Cyano/Dino ID help

[dthompson0107]

Hello, my tank is about 2.5 months old. My ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates are at 0. Calcium 410, magnesium 1340, Alk 9. I haven’t been testing phosphates but I just ordered a test kit. I do about an 15% water change weekly.After vacuuming my sand I noticed a lot of these diatoms clumped up, and my sand is starting to get dirty a lot faster with sections of pink/purple. The clumps are starting to get stings of hair coming off of them but no bubbles. They don’t look like a lot of the pictures I’ve seen online but I’m not sure if it’s just an early stage of Dino. My coralline algae(pre owned live rock) also has dark red patches that don’t scrape off easily and are starting to spread to other areas of rock. Any help is appreciated.

 

[GoVols]

The deep red mat over your pink coralline seems to be cyano. If the things on your sandbed retreat overnight during lights out and about gone when lights come on. Then come along heavily during your lights on cycle, it could be diatoms.

Test your phosphates. You don't let your nitrates or phosphates drop to zero. You may have to hold those inline with dosing chemical forms of phos and nitrates.

Unless your nitrates rise, you may want to consider cutting back your water changes.

It would also be good to add pods and dose live
Phytoplankton. Pods consume dinos.

 

[dthompson0107]

The deep red mat over your pink coralline seems to be cyano. If the things on your sandbed retreat overnight during lights out and about gone when lights come on. Then come along heavily during your lights on cycle, it could be diatoms.

Test your phosphates. You don't let your nitrates or phosphates drop to zero. You may have to hold those inline with dosing chemical forms of phos and nitrates.

Unless your nitrates rise, you may want to consider cutting back your water changes.

It would also be good to add pods and dose live
Phytoplankton. Pods consume dinos.

Thanks for your reply! Yeah my nitrates and phosphates were at 0. I have increased my feeding and will start doing water changes bi weekly instead. I had added copepods a couple weeks prior to this as well as another Powerheads to increase flow. If my nutrients don’t rise in a few weeks I will likely start dosing. Thanks a lot!

 

[Dan_P]

Hello, my tank is about 2.5 months old. My ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates are at 0. Calcium 410, magnesium 1340, Alk 9. I haven’t been testing phosphates but I just ordered a test kit. I do about an 15% water change weekly.After vacuuming my sand I noticed a lot of these diatoms clumped up, and my sand is starting to get dirty a lot faster with sections of pink/purple. The clumps are starting to get stings of hair coming off of them but no bubbles. They don’t look like a lot of the pictures I’ve seen online but I’m not sure if it’s just an early stage of Dino. My coralline algae(pre owned live rock) also has dark red patches that don’t scrape off easily and are starting to spread to other areas of rock. Any help is appreciated.

The pre-owned rock probably has seeded your new aquarium with all kinds of organisms. Plus, a new aquarium seems to grow many unsightly things, most photosynthetic, that drive new aquarists to distraction. On top of all that no one probably warned you that a reef aquarium is a perfect environment for growing algae, though quite a few aquarists manage their aquarium in ways that get it looking beautiful after a time.