Dinos, diatoms, or something else?

rocklobster · Jul 7, 2019

I upgraded to a reefer 425xl, and put some new sand in the tank because of the new tank volume. A few weeks after set up I’ve been plagued with this ugly brown stuff on my sand.

At first I thought it was algae so I moved around my power heads for optimal flow, and dosed a nitrate and phosphate controller. Which did absolutely nothing.

Then I thought it may be Cyano because it was slimey. It wasn’t that red slime but I figured it may be a different kind of Cyano. I’ve dealt with a Cyano bloom before, so I did a chemiclean bomb. Within 6 hours it was almost all gone. I went to bed, woke up the next morning and it was all back . I had a bunch of guests coming over and didn’t want a disgusting tank, so I stirred up the sand (not helping, I know). It ended up slowly growing back within an hour or two while they were over.

I’m supposed to do my 20% water change to get rid of the chemiclean today, and my tank is all cloudy now, and the slime in question is back in full force.

I read this article:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2531708

I conducted the water filter test, and this is what I got.

Thoughts anybody?

Big G · Jul 7, 2019

Does it go away/fade when the lights are off?

rocklobster · Jul 7, 2019

Not quite sure, maybe it fades away a bit. But I can tell you this, when I stir up my sand, there’s stringy stuff floating everywhere in the water.

I just spent my entire day going nuclear on the problem. I vacuumed the entire top layer of my sand, drained the water, and dumped an entire bottle of hydrogen peroxide in the bucket. I rinsed and drained it, then put it back in.

Then I mixed up all of the sand, and did a 20% water change. The slime hasn’t come back yet, and it usually would by this point. If it does come back today, I’ll check tonight to see if it fades and report back.

My nitrates and nitrites are at zero, so I’m turning off my skimmer, and I’ll be doing some heavy feeding to promote micro algae competition. I’ll also be dosing hydrogen peroxide all week, and if the problem persists, I’ll do a 72 hour black out.