Help please!! Dinoflagellates?

[ricosneeks]

urgent help needed please! I went on vacation when i came back i noticed alot of brown stringy algae on the sandbed, next few weeks theres been alot of bubbly strings on the glass and rocks, and now its getting worse and more annoying it keeps going into my zoanthid and clove polyp frags, everytime i turkeybase it away it keeps returning and im getting the feeling it is slowly suffocating the frags! Right now it is on more rocks and looks snotty and brown.

My ph has been low at 7.6 but im steadily raising it,ive attached pics please help guys and any solutions for what it is!

 

[ricosneeks]

Friendly bump

 

[homer1475]

My ph has been low at 7.6 but im steadily raising it,ive attached pics please help guys and any solutions for what it is!

This statement worries me. Your not adding PH buffer are you? If you are, stop!

all those buffers are is an alkalinity solution. You'll end up with sky high ALK and end up hurting more things then doing any good. Just measure your ALK and don't bother with PH. If your ALK is in line, your PH will follow. You can also try opening a window(low PH usually means excess CO2 buildup in the tank), adding an outside airline to your skimmer, or just more surface agitation.

As far as the algae is concerned, keep nutrient export in check, and starve out the phosphates with some GFO. They will eventually clear up on their own, especially if its a new tank. I'm currently going through the same thing in my new tank, but aggressive GFO use and wet skimming, I'm finally starting to win the battle.

 

[Bent]

simple hair algae.

Previous poster is right on the money.

 

[ricosneeks]

simple hair algae.

Previous poster is right on the money.

Did you see the first picture? Its a small brown bug looking thing with a long brown hair attached

 

[ricosneeks]

This statement worries me. Your not adding PH buffer are you? If you are, stop!

all those buffers are is an alkalinity solution. You'll end up with sky high ALK and end up hurting more things then doing any good. Just measure your ALK and don't bother with PH. If your ALK is in line, your PH will follow. You can also try opening a window(low PH usually means excess CO2 buildup in the tank), adding an outside airline to your skimmer, or just more surface agitation.

As far as the algae is concerned, keep nutrient export in check, and starve out the phosphates with some GFO. They will eventually clear up on their own, especially if its a new tank. I'm currently going through the same thing in my new tank, but aggressive GFO use and wet skimming, I'm finally starting to win the battle.

Thank you!

 

[homer1475]

I have GHA that looks exactly like your pictures. Its just air bubbles trapped in the algae.

 

[tzylak]

Don't just blow it away with a turkey baster.
Get a long 3/8 inch hose and vacuum out the algae. -Doing it as part of the water change works best.
As you remove the algae you are also removing the nutrients within them.
If you blow them and they die the nutrients are still in the tank to feed other algae.

 

[StrangeDejavu]

This is how I ID'd mine. Once I knew I was dealing with dinos and not cyano, I moved forward with buying a microscope. I confirmed yesterday 100% dinos. Amphidinium in the sand and unsure on the species on my rock. The filter trick will at least tell you for sure as diatoms or cyano will not regather like dinos do.

 

[ricosneeks]

Update, after lights out u turned my reef light on to find these brown bugs with strings attached on my screen

When its dark the frags are okay but once lights are on string seems to find its way to them which closes them up, pictures of the bug looking things on my glass are attached!

 

[homer1475]

Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like some sort of snail to me. A top down shot of its shell would help.

 

[ricosneeks]

Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like some sort of snail to me. A top down shot of its shell would help.

There is no shell i dont think, this picture is my phone camera zoomed in as much as possible, it is tiny, smaller then a rice grain

 

[homer1475]

They still look like some sort of snail. But a shot of the top of them would still help. Could be any number of things, from redbugs, to stomatella snails.

Have a look through here and see if you can find it.
http://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhiker.shtml

 

[ricosneeks]

They still look like some sort of snail. But a shot of the top of them would still help. Could be any number of things, from redbugs, to stomatella snails.

Have a look through here and see if you can find it.
http://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhiker.shtml

Couldent ID it the site