Dinos Or Ugly Stage?

[TMF89]

I guess I'll continue marching through the various forums in regards to trying to get my tank firing on all cylinders! It's 2-3 months old, and I thought I went through a mild diatom bloom already, which passed. About a week ago I noticed this stuff in my sand bed, and didn't think much of it until several days ago when I noticed the gunky bubble strands. It does seem to be just a brown film at the start of the day, and as the lights stay on, the strands start appearing. I have chaeto in a HOB filter that has probably tripled in size over the last month, and my protein skimmer has gone from producing a really wet, brown skim to a ton of foamy bubbles. I recently lost one fish due to infection, and the coral frags were all added about a week ago (torch coral has been in there for about a month, and has grown noticably since being added). The weird thing is my nrates are 19.8 according to Hanna, so I don't think I bottomed them out like most dino outbreaks? I just got the checker today, but tested over the last week with the API kits, and showed nitrates every time. I've lost at least a few nassarius snails over the week, and don't see them nearly as active as they were. I do have some trochus that haven't seemed too bothered, though. And yes I've been looking at microscopes on Amazon, lol! Thanks for any information or advice guys!

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Bottoming out phosphates is a cause of dinos, not necessarily low nitrates. That being said, what you have looks to me like normal new-tank algae. Is it dinos? Maybe, but it should pass as the tank matures.

As for your nassarius snails, they are not algae eaters... Are you feeding your fish well enough?

 

[TMF89]

I'll be rounding out my Hanna checker collection over the holidays, hopefully, so I'll be able to check my phosphates soon! And I will admit that I haven't been feeding heavily, mainly because only the wrasses are willing to eat pellets or flakes, and the bangaii cardinal and firefish will only eat frozen. There's definitely food that makes it to the bottom though, and over the last week or so I've been feeding noticeably more than they'll eat, because I've been trying to make sure my nutrients aren't bottoming out.