Diatoms? Dino? Cyano? HELP!

[mbg75]

got an algae problem going on. It's only on the sand in front of the rock work. also some on the vortech.

Dark brown/rust color. I thought it was diatoms, but today started to see some air bubbles. also noticed some brown stringy on my leathers and a few zoa's.

loaded my reactor with some Phosguard today, hoping to pull out and phos and silicates.

can someone ID this stuff. here's a pic. (sorry cellphone pic)








pic

 

[fishman1069]

Yo man, I had the same stuff on my sand. Pretty sure its diatoms. The bubbles are gases that are getting released from the sand bed and getting stuck in the slime, if that makes any sense lol. They started going away when I started running GFO in a reactor, but they came back hard when I sold my Diamond goby and the sand wasnt get stirred/sifted. I also stopped doin water changes at that point, because it was right before I broke the system down. Do you have a way to test your phos? I have some GFO if you need it. Good luck with it man!

 

[mbg75]

Had gfo in the reactor and purigen in a mesh bag.

Dumped out the gfo and put in some phosguard to run for a few days hoping to remove any silicates.

 

[Levito]

Looks like the beginnings of dinoflagellates to me. Doubt phosguard will do much for it. IMO nothing worked better than dosing peroxide. I had a bad case of it and tried all sorts of things. Nothing helped until I dosed peroxide. I noticed it starting to recede within 4 days of dosing and all traces were gone in 10 days. Haven't seen a trace of it since then.

 

[Alex]

How long has the tank been running what are your water parameters.

 

[mbg75]

tank been up for 6+ yrs as fowlr, since nov as reef. 54 corner. approx 35 gal of actual water.

Just tested a couple min ago
temp 76-77
sal 1.025
PH 8.5 (pinpoint)
cal 400
kh 8
phosphate shows 0
nitrate 0-5 (not quite 5, but a little more color than 0)

ro/di only 3 months old. esv salt on 10 gal water change every 2 weeks

 

[LongIslandAndy]

Siphon it out, without stirring up the sand bed too much. I also think it is just a diatom outbreak. Aim some current at the sand bed also. Check your TDS coming out of your R/O unit you may need to change the filters. It's a pretty new reef tank

 

[garys reef]

hey mike i have a tds meter i just found the batteries for it im working a b tomorrow ill bring it in

 

[mbg75]

Siphoned as much as i could out....it's actually in a high flow area. if i turn the pump any higher the sand blows around..

Boomer u out there?

 

[Alex]

your parameters seem within range, how old are your bulbs and your photo period. Its possible it's the beginning of a cyano out break.

 

[mbg75]

it's a 250 MH and close to 4 months old. put it in new years day. light on 8 hrs a day

 

[Boomer]

Yup mbg I'm here

First it is Diatoms, second The bubbles are gases that are getting released from the sand bed and getting stuck in the slime, if that makes any sense lol. there are O2 bubbles from the Diatoms not the sand, as Diatoms are photosynthetic. High flow that is for * trying to control Cyano not Diatoms. What I use to do was get a siphon and actually siphon out that top layer of gravel sand, just enough so the Diatoms are sucked up. Bleach the sand/gravel rinse it hot water well, then soak in water with dechlor, 15 min, re-rinse and then sprinkle it back in. Also, how old is this tank, are you running GAC and how often are your WC ?

 

[mbg75]

Thanks Boomer, tank up for 6 yrs as fowlr. been reef since 11/10. water change every 2 weeks. was running GAC in a reactor.


just checked tds with Garys meter. 108 at the tap and 11 at the ro/di. guess thats the problem.

guess i'm happy it's diatoms and not dinoflagelltes.

 

[dynamictank]

It can be like what everyone said
1- lights
2-water current
3- bad protien skimmer
And so on what I found out this comes from silicates and silica acids the way to remove those without adding chemicals is to replace your tfc membrane in the r/o unit. That normally traps silicates but if u run hot water the membrane blows on the inside making that membrane not efficient. When u add water for tap offs ur adding silicates the direct effect u would c in ur tank is zoas buttons acans n small corals that are delicate ull c the tips disintegrate and the zoo just disappear n the acans become tight to the bone with the chance of death if the problem isn't solved.

 

[Boomer]

I do not know where you got all that from. First, he has a DI also which takes out Silica also. The silica avg in the ocean is quite high, on the order of 2-3 ppm but can be much lower on surface waters. Some reefers add silica to the tank. I do not know where you came up with the idea silica affects zoas and others, unless you are taking Silica excessively high. In 40 years in this hobby I have never seen or heard anyone claim this.

 

[mbg75]

Update...
well, still have some diatoms, not as bad as it was. Only on front sand, mainly around a few favia corals sitting on the sand.
been siphoning them off and doing bi-weekly water changes.
Changed my ro/di filters been reading 0 after the DI.

Stopped running GAC for 2 weeks now. only running GFO in a TLF reactor, and a mesh bag of purigen in the sump.

Been reading up and realized i recently put a new sump tank in about a month ago. maybe diatoms are from the silicone of the new sump tank?

 

[Boomer]

maybe diatoms are from the silicone of the new sump tank?

Diatoms are the pioneers in any new tank and take on "life" first, as far as what you can "see". I do not care if you have a solid glass fish bowl. Next issue is your tank glass is silica and diatoms can feed off of that to a degree. Second, many things that you add to the talk have silica. Even if your tank tests for zero silica you will still fined diatom, as they can remove it from the water column as has as it is introduced. In most systems the diatoms will come and then go.

I know a guy that ran some tests a couple of years back when he had this sand diatom issue. He left some areas that could not be disturbed and some areas where left open for sand sifting fish he added. Guess what, all those sand areas that where allowed to be sand sifted showed almost no signs of diatoms.


IIRC he then protect the area where the sand sifters where sifting the sand only for the diatoms to come back to a small degree. In time his tank was pretty much absent of Diatoms. I will add he first did this test with Cyano and got the same good results greatly lower both sand algae issues.


Do not take this that the sand sifters where eating the Diatoms. It only shows that the Diatoms where removed from the sand shifting. The sand with the Diatom's houses Meiofauna and it is really the Meiofauna that they are eating and the Diatoms are just sifted out through the gills and back into the water column. This paragraph is my theroy and there were no follow-up stomach contents tests done to verify this.

 

[jamesonwhiskey]

So what's the best way to stop the diatoms from appearing in the first place? Everything I'm seeing here relates to getting rid of them which fixes the problem, but not the root-cause. Wouldn't they just come back again?

 

[jamesonwhiskey]

My current light schedule is as follows:

11am - Blues (half my LED fixture) on
12pm - Whites on
10pm - Whites off
11pm - Blues off
2 LED blue moonlights on from 11pm to 11am.

I'm going to change it so my whites are on for about 8 hours to see if that helps. I'm making RO/DI water now for a 10% change today and will start the darkness tomorrow.

I couldn't find the thread you were talking about but did see one that mentioned the shorter lighting helps as well. Another important part is that my new LED fixture is closer to a 250W MH, before that I had a 150W MH with 2x65W CFLs, so my lights are on for a long time and stronger than before.

How long does everyone normally keep their reef tanks lighted?

 

[mbg75]

Here's an update on my tank. Got a new clean up crew from reefcleaners, held off on a water change, and also found out my iodine was reading 0. After 2 weeks, diatoms went away, got a tiny cyan bloom. Siphoned that off and did a water change. Tank is Crystal with no signs of alage. Sand is spotless.