dinos are killing me

jorge0912 · Feb 22, 2018

tank is 4 months old 50 gallon reef tank
runing a hob skimmer hob filter jebao crossflow
50 pounds of live rock live sand as well few fishes and coral in there
the dinos started two months ago and cant beat it i tried alot of things water changes resting tank washing sand rocks setting back up few days later it pooped back i did a 40 percent water change after that pop back the back morning.
did a 100 percent water change and it came back.
i always brush it off the rocks sifted off the sand and it just keeps coming back i did a refiugium with a hob kit with cheato and it just dosent cut it that is why i am coming here for help anyone tried anything to beat this is getting annoying and ugly.

?????
chimicals ?
dosing ?
idk anyone any ideas ?

Tahoe61 · Feb 22, 2018

Please post an image of the algae.

With the age of your tank I am more inclined to think you're seeing Diatoms mixed with Cyanobacteria. The last thing you want to do is wash the rocks and sand or reset up the system. You're just adding fuel to the problem. With some patience and simple interventions these issue often resolve.

brandon429 · Feb 22, 2018

Is this the tank we worked with on nano reef.com or a different one? The one I recall from our example thread did not complete the recommended actions on cleaning the sandbed and the invasion persisted. We had detailed how to clean tanks and provided links but in the updates the reefer only did a partial cleaning which made it stir up worse, curious which tank this is

Post full tank shot I think the one we worked on nr was 12 gallons not fifty

Partial sandbed work=nutrient upwell, feed the invader, sandbed cannot pass a clouding test after partial clean.

Complete sandbed action= you can reach in the full tank with water, grab two handfuls of sand by grabbing the bed top to bottom and releasing grains, and the grains fall back down with zero cloud, like a snow globe. Which condition is your sandbed in? I’ve never seen a sandbed sustain an invasion that can pass a clouding test, not a single one not ever. What I have seen is a cloudy sandbed implicated in every cyano and Dino challenge in reefing. (People search for the three B.B. tanks in the universe to post a counter

you’ll be searching a while but three exist heh)

For sure other methods exist besides forced compliance cleaning. There's ten other ways to just add something and maybe kill them or compete them out, but don't kick out the cleaning option yet, it's why the sand rinse thread is nine pages of only cures.

If you had two separate tanks in same household with same invasion it would be neat to know about your source water as well