Diatoms or Dino? Please help!!!

[Fisherman Joe]

Hi all. Struggles with this Red/brown stuff on my sand for 6 months now. Really getting me down.

Any help with ID and elimination?

Attached my latest ICP too, all look ok to me.

I’m running a UV 24/7 and it’s going nothing.

 

[KoenE]

Do you have access to a microscope? That can tell for sure what you're dealing with.
What is your nitrate level? I only could find your phosfate level in the ICP results.
I mostly suspect it to be LCA or Prorocentrum dino's as the silicate level is not extremely high, but only real way to know is to put a sample under a microscope, a cheap one which can do about 300-400x magnification is enough, I used a children's microscope in the past before upgrading. How old is the tank?

 

[Fisherman Joe]

The tank is about 5 years old.

Not tested the nitrates.

 

[Fisherman Joe]

Not the best pictures. Looks like unarmed diatoms to me.

 

[KoenE]

Looks more like a Large Cell Amphidinium dino. Threat with silicate dosing, extra bacteria and alive phytoplankton. Took me almost 2 months to get rid of them. Also check out Mack's dinoflagellate guide.

 

[ShanePike]

A lot of people have been having success with this:

Reef Tank Targeted Sandbed Dino Control with the UV Sweeper

Control sandbed dinoflagellates fast with the 3DReefing UV Sweeper—reef-safe, chemical-free treatment for reef tank dinos like Amphidinium and Prorocentrum.

www.reef2reef.com

Mack's guide:

Pdf file about dinoflagellates

Here is an pdf file about fighting dino's it helped me alot and im not sure if this already exists in this forum so i love to share it with u all

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Fisherman Joe]

Video.

 

[Fisherman Joe]

Looks more like a Large Cell Amphidinium dino. Threat with silicate dosing, extra bacteria and alive phytoplankton. Took me almost 2 months to get rid of them. Also check out Mack's dinoflagellate guide.

Ordered some microscope slides to get better pictures.

 

[Fisherman Joe]

Looks more like a Large Cell Amphidinium dino. Threat with silicate dosing, extra bacteria and alive phytoplankton. Took me almost 2 months to get rid of them. Also check out Mack's dinoflagellate guide.

Shouldn’t start dosing this?

 

[bubbgee]

Shouldn’t start dosing this?

Yes. It helps with the dinos fight-- need to grow diatoms quick. Add bacteria from PNS probio, Dr Tim's waste away and Microbacter 7 as well as AF Life source. You'll need to outcompete the dinos with tons of microorganisms. The UV wand also works. I've read many articles about success with that too.

With this, I dosed it for a week and did not clean my glass for three weeks. When I did cleaned the glass of diatoms and film algae, my dinos were gone.