Dino or Cyano?

[bruinhd]

Hi guys, for the past week or two, I've had parts of my sand bed turn brown towards the back third of my photo period and I stir it away. This brown stuff also grew on some zoa frags and made them close and I had to turkey baste it away..I've increased flow and it's less of a problem on corals but it's still turning up in the sand bed.

 

Nitrate has been less than 5 and phosphate has been 0.04. I pulled GFO out of my tank last night to try ousting phosphate levels up. I didn't want to take any other drastic measures such as cutting out the lights before I was sure what I'm actually dealing with. Please review this photo and let me know your thoughts.

[Clown79]

It's hard to say. 

 

There a a few common tank dino strains.

 

In the beginning when I got them it didn't look stringy, just a few bubbles and some algae.

 

Then it started getting stringy.

 

A microscope- even a non expensive one helps with diagnosing algae.

 

A quick test for dino before getting a microscope is the jar test.

 

Run some tank water through a paper towel into the jar. Nothing but tank water. Should be clear with nothing floating in it.

 

Place the lid on, shake, keep in ambient light for 4- 24hrs.

 

Dino's will refirm their chain and you will find stringy clumps in the water. Other algaes don't do that.

[thedon986]

I have had the same issue for about a month and a half. Brown mats forming on my sand bed only in the afternoons. Easily brushed away or siphoned out. No bubbles, but this week I skipped my regular water change to see what would happen and the sand bed is getting more stringy, not whispy long like cyano though. Yesterday, all corals in the tank were very closed up. I haven't confirmed via microscope yet what it is but I tried treatment for cyano and that did not work. I am pretty sure it is dinos now. Like you, my nitrate and phosphate have been very low, while my tank is still fairly new and not established. Sometimes nitrate is undetectable via Salifert and phosphate between .01 and .03 via Hanna. A perfect recipe for a dino invasion when there is not enough biodiversity. Best of luck in fighting yours. BRS has a good video on raising nitrate and phosphate while dosing a cocktail of bacterias to out compete the dinos. Also you could consider adding pods to help fight. The pic below was Thursday with my whites turned up to bring out the brown. It's gotten worse since then.