What Is It?

[Fishy1]

Hi, I'm new to this board and hobby, and have a question hopefully you can answer:) I have just recently set up a 7 gallon bowfront tank and added about 12 pounds of live rock. It is about half way through the cycle (used cocktail shrimp). There is brown algae starting to spread on the substrate and live rock. This is normal, I know, but there are also small white cottony growths starting to come out of the live rock. What are these? They sort of look like Jack Frost did a number on the rock. They are small and rounded and out of the round area are these white cottony "feelers". Should I be concerned? Sorry I don't have a way to send a picture:( Thanks for your help......

Jane

[mr9iron]

Welcome to reefcentral. Glad to have another bowfront nano fan here.:D Without a pic it will be hard to truly identify but it may be a sponge of some type.HTH:D :D :D Keep us updated on the progress of your nano, and if you have any questions feel free to ask. Theres a great bunch of reefers here that are full of information.

[Carlos]

The algae you are seeing in your sandbed is most likely Cyanobacteria which is actually a bacteria and not algae.

Cyanobacteria (Cyano) is very normal in new tanks. Cyano is mainly due to high nitrates, low water current, and low oxygen in water. Let me ask you the following questions:

How often do you do a water change? What is your procedure for water changes (from preparing the saltwater to adding it to the tank)?

What are your water level readings? (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates)

The more information about the tank setup you provide, the better we can help you.

Carlos

[Christopher Marks]

Sounds to me like it's maybe dead coralline algae? I dunno though...without a photo. What kind of lights do you have on it, or were on the LR when you got it?

-------------------------
-Christopher Marks
www.nano-reef.com

[Fishy1]

Thanks for the replys. My substrate this morning and LR are covered in brown. The ammonia is 0 the nitrites are 2 ppm (down from 4) and the nitrates are 100 ppm. The lights are a CSL 32watt white and 32watt blue britelite hood with fan. I have a modified Skilter 250 with airstone for filtering and skimming and just put a bubbler wand in last night to add oxygen. I also bought a small rio50 powerhead that I may put in today. The tank is not done cycling yet.....probably be another week or two. I plan on adding a couple of snails and a red-legged hermit crab when the nitrates go below 20ppm. I'm debating whether my current 9 watts per gallon is too much light. I could always cover up one of the blue and one of the white bulbs with foil and cut it in half. The white fuzzy things look more like trees now. They are growing out of what appears to be brown dieoff on the LR. I'll just watch them for a while and see what happens. I hated to give up my 75 gallon when we moved to CA but there was no room for it. Thus I'm trying to learn nano-reefkeeping:) Thanks for the help. I'll keep you posted on how I'm doing:)

Jane

[kennerd]

Given the presence of nitites, it sounds like your cycle hasn't completed yet. Did you say you used cocktail shrimp for the cycle? hhhmmmm...never heard of that. I'll assume you are referring to dead shrimp from the market? If so, are they still in there & for how long? I'd take them out if they are still floating around.

Given the incomplete cycle, maybe you're just experiencing a diatom bloom. Especially with the lighting so high.

Ditto on the water changes, etc. anyway.

[Fishy1]

Update......I just checked and my nitrites are 0 and the nitrates are about 50. Time for a water change and a snail or two:) I used a raw dead cocktail shrimp to cycle tank by leaving it in for about a week and then removing it. Didn't have to sacrifice a fish that way! If you are interested, there is a great article on cycling with a shrimp at http://fishwhisperer.homestead.com/fish.html just click on New Tank Cycling.

Jane