Brown Algae - fine strands - ??

[Krchfam]

Tank is a year and half old, struggling with some sort of brown algae that is growing on the bottom. It looks like fine strands that cover the surface and when I vacuum the sand it doesn't seem to come off easily. I have battled Cyno about a month ago but this is different and the chemical war does nothing on this stuff. Have also started to find fine strands of string (algae?) on some on my corals.

Parma - 1.026, ph - 8, calc 420, nit 8, alk 8.4, phosphates 0 - but who knows.

Mars Augustine lights, blues at 70%, Whites at 35% , on at noon and off at 10.

Any thoughts? Thanks. - best pics I could get

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[Sk8r]

Looks like dinoflagellates. Look in the 'algae' post up at the top of the forum.

 

[dannyfish]

A bullet goby will take care of your algae sand problem.


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[Krchfam]

This really sucks. Guess I'm hitting the frustrating phase of Verm Snails, Aptasia and now Dino's. Good grief!


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[Michael Hoaster]

I agree it looks like dinos. They are a challenge but can be beaten. Do your research and start listing things to do, and form a plan. The one thing that consistently seems to help is UV. Good luck!

 

[Krchfam]

Just ordered a new bulb for
Mine.


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[A Aaron]

Only thing that ever worked for dinos was getting phosphate and nitrate up a little. When ever one of those was 0 or very close I got dinos. I tired every other thing people recommended.

 

[Krchfam]

I'm in middle of "œDr Tim's" recipe and blackout. Will see. My phosphates are always 0 no matter what I do but my nitrates at usuallly around 5-8. Maybe I need to dose phosphates ?


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[Michael Hoaster]

I've never believed the theory that low nutrients can lead to dinos. Both of my dino experiences occurred after high nutrient events. But there are over 1000 species of dinos, so who knows? This is why dinos can be so challenging. My dinos respond differently to treatments, compared to your dinos. Plus, we often throw the kitchen sink at these things, so we may not know which thing we did was effective.

I just treat it like algae and focus on the basics. Food reduction, food competition, and predation. Since we don't know what exactly their food is, the surest bet is manual removal of the dinos. When you're an alga, you are what you eat. So where is their most concentrated food source? The water column? Nope, it's dinos themselves! I recommend manual removal every other day.

For food competition, I like a fast growing macro like Ulva. In Nature this algae ebbs and flows with nutrient inputs from runoff. It can also perform this function in our tanks very well.

Predation should be provided by snails, fish and pods, unless you are unfortunate, and have the dinos that kill anything that eats it. Pods are overlooked as algae controllers. Order 1000. Mollies can be acclimated to full strength sea water. They will eat it, provided you don't feed them. I like reproducing snails like Cerith and Mini Strombus (ipsf.com). Having a variety is key, so get several species to boost diversity.

During this battle, keep the UV going 24/7. Good luck!