Diatoms or something else?

[Angus1989]

I am having a difficult time identifying the pictured algae / bacteria. Thoughts and advice most welcome.

Background: tank crashed while someone else was looking after it while I was on holidays. Prior to this I had done a bubble algae removal treatment and a bryopsis treatment. I had treated each with Continuum Clean Equation-M and flucanazole respectively. Having cleaned the tank up and restored it to vestiges of its former good condition, I thought this might be Cyanobacteria and I've done a Chemiclean dosing but alas it seems to be lingering. My Anenome is exceptionally unhappy even after a cipro treatment for the tank as well post crash.

I'll clean the rocks, glass and sand. Within 24hrs this green film is back and I've got lots of oxygen trapped.

Reading this thread, I am unsure if it is diatoms but they seem to be a pretty suspicious culprit.

A Simple Guide To Common Problematic Algae And The Means To Control It..

As we all know algae is inevitable in both Marine and fresh water aquariums and if not watched and without proper procedures for removal can quickly turn a beautiful aquarium in to something that resembles a scene out of a old Swamp thing episode. Some are easy to control some are a non stop...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Reeflix]

Diatoms (as far as i know) can't be green. i had green cyano on my glass that kind of looked like this, but i doubt it

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I am having a difficult time identifying the pictured algae / bacteria. Thoughts and advice most welcome.

Background: tank crashed while someone else was looking after it while I was on holidays. Prior to this I had done a bubble algae removal treatment and a bryopsis treatment. I had treated each with Continuum Clean Equation-M and flucanazole respectively. Having cleaned the tank up and restored it to vestiges of its former good condition, I thought this might be Cyanobacteria and I've done a Chemiclean dosing but alas it seems to be lingering. My Anenome is exceptionally unhappy even after a cipro treatment for the tank as well post crash.

I'll clean the rocks, glass and sand. Within 24hrs this green film is back and I've got lots of oxygen trapped.

Reading this thread, I am unsure if it is diatoms but they seem to be a pretty suspicious culprit.

A Simple Guide To Common Problematic Algae And The Means To Control It..

As we all know algae is inevitable in both Marine and fresh water aquariums and if not watched and without proper procedures for removal can quickly turn a beautiful aquarium in to something that resembles a scene out of a old Swamp thing episode. Some are easy to control some are a non stop...

www.reef2reef.com

Looks like typical film algae. How long ago was the last chemical treatment? Each time something like that is used, it kills off more than just what you're targeting and leaves room for other algaes, bacteria, archaea, etc to "bloom". If it's only been a short while, I'd just keep cleaning the glass and wait it out. Maybe add some pods and phyto.

 

[slingfox]

Given the series of back to back to back chemical treatments you have done you may want to let the tank chill out for a bit. Scraping the glass is easy. For the sand you can just siphon the ugly areas out. If you want to dose something that won't decimate your tank micro biome you can consider pods and phyto as suggested by @EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal. Bottles bacteria could help too.

If you are very curious and want a reliable ID then you can pick up a student microscope from Amazon.

 

[Angus1989]

Diatoms (as far as i know) can't be green. i had green cyano on my glass that kind of looked like this, but i doubt it

Yes I can now confirm it was a dash of cyano but mostly a ghastly amount of dinoflagellate.

Currently going to try live rotifers mixed with a 72hr black out before resorting to chemical warfare.

 

[slingfox]

Fluconazole + erythromycin + cipro tank treatments in close succession likely wiped out a lot of the micro biome and left an opening for dinos to exploit. There are a lot of good threads on battling dinos. I found my battle with dinos a lot more drawn out and painful than the early algae outbreaks!

 

[Subsea]

Yes I can now confirm it was a dash of cyano but mostly a ghastly amount of dinoflagellate.

Currently going to try live rotifers mixed with a 72hr black out before resorting to chemical warfare.

“before resorting to chemical warfare”

Consistent knee jerk reaction to algae with differrent chemical treatments has got your display where it is.

Good things in reef tanks do not happen
fast.

Consider getting good quality live rock to assist with biological filtration AND STOP ADDING HARSH CHEMICALS that harm good bacteria.

Typically, dinoflagellate thrive when competitors are eliminated due to depleted nitrogen & phosphate OR chemical warfare.

 

[Reeflix]

Yes I can now confirm it was a dash of cyano but mostly a ghastly amount of dinoflagellate.

Currently going to try live rotifers mixed with a 72hr black out before resorting to chemical warfare.

Along with the blackout, also use microbacter 7 or something similar as well. Have you got an ID on what type you have? Before doing anything, find out what type you have. After that you can do a blackout, also H202, raise the tank temp to 82, and definitely add in a UV sterilizer.