How to fix this?

[hillg2784]

Here are some pics. What is it? I had this happen about 3 weeks ago cleaned and treated with chemiclean thinking cyano.

Siphoned all the sand and cleaned it all out, was good for about 2 days and now here we are almost a week later from the cleaning and water change.

Corals look bad, fish seem happy. Sand very very bad looking. Doesn’t appear to be on the rocks yet, unlike last time.

Also tank is 10 mo the old.

Phos-.02
Nitrate-9.6
Alk-7.76
Cal-426
Mag-1441

Feed twice a day, Nyos pellets in the am and mysis shrimp at night.

I run a skimmer, uv and carbon reactor. Not sure what other info would be needed to help find a solution.

 

[tripdad]

Hard to be certain from pic but looks like dinos. Plenty of info on here thru search engine. Not uncommon after killing cyano

 

[Rob A]

Have you thought about getting a goby to clean the sand bed they are fun to watch

 

[hillg2784]

I had one, moved it out tho. He was just going crazy in there and the entire water column was filled with debris particles making it very messy. Went into a smaller tank which is more neglected but seems to be doing much better

 

[EnterName]

If the discoloration turns out to be caused by dinoflagellates a goby might get poisoned.

Dinoflagellates (including the benthic genera that appear in reef tanks) are known to produce various highly potent toxins. It depends on the species/strain and environmental factors such as nutrient levels how much they produce so you may get lucky, but it's a bit like playing with fire.

 

[hillg2784]

If the discoloration turns out to be caused by dinoflagellates a goby might get poisoned.

Dinoflagellates (including the benthic genera that appear in reef tanks) are known to produce various highly potent toxins. It depends on the species/strain and environmental factors such as nutrient levels how much they produce so you may get lucky, but it's a bit like playing with fire.

So what would be a good course for a corrective action?

 

[martin.a]

Looks pretty much exactly like my tank with dinoflagellate, Amphidinium infestation. This is a whole new level of difficulty over cyano. There is an active thread discussing bentic diatoms Dino ID + Treatment.

 

[Mas0n]

Looks pretty much exactly like my tank with dinoflagellate, Amphidinium infestation. This is a whole new level of difficulty over cyano. There is an active thread discussing bentic diatoms Dino ID + Treatment.

Yep! Come on over lol.

 

[martin.a]

So what would be a good course for a corrective action?

Yep! Come on over lol.

Yeah, we may setup a support group.

 

[hillg2784]

Looks pretty much exactly like my tank with dinoflagellate, Amphidinium infestation. This is a whole new level of difficulty over cyano. There is an active thread discussing bentic diatoms Dino ID + Treatment.

I read on your thread that someone has alaways used H202, have you tried that?

 

[martin.a]

So what would be a good course for a corrective action?

If we only knew....

 

[EnterName]

Common approaches are:
- UV sterilizer (sometimes UV Sweeper for substrate)
- Silicate dosing to encourage diatom growth
- Manual removal
- Nutrient adjustment (e.g. ammonia, nitrate, or phosphate dosing, but in some cases also reduction. Try nitrate and ammonia separately even though both supply nitrogen)
- H2O2 dosing (experimental), sometimes bleach or even KMnO4 is used instead
- Blackouts (imo, experimental)
- Bacteria dosing & living phytoplankton dosing (experimental)

I'm sure I have forgotten some approaches but will edit this message if more come to mind.

Phosphate seems low, I would try dosing that first. Even for apparently sand-dwelling Amphidinium I would use a UV sterilizer. It will still get a few cells and has some other potentially beneficial effects.