Help identifying cyano or dinoflagellates

[justinm]

Been trying to figure out which one this is. I have had cyano before, it's the same color but it is stringy. Hoping it's not dinoflagellates but is starting to cover rock. Thanks!

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Looks like cyano to me.

 

[Salty1962]

Looks like cyano to me.

+1, what are your flow and nutrient levels?

 

[justinm]

2 MP40s and an mp10 in a 120 plus the return.

PO4 is reading 0 and NO4 is reading .2

My one MP40 wasn't working for a few months and I fixed it so this may have been the problem.

 

[bellasdad0911]

Add some mb7 to the tank. Probably low on beneficial bacteria causing instability. Also how are you testing the no4?

 

[GoPitt88]

Yep.....cyano. I had it bad for over a month...almost two months. I just started straining and rinsing my frozen food. Watched how much I fed in general, and every week when doing a water change, I would blow as much off the rocks with a turkey baster and catch it in the water column with a net. Slowly but surely, I got rid of it all. Seemed to be a part of my tank cycle cause I’ve never had it since. Maybe that’s because I improved my husbandry when trying to eradicate it. Good luck!

 

[justinm]

I get lazy at times but still do my water change every other week. I used to baste my rocks years ago but haven't in a long time. My water is reading 1 tds, I doubt that would be causing the he issue and I barely feed the tank because it's sitting fallow.

 

[reeferfoxx]

What are you testing PO4 with? Are you running anything to reduce nitrates?

 

[justinm]

I just used a salifert test. I'm running gfo in a reactor and chaeto in my fuge. It was growing crazy for awhile then kind of sopped, now I'm growing cyano. I'm just happy it's cyano and dinoflagellates.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Might try bringing nitrates up and see how that does for awhile.

 

[justinm]

I'm dosing potassium nitrate now, just started the other day. I was keeping nitrates around 2-3ppm and things were much better.

 

[ReefFreak@]

Remove of much cyano as your can and then use red slime remover. Contrary to what people say as long as you follow the directions properly there's no ill effects. After that do a few water changes over a course of a week and that will settle down your skimmer. Cyano hasn't come back since for me