catfish2

I agree, it looks most like brown jelly disease to me, but nothing (obvious is dying). I had brown jelly disease once before (like 2 years ago) when I accidentally ripped a mushroom off a rock. That mushroom quickly turned to brown mush and it spread to all the mushrooms on that rock. All 10 or so mushrooms were gone in 2 days. Can this just be brown jelly disease of the organic matter on the live rock and not affect the mushrooms, zoas, and other corals that are basically touching it? I really appreciate any input!

thanks for sharing this. It's awesome. I wasn't sure if there was cross compatibility or not, but there is. I was able to use it with my ipad at home and Samsung S3.

Good thought on the sponge idea. I don't know enough about sponges to say if these are or aren't sponges. I will say they are not like the other sponges I have. They are more of a jelly consistency and this stuff can cover flat surfaces. It's not always round like it is in the pics. Also the things I know are sponges are more firm and not easily siphoned off the rock. I'm not sure if the carbon dosing question was for me or sroberts, but I don't carbon dose either. I had thought about it, which is why I bought the Hanna checker to follow phosphate levels, but being that they are so low, I'm not sure there is any reason to carbon dose now. Here are a couple more pics to help with the ID. This stuff is pretty much all over the place.

I wasn't sure where to post this, but I'm hoping to get some help IDing this stuff (pic below) so I can get rid of it. I have a 55 gallon mostly SPS tank (obviously no SPS pictured) with a 20 gallon sump. I'm running a bubble mag nac 7, gfo, carbon, and dose calcium and alkalinity. Weekly to every other week water changes of 10% although I've been going with weekly water changes of almost 20% for the last month. Ca - 480-490, red sea test kit Alk - 8.4, red sea test kit Mg - 1350-1400, red sea test kit pH - 8.4, API Nitrate - 0, API Ammonia - 0 API Phosphorous - 2 ppb, Hanna ultra low phosphorous checker, which if my calculations are correct = phosphate of 0.006 ppm I first noticed this junk about 4 months ago. I assume it is from excess nutrients. I got a Hanna checker to look at the phosphate level last night and assumed it would be higher. With my water parameters above I'm not so sure its a nutrient problem, but I can't come up with any other possibilities. I've never seen this stuff. (I know there's something about phosphate being used up by nuisance algae, which makes phosphate test kits read low. I'm not sure if that's what's happening here.) I have no nuisance algae (other than this stuff, if that is what it is), I clean the light film of algae that grows on the glass every 5 days or so with a quick swipe of the magnet cleaner. As you can hopefully see in the poor cell phone pic, the stuff is brown, its soft, easily siphoned off, grows on rock and glass that rocks are touching, not growing on any corals, just between, not in places where things have died, not killing anything, only in areas exposed to light, in both high and low flow areas, and it grows back about 4 days after being siphoned out. It looks gross after 1 week. I tried to be thorough in this post (sorry for the length), but I'm happy to give any addition information. I have a feeling the answer is going to be, "just give it time and keep up the water changes." That's what I've been telling myself, but it's been 4 months now and it's not going anywhere. I'm open to any suggestions. Thanks for taking a look!

Looking good!

Here's the link to Ehsan Daskti talking about the triton method at macna for anyone that missed it.

Awesome, thanks for the reply!

This might be a silly question, but does knocking down the foam head and scraping potentially think skimmate back down the neck affect the efficiency of the skimmer? I'm assuming the skimmer would just push it all back out eventually. Right?

I run mine dry and similar to Jeremy the emergency pipe is a few inches above the sump so it makes a lot of noise if it's getting water. That lets me know it's time to check things out before there is a problem. It usually just means I need to adjust my gate valve, which is rare at this point. I would say if there's no difference in noise run it dry.

Thanks for all the input. I'm on board now. It sounds like I should be selecting "2 part alkalinity (soda ash) SOLUTION" for my calculations since I'm making the dry stuff into a solution (according to their recommendation of 2 cups of soda ash per gallon of water) at home. Thanks again!

Yeah, so I calculated for the dry soda ash, which is what I have and it gives 0.1 oz as an option, which is why I'm a little confused. How do I dose 0.1 oz of the dry stuff? Obviously, I need to mix it in water, but I'm not sure what ratio of water to soda ash. I'm guessing it's in the same ratio as when you mix up a whole gallon of the stuff, but I just want to make sure. Thanks for the input!

I use brs 2 part and want to raise my alkalinity. When I use the brs calculator it says I need to add 4.6 grams, about 1 tsp, or 0.1 oz. So on to my question. I assume when it says 0.1 oz it's talking about 0.1oz of the solution you mix up when you make a gallon of the solution. Am I right?

Always good to hear about other stores with saltwater options! Now I have anther place to stop when I head to Portland.

I would love to see some other tanks. I'm free most weekends. If by host you mean have people come look at my tank, I would be happy to host. I don't feel like my tank is all that much to see, but I'd be happy to get suggestions from people on how I could improve my system. Keep me posted, sounds like fun!

I'm up for tank tours!

I'm in corvallis and I have plenty of red monti cap. I also have some small frags of birds nest. It's nothing fancy, but both are fast growing and fairly forgiving. I also have some green star polyps and toadstool leather frags if you're interested in those.

Great pics!

Micah, thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass just because I don't want that many pumps in my display if they're not getting me more flow. I really do appreciate it though. Andrew, thanks for offering to make the swap with Micah for me, but as you can see that won't be necessary. PeteRock, thanks for the input. I tried everything you suggested and nothing really helped. I think I'll just return it and save up for something a little nicer. Thanks for your thoughts everyone!

That'd be great! I'd be happy to trade. I'm in Corvallis, but I'll pm you next time I make a trip to Portland and if you still have em, great. (I'm assuming that's where you are based on the fact that it says Portland under location for you.) Thanks!

I may have made a mistake and bought a marineland maxi jet 1200 the other day. I'm using it as a circ pump. It pushes a lot of water, which is good, but it is so loud it bugs the crap out of me. Anyone have experience with these and know how to quiet them down. It sounds like the prop is hitting/rubbing on something. I pulled the prop out and adjusted it to try and make sure it was seated properly, but that made no difference. Thanks for any help. (I'm afraid the best answer is going to be, return it and spend more money on a nicer pump)

I don't have any clams, but mine hasn't bothered any of my LPS or SPS. My biggest concern is there isn't much left for him to eat in my 55 gallon.

I run a herbie overflow and would recommend the gate valve, but I've never used the ball valves mentioned above. I had the hardest time finding a gate valve near Corvallis. I ended up getting mine on-line.

Happy birthday!!

I was using seachem reef fusion before I switched to brs 2 part and I would just shake the bottle every now and then. Maybe once a week. That seemed to work fine for me.