Algae ID Help

[fredyang]

Hey reefers! I’ve recently been dealing with a nasty algae problem in my tank. There are brown, slimy strings growing all over the place — the sand bed, rocks, and even my corals. Sometimes, there are bubbles trapped in the strings.

At first, I Googled the symptoms and suspected dinos, so I got a microscope to try to identify the species. However, after taking multiple samples of those brown strings, almost everything I see under the microscope is pizza-shaped cells, which I believe are Licmophora (a type of diatom). I can barely find any other cells that move around and look like dinos.

I did manage to capture one of these moving, roundish cells in the video, but most of the microorganisms in my samples are still those pizza-shaped ones.

Could anyone help me figure out whether the moving cell in the video is actually a dinoflagellate, or if it might be something else? And if most of what I'm seeing is Licmophora, could that mean the brown strings are caused by something other than dinos?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Subsea]

@fredyang
I am not much good on the microscope.

How about you take a full tank shot with white light so we can see what you see. Help us to help you.

I see this is your first post. Consider starting a tank journal in members tank forum.

How long has tank been cycled?

How did you cycle this tank? What was the source of your rock and substrate?

Livestock in tank, including clean up crew.

What are your parameters?