Brett S
Valuable Member
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2016
- Messages
- 1,062
- Reaction score
- 1,375
- Location
- Orlando
- What state or country do you live in
- Florida
I had been dealing with some cyano and discovered that my nitrates had bottomed out to 0ppm (salifert) while my phosphate was around .12ppm (Hanna phosphorus ULR). About two weeks ago I started dosing potassium nitrate to bring up my nitrates. I now have things reasonably stable at about 1-2ppm nitrate and .08ppm phosphate. This has all but wiped out the cyano, however, it seems that dinos have picked up where the cyano has left off.
I’ve never had to deal with dinos before, so I’ve been doing a bit of reading and it seems like the first step is to identify them and I’m hoping for a bit of help here. They disappear completely overnight and the sand bed looks pristine white every morning. But as soon as the lights come on brownish red patches start appearing. As the day goes on they get thicker and thicker and there is some stringyness to them by the end of the day. It’s definitely not at the point where it’s taking over the tank yet and I don’t want it to get to that point. This picture was taken yesterday evening and it gets a little worse than this before the night, but not much worse. I have also noticed some snail deaths. Snails that stay on the glass seem to be doing fine, but if a snail goes onto the sand and into one of the red patches they stop moving and never move again.
I tried the coffee filter trick and used a turkey baster to pull out some of it, I shook it up and filtered it through a coffee filter. After filtering the water looked clear, but after about 30 minutes under a light it started forming little strands of red.
I managed to find a little toy microsope that I got from radioshack when I was a kid (probably a good 30+ years ago) that says it magnifies 100x. It uses a flashlight bulb and two AA batteries for a light, but unfortunately I think the batteries had been in there for the last 30 years and it was hopelessly corroded. I was able to use the light on one phone to light the sample and take pictures through the view piece with another phone. This sample came from the water that was filtered through the coffee filter. Hopefully this is enough to help provide an ID:
100x microscope, no zoom on the phone camera:
100x microscope, 2.5x zoom on the phone camera:
Under the microscope the little red cells are moving all about and seem to be moving around an invisible strand of something.
Also of note, I do have a 40W UV sterilizer on the tank (it’s about a month old) and while it might be helping to keep the dinos in check it’s definitely not getting rid of them.
So, if you’re still reading after all that, can you identify what I’m dealing with here?
I’ve never had to deal with dinos before, so I’ve been doing a bit of reading and it seems like the first step is to identify them and I’m hoping for a bit of help here. They disappear completely overnight and the sand bed looks pristine white every morning. But as soon as the lights come on brownish red patches start appearing. As the day goes on they get thicker and thicker and there is some stringyness to them by the end of the day. It’s definitely not at the point where it’s taking over the tank yet and I don’t want it to get to that point. This picture was taken yesterday evening and it gets a little worse than this before the night, but not much worse. I have also noticed some snail deaths. Snails that stay on the glass seem to be doing fine, but if a snail goes onto the sand and into one of the red patches they stop moving and never move again.
I tried the coffee filter trick and used a turkey baster to pull out some of it, I shook it up and filtered it through a coffee filter. After filtering the water looked clear, but after about 30 minutes under a light it started forming little strands of red.
I managed to find a little toy microsope that I got from radioshack when I was a kid (probably a good 30+ years ago) that says it magnifies 100x. It uses a flashlight bulb and two AA batteries for a light, but unfortunately I think the batteries had been in there for the last 30 years and it was hopelessly corroded. I was able to use the light on one phone to light the sample and take pictures through the view piece with another phone. This sample came from the water that was filtered through the coffee filter. Hopefully this is enough to help provide an ID:
100x microscope, no zoom on the phone camera:
100x microscope, 2.5x zoom on the phone camera:
Under the microscope the little red cells are moving all about and seem to be moving around an invisible strand of something.
Also of note, I do have a 40W UV sterilizer on the tank (it’s about a month old) and while it might be helping to keep the dinos in check it’s definitely not getting rid of them.
So, if you’re still reading after all that, can you identify what I’m dealing with here?
