I have never cleaned my substrate!

[RussC]

Now that I've got your attention, I'm guilty as charged. This was one of those things I just didn't realize was as common a practice as it is. And I'm guilty. I'm one year in and now knowing what I do, feel like this was the cause of my cyano and now the cause of my algae. And this algae is a brute.

This tank is one year old this month. I've never really been completely without algae, but that should be expected knowing what I know now about cleaning substrate. So I started this past week cleaning substrate. I also started running GFO and plan to have that running regularly moving forward.

This algae is healthy and shows no sign of backing down. Any suggestions in the meantime as I fight this. its just ugly. I want it gone. Corals are healthy. tank is running steady on parameters. I"m just reaching for ideas...

What is this algae? can you tell? I've got small puffs of it on the rocks that look like small shrubs. Some that looks like hair. Some that is matted. All seems to be same color.

 

[Nick30G]

It looks more like Dinos to me personally rather then cyano but if someone else can chime in and confirm this that would great.

 

[RussC]

I agree that it doesn't appear to be another cyan outbreak. I'm thinking good ole fashion diatoms. A healthy batch!

 

[RussC]

I'm getting some better leads. Starting to think I'm dealing with dinoflagellates

 

[BestMomEver]

It’s ok. I never clean mine either. I’m in the camp that believes that there’s lots of good stuff in a deep sand bed. Not only do I not want to remove it, I don’t want to disturb it too much either.

 

[tdileo]

I don’t clean mine either. However my nassarius snails, wrasses, and conch are a different story

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/page-12

 

[TangingOut]

I'd bet it's closer to 50/50 when it comes to whether people clean their sandbed. I don't touch mine, but my nassarius snails and conchs do though.

 

[SPR1968]

They look exactly like what I had and developed over a period of months until I also believed they were dinoflagellates.

In my case I did a 3 day blackout, just curtains closed and lights off.

I also increased water flow around the affected areas.

When the lights came back on they had all gone and never came back

And I have never cleaned my sand bed either as I assumed things live in it!

 

[Triggreef]

Meet my tank. Dob 2011... glass change in 2013. Never vacuumed Sandbed. Couldn't get to much if I tried... I'd love to do a "guess the po4" thread one day too.

View attachment 20180731_142415.jpg

View attachment 20180731_142428.jpg

 

[Ron Reefman]

I never clean my sand. I have too many things living in the sand to consider stirring it up and maybe injuring or killing something.

I think you are at the start of a dinoflagellate outbreak. Maybe you'll be lucky like SPR1968 (I hope). I had a devil of a time getting rid of my dinoflagellates. It took 4 to 6 weeks of constraint cleaning. I could kill it back to what looked like nothing by doing the 'lights out' process, but several days later it was back and growing just like before... maybe a bit less aggressive.

Good luck!