Help ID. Diatoms?

[reeferfoxx]

So to be clear, by increasing nutrients you mean letting the nitrates get higher? Or what nutrient levels am I raising? And I should continue to skim?

Like I said you can turn off the skimmer or run a reverse cycle. To be honest, skimming doesn't help a whole lot unless you are skimming wet. It does help with dissolved organic compounds and some po4. But mostly beneficial with oxygenation.
Your no3 is already 20, so it's not a concern. If you want to get a head start you need to target po4 with either frozen foods(without rinsing) or particulate foods like reef frenzy or reef-roids. You can also dose potassium phosphate made by brightwell or seachem. If you choose to dose, your target po4 would be 0.10ppm. Going that high would result in GHA but since you have a foxface and a blenny, this would provide some food.

My lawnmower blenny is going to town on what he can find on my equipment and rocks.

herbivores tend to peck naturally, so it's not uncommon. Also, shouldn't be seen as them wanting to eat this stuff. The goal here is to keep dinos from becoming toxic and then inadvertently killing your fish from consumption.

 

[reeferfoxx]

You can get more info here. First post has a lot of resources.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/

This was my growth. Very similar to yours.

Hi, my name is ReeferFoxx and I believe I have dinos.

 

[Nola Bear]

Like what many have said, I’ve just battled Dino’s with higher feedings, no wc’s, and adding bacteria—used bioclean. Took about 20 days but now they are not visible.

 

[James Barton]

Ok so I feed lrs reef frenzy. But may have to get some potassium phosphate. Getting a phosphate reading is difficult since doesn't the chaeto consume it?

 

[reeferfoxx]

Ok so I feed lrs reef frenzy. But may have to get some potassium phosphate. Getting a phosphate reading is difficult since doesn't the chaeto consume it?

It does But it can also help reduce GHA once target number is achieved. Chaeto will only grow so fast but will help reduce bothersome algae.

 

[Oceanwave45]

This isn't a diatom bloom, it looks like cyanobacteria to me. Just saying.

 

[James Barton]

This isn't a diatom bloom, it looks like cyanobacteria to me. Just saying.

I'm hearing diatoms, possibly dinos amd now cyano lol. What makes you think cyan? For what it's worth, i took a turkey baster and blew it off and it seemed to be like a dust with some stringy strands which seemed to be clumped together.

 

[reeferfoxx]

This is cyano.


Dinos are tiny protists that disperse and regroup. They work better in numbers.

 

[reeferfoxx]

And this is cyano...

 

[James Barton]

Yea mine doesn't look as red or as much.

 

[James Barton]

So I decided to look at my overflow. And this is what I see.

 

[Ludders]

Could you describe what you're seeing please.

I can see green and brown growth of some kind, but it looks like bubbles too.

If they seem to multiply during the day when the lights are on, this would suggest dinoflagellates. During the night they can float around the water column in order to spread and annoy us even more.

Having a UV sterilizer I believe helps as does wet skimming at night I believe.

Your next choice is how you decide to tackle them (water change v no water change).

Two things I would strongly recommend is getting some Microbacter7 or some other biological bacteria based additive to help speed up with the good stuff which will out compete it.
Also raise your PH as previously mentioned, dinoflagellates do not like PH 8.3 or higher.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Two things I would strongly recommend is getting some Microbacter7 or some other biological bacteria based additive to help speed up with the good stuff which will out compete it.

I'm not sure why this keeps getting suggested. Microbacter7 or MB7 is nothing but beneficial bacteria with nitrifying bacteria and a carbon source. The result is a reduction in nitrates. Reducing any nutrient will only help dinos. Besides its bacteria not a predator. The goal is to rebuild microbials or microorganisms/micro-fauna such as isopods, amphipods, copepods, nemetodes, ciliates, and other inverts.

Once po4 is added back into the system, nitrates will reduce anyway.

 

[Ludders]

I had very good and fast results following this theory. I'm not knocking your suggestions, but there often more than 1 way to deal with any problem.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

Hope this helps James.

 

[James Barton]

So this morning before the lights came on there wasn't much of the algae but now that the lights are on I see it coming back. My conchs were going to town on it.

I also noticed while emptying my skimmer that my chaeto had a lot of Brown gunk built up on it. I removed what I could and flipped my chaeto. The water doesn't smell very great down there either.

 

[reeferfoxx]

I had very good and fast results following this theory. I'm not knocking your suggestions, but there often more than 1 way to deal with any problem.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

Hope this helps James.

I know Randy has been contributing to the major dino thread and might have backed off some on the original article. It's hard to say that doing that method will succeed. Some dinos are P fixers, some N fixers, some N and P fixers and then some that get their nutrient else where.

 

[Ludders]

That's the other problem, there are so many different types, what worked for me might not work for someone else.

 

[reeferfoxx]

That's the other problem, there are so many different types, what worked for me might not work for someone else.

Exactly. With though, all dino competitors need N and P so there for increasing nutrients will work for most if not all dinos. The UV sterlizer is a great addition though not necessary. It does really help with amphidium due to going into the water column at night. Though, some other strains go into the sandbed at night.

 

[James Barton]

They are back in full force today. Seem to even get caught on a couple of my fishes fins. It looks like a brown powdery web on the sand and rocks. So is it safe to say we are dealing with dinos? Or could it still be diatoms?

 

[Ludders]

I believe they are dino's based on everything we have seen and discussed.