Rapidly Growing Brown Slime?

[PicassoClown04]

Hey y’all, thanks for helping. This is my 45 gallon water box lagoon, it’s technically been up for about 7 months but I did a rip clean 2-3 months ago. Over the past month it has started to grow this nasty brown slime. It completely regenerates within 6 hours after I suck it off with a turkey baster and dispose of it. I’m doing vibrant 2x per week at almost 2x the recommended amount with no improvement. Can someone please help me with this? It’s starting to kill my corals .

 

[Afrashz]

It could possibly be dinos which would make sense since you are dosing so much vibrant and getting nutrients so low. I would cut back on vibrate and allow your phos, nitrate levels to rise a bit.

 

[LRT]

@footgal
Have you checked your parameters recently?

Maybe @taricha can help.

 

[JGT]

Hey y’all, thanks for helping. This is my 45 gallon water box lagoon, it’s technically been up for about 7 months but I did a rip clean 2-3 months ago. Over the past month it has started to grow this nasty brown slime. It completely regenerates within 6 hours after I suck it off with a turkey baster and dispose of it. I’m doing vibrant 2x per week at almost 2x the recommended amount with no improvement. Can someone please help me with this? It’s starting to kill my corals .

Dinos or cyano. Bubbles are very common. Manually remove/siphon out, check NO3 and PO4 are in range, lessen feeding, shorten light intervals, add CUC if you don’t have to help. Be patient. Will take time to eradicate.

 

[Chayo]

Looks like dinos sadly

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

From visuals , looks like dinos . I suspect bottomed-out nutrients.

I'd ook into ordering a cheap $20 microscope from Amazon to get an ID on the strain and hope for ostreopsis.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

If it is ostreopsis, a UV, plumbed directly to the tank for a few weeks, plus increased nutrients should do the trick. I just recently went through a fight with ostreopsis and have been clear (knock on wood) for a couple months.

Getting an ID is essential, otherwise you're just shooting in the dark.

 

[OceansX]

Yo Cuz,

As others have said, I'd also suspect low nutrients from my own experience.

You've "tuned" your system to select for dino's probably by starving out nutrients for more desirable algae (calcareous, coral symbionts, phytoplankton, etc..).

"Too much of a good thing"

I would feed more and/or dose less Vibrant for now. (I'd dose zero Vibrant.)

TTYL

 

[Mikedawg]

Yes, dinos, especially since you wrote how quickly they reestablish themselves. Pending use of a microscope to identify the species (successful treatment can vary by species) a simple test is to siphon some into a white container and see if they reconstitute into the slimy, stringy organisms you see in your tank. Bubbles are also characteristic of dinos.

As you know, many threads on this forum and most agree with removing them through a sock so you can return same water to tank, increasing no3 and po4 to appropriate detectable levels, installing a uv device (for most species) and many also recommend dosing 1ml/10 gallons of hydrogen peroxide at night and dosing bacteria (Microbacter 7, Dr. Tim's, etc.) during the day.

Good luck, cost me three scolys a while back and dinos I learned are always present - can't eliminate, just control them.

 

[PicassoClown04]

Thanks y’all! So stop the vibrant, get some nutrients in there, continue manual removal, add some hermits? I already have dozens of not hundreds of snails in there (they spawned and many survived).

Would moving the corals to one of my other tanks be okay, or would it cause my other tank to become infected? The smaller frags are struggling pretty badly and I lost a chalice already

would H2O2 dips be helpful here just to clear the frags of dinos/algae? Someone recommended dosing H2O2 so I assume a dip would help at least a little

 

[taricha]

almost certainly dinos.

 

[SMSREEF]

Bummer, I think Dino’s. None of my CUC ate them.
If they go into the water column at night, UV pulling from the display will kill them.
Also, try to get your nutrients up so other microbes start to outcompete them.

 

[LRT]

Unfortunately I went through this when I overdosed my Nitrates and bottomed out 0 out my phosphates. Took a cpl months to get things stabile but haven't seen them since. I do run a UV in one of my sumps.
Defineteley try to get your nutirents close to where they where before you bottomed out. It worked for me.
Lots of removal. I set up a pump and vacuumed through filter back into my tables. Water changes didn't help much.
Just hard-working patience and time to allow my system to stabilize.

 

[Everything Aquatics]

this happens to me, I just let my nutrients rise and they eventually went away. But now I am stuck with bryopsis hair algae . I also run uv

 

[LRT]

this happens to me, I just let my nutrients rise and they eventually went away. But now I am stuck with bryopsis hair algae . I also run uv

I've probably been through every form of algae since as well.

 

[PicassoClown04]

I was so scared of bubble algae in this tank, I started dosing vibrant too early. I had a NIGHTMARE getting rid of that in my other tank so I really wanted to avoid it with this one. Lesson learned! Planning on doing 2 moderate feedings per day and moving in some hermits along with manual removal. Any word on if I can move out the frags so I can try to save them? I have some very nice zoas in here and it’s giving me a heart attack to keep them in there

 

[CMMorgan]

I'd take bubble over dinos.... emeralds crabs will eat bubble. There are some amazing threads on getting rid of dinos. Start by going dark. I just did that and voila. If they come back, I'll go dark and dose hydrogen peroxide. Right now, I'm taking it day by day.

 

[ScottB]

Dinos thrive only in a very narrow (typically nutrient deficient) environment. Your other tank already has them but it is not a hospitable place for them to dominate. It is safe to move frags as long as that environment remains inhospitable.

1) Any nitrate test kit will do. Start testing both. NO3 > 5
2) Only Hanna ULR Phosphate or Phosphorus test kit will do. PO4 > .05 consistent.

In the dino tank:
a) no phyto and no amino acids
b) best if you get a sample of slime under a microscope and do phone video zoomed in
c) post video to thread " Dinoflagellates are you tired" for species ID and recommended treatment
d) clamp blue/white filter floss to sides of tank in high light and flow areas. Rinse just before lights go down.
e) Run activated carbon to remove potential dino toxins

 

[PicassoClown04]

Dinos thrive only in a very narrow (typically nutrient deficient) environment. Your other tank already has them but it is not a hospitable place for them to dominate. It is safe to move frags as long as that environment remains inhospitable.

1) Any nitrate test kit will do. Start testing both. NO3 > 5
2) Only Hanna ULR Phosphate or Phosphorus test kit will do. PO4 > .05 consistent.

In the dino tank:
a) no phyto and no amino acids
b) best if you get a sample of slime under a microscope and do phone video zoomed in
c) post video to thread " Dinoflagellates are you tired" for species ID and recommended treatment
d) clamp blue/white filter floss to sides of tank in high light and flow areas. Rinse just before lights go down.
e) Run activated carbon to remove potential dino toxins

Gotcha, I’ll see about maybe taking a sample to the science lab at school for a decent microscope pic. I’ll do the filter floss thing, I don’t see much in the water but I’m sure they’ve gotta be in there. I’ll get some carbon ASAP and I’m working on raising my nutrients but it’s gonna be pretty slow going because I don’t want to cause an algae bloom or something. I’m gonna transfer all the frags to my other tanks, not an ideal situation because this is my largest tank but you gotta do what you gotta do. I also started running some felt socks that I’m changing out every day. Already not dosing phyto or aminos so no worry there

 

[ScottB]

Gotcha, I’ll see about maybe taking a sample to the science lab at school for a decent microscope pic. I’ll do the filter floss thing, I don’t see much in the water but I’m sure they’ve gotta be in there. I’ll get some carbon ASAP and I’m working on raising my nutrients but it’s gonna be pretty slow going because I don’t want to cause an algae bloom or something. I’m gonna transfer all the frags to my other tanks, not an ideal situation because this is my largest tank but you gotta do what you gotta do. I also started running some felt socks that I’m changing out every day. Already not dosing phyto or aminos so no worry there

Potentially, you could just wait out things until the dinos exhaust everything available to eat including corals and inverts. Fish should be OK.

Otherwise, you should expect to go from dinos, to cyano, and finally to algae. Just setting your expectations. In the long run algae is not evil. It is natural (in moderation) and should be managed by herbivores and CUC. In new systems it often gets away from folks temporarily as the biome goes through puberty. Totally natural.