Bryopsis? I hope not..

[Mikefromaz]

Hello all I have been battling a cyano outbreak in my tank, which is going well enough I guess, but a secondary problem came up. My rocks mostly in high flow areas are being covered at an amazing rate by this VERY short green algae( maybe an eigth of an inch if that), which looks like velvet from a distance. It COULD look like hair algae if it werent for the fact that the strands are so fine, it is almost impossible to see them as individual fibers. Oddly enough I had hair algae, the "heftier" kind and eliminated it with phosphate absobers, and a couple of trusty turbo snails.....now this! Argh!! Any suggestions as to what it might be, and what to do about it?

A side note: My 55gal was two years old and in serious danger of collapsing so I had to move everything to an unused 80 gal. including the DSB. I went through two weeks of hell with ammonia, then diatoms, then cyano, and now this ugly pool table cover looking stuff. The tank finally rebounded, and the chemi-clean seems to be doing the trick on the cyano at least. As most of us do at times I am very worried about my critter buddies, so any help would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks!
Mike

 

[kmk2307]

Hi Mikefromaz,

What kind of lighting do you have? What kind of filtration do you have? How much live rock do you have? What is your water quality like (ammonia, nitrates, pH, phosphates, others could be helpful also)?

Kevin

 

[Mikefromaz]

Thanks for your reply! I have 155 Watts PC 50/50 10k/03. All bulbs are less than three months old.

Salinity: 1.023
Ammonia 0.1 right now because of chemi-clean ?
Nitrites 0.0
Nitrates: less than 5ppm
dKh: 10
Phosphates: 0.0
DSB: 4 in. aragonite (2+ years old)
LR: approx 80lb
PH: 8.2 - 8.4
Filtration: no mechanical, no refugium
Water flow: approx 1000gph
Skimmer: Seaclone 100

I have had excellent results for over two years, and am sure everything would have been fine if I wasn't forced to move my entire tank into the 80 gal. The new tank went into a cycle lasting about two weeks, where the ammonia went as high as 3.7ppm. a LOT of organic stuff ended up in suspension because of the DSB being disturbed, so I have a feeling thats where the extra nutrients are coming from fueling the various outbreaks. Everything survived the move with flying colors and the stats above are the readings as they stand now in the new tank. The one "wild card" where I think I might have messed up is when I set the 80gal. up, I added about 40 lb. of terrestrial "lace rock" which had a good amount of dried lichen still attached to it, and in my haste to get the tanks switched over I forgot to scrub the stuff off. Bummer The lichen seems to be gone now, but the rocks where it was are the ones most covered by this green fuzz. I am really amazed at how fast this fuzz stuff is spreading.......sure hope there is something I can do. thanks again for your help, and I hope the info is helpful!

Mike

 

[kmk2307]

Mike,

It seems your sand bed was loaded with nutrients and the disturbance unlocked them and they are leaching into your water. Lichens are mostly fungus which are mostly chitin which has a lot of phosphorous in it. The best advice I can give you is to get a much larger / more efficient protein skimmer and / or add an algae filter aka refugium.

HTH,
Kevin

 

[Mikefromaz]

Kevin. Thanks for your input. While I don't have the money right now for a heftier skimmer, I agree this Seaclone which was perfect on the 55g. probably just doesn't have the 'go power' for situations like this. Soooo.....unless I can talk my friend in the home reef maintenance business out of one of his spare Remoras, I'll be doing lots of water changes! I had no idea lichens were a source of phosphorus! No wonder the algae is partying! Thanks again....I truly appreciate you taking the time.

Mike