Something interesting to report. For the last month or so I've had a red cynobacteria growth (or so I thought) on only the black side and back of my tank. It was ONLY growing over the established coraline. It was not growing on the sand, or on the rocks at all. It grew in small circles that slowly spread into a larger mat. Some of the mats were maybe 2 feet by 2 feet.
Two weeks ago I got serious and started to scrape it off. To my surprise, it was thicker than cyno, slightly spongy, and tough as hell to get off. It adhered itself to the coraline underneath and wouldn't come off unless the coraline came off. I thought this odd.
Shortly thereafter I had miztic over and showed him the funny red round growths in my sump.. when you scraped them they were BLOOD red. No actual blood, just red. I remarked how I had what he though some funky low light sponge growth in my sump. Cool I thought.
As I was scraping away mightily the other day and watching this red stuff come off and not disintegrate like cyno would but instead it was more like a gritty mass like an old sponge that disintegrates I thought back to what miztic said. I thought no way.
However after talking it over with him again and going home and feeling it with my finger, I have, what I think to be, a MASSIVE growth of red encrusting sponge. What makes it even more solid of a case is that I had very little growth of it until I started dosing vodka. I'm actually dosing vodka/sugar/vinegar mixture. Anyways, I'm convinced that the added bacterial mass is being fed on by the sponge... its a filter feeder after all. I've seen a drop off of black nasty bacterial skimmate over the last month even though I'm dosing slightly more carbon. I'm dosing a "small" maintenance amount of 3ml for my 1000 gallon system. I know it seems small, but thats all I need to keep everything balanced.
Anyways, I think this is generally very odd. I still can't convince myself that its a sponge, but it sure as hell isn't cyano. Its not slimy, its firm, and the mat, if left alone, gets thicker.. like maybe almost half an inch before I scraped it.It would probably keep growing.. who knows. It doesn't grow nearly that big or in a mat in my sump, but it is competing with my massive skimmer in my sump.
So what do you guys think? If you want pictures I can take them, but I'm not sure how to take them. IT "looks" like really dark cyano and unless you feel it, you might say its cyano.
