I am loosing control over my tank, please help

[lost66]

Hi
Few weeks ago I had a small crash, alk jumped to 13 and I lost a lot of corals. During elevated alk I noticed that brown slime started to form quickly and I lost even more corals. For my inexperienced eye it looked like cyano so I used chemiclean (3 day treatment) and I think tank looked little bit better. I changed 20% of water and after that I siphoned sand using filter sock to have more time with the sand bed. I worked really well for 24 hours. A couple days later this brown stuff appeared again - sandbed, rocks and dead parts of corals.

It is easy to remove by using a turkey baster, don't even have to use any brush. It disappears and night, I can see some patches here and there but most of the sand looks ok after lights are off. An hour after lights are on then it appears again. So I thought - ok Dino then. So I started to dose Dino X and right now I am after third dose and to be hones it doesn't look any better.

I found a post here showing how I can tell if this is cyano or dino by using 100ml of tank water with this gunk and 5ml of h2o2. This stuff formed bubbles! So it is cyano? what the heck?
It looks like that right now. 2 weeks ago I started to add microbacter 7, next dose goes tomorrow.

I don't have microscope and I don't have access to microscope. Can't justify $100 for cheap microscope for this 1 event.

For the water parameters:
alk was swinging but right now it is at 9, stable
ca 440
nitrates 25
phosphate 0.10 (was zero for couple weeks - GFO)
Mg 1260

Please help, I have no idea what is going on, how to fight this thing.

 

[LegendaryCG]

Cyano. Clean take, increase flow or use a turkey Baster on it periodically. Leaving lights off for like 3 days would be good too.

 

[lost66]

I can't imagine how I can increase the flow. Right now my corals are barely sticking in 1 place. I think sticks don't like my flow because they grow (when they were growing) in the direction of the flow. It looks weird.
It is 8 feet peninsula style tank. I have a gyro type power head on the open side and on the other side I have small jebao power heads which produce a lot of flow, anemones look like pancakes.

I wonder why chemiclean didn't reset cyona? I used it twice, month between treatment.

 

[schuby]

The brown stuff your describing (blows off with turkey baster, increases after lights come on) sounds like diatoms to me. I had them. Check for excess Silicate in your top-off water: no new Silicate = no diatoms (that is after a week or so and they've consumed all that is left in tank). Once I removed the source of additional Silicate, my diatoms went away.

I won't tell you how many corals I killed performing the wrong treatment due to wrong diagnosis.

 

[Vwluv10338]

I would bet dinos from phosphate bottoming out. Has happened to me twice

 

[SMSREEF]

You need a microscope to be certain.
All are treated so differently that a positive ID will help you a lot.

You can get one fairly inexpensive on amazon. It’s well worth the money. I use mine to look at many different things in the tank.

 

[lost66]

You need a microscope to be certain.
All are treated so differently that a positive ID will help you a lot.

You can get one fairly inexpensive on amazon. It’s well worth the money. I use mine to look at many different things in the tank.

I read the thread about microscopes. It is pretty old and I don't really know which one I can buy. Cheap option for sure. Any recommendation? Link?

 

[SMSREEF]

I read the thread about microscopes. It is pretty old and I don't really know which one I can buy. Cheap option for sure. Any recommendation? Link?

I bought this one, but I think a cheaper one would do just fine
TELMU Microscope 40X-1000X Dual Cordless LED Illumination Lab Compound Monocular Microscopes with Optical Glass Lenses & 10 Slides
If you get one, here are some good links and info.

Hunting With A Microscope

Diatoms and blue-green algae are only two of many groups of organisms that can be studied using a microscope.

reefs.com

And a great Dino ID guide from @taricha

 

[vetteguy53081]

Verify your phosphate and nitrate levels.
For the dino:
Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15%) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependant coral- turn all lights off.
During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as bacter 7) per 10 gallons.
Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX as it is food for dinos.
Day 5,, you can start with blue lights - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly

 

[lost66]

I purchased a microscope. $17, according to people from other thread it should work. And my son should like it in couple years
I will post pictures once I have anything.

 

[lost66]

This is what I have from $17 microscope. max 1200x zoom they say. Is it enough to tell what the heck is going on?
Dino? Diatom? Cyano?

 

[Jedi Knghit]

Dinos, but I am not the right person to identify which variety.

 

[SMSREEF]

This is what I have from $17 microscope. max 1200x zoom they say. Is it enough to tell what the heck is going on?
Dino? Diatom? Cyano?

Dino’s.

@taricha is one of the best to help identify.

Can you see if you can get a video of the movement? Sometimes that helps with the ID.

Also you can use Taricha’s guide:

 

[lost66]

Thanks for hints. I will try to make a clip tomorrow. It is not easy using this microscope
Cells move very fast, from attachment all of them are slow and only coolia is something which look like my thing.

 

[SMSREEF]

A definitive ID will go a long way to help figuring out what to do.

For all Dino’s though, getting your nutrients up does not hurt and usually helps competitors and algae start to outcompete.
Target NO3 at 5-10 and PO4 0.05-0.1
You may need to dose.

Stop by amino acids if you dose them.

Don’t do any water changes for now.

 

[lost66]

This is what I have, quality sucks though :/ Hopefully enough. https://photos.app.goo.gl/EA7abJCKVKrYByYUA https://photos.app.goo.gl/tiwbSeFgSQV5zprN7

 

[taricha]

This is what I have from $17 microscope. max 1200x zoom they say. Is it enough to tell what the heck is going on?
Dino? Diatom? Cyano?

large cell amphidinium dinos. With a couple of coolia dino cells.

 

[lost66]

large cell amphidinium dinos. With a couple of coolia dino cells.

Thanks!

 

[brandon429]

How many gallons is your tank, critical in discerning fix options

we have a thirty page thread where we simply clean tanks a certain way to fix them, we have dinos jobs along with cyano jobs mixed in going off the before pics morphology as well. It’s not your typical cleaning approach

It used to be easy to critique cleaning-as-remedy but that slowed after page fifteen we see now in hindsight

if your tank is very large, then it’ll be hard to clean our way

but if it’s not a huge reef, we did not luck into thirty pages

when you mentioned losing control what came to mind was immediate control options, but they’re for mid to small sized reefs. Only one large tanker in human history was ever willing and there aren't two Jon Malkersons.

 

[lost66]

My tank is 240g. Huge, she say

I am dosing Dino X, reduced light period to 5hours a day. I started to dose microbacter 7 3 weeks ago. At this point I don't want to stress the tank even more, what should I do?
Maybe stop dosing Dino X, return to regular light schedule with more blue, raise phosphate and nitrate, change filter sock daily or so, blast rocks by turkey baster, siphon sandbed through the sock and do not change water for a while? Does it make sense for a natural solutions or should I follow what @Vette67 suggested (he suggested that before I post pictures). Or do anything else?
I know there are plenty of threads on this forum but it is a heck of a reading and to be honest more I read more confused I am.

I am planning to introduce calcium reactor. Should I wait with these till dino issue is solved? I don't know if melting media may give dino a reason to boost bloom.