Dinoflegelletes algae help!

00pipirose · Dec 22, 2017

So i know for sure I've got hair algae (which seems to be suffocation my corals) and I think I've got dino algae too! I have pictures below. I'm incredibly new to saltwater, this is my first tank which is about 1 month old. I have 2 turbo snails, 1 Margarita snail and 2 *expensive* clown fish! Please help, I don't want my corals to die or my fish! I'm clueless as what to do, I tried looking up what to do but everything is just overwelming me, my parameters are 0 for nitrites, nitrates and ammonia, last time I checked my pH was about 7.8, just did a water change today (which apparently was bad?)first two picture are of the dino and last pic is of my hair algae.

Also I've got aptasia but I can just get AptasiaX.

saltyfilmfolks · Dec 22, 2017

Nah. You’re fine. You just went too fast.

Do little more wc and use a toothbrush before each water change. Grab a few more turbo snails or ninja star snails. Add some Dr Tim’s.

ArowanaLover1902 · Dec 22, 2017

Did you cycle? What's your clean up crew, you should consider adding:
- Emerald crabs (they destroy hair algae
- Maybe a turbo snail
- Some random snails (honestly most seem to be the same)

What's your filtration, feeding, etc, tell us a bit more?

00pipirose · Dec 22, 2017

ArowanaLover1902 said:
Did you cycle? What's your clean up crew, you should consider adding:
- Emerald crabs (they destroy hair algae
- Maybe a turbo snail
- Some random snails (honestly most seem to be the same)

What's your filtration, feeding, etc, tell us a bit more?

Yeah my tank is cycled (newly finished though) my cleanup crew is just 2 turbo snails and 1 tiny Margarita snail. My filtration is a sump system that I made and a skimmer. I feed like 2-4 times a week, I think it's called emerald encore or something

00pipirose · Dec 22, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
Nah. You’re fine. You just went too fast.

Do little more wc and use a toothbrush before each water change. Grab a few more turbo snails or ninja star snails. Add some Dr Tim’s.

So are you saying that bubble algae isn't Dino?

saltyfilmfolks · Dec 22, 2017

Bubble algae is called red or green Valonina.

What you have there is not that.
That looks like gha cyano and crud.

Maritimer · Dec 22, 2017

If you can find some banded Trochus snails, I think you'll like them very much. Relatively hardy, very fond of the sorts of algaes you've got in your first photos ... and they can tip themselves right-side-up if they fall, which Astraeas can't.

~Bruce

00pipirose · Dec 22, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
Bubble algae is called red or green Valonina.

What you have there is not that.
That looks like gha cyano and crud.

I don't mean bubble, is it Dino algae because it has the little bubbles and looks like *snot*

Maritimer · Dec 22, 2017

Those bubbles are nearly pure oxygen, produced by photosynthesis. Almost any algae can hold some of those - I don't see much there that screams "dinos" to me.

~Bruce

HB AL · Dec 23, 2017

At 1 month you've just barely cycled most likely, algae must have lots of phosphates, nitrates, and nutrients it's flourishing on. The fish will probably be fine but the coral might not make it, and if they are dying they are leaching more nutrients into the water for more algae to grow. I would test nitrate and phosphate and get it down.

jsker · Dec 23, 2017

All of the above, Patients and ride it out

Hablanero · Dec 23, 2017

One thing to remember as well is that your reading low nitrates due to the algae eating it up. Another solution would be to grow some macro algae in your sump so it out competes the algae in the DT.

ArowanaLover1902 · Dec 24, 2017

Is it possible there is something dead/something died a bit ago that pushed your nitrates and etc up? Manual removal does wonders btw, I had a huge algae problem a bit ago (it was all over the rocks, nothing was killing it, it was choking coral, etc), and I scrubbed it off and the problem is totally gone (I do still have some sand cyano, I've got to identify what it is eating).

Crreef · Dec 24, 2017

For the hair algae you can try getting some sort of tang. But for the dino you can black out your tank. by that I mean take a garbage bag and cover it so their is no light showing and leave it for 3 days. The corals and fish ill be fine. Then when you take it off do a massive water change and clean the rocks off with a tooth brush. That's what I did for my tank it its completely gone.