First time using microscope. ID help please

[raklassen]

Tank is just under 7 months old. Have had fish and a bio load for about 4 months.
About 2 weeks ago I noticed some algae growth. At first I thought it was GHA, but now I’m starting to wonder. The reason for this is about the time this growth showed, my nitrates plummeted. The low nitrates has me worried this could be dinos

I did all of my usual testing yesterday

Temp-78
Salinity-35ppm
Phosphate-.08
Nitrate-6.7
Alk-8.5
Calcium-410
Mag-1300
Ph-8.2

These parameters are pretty typical for my weekly testing except for nitrate. I’ve just now got the nitrates up to 6.7 (according to my new Hannah checker) but in the last 2 weeks it’s been so low that my usual Salifert test wouldn’t even show a reading I could notice.

 

[Jubei2006]

Definately got some hair algae, that is part of the reasons nitrates lowered rapidly, could have dinos show up as well. Do you have a refugium? Is so, turn up the photoperiod and/or intensity. Can also feed a little less or skim a little wetter. Keep the hair algae away from corals (toothbrush works pretty well) and enjoy the ride. It will subside with time and attention. Wouldn't go dumping a lot of stuff in the tank. This is a phase it's going through. Just think of it as the the gangly, pimpled, teenage years. Focus on natural cleanup crew, trochus snails and tuxedo urchin will serve you well.

 

[raklassen]

Definately got some hair algae, that is part of the reasons nitrates lowered rapidly, could have dinos show up as well. Do you have a refugium? Is so, turn up the photoperiod and/or intensity. Can also feed a little less or skim a little wetter. Keep the hair algae away from corals (toothbrush works pretty well) and enjoy the ride. It will subside with time and attention. Wouldn't go dumping a lot of stuff in the tank. This is a phase it's going through. Just think of it as the the gangly, pimpled, teenage years. Focus on natural cleanup crew, trochus snails and tuxedo urchin will serve you well.

No refugium. And I need to up my cuc. But reefcleaners.org isn’t doing priority shipping until after the new year. And the closest LFS for me is 90 minutes away.

And yes, I agree with not dumping chems. My hope is to try and do as much as possible “naturally” without chemicals.

 

[Jubei2006]

Algaebarn has urchins, just bought 4 tuxedos. Seems like everyone is out of "clean" fishless system snails right now. Have you considered dosing pods and/or phytoplankton?. Currently doing it on my 525. Im having a GHA outbreak right now as well, Im at 7 to 8 months in. But so far the corals are fine, and I good go full send on cleaning the sand bed and such, but I'm just riding it out. Figure pod population is about to explode more than it has to help the problems. So right now slow and steady. Nothing drastic to through the tank off. And keep adding biodiversity to help fight off any one singular problem. Going to quarantine 100 to 200lbs of Tampabay Saltwater and KP Aquatics rock after the new year.

 

[Jubei2006]

Man autocorrect sucks

 

[raklassen]

Algaebarn has urchins, just bought 4 tuxedos. Seems like everyone is out of "clean" fishless system snails right now. Have you considered dosing pods and/or phytoplankton?. Currently doing it on my 525. Im having a GHA outbreak right now as well, Im at 7 to 8 months in. But so far the corals are fine, and I good go full send on cleaning the sand bed and such, but I'm just riding it out. Figure pod population is about to explode more than it has to help the problems. So right now slow and steady. Nothing drastic to through the tank off. And keep adding biodiversity to help fight off any one singular problem. Going to quarantine 100 to 200lbs of Tampabay Saltwater and KP Aquatics rock after the new year.

Yeah, so far my corals are all looking fine. Actually looking better now that I’ve got my nitrates up a bit compared to what they have been looking like the last couple of weeks.

I do dose phyto 2-3 times a week. But just ran out. I may have to bite the bullet and make a road trip to the LFS

I mainly wanted to confirm if this is hair algae or Dino or something else so I could get a game plan to take care of it. I’ll get some appropriate cuc

 

[MarshallB]

Yeah, so far my corals are all looking fine. Actually looking better now that I’ve got my nitrates up a bit compared to what they have been looking like the last couple of weeks.

I do dose phyto 2-3 times a week. But just ran out. I may have to bite the bullet and make a road trip to the LFS

I mainly wanted to confirm if this is hair algae or Dino or something else so I could get a game plan to take care of it. I’ll get some appropriate cuc

Dinos are a bacteria. They will look smooth under a microscope and you will see them moving around. Anything that looks sharp and square like that is usually plant cells or some sort of mineral.

It looks like your tank is fairly new. Quick solution would be to take out the rock and spray it with some hydrogen peroxide. Let it sit for a couple of minutes, rinse, and it will die off in a matter of days ( try to remove what you can by hand because as it dies off it will release those nutrients back into the water ).

Or you can ride it out. Other than urchants my snails and crabs ignore turf algae. With enough control it should die off naturally, however before then it will suck out all the nutrients and then you will absolutely risk getting a dino outbreak.

+1 to adding pods and dosing (carefully) phyto.