Cyano dyno or diatoms?

[Bpp124987]

My im10 Nano is about 5 month old, has had worsening algae on the sand. The flow is pretty decent and the algae (if it’s algae) is pretty resilient to the flow. It does trap gas bubbles, as does the sand. And grow up the glass. The rock is pretty clean.

I’ve had high ish (5ppm) nitrates (they were higher after cycle before large water changes) but never much phosphate (first time of got more than .01 was a few days ago at 0.05 per Hanna ulr).

I got a cheap microscope but the stuff just looks like filaments, not like images I’ve seen.

The coffee filter test I couldn’t get enough material - it does mat like cyano I’ve had in other tanks before.

Help?

 

[James M]

Diatoms but the pic is too blue

 

[Bpp124987]

Diatoms makes hairs like that and fixes gas?

Large water changes don’t seem to have helped; should I just chill and let it pass, presumably silicates from the sand that need to exhaust?

Here’s another photo with the kessil turned to the white color side.

 

[Bpp124987]

Sorry, typo in op, it does NOT really mat like cyano tends to - gentle turkey basting turns over the sand grains and makes the stuff “disappear “

 

[wareagle]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cyano-spirulina-chrysophyte.460155/

Did yours look like this in the microscope?

 

[Bpp124987]

Kind of. But I don’t see the separation of cells within the filaments

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Welcome to Reef2Reef.

I would lean towards Dino if you are seeing bubbles. But some cyano can look similar. If you have not put in new sand or dosed silicates it should not be diatoms

Does the algea react to night and day? Shows up in light, gone at night?

#WelcometoR2R

 

[Bpp124987]

Thanks mastifsrule. I was able to get a look thru the day over the weekend and unfortunately it does look like it’s less during the morning / day and gets worse as the day goes on with the worst before lights out.

Nitrates been about 1-3 ppm. Phosphate 0.2-0.5.

Confusing since it ain’t that clean, I feed plenty and have two small clowns (one small/medium the other pretty darn small) and a tiny goby so there’s plenty of nutrients. Light is a kessil a80 blue.

Skimmer is a IM new model (not the ghost) that I’ve never been impressed with. I added bio pellets a month ago to initially combat this “algae” but if it’s Dino hard to figure that helping if indeed it’s Dino . I’ve used chemi pure blue occasionally. I run an auto awc that changes about 15% per week.

What’s suggested treatment here?