This is the 4th tank I have set up and I've never had such a bad outbreak. The tank was started Nov20th with dry rock, bag of live sand, and turbo start. I am hoping this is a case of the normal diatoms, but why so bad.
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If it has those cycles and is stringy like yours seems to be it is more than likely dinos. If you have a microscope you can confirm. If you can take a photo though the scope and post it here we could identify it.Yea it does get better during the night and morning looks great and then throughout the day gets worse. Where the turbos go on the rock seems like they are deft eating it up so assuming it’s diatoms in this case.
nitrates: 5-10
Phos: .08
Not what I wanted to hear, heh. In 8 years of reefing, I've never had Dinos, but I guess there's always a first for everything.If it has those cycles and is stringy like yours seems to be it is more than likely dinos. If you have a microscope you can confirm. If you can take a photo though the scope and post it here we could identify it.
BRS has a few good videos on how to treat them, but if I had to guess adding UV would help a ton since they disappear at night. That means they enter the water column after the lights go out, which makes UV very effective against them. I would check out those videos.
With all that said the only way to be sure is to get a look under a scope. Even a cheap scope from walmart should be good enough to confirm.
There is a also a great thread on dinos here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/
Was it dinos ? Did you check with microscopeI have noticed in the last 3 days is my ph fluctuating around 8.0. Since the start of the tank the PH would always stay around 8.2 8.3.
not sure if PH would be effected by the algae die off?
Also my ATO container under the tank was reading 850 on the handheld TDS meter! I always check the brute and transfer container which reads 0 even after a week of sitting. I put a cover over the ATO container under the tank and Going to clean it as well tomorrow. Assuming this was a big cause of some of the algae???