Algae ID

[93cubereef]

I have been dealing with algae on my sand bed for the past few months. The tank is now 8 months old and was set up with dry rock and live sand. I did have a bottom out of nutrients a few months back and feared it was Dino’s.

I raised nitrate to 10 and phosphate to .1, added uv, dosed MB7, ran 5 micron socks changed daily-ish, siphoned the top layer of sand a few times a week and stopped water changes. I tried a few blackouts and the algae would always come back in a matter of a week or so.

I never ID’ed the algae due to lack of microscope until now (hopefully). If someone could please ID this I’m hoping what I’m seeing is diatoms.

i was able to find a very small amount of what i think is Dino’s but they’re so few and far between.

 

[Dan_P]

Definitely diatoms. The single cell looks like a dinoflagellate but these probably exist in all aquaria.

 

[93cubereef]

Working on uploading a video now but i found some with plenty of Dino’s in it now. Kinda new to the microscope thing.

 

[93cubereef]

 

[93cubereef]

All of these are one sample directly from the sand bed

 

[93cubereef]

Not sure if the videos are viewable but here’s a couple pics

 

[Just John]

I know this is kind of old, but since you didn't get a final response, as said above, those are 100% diatoms (long pointy ones) and dinos. Both are in all tanks, but dinos only become a problem when they start taking over. This is usually as a result of an extended period of 0 phosphates. Never ever ever let phosphates sit at zero for a long time! If you are trying to ID them, here is a guide by Taricha.

 

[ben5impson]

if you're concerned about the dinos I'd recommend seeding your tank with copepods asap. just check out the first video in the "biome cycle" youtube playlist on BRStv. it goes for a bit over an hour but there are some really good findings in this video that deserve attention in the reefing community. Especially that copepods eat dinoflagellates.
but as stated you can expect to find them in almost every reef aquarium.
zooxanthellae is a type of dinoflagellate after all (I'm assuming a different species)