Huge outbreak of red spores from GSP?

lazarus

Member
I have a well established 29g FOWLR tank that has healthy GSP growth on most of the rock. I did a water change 4 days ago as I've done every 2 weeks for years. The tank is VERY stable - at least until this morning when I saw a blizzard of red spores (they were tiny red dots) that had consumed the entire tank. It looked like they were concentrated mostly across the surface of one particular rock which is covered with GSP - so I removed it. Things have cleared up pretty well but I'm hesitant to put the rock back in - I have it in a pail in salt water (in detention!).

I've had this GSP population about 10 years and never seen anything like this before. Can someone explain what I've observed?
 

lazarus

Member
Help! Even though I took out the suspected coral - its happening again today! I think my cleaner shrimp may have been suffocated by it
 

lazarus

Member
Sorry - no pics. I cannot imagine being able to capture the image well anyway, whatever it was it took the form of tiny red dots the size of a pin (the sharp end!). Very small, and millions of them. I took out the suspected coral where I saw them congregating like a halo around the edge of it. Then I did a large water change. And I changed out the sponge in my filter. So far everything seems to be cleared up, but the event did take the life of my cleaner shrimp. I very rarely lose any livestock so this must have had a big change on the water parameters. Fingers crossed it does not come back.
 
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