Is this dino?

[naclh2ojunkie]

Hi, I got a new tank about 6 months ago. Moved everything over and things were going great. Then, about a month ago - BOOM. Brown sponge like algae everywhere, green hair everywhere and cyano too. I know I need to throw a powerhead on the backside of the rock pile to pickup the flow to get rid of the cyano. But what the heck is this brown stuff? It doesn't look like any of the diatom stuff I've seen before. And, I cannot figure out what the heck happened. It literally happened over the course of a couple weeks. The only thing I can think of is I make the RO water in a bucket in the sink. Occasionally it will sit for a day or two and maybe one of my kids splashed some soap in there (soap has lots of phosphate in it) while washing their hands? I don't have a phosphate test yet because I've literally never had a problem with it. Very frustrating.

Last night, I went lights out and dosed 3% H2O2 at 2ml per 10gallons. Turned skimmer off. Any other advice? There is a yellow tang and a clown which I feed very little and not so often. I had about 20 peppermints from an aiptasia outbreak a while back that were doing great...but seemed to have disappeared since the outbreak.

 

[naclh2ojunkie]

So bummed because under one of those brown blobs is (was) a cantaloupe size pink stylophoria.

 

[mcgyvr]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2531708

A microscope would be quite helpful too..

 

[sfdan]

I've experienced a lot of Dinos and a lot of Cyano, and to my eye that looks much more like Cyano to me. However a microscope could confirm easily.

If it is Cyano I've had very good luck with ChemiClean, but that only solves the symptom and not the root cause of what is allowing the Cyano to take over in the first place.

 

[Oldreeferman]

Id take a DT water sample to your LFS & have the P & N tested if everything else is in order. Have the RO tested as well at the same time. Would let you know where you stand in water quality.
Looks like really high nutrients, low flow and or bad RO water to me with all that going on at once, if its a mature established tank.
Id do the tests asap 1st then do a serious vacuming of all that gunk to get out all you can & a major water change.
May have to lightly vacumn couple times a week even to keep it in check till it stabilizes.
I had to do that with red cyano for 2 months once till i figured out my issue causing it.

 

[mattgumaer]

Hi, I got a new tank about 6 months ago. Moved everything over and things were going great. Then, about a month ago - BOOM. Brown sponge like algae everywhere, green hair everywhere and cyano too. I know I need to throw a powerhead on the backside of the rock pile to pickup the flow to get rid of the cyano. But what the heck is this brown stuff? It doesn't look like any of the diatom stuff I've seen before. And, I cannot figure out what the heck happened. It literally happened over the course of a couple weeks. The only thing I can think of is I make the RO water in a bucket in the sink. Occasionally it will sit for a day or two and maybe one of my kids splashed some soap in there (soap has lots of phosphate in it) while washing their hands? I don't have a phosphate test yet because I've literally never had a problem with it. Very frustrating.

Last night, I went lights out and dosed 3% H2O2 at 2ml per 10gallons. Turned skimmer off. Any other advice? There is a yellow tang and a clown which I feed very little and not so often. I had about 20 peppermints from an aiptasia outbreak a while back that were doing great...but seemed to have disappeared since the outbreak.

Wow. That sucks. Can you dislodge and siphon it out? Even if you find a way to kill it, without removing it from the tank, it's just going to release a ton of nutrients back into the tank, likely fueling your next problem. It doesn't really look like dinos or cyano to me but, knock on wood, I've only ever had relatively minor problems with both (I have some cyano in one tank right now, I think because I ended up with very low nitrates with some phosphate, trying dosing a little nitrogen right now, also hoping it will help with acro colors). I'm going to try some Vibrant in another tank with some long standing hair algae. Might be worth considering that option as well. At least some on-line accounts make it seem like a miracle product, at least for some forms of algae. Some form of carbon dosing might help too along with heavy skimming.

I would start with a battery of tests to see where things stand, alk, calc, mag, nitrate and phosphate. I'd then try to suck/pull as much of the bad stuff out as a possible. It looks like its going to be a battle. Good luck.

Matt

 

[naclh2ojunkie]

It doesn't siphon off unless it is a huge clump that has dislodged. right now there is no trace of nutrients in the water - nitrates or phosphates. I'm going to get in there with a new toothbrush and scrub and run a hose straining through a filter sock back into the sump so I can not waste a bunch of water. This sucks :/