aware of it.

Funny, I was just looking at a leopard wrasse yesterday and decided not to go that route anymore. I can't keep restocking my tank with snails. Only my biggest trochus, and mexican turbos are alive, everything else gets decimated within days. Its one of the reasons I reintroduced an emerald crab, because I needed the extra support on my CUC.

Cyano is looking good, I think the treatment worked. I have to do the water change tonight and hopefully it doesn't come back.

I'm fighting outbreak after outbreak from those dead crabs, but so far I'm winning

First bryopsis and green hair algae, the fluc did an amazing job at clearing that (after 3 months or trying to manually fight it I went the chemical route. Wish I did that ages ago!). Then the cyano, and I randomly for no reason have aiptasia now. Haven't introduced anything new in 9 months and they start appearing, strange. So yesterday I got an aiptasia eating file fish (which is why i was looking at the leopard wrasse). So far the file fish seems super lethargic, I hope it doesn't die.