Hi all, can you help ID what is growing in my tank? Diatoms? Cyano? Dinos?

[trasicot]

Hi all, thanks in advance for any help! Can you help me ID whether this looks like diatoms, cyano or if it is dinos?

Tank: 2.5 months old, 65 gallons

Livestock: some snails, fire shrimp, aurora goby, lawnmower blenny, 2 clowns. No corals yet (I was going to wait another couple of weeks, but now I want to beat whatever is growing first)

Parameters:

• Ammonia = 0ppm
• Nitrite = 0ppm
• Nitrate = 5ppm
• Phosphate = 0.05 mg/L
• pH = 7.9
• Alkalinity = 4.5 meq/L
• Calcium = 320ppm
• Salinity = 1.025

 

[Freenow54]

Just looks like brown algae to me ( no expert ) I had that as well. just kept scrubbing but ended up that bristle worms ( I believe the good ones appeared from nowhere, and cleaned it up in about a month. As to the sand I removed it, and threw it out

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Looks like diatoms. Just give it time and these will eventually go away. And then you'll move on to the next part of the "ugly stage"

 

[trasicot]

Just looks like brown algae to me ( no expert ) I had that as well. just kept scrubbing but ended up that bristle worms ( I believe the good ones appeared from nowhere, and cleaned it up in about a month. As to the sand I removed it, and threw it out

Thank you for the response! So you would recommend manual scrubbing and some extra clean up crew then?

 

[trasicot]

Looks like diatoms. Just give it time and these will eventually go away. And then you'll move on to the next part of the "ugly stage"

My concern that it isn't diatoms is that the visible growth seems to reduce at night and comparing the amount I can see right when the lights turn on vs midday is a lot. Do diatoms act like this? I have read that dinos do this. Should I acquire a microscope?

If it is diatoms, what would you recommend? My plan over the next couple of weeks was to add a lot more clean up crew. Should I look into copepods?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

My concern that it isn't diatoms is that the visible growth seems to reduce at night and comparing the amount I can see right when the lights turn on vs midday is a lot. Do diatoms act like this? I have read that dinos do this. Should I acquire a microscope?

If it is diatoms, what would you recommend? My plan over the next couple of weeks was to add a lot more clean up crew. Should I look into copepods?

My experience, both with using new sand and dry rock to start a tank and with a tank upgrade using established rock but all new sand, is that diatoms do seem to diminish at night. If you find them particularly bothersome, you can stir the sand and/or vacuum out the brown sand, but this will be a daily process and the diatoms will continue until they use up the silicates from the sand. You might want to test your RODI water for silicates as high silicates in tap water might not be completely removed by a normal filter.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

My concern that it isn't diatoms is that the visible growth seems to reduce at night and comparing the amount I can see right when the lights turn on vs midday is a lot. Do diatoms act like this? I have read that dinos do this. Should I acquire a microscope?

If it is diatoms, what would you recommend? My plan over the next couple of weeks was to add a lot more clean up crew. Should I look into copepods?

Personally, since this is a brand new tank that's going through what seems to be the "normal" ugly stage, I would not invest in a microscope just to identify this algae. (Having a scope might be useful/interesting in general though).

Clean up crew might help stir the sand but, again, diatoms will continue to grow as long as they have a good source (aka high silicates).

Patience is the most important tool in reefing...

 

[Dan_P]

Hi all, thanks in advance for any help! Can you help me ID whether this looks like diatoms, cyano or if it is dinos?

Tank: 2.5 months old, 65 gallons

Livestock: some snails, fire shrimp, aurora goby, lawnmower blenny, 2 clowns. No corals yet (I was going to wait another couple of weeks, but now I want to beat whatever is growing first)

Parameters:

• Ammonia = 0ppm
• Nitrite = 0ppm
• Nitrate = 5ppm
• Phosphate = 0.05 mg/L
• pH = 7.9
• Alkalinity = 4.5 meq/L
• Calcium = 320ppm
• Salinity = 1.025

Could be diatoms. The growth seems amazingly strong. I like the way they avoid the shade.

 

[trasicot]

Personally, since this is a brand new tank that's going through what seems to be the "normal" ugly stage, I would not invest in a microscope just to identify this algae. (Having a scope might be useful/interesting in general though).

Clean up crew might help stir the sand but, again, diatoms will continue to grow as long as they have a good source (aka high silicates).

Patience is the most important tool in reefing...

Thank you so much for your responses! I will see if I can grab a silicate test at LFS today.

If there is not high silicates in the water, do you still think this would be diatoms? I guess silicates from the sand could be causing this?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Thank you so much for your responses! I will see if I can grab a silicate test at LFS today.

If there is not high silicates in the water, do you still think this would be diatoms? I guess silicates from the sand could be causing this?

Definitely silicates in the sand. It's just that if there are also silicates in your water, you may be adding "food" for the diatoms even after the silicates in the sand are gone.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

What snails do you have? (Type and #)
Adding some ceriths may help if you don't already have enough.

 

[Freenow54]

Thank you for the response! So you would recommend manual scrubbing and some extra clean up crew then?

Personally I never bout clean up crew. Always wondered what happens when the algae is gone. Do they die? Or turn on your algae. YOU SHOULD POSE THAT QUESTION. I would like to know too. But in your case I would say yes because all you do is put it back in the water, and it seems to reoccur constantly in the case of the finer stuff. I would gather the sand and throw it out, or see if a I think bleny? Is effective. Again ask people who have them. Definitely get a turkey bacterial and blast the rocks though. Seems to be a constant battle unless like in my case the good bristle worms appear out of nowhere. Watching this with interest right now all my rocks are clean and so far they are still around. Dozens of them. They are about an inch long and hide until you feed the fish. I assume they like the darkness.