I have been. But it’s taking over. It’s like a mix of slime and hair algae.
I removed the black screen baffle and went back to the stock configuration. Cleaned most of it out tonight as well. We will see if if coms back. It definitely looks to have more surface agitation now.
One of the healthiest refugiums I've seen many years ago, had a thick layer of green spongy looking macro along with chaeto and caulerpa; I can't recall who's fishtank system it was but it was full of life in the refugium.
One of the healthiest refugiums I've seen many years ago, had a thick layer of green spongy looking macro along with chaeto and caulerpa; I can't recall who's fishtank system it was but it was full of life in the refugium.
I had the same thing happen to my refugium and it was hair algae, choking the plants and growing in a mat on the surface. I had to scrape everything out of the refugium and start over with a bunch of clean new macroalgae. I also found that once I had a lot of acros, chaeto stopped growing and would get icky, but ulva does ok.
Once something tips the balance toward hair algae or other of the nasties, it’s hard to fix without a total re-do.
If you still have a good chunk of chaeto that isn’t overtaken by the nuisance algae you can use it, but give it a leg up by clearing out all that other algae.
The fact that your surface is skumming over leads me to believe your overflow weirs aren't operating as intended. I've seen that in the past when things start to clog due to macro clogging the overflow.