Symbiodinium? Dinos? How to move forward

[fendanto]

Hi there, so not too long ago I ran into an issue with dinos in my tank. Tale as old as time: too clean of a tank, low nutrients, then they took hold. After a 10ish day blackout and raising the temp to 82F, pretty much everything was gone and the process of recolonizing the tank with other algaes began.

I began dosing phosphates when needed but more importantly overdosing silicates (specifically Brightwell SpongExcel) for about a week to try to induce a diatom bloom. While I saw no immediate results from this, other nuisance algaes did start taking hold in the rest of the tank which was a welcome sight.

Then the brown stuff started showing up. Initially it only showed up on the sand, was easy to baste away so I thought “great! Diatoms!” and waited for my microscope to show up in the mail.

By the time my microscope showed up, so had some brown stringy bits here and there, hanging off of hair algae and making turf algae into almost a mucusy blob looking sight with air bubbles trapped beneath. Lovely. Easy to baste off so I kept at that and reduced the photoperiod in the tank.

I continued taking samples and by and large, I was primarily seeing an abundance of diatoms, but that didn’t really explain the stringy brown bits. After taking some regular samples, especially after the lights went out and the diatoms would have headed into the water column, the bubbles and stringy bits remained.

Now to my question, I believe after many samples and observation that what I have is some manner of symbiodinium, likely a chyrosphyte, issue. I’ll attach some images below and would love some thoughts here on how to address.

- Is this symbiodinium? Will they go away on their own as I bring nutrients back down to a manageable level and the silicates get eaten up?
- Will I be ok to start removing some of the nuisance algae that’s covering the glass of my tank? Especially the turf…
- I’m still observing small clusters and spatterings of dinos in my samples. Is this to be expected as long as they’re not being found in large clusters/overcrowding their competition (diatoms, macroalgae, etc)?

Thanks so much!

(Apologies for the image quality, these are mostly taken from my phone through the eyepiece)

One of the first samples I took where I was able to capture anything but huge blooms of diatoms:



Yesterday’s sample, this gives you an idea of scale next to some ostreopsis:


Here you can see the mucus that a large section of these guys are embedded in:



Some more details:

 

[therootcause]

Are you able to share some updated tank photos under white light along with your current nutrient levels? I think things went haywire when you overdosed silicates and ended up with more problems. Personally, with the limited information provided, I would manually remove as much as possible, complete a water change, and add live phytoplankton and copepods. Hopefully you have a local supplier and would not need to pay retail. A day later I would turn on the skimmer and be patient.

 

[fendanto]

Are you able to share some updated tank photos under white light along with your current nutrient levels? I think things went haywire when you overdosed silicates and ended up with more problems. Personally, with the limited information provided, I would manually remove as much as possible, complete a water change, and add live phytoplankton and copepods. Hopefully you have a local supplier and would not need to pay retail. A day later I would turn on the skimmer and be patient.

Thanks for taking the time! I haven’t tested today but my nitrates were coming down from above 30 a few days ago and I’ve been maintaining my phos at around 0.03-0.06. Alk sits between 7.4-8.0 based on time of day and my ability to dose regularly. Ca 420-460. Mag is maxed on the Salifert test so 1500ish.

Thanks for the help! Happy to answer any questions. I have a refugium in the sump where I’m cultivating pods (mostly tiggers and some other species along with some amphipods). I’ll grab some live phyto from my LFS next time I’m out.

Apologies again for the image quality. R2R does a terrible job with compression it seems. I’ll have to host them myself next time.

Overhead shot. In the top right corner you’ll see what are most certainly diatoms in the substrate. Snails are enjoying eating them up. The left side is growing a mix of green algae and diatoms which is also fine for me. A far cry than when the dinos and cyano were abundant.



This is along the back glass. Much of this is turf algae that I had already been contending with and is not a concern. The bubbles and strings along them are the focus of today’s topic. The above microscope photos were taken from a sample pulled from here:



Here’s a better photo of similar turf algae + copious diatoms + possibly symbiodinium:




A few more spots from around the tank:

 

[fendanto]

Some shots of the side glass (why I’m shooting these from above)

 

[therootcause]

Tank is looking good. I'd just include algae scraping in your routine maintenance and replace your filter socks about an hour after cleaning. You can also add some floss overnight to remove anything floating in the water column. Pull your wave maker and clean in citric acid along with manual removal of the algae. On your return nozzles and back glass you can always use a non-scratch blue sponge to remove that turf algae. Let the clean up crew do the rest of the work.

 

[therootcause]

I have some areas with turf algae on the rear of my waterbox, always 5-7 blue leg hermits climbing the back to get at it. Doesn't bother me and they keep it in check.

 

[fendanto]

Tank is looking good. I'd just include algae scraping in your routine maintenance and replace your filter socks about an hour after cleaning. You can also add some floss overnight to remove anything floating in the water column. Pull your wave maker and clean in citric acid along with manual removal of the algae. On your return nozzles and back glass you can always use a non-scratch blue sponge to remove that turf algae. Let the clean up crew do the rest of the work.

Thank you! I’ve mostly just been letting things go while fighting the dinos but those are all definitely on the list once I confirm I won’t be opening the door for them to come back once I start cleaning again.

 

[Reef Puncher]

its symbiodinum crysophytes or golden algae. i have dinos and this right now. going to try dr tims. ill report back