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Innovative Marine Aquariums

dino, brown algae, or brown cyano?


Jason7504

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I noticed some stringy brown strands on my glass,rocks, sand and even on some of my corals..i know that cyano and dino are slimy and stringy but can't some brown algae be stringy too..how can I tell for sure if its dino? and can there be brown cyano? and what causes dino? my tanks 3 months old with good perams..and i just noticed it for the first time..eeek! i hope its not dino

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its hard to take a pic of it..since its so thin at the moment but i will try taking a pic tomorrow..what causes dino? man i hope it isn't..ive read lots of people on here that never get rid of there dino and its a constent struggle

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and i recently lost a torch head from brown jelly and have also had some pociliopora bleach from being handled and in transit..could that cause dino?

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Hard to say what factors contribute to a dino takeover. The thing that seems to work most consistently is keeping your pH and Alk up.

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well when i checked my pH and alk yesterday, my pH was 8.2 and alk was 3 meq/L

 

and is there brown cyano?

 

and ive heard that lowering your photoperiod to 4 hours, running carbon and GFO and maintaining a high alk and pH helps with dino..but wont it come back when you raise your photoperiod back up? i have corals too so i cant keep it low for long

 

i just noticed this in the last 2 days and all ive done in the last week was do a 20% water change with RO/DI water with 0TDS and added the pociliopora, got a brown jelly on a torch head and moved my tunze so it points up more because of too much flow on my FS and torch

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well when i checked my pH and alk yesterday, my pH was 8.2 and alk was 3 meq/L

 

Then my first guess (without the needed pics) is cyano.

 

and is there brown cyano?

 

Probably. There are a lot of cyanobacterial species and even more strains.

 

and ive heard that lowering your photoperiod to 4 hours, running carbon and GFO and maintaining a high alk and pH helps with dino..but wont it come back when you raise your photoperiod back up?

 

A blackout or low-light with corals isn't the best but sometimes it is required. GFO is the next thing after you manage the pH and alk.

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Then my first guess (without the needed pics) is cyano.

 

why do you think its cyano without looking at the pics? and can cyano grow in corals?

 

 

 

Probably. There are a lot of cyanobacterial species and even more strains.

 

i see well i hope its cyano and not dino..do you think when i turned my tunze up more that might of caused less flow in some areas? but there's even some on a coral infront of my return.

 

 

A blackout or low-light with corals isn't the best but sometimes it is required. GFO is the next thing after you manage the pH and alk.

 

should i try raising my pH and alk higher than what i have currently have it at? iam running GFO now but might get some carbon and try that too

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why do you think its cyano without looking at the pics? and can cyano grow in corals?

 

Because, IME, dinos are generally found in tanks with low pH and alk. Not unless the corals are dead or dying.

 

i see well i hope its cyano and not dino..do you think when i turned my tunze up more that might of caused less flow in some areas? but there's even some on a coral infront of my return.

 

Dunno. I have no idea what your setup looks like.

 

should i try raising my pH and alk higher than what i have currently have it at? iam running GFO now but might get some carbon and try that too[/color]

 

No, 8-8.2 is fine. Carbon will bind organic carbon but probably little else.

 

Do you have any macroalgae growing?

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Because, IME, dinos are generally found in tanks with low pH and alk. Not unless the corals are dead or dying.

 

how long of pH and alk? well i lost a head of torch and some of my pociliopora bleached..does that count?

 

 

 

Dunno. I have no idea what your setup looks like.

ok i will post a pic today

 

 

No, 8-8.2 is fine. Carbon will bind organic carbon but probably little else.

 

ok so you dont think i should run carbon to help with whatever this is? wouldnt that help slow the carbon fixation that it uses to grow

 

Do you have any macroalgae growing? yeah i have chaeto and like a strand of grape caulpera got in the mix :/

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7.6 - 7.8 with the lights on. That you have corals that bleached means that there may be other things going on as well. Have other changes been made recently regarding water chem or livestock/liverock, etc?

 

You can use activated carbon but the cyano (assuming that it actually is cyano...) can fix their own carbon, they don't need DOC. The activated carbon couldn't hurt though and it's cheap.

 

Is the chaeto growing? Do you see this microalgae growing on it?

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7.6 - 7.8 with the lights on. That you have corals that bleached means that there may be other things going on as well. Have other changes been made recently regarding water chem or livestock/liverock, etc?

 

You can use activated carbon but the cyano (assuming that it actually is cyano...) can fix their own carbon, they don't need DOC. The activated carbon couldn't hurt though and it's cheap.

 

Is the chaeto growing? Do you see this microalgae growing on it?

 

well i lost a torch head from brown jelly cuz of shipping and the pociliopora was bleached a little from shipping, handling and it had to much direct flow so i moved it and seems happy now..well i just added some fully cured DIY LR to my tank yesterday and have been increasing the Mg over the past 3 days and did a water change on sunday..thats about it..

 

ok i might just get some carbon anyway then..yeah i think the chaeto is growing..its hard to tell cuz there some heavy green and brown algae on the glass of my fuge...i will check to see if any of its growing on the chaeto when i get home

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Sounds like you have what I had ... brown cyano. It just came out of the blue. I used blue life red slime control and it was gone over night, and so far has not come back. I highly recomend using that product.

post-41150-1239383305_thumb.jpg

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Sounds like you have what I had ... brown cyano. It just came out of the blue. I used blue life red slime control and it was gone over night, and so far has not come back. I highly recomend using that product.

 

ok i will try that and if it doesn' work then it could be dino :(

 

do other red slime control products work as well?

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Don't know, but that is what my LFS recommended and it worked like a charm.... a little bit of it goes a looong way.

 

I thought mine was dino, cause of the way it looked and it was spreading everywhere, but it turned out to be cyano. - which is much more common than dino.

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Algae problem don't just "come out of nowhere". There is a reason they are thriving.

 

Use chemical treatments if you like but my opinion is that solving the underlaying nutrient issues is better practice.

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Mine did just come out of no where, showed up as a little patch and began to spread slowly... enough that I could scoop it off the sandbed. Tank params, were always in check - phos too, do not over feed the tank. Doesed the tank with the remover and gone... yet to be seen again.

 

BTW, this happened a few months ago.

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Algae problem don't just "come out of nowhere". There is a reason they are thriving.

 

Use chemical treatments if you like but my opinion is that solving the underlaying nutrient issues is better practice.

 

well i would like to solve the nutrient issue but i dont know what the cause is because my water perams are good and i use rodi water..run skimmer, fuge, reduced photoperiod of 8 hrs, run GFO, do weekly water changes, dont have too big of a bioload, dont overfeed(feed about 2-3x a week)...

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You really need to post a picture if you can. Everyone can speculate but until we can see it we are not going to be able to say what it is. And water params really don't have much to do with it.

I had dinos for 9 months in my RSM and my water params were always good. It started on month 3. Probably because I rescaped my tank is all I can guess. I can tell you from my experience that my dinos formed thin brown strings on my corals, rocks etc...if I turned the pumps off it looked like a brown "veil" floating in the water. When I tried to pick it out it just broke apart and floated to the top.

 

Cyano is maroon red and forms a mat that can usually be peeled off.

 

Mr. Fosi is giving you great information. Why try Red Slime remover if you don't know what it is??

 

If you could post a picture it would be most helpful....(I know I keep saying that B) )

 

well i would like to solve the nutrient issue but i dont know what the cause is because my water perams are good and i use rodi water..run skimmer, fuge, reduced photoperiod of 8 hrs, run GFO, do weekly water changes, dont have too big of a bioload, dont overfeed(feed about 2-3x a week)...

 

BTW, my tank was the exact situation. So don't think it's necessarily something you are doing wrong. Once they show up in your tank it can be a PITA to get rid of.

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You really need to post a picture if you can. Everyone can speculate but until we can see it we are not going to be able to say what it is. And water params really don't have much to do with it.

I had dinos for 9 months in my RSM and my water params were always good. It started on month 3. Probably because I rescaped my tank is all I can guess. I can tell you from my experience that my dinos formed thin brown strings on my corals, rocks etc...if I turned the pumps off it looked like a brown "veil" floating in the water. When I tried to pick it out it just broke apart and floated to the top.

 

Cyano is maroon red and forms a mat that can usually be peeled off.

 

Mr. Fosi is giving you great information. Why try Red Slime remover if you don't know what it is??

 

If you could post a picture it would be most helpful....(I know I keep saying that B) )

 

 

 

BTW, my tank was the exact situation. So don't think it's necessarily something you are doing wrong. Once they show up in your tank it can be a PITA to get rid of.

 

oh wow! how did you get rid of it? cant some cyano species be brown too? man i hope its not dino! :o well i was thinking if i used red slime remover and it didnt remove it ,it would point the evidence towards dino

 

i wonder how dino can start or survive with water that has perfect perams and not alot of nutrients

 

here are some pics..the best i could get because its hard to get a pic of a little thing brown strand..but this was on my K1..

 

it has lots of bubbles like dino or cyano but these could have so many bubbles cuz there attached to a powerhead

 

DSC01971.jpg

DSC01970.jpg

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[quote name='Mr. Fosi' date='Apr 10 2009, 08:40 AM' post='2192686'

 

Is the chaeto growing? Do you see this microalgae growing on it?

 

well i cant really tell if there's any growing on my macro in the fuge but there is some of these brown strands on the macro in the DT

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