From cyano to dinos to diatoms. Next step?

[dennislagoon]

Hi all,

I've been observing cyano and dinos for quite a while now. At the start it was mainly cyano, which I just wanted to ride out as part of the uglies. But then the no3 and po4 bottomed out and I stupidly invited dinos to take over. With the idea of taking things slow I started adding some Nyos No3 and Nyos Po4 at the max recommendation stated on the bottle.. which didn't do anything.. for weeks, especially on the Nitrates.

About a week ago I started raising my dosing of Nitrates to make a real dent. And then a whole different sort of bloom triggered. I suspect these are diatoms, but please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong:

I still have a mix of dinos in probably every variant you can imagine, based on all the different samples I've taken lately. But now I also see the above taking over. It's... everywhere. Hopefully this is a good thing in a way. (I believe so because this doesn't look like dinos).

But if it's really diatoms... why? My tank is a bit more than a half year old. Could it be because of the sudden raise in Nitrates? Water change is done with quite an expensive RODI unit that has a build-in TDS meter reading 0 (and double checked with another TDS meter), although I'm not doing a lot of WC to begin with since I'm trying to dirty up my water.

So the main question is - if it's diatoms - what should I do next? Should I ride it out and let it starve by itself. Should I do manual removal? Can I still clean the glass?

These are my latest parameters just in case:
Temp: ~25 C
Salinity: 35ppm
Alk: 7.6 (Dosing baking soda with RF doser)
Calcium: 415 (Not dosing anything, but WC will up this once starting WC's again)
Magnesium: 1350
Nitrate: 2,5
Phosphate: 0.03
Testings are done with Apex, Hanna or Salifert.

Let me know what you think is the best approach to proceed. Thanks!

 

[taricha]

these are diatoms. Here's another tank that had some very similar.
it's unusual, but some diatoms do this stringy thing, and get confused for dinos. see here for example

 

[dennislagoon]

Thanks, @taricha.

Should I ride it out or start manual removal? Currently it’s competing with the dinos so that may be a good thing. What do you think?

 

[Jekyl]

Thanks, @taricha.

Should I ride it out or start manual removal? Currently it’s competing with the dinos so that may be a good thing. What do you think?

Dosing live phyto can combat algae, feed pods and provide a slight increase in nitrate.

 

[dennislagoon]

Coincidentally I’ve started daily feeding live plankton and added 2 bags of copepods about a week ago. All with the idea of enlarging the biodiversity.

 

[TheBear78]

Thanks, @taricha.

Should I ride it out or start manual removal? Currently it’s competing with the dinos so that may be a good thing. What do you think?

FWIW I was in a similar situation after a 5 week period away from my tank where only basic feeding was carried out by my wife. Nitrate and Phosphate, which were perilously low anyway, bottomed out and the tank was a mess when I returned.
I manually removed a lot of green hair algae and gave the substrate a good hoover during the 25% water change that was carried out the day after I returned.
It was evident that the nutrient export was too high so I opted to start dosing nitrate (Reef Zlements Nitroplus) and after a week I was happily up to 5.0 ppm No3 with PO4 at 0.1. I reduced my dose by half as this was a much quicker rise than I had anticipated but the algae (GHA on the rocks and some Cyano on the substrate) was still persisting.
I hoovered once more and this seemed to tip the scales in my favour as the whole tank was visibly cleaner a day or two later and has remained so for several weeks.
Additionally, while no secret, it was clear that the most affected areas were where the water flow is the slowest...

 

[Lavey29]

If you have confirmed dinos then inducing a diatom bloom would be beneficial as they out compete dinos and are subsequently easier to eradicate from the tank.

 

[taricha]

Should I ride it out or start manual removal? Currently it’s competing with the dinos so that may be a good thing. What do you think?

I'm a fan of manual removal in most cicrumstances. Manually remove anything brown enough to annoy you. there will still be plenty of diatoms to reproduce and compete with the dinos.
manual removal is efficient nutrient export in exactly the places where it's most needed.

 

[dennislagoon]

Alright, looks like I got a whole lot of removal to do in that case!

Ordered a 1 micron filter bag so I can suck out all the nasty stuff with a small hose, without performing a way too big WC. Hope that will work.

 

[dennislagoon]

So things are still not going great unfortunately. Was thinking the diatoms were getting dominant, but they're certainly not (anymore at least).

Here's a clip on some samples I took today:


It's pretty clear it's mostly dinos. Does anyone know which one this is? Is this the Coolia species? However, they're not going into the watercolumn at night which Coolia should do, as I still see lots of brown stuff on the usuals places at night.

Also recognized the diatoms on the glass as expected and some cyano on the rocks, too.

But what are those fast moving things at the end? Couldn't get closer as they move so fast! Anyway, besides the dinos and few cyano, these are all over the place in the rock samples as well.

 

[dennislagoon]

Bump. Anyone that could ID this dino variant?

 

[taricha]

Does anyone know which one this is? Is this the Coolia species? However, they're not going into the watercolumn at night which Coolia should do, as I still see lots of brown stuff on the usuals places at night.

the post is months old, but yes it's coolia for future reference.

 

[dennislagoon]

Thanks, @taricha.

I actually started a new thread, since prorocentrum has now became the dominant one and needed a different strategy.

To vacuum the sand bed or not when dosing silicate.

I have been facing dinos in my Reefer 170 for more than 9 months now and eventually the prorocentrum have become the dominant one. They’re mainly on the sand bed. For about 3 to 4 months I have been keeping No3 at 5-15 ppm and Po4 at ~0.05 ppm through dosing. And adding live phyto and bacteria...

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