Long filament diatoms?

[Paolissimo]

Hi I been having this problem for a week now. I have long brown filament growing in my tank. They look like diatoms, but they are not growing in my glass or rock, they are just long and they get tangled in the corals and sand, The tank is very very small, only 4g. Its been running since march, without any problems, but for the past week, i get these filaments, they also smell. There is only one fish (clown fish)snails, and 2 sexy shrimp. The other are corals. I really do not know the parameter (except salinity)because I haven't tested the water in a while. I'll be checking for nitrate, but like i said, i do not have any green algae. I would think maybe silicates are high (i use ro/di water and salt is reefcrystal)To me it looks like diatoms, i'll try to get a picture with my phone. I cleaned the tank, because it was pretty bad, but now I am starting to see them again. One more thing, the lights are ecoxotic stunner and panorama. temp is 81 degrees. Any ideas?

 

[ZANYMASTER]

Look up Dino flagellates.Tough to get out.

 

[Paolissimo]

I am at work, so I can't really investigate, I just googled dinoflagellate, and from the pic, they seem that, except mine are very long and thin. they don't really trap the bobbles. Reading a lil further, some user in other forum, suggested increasing the Nitrate.

 

[ZANYMASTER]

I would not recommend that but another thing I've read was dosing peroxide and raising your PH to like 8.6 for a few days.Water changes actually make it worse believe it or not.Starving them out might work which does go back to what you said about nitrates which might be true but I believe they feed on Iron which most salt mixes have.