Grey/White and Hairy/Fuzzy stuff on Live Rocks

[Holyhands22]

Well after some water changes and shortening the light cycle its starting to go away.

[Posseidon]

After water changes, dusted off rocks do not get this stuff back as much anymore. Just a little bit here and there.

The rocks seem to get better now. The turbo snails help in cleaning up. But they don't eat it. Just push it off the rock while trying to graze on coralline. I'll let you know if I see any sign of the stuff coming back on cleaned up rocks.

Meanwhile, my concern is with random dispersed bits of this stuff all over the gravel floor. I normally don't vaccum my gravel for all the good bacteria. I normally don't see any fish poo on the ground, hence never felt the need. I'll still do it once I'm confident that this stuff has stopped recurring. But still, i can't reach all places with the pipe.

Do you think some Gobies might help with the floor?

[Holyhands22]

You could try gobies. I cant do them because my lionfish and stonefish will eat them. But try them good sand sifting gobies cant hurt.

[SushiGirl]

Gobies can't sift gravel, it injures their gills as it passes through when they sift. You could try a tiger conch, one per 50 gallons.

[Posseidon]

Thnx for the advice. I didn't know that about Gobies. I don't have the fine sand. I think it's Argonite Substrate. Each grain is like 2mm diameter and very smooth to touch. And it's mostly white. It is meant for salt water tanks. But I can't exactly ID it. You could probably see them in my pics on page 1 of this thread.

Are there any other options other than Tiger Conch?

[Posseidon]

Holyhands, I was thinking, if this is not algae, how does reduced lighting affect it?

The only common factor in our steps is water change and they seem to reduce in both of our tanks. I didn't change my lighting cycle yet. I brushed them off the rocks though. And they aren't coming back the way they used to.

[philosophile]

It kinda looks like hydroids to me.

[Holyhands22]

I dont think shortening the light cycle helped much either. In my 180 gal tank i do the same thing and haven't had any of this growth. I agree i think the water changes took out whatever growth we had reducing the rate of grow back to 0. I think that whatever we had was a buildup of some kind. How often were you doing water changes before the growth and then after. Before i was doing it twice a month. Now i do it once a week.

[Lpoole]

good luck with your tank bud. Seems like you took care of that algae.

[Posseidon]

Thnx Lpoole. It is fetting better

But it can't be algae. I have pretty good lights and if it was algae it would have outgrown everything by now.

These things are more like loose dust held up at the rock surface and are mostly in the med-low flow, shaded areas of the rock. Rock surfaces in high flow areas are clean.

I can't get high flow on every inch of my tank. Hence, the search for alternate solution.

[Posseidon]

*fetting
I meant "getting". Touch screens I tell you

[brandon429]

might as well post an update macro shot

[Posseidon]

Here are new pics from the same angle to compare:

This is the underside of the rock which I cannot reach with toothbrush. It cleared on its own.



This is the rock that i had brushed off two weeks ago.

[brandon429]

that doesnt look bad at all. wish I had those sun polyps

[Posseidon]

Yeah. The stuff is gradually reducing. I'm not sure if its related, but my Nitrates had spiked up a little to 10 while I was still having the grey fuzzy stuff. And now, my Nitrates is less than 5 and stuff is reducing too.
(Btw, what you see at the apex of the arc in the first pic is one of those feather filter like things that grow on rocks. They are circular and have a decent look and color. Its not the fuzzy thing)

If you recall my theory from earlier and apply to this, reduction in available nutrients reduces the bacteria population. And if this stuff is indeed bacteria and die off the surface, there's reduced sticky mulm for the water borne dust/detritus to cling on. I think this is all part of the tank establishing its eco system.

Yes, sun corals adds a good contrast to the tank colors and is worth it, provided you are ready to spoon-feed it.

[Posseidon]

I just wanted to update the status.

My rocks are returning back to their clean self. The fuzzy stuff doesn't come back anymore. The exposed parts of the rocks have cleared up. The rock surface that still has this stuff are in the shaded areas. Some of those areas are hard to reach. The snails rarely venture there as shaded areas don't get much coralline growth. It's just a matter of time that my turbo snails clean up every inch of all the rocks. Wish me luck.

[Posseidon]

Update:

The fuzzy stuff is 95% gone all over. Even the shaded regions are 80% more cleaner.

[brandon429]

I was about to link this to the peroxide thread just for another avenue featured with pics and stuff. looks great, still dont know what that invader was and your theory sounds reasonable for sure. just for a quick summary what degree of the removal in your opinion was attributed to peroxide vs clean up crew members?>and, did you have any unintended losses

[Posseidon]

Hi Brandon,

The fuzzy stuff was pretty much gone in a week after the last post. I too can't say for sure what it was. However, I'll stick to my theory stated earlier since it is the only explanation that makes sense as of now. Moreover, It can't be just a coincidence that this fuzzy stuff has most likely occurred in tanks that have some form of carbon dosing setup to reduce nitrates.

I didn't use peroxide in my battle though. I can summarize it as Clean up crew + manual removal + regular water changes + patience until the bacterial population stabilizes.

Below is a pic of my tank now. As you can see, all my rocks are back to their clean self and coralline growth is good too.

The fuzzy stuff was safe from the very beginning. Not harmful to any inhabitant even when they were all over the place. So, no loss.

[Sweatervest13]

The tank looks good!! I am pretty sure what you had were Foraminiferans. Kind of a filter feeder. I have some on my rocks and researched in a different forum, and were told that they are harmless (which you already figured out) filter feeders that eat bacteria and other small particulate material. Kind of unsightly though. I looked up a pic and it looks exactly like it. I'd link to the site, but I think it would get flagged.

Maybe when you started the BP's they took off because of the extra bacteria then are dying off slowly because the system is getting more balanced.

Just a thought.

Again the tank looks really good!!

[Posseidon]

Thanks Sweatervest

There are not many pics out there of Foraminiferans in aquariums. However, the available aquarium pics that claim to have Foraminiferans are the closest resemblance to the grey fuzz I had. Moreover, the fact that they feed on bacteria fits the observations too. Yeah, that's a possibility.

Here's a link to Hitchhiker's Guide that could help ppl out. Foraminiferans is also in there.
http://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhik...hikerswf.shtml

[brandon429]

It looks great!

[butcher333]

here is some. Here is some.