Long time no see! Back with Cyano, Dinos, or Calothrix? Help!

[holdyourlight]

Been out of the hobby for a while now, was VERY active on these boards 7-8 years ago. I'm back with a 125G Fish Only tank and looking for some help on determining exactly what i have in my new (3 month old) tank. Tank was started pretty sterile. All ceramic rocks that had been leached of phosphates using lanthanum chloride until phos read 0 and dry tropic eden sand.

I've had very bad diatoms from the start which i blame on the sand. I dont remember tropic eden ever being so dusty. I did not rinse it as i've never needed to in the past and it was a mistake.

A few weeks ago this stuff started showing up. I performed this dino test and it does NOT appear to be dinoflagellates according to the test:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/helpful-method-for-identifying-dinoflagellates.216508/

I don't have a scope handy but willing too buy one if need be. It's definitely the same stuff on the sand as on the rocks, the rocks just get much higher and direct flow and this stuff gets "stringier"

I read the entire Vibrant thread yesterday and was hoping at may be a solution for whatever this is, but now am waiting on @twilliard 's findings

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Eww. Yucky. At least you were met with a challenge on your way back in.
Do you have a canister filter? I'd maybe consider running a flow only or poly pad and gfo. Stir the heck out of the sand and blow of the rocks and keep doing it till the dust dies down.
Have you tested for silicate? Do you have clean up crew yet?

 

[holdyourlight]

I dont have a canister filter but running filter socks, gfo and a turbo aquatics ATS. Phos is 0.01 on Hanna. Havent tested for silicate but I am sure the sand is full of it as diatoms were so bad. At least that will exaust itself. RODI has a new membrane and reading 0.
Should also mention that turbo snails eat this stuff. 3 of them are not making a dent though

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I dont have a canister filter but running filter socks, gfo and a turbo aquatics ATS. Phos is 0.01 on Hanna. Havent tested for silicate but I am sure the sand is full of it as diatoms were so bad. At least that will exaust itself. RODI has a new membrane and reading 0.
Should also mention that turbo snails eat this stuff. 3 of them are not making a dent though

Im really only recommend the $60 canister as a temp treatment to help give the CUC a head start and the mech filter will get out quite a bit faster than other means. So its just a thought. The poly pad I believe is gfo basicly and will bind the silicate as well.
I usually run my canister for two days after a deep clean or rescape.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Welcome back!

 

[holdyourlight]

for anyone that stumbles across this, i sent a sample to @twilliard and he ID'd this under the scope as Chrysophytes.

i wonder if more people that think they have dino's actually have this.

It sure looks a heck of a lot like dinoflagellates when a lot of air bubbles are stuck in it!

 

[domination2580]

What are chrysophytes?

 

[twilliard]

http://chrysophytes.weebly.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_algae

Can be mistaken for dino's

 

[domination2580]

http://chrysophytes.weebly.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_algae

Can be mistaken for dino's

How so you treat it?

 

[GK3]

I had this in a cough-2 gallon-cough reef tank (long story why only 2 gallons). I don't know if it was chrysophytes or Dino's but it looked Identical. It was annoying but not too hard to fix. My first question would be how long are your lights running?

To get rid of it I did a 72 hour blackout. After the first 24 hours take a power head and blow off all of the rock that gets light. You'll see all of this stuff blow off. When I did this, in the remaining 48 hours, it all ended up in my filter sponge. This was easily removed by grabbing the filter sponge and rinsing. When my lights came back on there were 1-2 areas I missed that I just immediately hit with a power head. Never had the issue again.

Reason I ask about the lights is because in a new tank, I was running the lights too long and that is what I think caused this.