Yellow patches on Live rocks

[MrHandkerchief]

Hello

My 1 month old FOWLR 10 gallon tank has 1 clownfish and 1 green chromis. Recently, I see yellow/orange patches all over the tank. Its on the live rocks, the wavemaker, and the argonite live sand. The parameters: Nitrite level, salinity 1.024, Ammonia level, PH 8.4, are all fine. There are many small bugs crawling all over the rocks and I seemed to be seeing small green stalks (plants?) growing out of the crevices. What is going on and what should I do?:sad2:

 

[Wolfex]

You have pictures? It could be sponges or algae. Small bugs could be amphipods but no way to tell without pictures.

 

[cloak]

Check these out.

http://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhiker.shtml

http://www.reefcleaners.org/nuisance-algae-id-guide

That yellowish/orange stuff your seeing sounds like Diatoms. This is usually the first to show up in a new tank such as this.

 

[ACBlinky]

Sounds like the tank is maturing and starting to sprout new life! I always find this the most exciting time with a tank -- watching the rock develop from a (seemingly) fairly lifeless landscape into a colourful canvas of sponges, calcareous and soft algaes, little 'pods, worms, and even crabs, shrimp, chitons, snails, and coral.

You may find that the life you see now will bloom and then die off partially (or even completely) as the tank settles into maturity. It's all just part of the process; IME a tank adjusts itself less and less as time passes, but never completely stops. Any time you move rockwork around, trim/add corals, clean out the sump, or otherwise disturb things, the tank will re-adjust. You might get a little algae bloom, a sudden increase in isopods, a few days of diatoms, more sponges for a while -- it's all part of the fun of reefing