How do I identify if it is Dinos or Cyano?

[Danxoln]

Hey there! We have been battling a nuisance algae for what feels like forever. I thought I'd post here to get some insight and advice.

To give a basic rundown of what we've done so far, we had what we thought was a dino outbreak since we were taught that Cyano is generally red and carpet like in appearance. What we had was slimy stringy and green (see pictures) so we tried everything we could think of, beneficial bacteria like stability and pristine, siphoning them out, green killing machine (UV light), and even a 4 day blackout where we wrapped the tank in black plastic bags. It all helped but never seemed to get rid of it completely.

Throughout all of this also keep in mind we've struggled to get our nitrates and phosphates down. (They've been at about 40-50 for Nitrates and .25 for phosphates) So we drastically lowered feeding, and have gfo and matrix in the sump.

About a week after the blackout the sludge started to solidify and get a more brownish red tone and even bright red stuff started to grow on the plastic overflow tower which told us that maybe we were wrong and this was Cyano (we also wonderes because Cyano thrives in higher nutrients.) Through all of this last few weeks we've also done a couple water changes trying to syphon as much out of the system as possible.

Anyway, we had tried just about anything we could think of so we moved to Chemi-Clean. We followed the instructions exactly and it borderline made everything worse! Apparently you are supposed to clean as much of the Cyano out as possible before treating? The instructions didn't say this so we didn't do that but later saw others online saying to clean first.

Regardless the chemi clean treatment is now finished, and that was on Wednesday, the pictures below are from just now. And the nuisance algae has exploded again.

Our nutrients also tanked drastically from where they were, we've never been able to get phosphates and nitrates so low, but with low nutrients now I wonder if this is Dinos. (nitrates around 20 and Phosphates around .08)

Any thoughts on how to identify it and what we should do for next steps would be much appreciated. We hesitate to try Dino X because we hear it can be pretty harsh on the fish and corals. We've wondered about dosing hydrogen peroxide?

Tank is 4.5 months old.



Thank you for your help!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

How often are you doing water changes? Do you have a protein skimmer on your system? Your nutrients are high and you should never have to cut feeding to cut nutrients. The picture doesn't show the algae very clearly, it almost looks like a couple type of different algae. How is the flow in the tank? Does the algae disappear at night and come back in the day?

 

[Danxoln]

How often are you doing water changes? Do you have a protein skimmer on your system? Your nutrients are high and you should never have to cut feeding to cut nutrients. The picture doesn't show the algae very clearly, it almost looks like a couple type of different algae. How is the flow in the tank? Does the algae disappear at night and come back in the day?

We do water changes as needed and try to avoid them where possible, lately it's been every couple of weeks

No protein skimmer, it's next on the list

The flow is good, we have 2 power heads to keep things circulating well one on each side of the tank

It doesn't disappear at night

 

[BonnieB]

^ this and you are definitely in the ugly phase as well at this early of a tank age. If you have a video shoot in white light only it would help to identify what’s going on.

 

[Danxoln]

^ this and you are definitely in the ugly phase as well at this early of a tank age. If you have a video shoot in white light only it would help to identify what’s going on.

I will try to get something in white light when I have the chance

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Dissolved organics is something that we can't test for, but it is always increasing in our tanks, and it feeds algae and breeds bad bacteria. Protein skimmers and water changes are the 2 main ways of removing doc's (dissolved organics). This hobby is mainly about algae prevention, and water changes are the best prevention method. It gets easier to slack off on water changes as the tank matures (and when you get a skimmer), but (sorry to sound like a broken record) I would be doing 20%+ water changes per week until I got this under control. Good luck.

https://reefbuilders.com/2024/06/21...hy-reef-tank-heres-a-new-method-to-manage-it/

 

[Danxoln]

Dissolved organics is something that we can't test for, but it is always increasing in our tanks, and it feeds algae and breeds bad bacteria. Protein skimmers and water changes are the 2 main ways of removing doc's (dissolved organics). This hobby is mainly about algae prevention, and water changes are the best prevention method. It gets easier to slack off on water changes as the tank matures (and when you get a skimmer), but (sorry to sound like a broken record) I would be doing 20%+ water changes per week until I got this under control. Good luck.

https://reefbuilders.com/2024/06/21...hy-reef-tank-heres-a-new-method-to-manage-it/

Thank you!

 

[EnterName]

Dissolved organics is something that we can't test for, but it is always increasing in our tanks, and it feeds algae and breeds bad bacteria. Protein skimmers and water changes are the 2 main ways of removing doc's (dissolved organics). This hobby is mainly about algae prevention, and water changes are the best prevention method. It gets easier to slack off on water changes as the tank matures (and when you get a skimmer), but (sorry to sound like a broken record) I would be doing 20%+ water changes per week until I got this under control. Good luck.

https://reefbuilders.com/2024/06/21...hy-reef-tank-heres-a-new-method-to-manage-it/

Just chiming in to second this. Carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) control is probably the only thing the tank needs right now. The tank is going through the ugly phase which can involve all sorts of outbreaks (diatoms, green hair algae, cyanos, dinoflagellates, it doesn't matter). If C, N, and P are under control, it will come to an end and the tank will find a stable balance over time :) That doesn't mean there needs to be some specific ratio of C:N:P, but cyanos seem like a good indicator that there is an excess of these nutrients.

Side note: There are a few approaches to measure DOC in a reef tank, but right now we seem to lack data to know at which levels cyanos can become an issue.

 

[AB's reef]

4.5 months old, you're 100% in the ugly phase, here's a photo of mine a few years ago and a recent one.

Just ride it out, eventually the tank will balance its nutrients out with the bacteria levels in the tank.

If you're desperate to speed things up there's a few steps that can help:

1.Dosing a bacteria designed to help the tanks microbiome (I use modern reef bio-bac, biodiversity and bio-activator) it worked a treat for me and I continue to use it; there will be alternatives from other brands if your LFS doesn't stock modern reef.

2. Increase flow to stop any detritus or un-eaten food from settling on the rocks.

3. Be patient, everything takes time to settle but if all your filtration is right and the flow is correct it'll clear up with time.