What kinda algae is this.

snipe

snipe

Active Member
Alright guys I have this stuff on my rocks and Im not sure what type of algae it is. Alright not to long ago I started noticing hair algae so I cut my hours back and scrubbed it off the rocks and at the same time there was some redslime algae growing on the rocks. The red slime is pretty mutch gone that I see. The hair algae is reseading but this algae is still growing. It is kinda a pasty color its white but you can see through it "not very mutch but some". It usually grow on the underside of the rocks what the heck is it? Is it algae at all or is it some time of mucas membrane from a cleaner of some sort that I dont know I have. I have been cleaning it off but it comes back and I just dont know what the heck it is. I would get a pic but it would be very hard to see it due to the color of it and the size of the pic.
 
snipe

snipe

Active Member
Nope not a sponge it grows in diffrent places and comes off easy with a toothbrush.
 
snipe

snipe

Active Member
I really promise you it isnt a sponge it moves in the current like green hair algae but its white.
 
snipe

snipe

Active Member
They best way to tell you what it is. If you used the shrimp method for cycling and you saw that giant white muces all over the shrimp it looks exactly like that but there is nothing dead for it to grow on its something els but it looks the same.
 
wax32

wax32

Active Member
Never cycled with shrimp but, yuck! Maybe vermetid snails? They make mucus nets. Or do you have a wrasse?
 
itchy

itchy

Member
Snipe I have the same thing on my rocks. It grows on the under side of the rock mostly. I never asked what it was because I was afraid I would sound like a dumb a**. I figured it was some kind of algae that I wasn't familiar with. I am glad you asked the question because It puzzles me. I can not get rid of it but I haven't tried real hard because I am having other algae issues. I would be curious to know...I wished I could post a pic but I can't seem to get a good one.
 
snipe

snipe

Active Member
I would post a pic in a heart beat but I scurbbed it off and even then it is so white it wouldnt show up very well at all. I have the same thing you discribed it is 99.9% under the rocks a few peices on top but most of it is under side. It seems to grow even though my lights are on for 4 hours!!!.
I dont have any other type of snails that I know of since I started with lace rock and only a few pounds of live rock and only snails I have are 3 astreas, 1 mexican turbo, around 50 or so nassarius and around 20 little snails "im pretty sure there nassarius babies".
No wrasse either. I wish someone knew what it was.
Heck mabey were growing some super rare form of algae thats worth millions of dollars wouldnt that be awsome lol.
 
itchy

itchy

Member
I promise you if it can grow in my tank it would not make me rich
.. I only tend to get the crap to grow. Hell I have a hard time with coraline....
So for this stuff to grow it can not be anything that is special. Hope we can find out what it is, it would be nice to know if we need to try to get rid of it. As far as I can remember I have had it and so far it has caused no trouble, but I am new to corals so I will keep an eye out.
 
snipe

snipe

Active Member
Alright best pic I could get I told you it wouldnt be pretty becasue of the color of it. It seems to grow with or without the lights it is a white pasty looking clear color and it dominates the underside of the rocks "in the shadow areas". In the pic I circled it and have an arrow shoing you that its flowing that way. Believe it or not it looks like someone sneezed snot all over the rocks. Im thinking its somekinda creature making a web but it flows like hair algae without color "im thinking it cant be algae since there is no color the color is what what sucks up the light". Im really sumped on this please help. I left the pic as big as possible to help you see it alittle better thanks ahead of time.
 
itchy

itchy

Member
That is the exact stuff I have...just as we described. I can't wait to see who can answer the million dollar question!!!
 
wax32

wax32

Active Member
Free-Range Gunk is the correct ID I believe! Quit looking under the bottom of your rocks IMO, all kinds of stuff you don't want to know about grows under there! :D
 
snipe

snipe

Active Member
So dose anyone els agree thats all it is? Do you have it wax? Will it get really bad or will it go away and come back as there is more or less waste?
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
Unfortunately, it is just too tough to tell from the pictures. It is unlikely to be algae growing on the underside of rocks.
 
yosemite sam

yosemite sam

Active Member
I think I had that stuff once, and I never figured out what it was either. The only thing I noticed was that its appearance coincided or at least overlapped with an outbreak of dinoflagellates. I had always assumed that they were somehow related. They look totally different from dinos, but they have some similar characteristics in that they come back really fast after any manual removal, and seem to grow at night as well as during the day. Not sure what else to tell you, but the stuff went away when the dinos went away, after about 2 weeks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top