What is this?

[Shawna Solomon]

I am trying to identify this so I can treat. My tank is approx a year old and has went through this stage before but it would not come back after a good water change. I did two 30 gallon water changes and vacuumed the sand and it’s not going anywhere it will be back on when my lights run for a day. The tank is 125g with a 30 gal sump. Skimmer is an aquamaxx that’s rated for about 220 gallons for heavy bio load. I’m not sure the exact model.
The parameters are: nitrates 5 or 10 can’t really tell with the Red Sea.
Alkalinity 7.5 with Hana checker
Calcium 480
Phosphates are not showing on my API test kit and I don’t currently have a better one to use. I’ve only seen phosphates once in the tank and then I did a water change and they were no longer showing.
I dose calcium and alk and other tank information is that about 3 weeks ago we had a bad storm come through and we lost power for three days. I didn’t have anything running except every once in a while I would plug my gyre into my truck and let it run for oxygen. I lost 5 fish so I’m wondering if them dying set off some imbalance that caused the algae or maybe it’s because the lights weren’t on for three days. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[ScottR]

Your tank seems like it’s low on nutrients. No fish - are you feeding anything? Like corals or inverts? Your po4 is zero. Low no3.

Judging by pics, I’d say dinos (dinoflagellates). They love clean tanks and tend to jump in when other things start to die out due to low nutrients. Water changes may even cleanse the water furthermore, letting them thrive.

 

[Shawna Solomon]

Well before the blackout my nitrates have consistently been at 50 according to Red Sea. I use reef roids once a week and feed fish and corals frozen foods once a week and feed pellets or flakes twice a day everyday. I have a yellow tang, flame angel, two chromis, 1 damsel, and two clown fish.

 

[Shawna Solomon]

Well before the blackout my nitrates have consistently been at 50 according to Red Sea. I use reef roids once a week and feed fish and corals frozen foods once a week and feed pellets or flakes twice a day everyday. I have a yellow tang, flame angel, two chromis, 1 damsel, and two clown fish.

And a foxface.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Sorry about the trouble. ScottR seems to be on point. Looks like Dino. I’ve been dealing with it for a year or 2. Never did anything about it until recently. It became worse.

Read thru the threads. Lots of treatment but the same does not work for all.

What I’m doing currently, changed all my gravel to sand, redid entire rock scape, changed lighting, started running uv, more clean up crew, added few bottles of pods and trying Vibrant. Only thing not going in is the sink

I see progress, what it’s from not sure, but it working slowly.

 

[MRB]

Dinos, had for a couple months. I have uv sterilizer, and raised the nutrients in the tank. Blew off sand daily and stopped water changes. Almost completely gone from Sand bed, and just have some on the gha that has grown. Good luck!

 

[Shawna Solomon]

Dinos, had for a couple months. I have uv sterilizer, and raised the nutrients in the tank. Blew off sand daily and stopped water changes. Almost completely gone from Sand bed, and just have some on the gha that has grown. Good luck!

Okay thank you all. I am glad I asked because I thought it was cyano and was going to dose chemi clean which would have required a rather large water change after the 3rd day.

 

[Neoalchemist]

Okay thank you all. I am glad I asked because I thought it was cyano and was going to dose chemi clean which would have required a rather large water change after the 3rd day.

Be careful about what steps you take moving forward. The methods for treating dinos differ based on what type of dino you have. Also they are somewhat counter intuitive as far as algea control. So if you are treating the tank for dinos and you really have something else it can make your problem worse. The best course of action at this point is to find access to a microscope and use it to confirm dinos and which species. Cheap microscopes can be found on eBay and Hobbytown USA. More important IMO, is getting a reliable po4 reading. The Hanna ulr phosphorus checker and the proper conversion chart are an absolute must. All other po4 test kits are for all intents and purposes, useless. As none of them test in the range needed to maintain a reef.