What is covering my liverock?

[Aelvion]

Slimey to the touch. Traps air bubbles, blows off partially with a turkey baster but comes back the next day. It's like a mucous completely coating and clogging the liverock.  All parameters (nitrate, phosphate, etc) are in check. pH is low, basement tank, but always has been.

 

[A.m.P]

Chrysophytes maybe? Could be a weird fungal or bacterial bloom.

[Aelvion]

On 6/22/2019 at 8:56 PM, Amphrites said:

Chrysophytes maybe? Could be a weird fungal or bacterial bloom.

 I tried bio-mate to no avail, may have even made it worse...

[A.m.P]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/chrysophytes-help-me-cure-it.263759/
H202, manual removal and bringing nutrient levels up a bit, just like dino's. Less likely to nuke your tank, but just as hard to get rid of it seems.
I had them grow so long it almost looked like bryopsis at times and they're still not totally eliminated, but even low doses of h202, skipping a few water changes, and a bunch of manual removal has them mostly under control. For me the key seemed to be silicate-spikes caused by my constant mucking-about with the scape.

Oh, don't try to starve them with blackouts like dino's supposedly they can and will cannibalize just about anything near/on them, including your rockwork, to survive.

[Aelvion]

The thread you linked seems to indicate that peroxide was ineffective??

[A.m.P]

It was *more* effective than just about anything else they tried by the end of it, I don't recommend systemic dosing, turn your pumps off measure out <1-1.5ml per gallon of peroxide and apply directly after scraping and sucking up as much as you can, then finish your water change after a few minutes.

[mndfreeze]

When was the last time you did a big water change.  Looks like standard bacterial matting to me.  I have something similar in my tank right now after I introduced some live mud from the gulf to increase biodiversity and it backfired.

 

Also, params can APPEAR to be in check if its eating all of what you are testing for.  In my tank my rock is absoltely covered in bacterial blooms, but my corals are thriving and my params look mostly in check.

 

Do some steady and medium sized water changes, manual removal during.  See if it improves.  

[Aelvion]

I do 25% water changes every Saturday...

I just scrubbed everything off with a brush. Most came off and has been filtered out but I'm not sure how to prevent it from coming back. 

So far, I lost one zoa colony to it, it grows right over the zoas. 

I'll try the peroxide dosing along with daily turkey basting for a few weeks to see if I can keep it in check I guess.

[mndfreeze]

Are you over feeding?  It has to be getting its nutrients from somewhere.  Do you have a fuge with macro algae?  Do you use RODI water and when was the last time you replaced your membrane and tested TDS?

 

My bacterial matting is different strains of cyano, but it mats the same, makes bubbles the same, etc.  It also smothers coral if I don't keep it in check.  In some spots where I have no coral if I don't blow it off often enough the bubbles actually lift the entire mat to the surface and it clogs my overflow.  I manually remove mine completely (not just blow it off) and I try to get chunks of matting at once vs scrubbing it into a billion pieces to just get caught through the system and regrow.

 

In the end, it has to be eating something.  How is your flow as well.  Does it grow in more flow-dead zones or is it everywhere even right where flow is high?

 

[Aelvion]

I feed one cube of pe mysis three times a week, that's all. No macro algae or fuge, water tests at 0 tds before going in to the tank. It grows everywhere there is liverock as well as on the glass. My flow is around 2000gph in a 48 gallon tank.(lots of LPS that won't tolerate much more flow than what is currently there)

How do you get it off in large sections? Mine breaks apart easily. Until today I was blowing it off, but I spent over two hours today scrubbing it and filled a filter sock. This is the best the rock has looked since it started growing... There is virtuayl none left (visibly) but I fear it will be back in a few days if I don't address the cause which is still unknown.

 

 

[Tamberav]

Do you use any type of air freshener around the tank or incense or anything? deodorizers? smoke inside? That can cause a bloom like this. 

 

Basement take makes is suspect of build up of VOC's which can cause Alcaligenes faecalis to grow. 

 

 

[Aelvion]

5 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Do you use any type of air freshener around the tank or incense or anything? deodorizers? smoke inside? That can cause a bloom like this. 

 

Basement take makes is suspect of build up of VOC's which can cause Alcaligenes faecalis to grow. 

 

 

Nothing like that... Maybe hand soap residue?

[A.m.P]

Low nutrients and low PH, doesn't come off in mats, the only thing which doesn't quite sound like chyrsophytes is how low it is staying, H202 application will help with but not likely eliminate the problem if it's bacterial, if it's a diatom or algae it will control/eliminate it. You could try to buffer your PH with a DIY reactor or something and see if that helps out too, otherwise maybe try dosing small amounts of nitrate so you can control the nutrient levels in your tank and see if getting them to 5-10 causes it to get out-competed? Really just spitballing because it looks like a species of chyrsophyte, but they're usually dependant on silica sources and low nutrients, your tank checks one of those boxes and they can supposedly eat away at rockwork for the second... It might be a game of wait-and-see until someone with a better idea or more experience/expertise happens upon your thread.

[Aelvion]

I think I got mine under control.
I brushed Saturday and Sunday, got about 99% of it off. I brushed extensively for like two hours each night. I used a battery powered (eheim) vacuum both days to get all the stuff out of the sand and cleaned the filter sock after each brushing. Then I dosed peroxide both Saturday and Sunday night.
I've been turkey basting twice a day since, last night and this morning I got almost nothing floating after the basting. The rocks look great... I'm going to keep turkey basting the rocks each night for the next few weeks.

All corals closed up Sunday after the second peroxide dose. The stayed closed for two days. They Look good today and it would appear that this stuff isn't growing back.