Scottybgood
Community Member
After a long off and on battle with Dinoflagellates my tank is pretty stable now and no signs of Dinos anymore (knock on wood). So a few days ago I started seeing some brown goop with bubbles forming and my heart sunk. I have just a FEW lower flow spots in the DT where I have noticed it, but a LOT in the refugium section of my sump. I popped out the microscope and it was NOT Dinos...it didn't look like cyano either, but don't have too much experience looking at cyano under the scope (I only had a brief outbreak of green cyano several months ago). Also it has a different texture than the cyano I have experienced.
I recently added some macro-algae in the refugium and take the skimmer off-line for several days at a time. Running the fuge light about 12 hours (I have sea lettuce, gracilaria and long-feather caulurpa) and it's growing like crazy.
Tank history : 75g DT - 26G Sump. Just now at the 1yr old mark. Started with Dry Rock and very little biodiversity and stripped the water of nutrients pretty quickly (newbie mistake). Got an outbreak of Dinos (ostreopsis) and put a big UV on and wiped them out pretty quickly only to have a couple other strains show up about 6 months later. Following the thread on Dinos, I dosed KNO3 and Brightwell NeoPhos to hit my targets and allow some algae to compete. Well it turns out I had as much Bryopsis as I did hair algae, talk about the uglies, but I kept the UV going, Vortex Diatom Filter, and a back to back doses of Fluconazole, and now only few small patchs of GHA that the CUC are enjoying. I currently add small doses of KNO3 and NeoPhos to my ATO reservoir and NO3 and PO4 are detectable and stable.
Alk : 8.6
Ca: 455
PO4 : .055
NO3: 3-5
Salinity : 39ppt
(yikes - always test my WC batch, but skip on tank once in a while and have no idea how long it has climbed that high. Am pulling out a few quarts at a time and letting ATO top off so I can lower it safely)
Here is a pic of a corner of my fuge that has the slime with bubbles on it. Any Ideas?
I recently added some macro-algae in the refugium and take the skimmer off-line for several days at a time. Running the fuge light about 12 hours (I have sea lettuce, gracilaria and long-feather caulurpa) and it's growing like crazy.
Tank history : 75g DT - 26G Sump. Just now at the 1yr old mark. Started with Dry Rock and very little biodiversity and stripped the water of nutrients pretty quickly (newbie mistake). Got an outbreak of Dinos (ostreopsis) and put a big UV on and wiped them out pretty quickly only to have a couple other strains show up about 6 months later. Following the thread on Dinos, I dosed KNO3 and Brightwell NeoPhos to hit my targets and allow some algae to compete. Well it turns out I had as much Bryopsis as I did hair algae, talk about the uglies, but I kept the UV going, Vortex Diatom Filter, and a back to back doses of Fluconazole, and now only few small patchs of GHA that the CUC are enjoying. I currently add small doses of KNO3 and NeoPhos to my ATO reservoir and NO3 and PO4 are detectable and stable.
Alk : 8.6
Ca: 455
PO4 : .055
NO3: 3-5
Salinity : 39ppt
(yikes - always test my WC batch, but skip on tank once in a while and have no idea how long it has climbed that high. Am pulling out a few quarts at a time and letting ATO top off so I can lower it safely)
Here is a pic of a corner of my fuge that has the slime with bubbles on it. Any Ideas?
