GeorgeMonnatJr
New member
My Setup
6' 125 gal DT w/ 33 gal sump
I upgraded from a year-old 20 gal 3 months ago moving 25# LR then
190 pounds LR total (I think the original 25# LR was Fiji and new 165# maybe Tongan? LFS on the phone just now said what sounded like "Tonaka", whatever that is)
AquaC EV-180 skimmer
Lights are TMC AquaRay like this (front of DT at bottom of diagram)
My Bioload
My tank's still immature, so I don't have corals, big fish, etc. Mainly just ornamental shrimp for CUC.
2x small (1/2"-3/4") red-legged hermit crabs
1x small (1") emerald crab (in sump/refugium)
1x small (1.5") orange linckia star (in sump/refugium)
10x small bumblebee snails
30x nerite snails
~16x cerith snails (damn hermits)
1x large (2") pistol shrimp
12x small (1/4"-1/2") sexy shrimp
4x medium (1.5") scarlet/skunk cleaner shrimps
2x medium (1.5") blood red fire shrimp
1x medium/large (4" dia.) brown BTA
1x large (2" dia.) Hawaiian Feather Duster
3x medium (1/2", 3/4" & 1" dia.) purple feather dusters
1x yellowtail damselfish (1.5")
1x Randall's Prawn Goby (2.5")
1x bicolor blennie (2")
1x tailspot blennie (1.5")
3x clumps of Chaetomorpha in sump (floating around one piece of LR ~1-2#)
My Water Parameters
pH 8.18, 80°F
salinity 53.3 mS/cm
Calcium 460ppm
KH/Alkalinity 3.3 Meq/L or 9.2 dKH
Mg/Magnesium 1310ppm
Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate about 0 (haven't checked in about a week, but my Seachem Ammonia detectors have stayed yellow [good] and my Poly-Filter pad has stayed white [good])
My Concern
I've noticed these dinner-plate looking spots of brown, film algae on some of the newer LR.
I've scoured all of the nuisance algae ID threads and online ID sites I can find, but nothing looks exact. My best guess is that it's a Lobophora sp. brown algae.
It's been growing pretty slowly but steadily for a couple of months now, and it's on multiple LRs across the DT from 5" deep to about 13" deep. Most are between dime-sized and nickel-sized (US). I tried tweezing some off. It's definitely too soft for coralline algae, but it doesn't peel off in chunks, either. I don't think I can manually remove it (maybe if I take a couple weeks to pick off each tiny bit as it breaks apart instead of peeling off), and it's on too many rocks for me to want to boil them (only as a last resort).
The LR it started on is the new Tongan/Tanaka? LR and is still mostly on that - but that may be because the new LR is piled up high in back and the old Fiji LR is at the bottom along the front.
The one under the red arrow in this next picture is about 7.5" under the surface of the water.
Here's another picture from further out to give you a better idea (again, under the red arrow).
That's just right of center, so it's under the back, left corner of the TMC AquaRay 1000 HD Ultra Marine White square (70W; 10x 14kK white LEDs) and almost under the TMC AquaRay 600 Ultra Reef Blue stick (35W; 5x 50kK blue). A couple of days ago I took a PAR reading with an Apogee SQ-110 reading 130 µmol/m2/s at the BTA (14" deep), so it's probably closer to 200 at that spot. My white lights are on for 9 hours/day (blue stick on for 11 hours/day).
In the last picture there's another large group in the bottom left of the picture under the yellow arrow at about 13" deep and under the TMC AquaRay 1500 XG Ultima square (70W; 10x 9kK white). So they have about 130 for PAR.
I think that's all I've got after reading the How to Help us Help you Identify Algae sticky.
Anyone have thoughts on ID and how to handle it? It's not critical, yet, but I want to get ahead of it. Especially before I get zoas or anything else.
6' 125 gal DT w/ 33 gal sump
I upgraded from a year-old 20 gal 3 months ago moving 25# LR then
190 pounds LR total (I think the original 25# LR was Fiji and new 165# maybe Tongan? LFS on the phone just now said what sounded like "Tonaka", whatever that is)
AquaC EV-180 skimmer
Lights are TMC AquaRay like this (front of DT at bottom of diagram)
My Bioload
My tank's still immature, so I don't have corals, big fish, etc. Mainly just ornamental shrimp for CUC.
2x small (1/2"-3/4") red-legged hermit crabs
1x small (1") emerald crab (in sump/refugium)
1x small (1.5") orange linckia star (in sump/refugium)
10x small bumblebee snails
30x nerite snails
~16x cerith snails (damn hermits)
1x large (2") pistol shrimp
12x small (1/4"-1/2") sexy shrimp
4x medium (1.5") scarlet/skunk cleaner shrimps
2x medium (1.5") blood red fire shrimp
1x medium/large (4" dia.) brown BTA
1x large (2" dia.) Hawaiian Feather Duster
3x medium (1/2", 3/4" & 1" dia.) purple feather dusters
1x yellowtail damselfish (1.5")
1x Randall's Prawn Goby (2.5")
1x bicolor blennie (2")
1x tailspot blennie (1.5")
3x clumps of Chaetomorpha in sump (floating around one piece of LR ~1-2#)
My Water Parameters
pH 8.18, 80°F
salinity 53.3 mS/cm
Calcium 460ppm
KH/Alkalinity 3.3 Meq/L or 9.2 dKH
Mg/Magnesium 1310ppm
Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate about 0 (haven't checked in about a week, but my Seachem Ammonia detectors have stayed yellow [good] and my Poly-Filter pad has stayed white [good])
My Concern
I've noticed these dinner-plate looking spots of brown, film algae on some of the newer LR.
I've scoured all of the nuisance algae ID threads and online ID sites I can find, but nothing looks exact. My best guess is that it's a Lobophora sp. brown algae.
It's been growing pretty slowly but steadily for a couple of months now, and it's on multiple LRs across the DT from 5" deep to about 13" deep. Most are between dime-sized and nickel-sized (US). I tried tweezing some off. It's definitely too soft for coralline algae, but it doesn't peel off in chunks, either. I don't think I can manually remove it (maybe if I take a couple weeks to pick off each tiny bit as it breaks apart instead of peeling off), and it's on too many rocks for me to want to boil them (only as a last resort).
The LR it started on is the new Tongan/Tanaka? LR and is still mostly on that - but that may be because the new LR is piled up high in back and the old Fiji LR is at the bottom along the front.
The one under the red arrow in this next picture is about 7.5" under the surface of the water.
Here's another picture from further out to give you a better idea (again, under the red arrow).
That's just right of center, so it's under the back, left corner of the TMC AquaRay 1000 HD Ultra Marine White square (70W; 10x 14kK white LEDs) and almost under the TMC AquaRay 600 Ultra Reef Blue stick (35W; 5x 50kK blue). A couple of days ago I took a PAR reading with an Apogee SQ-110 reading 130 µmol/m2/s at the BTA (14" deep), so it's probably closer to 200 at that spot. My white lights are on for 9 hours/day (blue stick on for 11 hours/day).
In the last picture there's another large group in the bottom left of the picture under the yellow arrow at about 13" deep and under the TMC AquaRay 1500 XG Ultima square (70W; 10x 9kK white). So they have about 130 for PAR.
I think that's all I've got after reading the How to Help us Help you Identify Algae sticky.
Anyone have thoughts on ID and how to handle it? It's not critical, yet, but I want to get ahead of it. Especially before I get zoas or anything else.
