Cyano or Dyno?

[Its_Samo]

Hello everyone I am pretty new to the hobby only had my tank running for about 6 months. For the past 2 months my sand bed has had a brown coating on it. I didn't care about it too much as i would stir it up and syphon most of it out but it is now growing on the corals and they are having trouble opening. If anyone can identify what my problem is and how to get rid of it that would be much appreciated.

 

[Morphinel]

Pictures would be helpful. You don’t want to stir it up but want to siphon it out without disturbing it as much. Depending on the tank size you could run a GFO reactor to bring down your phosphates or add some chaeto in the sump to take out excess nutrients. What’s your feeding look like and water change schedule? I was taught a phrase when I first start keeping fish and it took me a long time to learn it’s importance “The solution to pollution is dilution”.

 

[Its_Samo]

So my first mistake was getting a small tank... It’s the fluval evo 13.5 and it’s all in one so no sump or space for reactors/chaeto. I have 2 clowns a fire shrimp and a few hermits/snails. I feed about a quarter cube of frozen brine shrimp daily and 20% water change weekly.

 

[corey904]

Looks like dinos on the hammer but looks like diatoms on the sand bed. A small uv would take care of both problems or largely help

 

[Morphinel]

Are you using RO/DI for your water changes or tap water? This isn’t uncommon with new tanks.

 

[Its_Samo]

Im using RO/DI from my lfs

 

[Its_Samo]

Went to my lfs today and they told me to add vibrant to the tank. Does vibrant have any negative effects? Should I add it to my tank or is there another solution. And just incase my parameters are needed. Nitrates 2 Phosphate 0.2

 

[attiland]

You sure look like have Dinos. If you have a microscope you will able to ID it and with the ID you can get a treatment plan. There are a few different strains of Dinos all with slightly different treatments.
I would suggest before you start to treat it ID it so you don’t end up experimenting on your tank. You may have more than 1 strains
a microscope cost you £30.
UV most likely will be part of your treatment.
check your phosphate and nitrate and make sure none of them is 0

read the Dino tread too
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/

As per vibrant it has mixed results with Dinos

 

[corey904]

Went to my lfs today and they told me to add vibrant to the tank. Does vibrant have any negative effects? Should I add it to my tank or is there another solution. And just incase my parameters are needed. Nitrates 2 Phosphate 0.2

Vibrant can rapidly decrease your nitrates and phosphates which will actually help dinos even more if they are not kept up
0.2 pho’s and 2 nitrate is in my opinion way to low to add vibrant keeping nutrients up is key when dosing vibrant

 

[Reef.]

trouble is no matter what it is, if you can't be sure of the quality of the water you are getting from the LFS, it could all be a waste of time, could come back if the water is the cause.
Many people find the LFS water is not the greatest, they are generally busy places, changing filters etc can get forgotten.

I wouldn't start with Vibrant yet, try and work out where the issue is coming from, rather than adding something to fix it.

It could just be a new tank thing, to me it looks like diatoms, and maybe the water you are getting has too much silicates in it, if it just blows away and disappears with a turkey baster.

Look to either make your own water or buy distilled water from Walmart and add the salt yourself, see if that calms the diatoms down.
That's what I would do, make sure where you are starting from is not the issue.

 

[Its_Samo]

trouble is no matter what it is, if you can't be sure of the quality of the water you are getting from the LFS, it could all be a waste of time, could come back if the water is the cause.
Many people find the LFS water is not the greatest, they are generally busy places, changing filters etc can get forgotten.

I wouldn't start with Vibrant yet, try and work out where the issue is coming from, rather than adding something to fix it.

It could just be a new tank thing, to me it looks like diatoms, and maybe the water you are getting has too much silicates in it, if it just blows away and disappears with a turkey baster.

Look to either make your own water or buy distilled water from Walmart and add the salt yourself, see if that calms the diatoms down.
That's what I would do, make sure where you are starting from is not the issue.

My lfs has an inline TDS meter and anytime I have checked it has always been at 0. Other than bad quality water what else can the issue be from what should i be checking? It blows away with a turkey baster then 5 minutes laters its back.

 

[Tonyreeffish]

Ive had luck with DinoX and 3 days of blackout. Youre going to want to manually siphon it all every day, not blow it away.

 

[Reef.]

My lfs has an inline TDS meter and anytime I have checked it has always been at 0. Other than bad quality water what else can the issue be from what should i be checking? It blows away with a turkey baster then 5 minutes laters its back.

the stuff that can cause diatoms will not show up on a TDS metre, that's why it's best making your own.

My RODI always show zero, didn't change the filters soon enough now I have diatoms.

My plan, I've changed all the filters, and turkey basking them so they don't have chance to multiply, they will burn themselves out in a week or two.

 

[Its_Samo]

Update...
My corals were looking terrible nothing was opening up i decided it probably cant get worse so i used vibrant. Literally 1 hour later the corals began to open. Its been 3 days since and I barely see any "dino" in the tank. Just few patches where i think my flow is very low. However I was testing my parameters and my phosphates are down to 0.043. I had a packet of rowaphos in my filtration and pulled it out. Should I dose phosphates/ feed heavier/ get another fish.

 

[attiland]

Update...
My corals were looking terrible nothing was opening up i decided it probably cant get worse so i used vibrant. Literally 1 hour later the corals began to open. Its been 3 days since and I barely see any "dino" in the tank. Just few patches where i think my flow is very low. However I was testing my parameters and my phosphates are down to 0.043. I had a packet of rowaphos in my filtration and pulled it out. Should I dose phosphates/ feed heavier/ get another fish.

Your phosphates where are hey are still safe but watch it closely.