HELP! New kind of Algae/bacteria

[fijiblue]

I have a 10gal sps tank that has been set up for about a year now. Everything is as good as it can be except lately I have been getting an abundance of this wierd slime. Im not so sure it is an algae, but more so a bacteria. It is a gold color and pretty much looks like...well...snot. It is catching on the corals and Im afraid it will hurt them. It is very fragile and when pulled with tweezers falls apart. Has anyone heard of this before and know how to get rid of it?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It may be dinoflagellates. Does it look like this picture:


http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=7045938#post7045938

 

[fijiblue]

Randy - Similar, but not exactly. It is more of a mass and not transparent. It is a solid deep golden color. It doesnt trap air bubbles. I cant get a good enough picture to post of it, but I will keep trying. It is in a 10gal sps tank. I have over 600gph flow, modified skilter (pulls a lot of junk), 250DE Pheonix (just switched over from XM10), 18" VHO actinic. I drip kalk every night and 10% weekly water change along with siphoning out the crushed coral (needed something heavy with the high flow). I just switch salts - from coral life to tropic marin pro - and wondering if that had anything to do with it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That might be diatoms, cyano, or dinos. It is a little hard to tell from your description.

Are you using tap water?

 

[fijiblue]

Sorry for the bad description. It is very hard to explain. I use RODI - TDS between 4-7. Definatley not Cyano or diatoms...too fleshy. I just threw 12 blue legs in there this morning and they seem to be eating it. Would they eat a bacteria or would it have to be strictly an algae? I am very confused now.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

4-7 ppm TDS post RO/Di sounds like it is time to replace the DI, IMO. That might be letting through a lot of silica, if your tap water has a lot.

 

[fijiblue]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will look into that and see if it takes care of it.

 

[GTR]

:thumbsup: to the silicates.

I've been fighting a bright green scum/slime that looks like the red cyno except it's green. Spreads onto the coral and causes recession and/or loss of the coral.

Salifert test results for silicates returned..

Source = 1-3 ppm
RO/DI = .03-.25
Cant read those colors close enough to know for sure. TDS of the RO/DI was about 4 at the time.

Tank never shows any measurable silicates and why it took me so long to track it down. Nitrates always tested at 0 and PO4 measured with a Hanna colorimeter I aim for .03-.04.

To solve the silicate problem I had to add a second DI cartridge even though the original had new resin. I guess just not enough contact time. A 10" cartridge by itself yields approx 400 gallons for me.

SteveU

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Usually diatoms are not bright green. Did changing the DI make the algae problem disappear?