Algae ID and assistance

[DarkReefer]

Thanks for the advice guys.
Kind of surprised its dinos. I thought dinos showed up when your nutrients dropped to 0. Mine never have, in fact my phosphates blew out when I first noticed this, hence thinking it was the diatoms.

Even over the weekend my levels still showed okay.
Temp 24.7 deg c
pH 8
Nitrate 20
Phosphate 0.031
Salinity 1.025
Alk 8.5
Calcium 410
Mag 1260

I found that dino ID guide finally and agree it appears to be large cell dino.
I'm assuming the little ones are the diatoms?

I'll have to try and grab some stuff during the course of the week or this weekend to combat this.
Hopefully I can get through it without losing my fish, nems or last few corals.

 

[DarkReefer]

So yeah those are definitely dinoflagellates. UV is only successful with ostreopsis and yours appear to be large cell amphidinium. You will have to try to raise nitrates and phosphates, add microbacter7 or something similar along with phytoplankton and copepods, reduce lighting (specifically red, green, and white), and most importantly you will have to start dosing sodium silicate to introduce a diatom bloom. I see some diatoms, so as you dose sodium silicate the diatoms should be more and more prevalent on the slide. Hope this helps.

Turned off the carbonate dosing pump this morning, changed my lighting schedule (though I ran out of time so I need to play with it again, AI app is so bad and unintuitive). I've eliminated the red and green (wasn't on much to begin with), white off as well. But the blues/purples and UV are on a constant all day, before it was set to gradually ramp and have more of a curve but because the app is so bad I didn't have time to mess around with it before I had to get ready for work.
Hopefully no adverse affects by having one day where it's ramped in some ways a bit more than normal but we'll see.

Currently researching threads etc about Amphidinium Dinos and will be trying to get hold of the phyto/copepods and microbacter (or similar) ASAP. Also looking into the silicate dosing.

Assuming once we have the diatoms and wiped the dinos I'll have to battle those or will they wipe out as nutrients come down after we ramp them up?

I'm also running a media reactor with rowaphos.. I assume I have to shut this down also if we want to encourage the diatom bloom ?

 

[josh1591]

Turned off the carbonate dosing pump this morning, changed my lighting schedule (though I ran out of time so I need to play with it again, AI app is so bad and unintuitive). I've eliminated the red and green (wasn't on much to begin with), white off as well. But the blues/purples and UV are on a constant all day, before it was set to gradually ramp and have more of a curve but because the app is so bad I didn't have time to mess around with it before I had to get ready for work.
Hopefully no adverse affects by having one day where it's ramped in some ways a bit more than normal but we'll see.

Currently researching threads etc about Amphidinium Dinos and will be trying to get hold of the phyto/copepods and microbacter (or similar) ASAP. Also looking into the silicate dosing.

Assuming once we have the diatoms and wiped the dinos I'll have to battle those or will they wipe out as nutrients come down after we ramp them up?

I'm also running a media reactor with rowaphos.. I assume I have to shut this down also if we want to encourage the diatom bloom ?

I would try to up phosphate a little more. And yes. You want diatoms to outcompete the dinos. The smaller rod shapes in your pictures are the diatoms. You want to eventually see more and more of those and less and less of dinos. Once the dinos are gone you can lower nutrients (but don't bottom them out) and usually diatoms will eventually go away as they use up the remaining silicates in the water or your pod population will get to them.

 

[DarkReefer]

I would try to up phosphate a little more. And yes. You want diatoms to outcompete the dinos. The smaller rod shapes in your pictures are the diatoms. You want to eventually see more and more of those and less and less of dinos. Once the dinos are gone you can lower nutrients (but don't bottom them out) and usually diatoms will eventually go away as they use up the remaining silicates in the water or your pod population will get to them.

Thanks for the explanation there and helping me out.
I'll continue to post updates as I go... fingers crossed I start to see some improvements in time..

 

[DarkReefer]

Reactor now off. Threw in some Seachem Stability (I know it probably wont do a whole lot but it's all I've got on hand at the moment to add 'good' bacteria.). Still also dosing clean bacter M, again, probably wont do a whole heap but if it helps break it down at all, it'll be good.

Light schedule is now 2hrs shorter (by accident but works out okay I guess). Dusted off the rocks and turned the sand last night with one of those long turkey basterish small aquarium tube things.
Overnight there didn't appear to be a whole lot of it coming back on the sand, once the light started coming in and the lights turned on there seemed to be some more patches showing up though.

 

[DarkReefer]

Just an update (or more of a log entry just in case others find this in future I may as well document in case I get some success).

No major updates so far.
I've had to order Microbacter 7 from the US as nowhere in Aus seems to have it. Probably wont see it for a couple of weeks or so.
I've ordered copepods and phyto that should arrive in the next couple of days.
Unable to find any silicate other than something off of ebay or the sorts, yet to order something.

Media reactor that had rowaphos and carbonate dosing pump still turned off.
Still dosing Bacter Clean M by Continuum, unsure if this is making any difference but figured may as well.
I manually turn the sand and dust the rockwork 1-2 times a day currently.

Test results from the 26th.
Temp - 24.7 deg celcius
pH - 8.1
Nitrate - 25
Phosphate - 0.037
Salinity - 1.025
Alk - 8.5
Calcium - 420
Magnesium - 1290

Checked cells over the weekend and appears still very strong presence of dinos.

 

[Reef.]

Worth putting carbon in the reactor too.

 

[DarkReefer]

Worth putting carbon in the reactor too.

Cheers, got a bag of it sitting just before the return pump. Reactor probably would do a better job of it, but for now it'll be okay in the bag.

 

[josh1591]

When you clean the sand bed, I would try to siphon as much of the dinos out as possible. Stirring the sand bed just re-distributes them throughout the tank.

 

[DarkReefer]

When you clean the sand bed, I would try to siphon as much of the dinos out as possible. Stirring the sand bed just re-distributes them throughout the tank.

Yeah fair call. Might have to try and find my old siphon. My new one is great for water changes as it's got a bigger nozzle, but I feel it does a bit less in the way of pulling up the crud from the sandbed (still does just not as well as I feel the previous/smaller one did).

 

[DarkReefer]

250ml of Copepods dosed last night along with 15ml of Phyto.
Hopefully this starts to help things along.

 

[DarkReefer]

Hadn't noticed much if any change after adding the copepods and dosing phyto.

A test done 3 days ago showed my nitrate still holding at 25 and phosphate has increased to 0.110.

UV is finally installed and connected up as of today so we'll see what that brings.
Thought about getting the silicates / glass water happening too but may hold fire for a little first and see how the UV goes over the next few days.
I also plan to do a siphon from the DT into the sump and filter out some of the dinos but will probably wait until tomorrow to do that.