Brown dust on my Sand

[fishybizzness]

So I am thinking that I had dinos because it disappears every night and comes back in the morning. I have my uv set up running at about 180 gph for over 2 months now and there has been no change. The tank is over 3 years old. It is not stringy or slimy, more like brown dust. Could it possibly be cyanobacteria or something else? Thanks for the advice as always!

 

[andrewey]

While that sounds like dinoflagellates (and could be something like amphidinium which wouldn't be affected by the UV), it's really impossible to tell from a picture alone and you're right in that it could be another organism. Before suggesting you scope it out, have you tried the coffee filter test yet?

 

[fishybizzness]

Thanks for the reply. What's the coffee filter test?

 

[andrewey]

Helpful Method for Identifying Dinoflagellates

I was reading randy holmes article about dinos. He had mentioned that snails will die if they eat dinos. My fishes are not intereted in eating them but ive bought teo snails that one of them eats these algae very much.(Although i think that im sure its dino) One other question is that these...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[fishybizzness]

I will try that

 

[Miller535]

I do highly suggest scoping it as others suggested. With that said you could have mutiple things, dinos, cyano, etc. But in the 3rd picture it LOOKS like cyano to me.

 

[fishybizzness]

So I filtered some of it and put it out in the sun. The first photo is of it in the filter and the second is of it after a bit in the sun.

 

[fishybizzness]

Its looking like dinos.

 

[taricha]

So I filtered some of it and put it out in the sun. The first photo is of it in the filter and the second is of it after a bit in the sun.

that's as definitive as can be. dinoflagellates.

 

[fishybizzness]

Thanks for the response. Any ideas how to get rid of it? I am researching and getting a million ways. Don't know what to do. I plan to plumb my uv this weekend to pull from and feed back into the dt to see if it helps. That's the first thing I will try