Cyano problem, need help

[EnterName]

also, i dont know if this is a clue, but in the morning before the lights are up, there is only a little coloration on the sand bed.. the sand looks mostly clean with some red/purple spots. As the aquarium lights intensify during the day, then the brown mat starts to intensify




I think I have amphidinium dino? All this time I thoguth it was cyano.


View attachment 4543605

Other mat forming organisms are also increasing with the photoperiod so it's not a 100% certain ID but Amphidinium is certainly a possibility as some of them apparently create less mucus and like to go a bit deeper into the substrate.

 

[Dan_P]

This is like a mat of brown/red.. The previous battle I had with dinos was very obvious, gooe everywhere and strings up.

Unless you're saying I have a different dinos that isn't like the previous one I had. Cant wait for the scope to come...

I was tempted to think dinoflagellates because the only time that I observed cyanobacteria that were not green or red/purple was under sever nitrogen depletion which you don’t have.

Good luck with your microscopy investigation.

 

[EnterName]

@125mph finally found an image. I knew I had seen this stuff before:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/microscopy-thread.1138845/post-14467504

[...]

Amphidinium (or Testudodinium which is hard to differentiate somemtimes) can create this slime-less substrate coverage

 

[CHSUB]

I have a bad GHA problem as well, been battling that for a while too..

Do you think I could stop dosing nitrate and be okay? I had dinos last year because my phosphate and nitrates crashed to zero and took about a month to get rid of the dinos. Thats why I'm very afraid of nitrates dropping to zero... If i dont dose, my nitrate last time went to 0 and I quickly dosed it back (phosphate was still at 0.03 ) so I think thats why I didnt get dinos again this time,.

I would stop and not be concerned with low no3. Clean aquariums never suffer algae problems. Manual removal and vigorous maintenance is all that is needed…