Diatom or Dinoflagellates?

usmc2897 · Nov 19, 2015

I’ve been battling what I believed was dinoflagellates and thought I had them under control. I recently acquired an old microscope from a family member who is a retired science/physics teacher. I am by no means qualified to be even handling a microscope let alone attempt to identify what I’m looking at. I was hoping that someone here could assist me in identifying what I am seeing. After researching some photos on the internet I believe what I am seeing is Diatoms.

I recently killed what I thought was Dinos with Fauna Marin DinoX which worked wonders and made the tank look pristine initially. Two weeks after the DinoX treatment was finished, I started to get some red and green hair algae (mostly red) which is a first for me. Did my water changes and added fresh GFO and even continued with H2O2 dosing and the hair algae’s have been slowly dying off.

This weekend I started seeing some of the brown dust starting to cover the sand bed and glass and started to freak out. If it is Dino’s it is not full blown yet and if it’s just diatom’s a few more water changes and some more GFO should solve the problem.

Tank is 1 year old, RODI filters just changed less than a month ago (0 TDS). I use RS Coral Pro salt

Salinity – 1.026 (refractometer)

Nitrite – 0

Nitrate - 0

Calcium – 440 (red sea)

Mag – 1300 (red sea)

Alk – 9 DKH (red sea)

brandon429 · Nov 19, 2015

that's really resourceful of you, I claim solidly not dinos and Id agree diatoms was a good call nice research. those can be removed by simple export or nutrient controls as you've mentioned, make sure no sandbed is building up waste. nice post

lets see the tank manifestation, a golden brown to yellow and even reddish casting over some rocks and sand, but none on the glass which wont retain any waste for them typically?

paraletho · Nov 22, 2015

Here's mine. 900X Dunaliella salina in low nutrient water they will form a food vacuole and start consuming whatever they can get. They are very motile and I have watched them reproduce which under the right conditions can be staggering.

usmc2897 · Nov 22, 2015

Definitely not what I have. I love the clarity of the pictures you have! My microscope is old but I guess it still gets the job done. I might look into getting something more modern and digital. What are you using for a microscope?

paraletho · Nov 23, 2015

Leica. With built in digital camera. I work in a biological lab as a technician. Yes yours are definitely diatoms. They love silicate. A lot of people don't know but most phosphate reducers also work on silicate.