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UPDATE - Diatoms or Dino’s in 3yr old 20G?


I'm Batman

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Without going into water Params, does this look like Dino’s or diatoms?
 

There’s coralline, hair algae and then the brown all mixed together. On some rocks it looks like Dino’s, on the sand bed it looks like diatoms and on the glass it looks like all of it. 
 

My 20G Long has been a swing of issues over the last 3 yrs. Mostly green hair algae. But this brown crap has been going on for a little while now. 


Thanks a bunch!!!

 

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Unless you added new sand, it shouldn't be diatoms.  Dinos are a possibility if your nitrates and phosphates are at 0.  What I mainly see in the photos is lots of cyano and hair algae.  Manual removal during water changes would really help control those.

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You'd have to check under microscope to confirm if its dino's, there are many strains of it.

 

Also treatment for dino is completely different to cyano and gha.

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On 11/3/2019 at 6:21 PM, j.falk said:

Unless you added new sand, it shouldn't be diatoms.  Dinos are a possibility if your nitrates and phosphates are at 0.  What I mainly see in the photos is lots of cyano and hair algae.  Manual removal during water changes would really help control those.

Just a heads up, my tests tonight are super low... 

 

I’ve recently as of today been introduced to the Dino’s with low nutrients. What gives??

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Crazy journey I’ve been on here. This crap is growing on everything including my coral banded shrimp. 
 

In the first pic it’s stringy on the glass. But I have a slime covering the rocks and suffocating the trumpets. 
 

Bubble algae and green hair disappeared mysteriously a few months ago and now this is having me pull my hair out!! 
 

 

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You have more than one problem algae, you definitely have dino's, the backwall looks like chrysophytes or the hairy-variants of cyanobacteria.
Clown79 has a guide, on the dark-side build-thread, for how they beat dino's and it's effective for most varieties.

You appear to have both stringy and also low-lying large-cell like amphi... Between that and the chrysophytes you're in for a very-long and difficult fight.

The first step would be to buy some nitrate and phosphate supplements and get your levels up, 10-15 nitrate and around 0.1 phosphates, test every day and keep them at that level. 

There are allot more helpful tips in Clown's guide and in these threads and it's worth mentioning that it almost looks like there may be a fungal-aspect to your tank's issues - I would recommend checking out one of the cheap microscopes on amazon or ebay, or trying to borrow one from a local to get an actual positive-ID on some of your problem specimens.

 https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/amphidinium-dinoflagellate-treatment-methods.365850/

The new BRS video is a quick way to imbibe a tiny-bit of superficial-information, but you've got a bad case here.

 

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38 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

You have more than one problem algae, you definitely have dino's,he backwall looks like chrysophytes or the hairy-variants of cyanobacteria.....

Beast mode response! 
 

Super helpful and appreciated, @Clown79 has been great as well! 


Snails have been working overtime chomping the back wall. 
 

Thanks for the ID!!

 

I’ll either get a scope or take a sample to the university and report back with a positive. 

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17 minutes ago, I'm Batman said:

On that same note, has anyone successfully used Dino-x?

It works on some species, but not all - probably not even most. Some folks claim it isn't reef-safe, I wouldn't know, either way you probably want to get your nutrient-levels up.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Amphrites I spent probably 3 days going through the forum and Dino threads on r2r. I learned a lot. More than I wanted to. The Dino’s seem to sink down into the sand during lights out and seem gone each day until the lights start to peak after 3 hours or so. 
 

Been feeding like crazy to get nitrates and phos up in an effort to get some algae growth. Should probably buy the nitrates and phos supplements but have been super busy. Adding weekly microbacter 7, basically an attempt to have other mechanisms to outcompete the Dino’s - tip from the forum. 
 

Dino’s grew all over my coral banded shrimp. He was covered. 
 

I haven’t seen him since 11/24 and I’ve had the little guy since 2015. Always been able to spot him by his antennae. He literally disappeared, no trace, no molt, can’t find him.
 

Since then, with no water changes and setting up the Tunze 9001, the astrea snails keep chomping away and bulldozing whatever is on the glass. They don’t seem affected by the Dino’s and my Monti Spongodes is bouncing back pretty rapidly. During all of this, the acans on the sand are not affected and continue to be ballooned up with the feeding tentacles reaching far.  
 

Just set up a chaeto reactor tonight as an added method to outcompete the Dino’s. 
 

Long and difficult fight is right!!
 

I forgot that I built the overflow chamber around the exact dimensions of IM’s 30L, 40, & 50, so I can actually fit the aqua gadget uv light in there perfectly. Thinking of trying that and then blasting all the rocks and sand hoping that will fry them as they are forced into the water column. 
 

I’ll keep us, each of our situations are basically the same but the outcomes rarely get reported before most give up and break the whole system down!!

 

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Sounds like you're doing things right, just gotta' keep on em till you win, I had allot of spare time so I was able to focus on manual removal and I caught mine really-early.

Clown's guide is really helpful, when mine were just about gone and I had nice green algae popping up from my phos sitting at nearly .2 for a few weeks, I cut my light cycle down about 60% and shortened the duration a few hours and they just vanished over the course of a week or so. Slowly brought my lights back up to normal over the course of a month and thankfully seem to be in remission.

I've been keeping my phosphates up by dosing phyto and just not worrying about where it's sitting, as long as it's above .05.

 

Sorry to hear about the CBS, I've been considering getting a dwarf blue/yellow for my setup but am a little turned off by all the horror stories of them going rogue and killing damn near anything they can, from snails - to crabs - to fish.

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Sorry about the tank troubles. I need to do something for the stuff that came out of my IM14 that got dinos. It's been sitting in a 5.5 for ages lol.

10 hours ago, Amphrites said:

Sounds like you're doing things right, just gotta' keep on em till you win, I had allot of spare time so I was able to focus on manual removal and I caught mine really-early.

Clown's guide is really helpful, when mine were just about gone and I had nice green algae popping up from my phos sitting at nearly .2 for a few weeks, I cut my light cycle down about 60% and shortened the duration a few hours and they just vanished over the course of a week or so. Slowly brought my lights back up to normal over the course of a month and thankfully seem to be in remission.

I've been keeping my phosphates up by dosing phyto and just not worrying about where it's sitting, as long as it's above .05.

 

Sorry to hear about the CBS, I've been considering getting a dwarf blue/yellow for my setup but am a little turned off by all the horror stories of them going rogue and killing damn near anything they can, from snails - to crabs - to fish.

The dwarf blue and yellow seem to be very peaceful, not at all like the full size regular and gold ones. I had a little blue one in my pico jar and really enjoyed him. I'd like to have another someday.

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