Did you ever get an ID on what type of organism the fuzz is? I guess I could break out the microscope and put it together again but it's such a pain just to look at one slide...
I may wind up doing that eventually if a solution doesn't materialize.
nothing I have seen eats it
I have an as-of-yet unidentified snail in the tank that nibbles at the fuzz sometimes. It hasn't made a dent yet, but I've seen it munch away some patches.
nothing but hair algae outcompetes it
I have no hair algae...probably because of my hermits. There was some green stubble on one LR fragment briefly but it was no more as soon as the crabs saw it.
it will outcompete coralline and other benefitial and benign algaes
I have some macro that's doing fine. It's sending up new shoots, but growing slowly compared to my other tanks. It's razor caulerpa, which seems to be able to stomp out most stuff through nutrient depletion. Maybe I need to give it a boost to get the edge over the fuzz.
it thrives in lower light levels
I'll bet that's it, or at least a good part of it in my case. The lighting is minimal...this could be corrected though. I put off getting a decent desk lamp since I found one that was "ok" and was enough for the macro, but to be honest it would hardly take any change in setup to get more light lol. I would prefer to try that first rather than break down and restart. Increased light might enable the macro to starve out the fuzz.
as hard as you try, you can never, ever vacuum all of the piles away
Given that my fist barely fits through the opening, there is no way to vaccume this thing. I'm relying on an absurd number of gigantic bristleworms to turn the substrate.
it is really ugly and everybody hates it
Yeah, it's really bugging me. I wouldn't care if it got going in one of my other tanks (provided it didn't cause chemical spikes) since those arn't for looks and arn't even glass/acrylic, but this one is more of a desk ornament...I liked it when I could actually see into it without squinting. Yuck.
I will bet that there is some pattern to what makes it show up. My guess at the moment is that low light causes natural competitors to not be able to thrive, and therefore gives it a foothold. It's a pattern I've seen before with other things in my pico and nano. Add onto that a nutrient excess like nitrates or phosphates and I bet it takes off like....well...brown fuzzy lightning.
I am also willing to bet that something out there does eat it. I collect oddball snails when I find them, and have come accross some that eat pretty odd food preferences. Something that jumps out at me is that my snail's favorite spots on the rock are fuzz-free. If one snail nibbles at it, there will surely be another that chows down on it...maybe not easy to find. I'm limited though because my hermits are dwarf zebras. They're full of personality which is why I got them, but they're evil incarnate with snails of certain shell types. The trials and tribulations of marine keeping...