Please help ID this brown stuff.
 

Please help ID this brown stuff growing on my rocks. It seems like it is spreading and grows over stuff. I'd like to get rid of it if I new how.

[url=http://reefcentral.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=232502]http://reefcentral.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=232502[/URL]
[url=http://reefcentral.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=232501]http://reefcentral.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=232501[/URL]

Thanks

I have seen that too, not sure though, BUMP

Your pictures are a bit fuzzy, especially the second, but it may be [I]Lobophora[/I]. Try searching for images to see if that looks like what you have.

does it look like long brown snot.. an in the morning it not there as much, then as the day wears on it grows out.. if so theres a thread in the advanced reefers part about it.. an its a huge problem for me ATM ..i hope that helps..

scott

No it's a hard substance that encrusts on the rock and it is brown in color. At first I thought it was some type of coralline but it is not. Not a slime or any of the typical nuisance algae I have seen. When I pull it off you can tell it's a plant of some sort.

The pictures do not show enough detail. Try searching the following:

Lobophora (as mentioned above). Forms brown circular encrusting tiers and fan-shaped fronds; exhibits many colors and morphological variations. The underside of the fronds (leaves) have felt-like surface, the top side is smooth.

Psuedolithoderma (=Ralfsia). Forms brown, tightly adherent circular crusts on rock an glass.

Neither is palatable to most herbivorous fish. Possible herbivores are Diadema urchins and Naso tangs. Best removal strategy is hand removal. [Sprung, 2002] [Huisma, Abbott, Smith; 2007]

Also brown, encrusting, and forming fan-shaped blades: Distromium, which is thin and uncalcified. Padina, which is calcified.

An extreme but effective startegy for macro algae erradication is to remove the rock, wire-brush off the algae, rinse the fragments away, and then spread a paste of lime (kalk) where the algae was. Wait a few minutes and rinse away the lime paste. Most anything smothered by lime paste is likely to be killed (pH of 12). Trying to use lime paste in the tank is likely to spike pH in the tank. Trying to scrub off the algae in the tank is likely to spread the algae by the loose fragments. Expect the rock to appear bleached where the paste was used. For algae that spreads readily by spores (ex: bubble algae like Ventricaria or Valonia) this is unlikely to erradicate the algae as unseen "babies" are probably already growing throughout the system.

[QUOTE]it's a hard substance that encrusts on the rock and it is brown in color[/QUOTE] Peyssonelia is a brownish-colored red algae that forms tough crusts and is mistaken for a crustose coralline. But I don't think that the tiers of fan-shaped fronds are typical of it. Another brown calcified encrusting algae is Newhousia.

That exhausts my feeble library of references.