Please Check My Logic...

bevo5 · Dec 3, 2021

I've been battling what I believe to be dinos for a very long time. I did a microscope test and they sure look like em (small, circular, brown).

They only appear on one section of my sand bed - then fade away at night, and if I mix up the sand they'll come back within a few hours. It's literally just 1/3rd of the sand bed. Every day.

A while back I decided to let my nutrients rise up and see if that did anything....but it didn't make a dent even with nitrates over 30 and phosphates around 1.

I turned my UV off a few months ago, and low and behold - everything cleared up. So I thought maybe the UV was hindering the growth of competing algae, and now things were good.

Well - they've come back with a vengeance. My levels never bottomed out - still at 20ish nitrates, and .3ish phosphates - and I've turned the UV on (since I figure that wasn't the issue).

SO - What I think I'm going to do is - lower the nutrients and see if maybe it's actually not dinos? Is that a super bad idea?

KrisReef · Dec 3, 2021

Try it and see. Be careful with lowering nutrients if you have corals.
I suspect that you know that trying to quickly fix (mostly) cosmetic issues has often been the start of new problems for people who have gone the same route.

Maybe posting pictures of your tank as you go will give readers a better chance to understand your situation and your experience.
Gl

bevo5 · Dec 4, 2021

KrisReef said:
Try it and see. Be careful with lowering nutrients if you have corals.
I suspect that you know that trying to quickly fix (mostly) cosmetic issues has often been the start of new problems for people who have gone the same route.

Maybe posting pictures of your tank as you go will give readers a better chance to understand your situation and your experience.
Gl

Oh yeah - I totally understand that. I'm going real slow...gonna bring nitrates down to about 10 if I can, over a couple weeks.

This algae is really strange - it's a heavy mat-like cover that doesn't get siphoned up easily, but will disintegrate if I mix it up enough. Of course it just re-appears a few hours later. But if I run a siphon over it, it just clumps up.