Algae identification help, Dino’s or cyano?

[living_tribunal]

I started this little 10g qt frag tank 2 months ago. It was cycled before adding frags to the tank.

I have had small bouts of an outbreak of some sort coming and going since this time. I definitely expected the typical wave of diatoms, gha, cyano, etc but expected it to die down a bit by now.

I normally wouldn’t intervene in order to let nature do it’s thing but I have a few frags that are being consumed by the algae some on the rock/frag plug and more concerning their tissue.

Could I get some help identifying what this is so I can create a more effective battle plan? It looks like there are two types of algae I’m dealing with here, I’m thinking Dino’s and maybe brown hair algae.

I started the tank on fluconazole, was planning on maintaining small fluc levels constantly for this frag tank to eliminate any possibility of bryopsis entering the dt.

Salinity: 1.026
Calcium 450
Mag 1350
Phosphate .03 (normally keep higher at .1, my lps prefer this but have been doing twice weekly water changes)
Nitrate 10

Thanks ahead of time for any help! I’m new to the hobby and it’s hard to find info sometimes.

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

Have you got access to a cheap microscope?
It's very hard to get a positive id on things without one

 

[living_tribunal]

Have you got access to a cheap microscope?
It's very hard to get a positive id on things without one

Read today it’s well worth the $10 , I don’t have one right now but I’m probably going to Amazon one tomorrow.

 

[living_tribunal]

Anyone have any ideas that seem obvious? There are too many algae’s to pick from that seem too similar.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Its Dino. This is beatable. You will need to do a -34 day blackout and Apply Hydrogen Perxoide each night at lights out at 1ml per 10 gallons and lossen the dino with turkey bASTER and siphon up. Additionally add liquid bacteria and do not use reef roids or similar as they are fuel for dino.

 

[living_tribunal]

Its Dino. This is beatable. You will need to do a -34 day blackout and Apply Hydrogen Perxoide each night at lights out at 1ml per 10 gallons and lossen the dino with turkey bASTER and siphon up. Additionally add liquid bacteria and do not use reef roids or similar as they are fuel for dino.

I’ve heard mixed results from blackouts and some bad stories about the peroxide.

I feed many of my lps reef roids 1-2 days a week. I think this is definitely a contributor as the excess collects on the rock that the zoa is on.

I don’t want to forego feeding my frags, they respond to sell to it. Any alternatives or any more long-term method of Dino removal so I can keep things healthy/non-disruptive in my tank?

I don’t have a skimmer and the frags hated the fuge I setup. Maybe it’s worth adding one.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Roids definitely a contributor and do it as I described and you will win. I dose .5ml of peroxide every night to keep tank in check- here is before and after.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

 

[living_tribunal]

Roids definitely a contributor and do it as I described and you will win. I dose .5ml of peroxide every night to keep tank in check- here is before and after.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And you haven’t experienced any bleaching?

I’ll have to see how peroxide interacts with fluconazole.

 

[vetteguy53081]

And you haven’t experienced any bleaching?

I’ll have to see how peroxide interacts with fluconazole.

No bleaching and peroxide is mainly comprised of water

 

[living_tribunal]

No bleaching and peroxide is mainly comprised of water

I’ll look into it. Still trying to find a long term solution where I can also feed my frags.

 

[living_tribunal]

So after some digging, I just realized I’ve been handling everything wrong.

My first instinct was to try fluc since I thought this brown algae was different from Dino’s. Well that killed all of the algae that isn’t as toxic/overbearing as dinos that could have competed for nutrients.

During this treatment, I removed the carbon from my filter which allowed the toxicity from the Dino’s to royally make my frags angry. They went from growing like crazy to closed up in a week with no changes in params/schedule.

Lastly, I think Dino’s have become widespread in my tank because I have kept crazy low nutrients. I went back to my tank logs and saw that my phosphate/nitrate levels were a lot lower than I remembered. I didn’t even think about the connection between a tank with no biodiversity from low to non-existent nutrients.

I have been doing 2 30% water changes on the tank every week a day after I feed the frags which has kept things far too clean.

I’m going to start with a more natural attack plan than hydrogen peroxide and blackout.

I just purchased a uv sterilizer, added the carbon packets back to my filter (to relieve the coral of the toxic excrete of the Dino’s), poured half a bottle of fritz turbo start, added live rock from my dt that had coralline and a little bit of gha, and am going to start dozing phosphates and nitrates to get levels up to .1 and 10 respectively.

I’m going to keep doing a once weekly feeding of roids and change my second weekly roid feeding to a broadcast feeding session with small pe mysis.

Will let y’all know how it goes.

 

[living_tribunal]

Since starting this thread, I've tried my best to combat dinos from all angles.

Things I've tried:
1.) Stopped doing any water changes.
2.) Added UV Sterilizer.
3.) Dosing 1ml hydrogen peroxide in morning and in evening (it's a 10G tank).
4.) Started dosing both phosphate and nitrate. My levels are currently nitrate 5ppm and phosphate 1ppm.
5.) Added a lot of fritz turbo start.
6.) Added a lot of pods and phytoplankton.
7.) Dosing 5ml of ocean magik daily.
8.) Been turkey basting frags and the frag rack daily.
9.) Performed 3 day blackout.

Today is the last day of the 3 day blackout. I checked the tank earlier this morning and there are still dino webs on some frags but most of them have whitened out. I'm considering a fourth day but don't want to cause any more stress on my corals.

One thing I'm not sure of is whether I should do a water change when I turn the lights back on? I'm eager to get the toxicity out of the water. This tank does have a hob power filter with a carbon packet to help remove the toxins but I'm sure this extermination has caused a big spike. If anyone knows the answer to this I'm all ears.

I'm hoping that I've added enough biodiversity and raised nutrients enough to where when I turn the lights on, everything is in place for micro-algae and biodiversity to flourish and overtake the dinos.

Most of the frags in the system have been ready for the display for a while now. I've read that freshwater will kill the dinos instantly so am planning on doing freshwater dips to the frags and moving them to my display today. I just really need to confirm that freshwater kills them because adding dinos to a system that is only a week old seems like a recipe for a disaster.

Going forward, I plan on continuing to dose nitrate and phosphate as well as pods.

 

[living_tribunal]

So I’ve beat Dino’s! Doing everything at once worked. I did lose a Duncan in the process (my first coral loss) but the rest of the frags are recovering and the dead brown crap is leaving the tank.

I did have a super quick cyano outbreak afterwards but it was gone in a day or so.

I will NEVER let nitrates or phosphates dip get to 0 again. I do frequent water changes on my little 10g system and I’m dosing the new water to 3ppm nitrate and .05 phosphate everytime. I think that with all of the pods and other bacteria will keep things nice and stable.

Thanks again for all of the help.