I'm pretty sure I had dinos on the cheato in my HOB sump. I was removing it. as it was fairly well confined and easily rinsed off the cheato - either dinos or cyano.
I was hoping the stuff in the DT was diatoms.
But, my NO3 was climbing up to 64ppm last week, so I started carbon dosing (v/v) and that triggered a massive bacterial bloom and my NO3 crashed to zero in a matter of days. Just the bacterial imbalance the dinos needed to get going.
I could see the tell tails on a power head and bubbles forming on 2 rocks I hadn't sterilized. The kenya tree is the kicker, I've seen this before. It closed up sometime Friday and hasn't reopened, and the brown killers are taking it over. The cleaner shrimp died Saturday morning as well.
I siphoned the sand bed clean last night and gave it a stir clearing off the morning dust but by lunchtime it had covered the entire bed. It's thicker to the eye than the pic. The rocks under white were mostly faint green, but now you can clearly see the brown.
It's early this time around. I unplugged the DT light and skimmer. The microscope arrives Monday. No water changes. Phyto culture is started and pods on their way. Pods in the HOB are active, a couple of adults and lots and lots of kids.
And I have my post in the dino thread.