So, my tank has a lot of little tiny brown hairs all over atm. I has been set up for almost 2 weeks. Nitrites, Ammonia and Nitrates are all testing 0 and ph is about 8.2. I have a coral banded shrimp, 3 margarita snails and a emerald crap as CUC so far.

I read that they are because of the silicates in the water? I think this may be from all the dust that came from my LS? Since I am not getting any nitrates, should I do a WC at the two week mark regardless of nitrates to get some fresh H2O? The tank is starting to smell of algae.

I have read around that this hairy algae is flagellates. What can I do about them?

Here is a picture of what is all over my walls and somewhat on my sand and rock. It seems to like areas of high flow. Look on the glass instead of the rock at all the stingy things. Are these dinos or something else?

Dinos are usually brown snotty string like things on the rock and glass. I didn't enlarge the pic. But...

If it were me I'd do the water change. In a new tank they should run their course and vanish. You could also use a turkey baster to blow them off the rocks and glass if you wanted. Be stingy with your feedings and additions while you have them. If they don't vanish shortly then I'd start to get concerned and seek the source of the problem.

I am pretty sure it is dinos. I believe that the source is the fact that I used natural sea water (filtered from a reputable source) to fill up my 20H. I don't have any fish and my CUC is really low maintenance so I am not adding any nutrients into the water. I am not really sure what is going on though.

I think I am going to start off my attack on these stingy things by lessening my lighting regime. Any thoughts?

Turning your light off and covering your tank (with something like a thick dark colored blanket) for 2-4 (preferably at least 3) will kill them usually. If they appear again repeat the process and it should knock them out completely. In a new tank it's just part of the process more than anything. You're inhabitants don't have specific lighting needs so... If they bother you definitely go lights out for a few days with a covered tank. There's nothing in there you're going to hurt by doing it.

Hmmm... don't really look like Dinoflagellates. And I don't think dino's would grow well in high flow.

IMO no need to do anything really. Other than scrape the glass. You could also start to slowly increase the # of snails you have in the tank.

A water change won't hurt anything, but if you do one be sure that the water you use is pure and doesn't contain any nutrients to fuel the algae. If you wait a little while longer the algae will consume the nutrients in your water and it'll go away on it's own.

Typical cycling stuff. Your tank just hasn't stabilized yet. Give it a good month and you'll probably experience the typical pod population explosions and maybe another algae outbreak.

I can't really get a better pic.. my nikon coolpix doesnt do macro well. What makes you think it isnt dinos? They are long and stringy for sure.

If dynos don't like high flow, then these couldn't be it as they are mostly present only where high flow is present and less in other areas. I am hoping you are right in that is it just some sort of algae bloom from a new tank. I will be holding off on a WC for awhile and reducing my lighting regime for a week and see what happens.

I haven't scrapped my glass yet because my magfloat hasn't arrived in the mail yet I am hoping tomorrow so I can clean this stuff off.

While I can't give you an exact ID, I can tell you that it looks just like normal cycling stuff. Actually, if I go a while w/out scraping my glass I get some of this stuff as well. It should just wipe off easily and tends to grow in areas of the glass with higher flow.

By all means please observe it closely to see how it develops, but I don't think you need to do anything other than scrape it off. The cycling process takes time and the more natural and consistent you keep things the more stable your tank will be once it's over. You're not showing nitrates, but that alone doesn't mean that your cycle is complete. You can start adding livestock, but your tank is still unstable so strange stuff will happen.

Good luck.

Thanks ajmckay for the advice. I don't plan on adding any major bio load like a fish for a few weeks yet to let things settle.

Thanks for the info everyone, I will just have to see what happens I guess

1. no water changes when fighting dino's.
2. adjust ph to 8.4-8.5.
3. run gfo to remove the po4 thats feeding the dino's.
4. darkness for 48-72 hours (tape a garbage bag or cardboard box around the tank for complete blackout).
5. siphon out dino's every chance you get and run a 100 micron or finer mesh bag to caplure free floating dino's.

its a long battle, dino's wont go away overnight but it will improve almost immediatly.

does it look like this?

thanks to sunny at rimlessreef

Its either Dinos or another form of dinos, it starts with a C the name escapes me right now. But its a less troublesome form of dinos. I got it in 3 tanks at the same time, and i dont cross contaminate my water. Come to find out (after some odd testing methods) that it was my bucket of reef crystals that was causing the problem. I had only 1/4 of a bucket left so either it went bad, or it was a bad batch from the start. Either way i was fighting it for a good while. (The bucket either had some bad params that i didnt notice, or some odd sort of contamination)

Switched salt brands and its gradually going away. Guess i will use up the bucket of reef crystals in my fish only tank where photo-period doesnt matter (it comes and goes during lighting cycle).

Just clean the glass, and vacuum off the rocks when you do your water change, cut back your lighting if you can or no lighting at all for awhile.


As for them not growing in high flow areas, in my case thats incorrect (they seem to love to grow on my powerheads).

+1 my dinos looked like that.

i did manual removal and cut the tank lights for 3 days and they went away.

chachi

Are you thinking of Calothrix? That's actually a form of blue-green algae and looks a-lot like dinoflagellates.

When I was speaking of high flow, I was referring to the dinoflagellates, which, from what I understand are typically found in areas of lower flow like the sand. The 'normal cycle stuff' is what likes areas of high flow, but it's not dinos (well, if it is dinos, then it's not the nuisance kind).

I have it growing right on my powerheads, all would up on the inside and flowing like streamers right out the front of them waving around.

and i was talking about chrysophytes, i finally looked it up i could not for the life of me remember!

I took my hand and started wiping the stuff off the glass. It had a dusty film all over and then the long stringy bits. I still don't know what is it, though I am pretty sure it is natural end of cycle algae growth. I am running my skimmer to clean the tank up and attempt to get rid of the smell (smells like algae). Params all look good. The main reason I don't think it is dinos is the fact that they don't have air bubbles trapped around them, which most dino species have I've read.

I plan on letting the tank sit for another couple of day with no lighting and then I will go a wc and see what happens.

BTW, does a tank usually smell during cycle? I miss the clean water smell I used to have

I just scraped my glass the other day but this is the crap I'm talking about (took that pic an hour ago - I missed this little patch). I honestly don't know what it is, but I typically just wipe them off. A while ago I went like 2 weeks w/out scraping my glass and all 4 sides, powerheads & other stuff were covered with them.

SoCal, sounds like a good plan. As for the smell, it's normal to smell a little, especially during the cycle. If it's really starting to smell, like clear out the room smell, then you could try performing a water change to see if that helps. If you can stand it though, I would just observe the tank and let the tank do it's thing. It'll all clear up soon.