What am I dealing with here? What do I do? Seeking advice

[beesnreefs]

TL;DR: This "snotty" stuff you see in the video below has been in my young (4 months old) tank for about 2 months. Started from dry rock/sand. Tried dosing Microbacter7 & Microbacter Clean daily for 2 weeks. Nitrates fell to 1 ppm and I lost a hammer. I do not have a microscope. Are these dinos? Something else? Considering Dino X, dosing H2O2.....what, if anything, do you think I should do?

Longer version....

Started this 65g AIO 4 months ago. Dry rock/sand cycled with TurbboStart and dosing ammonia to 5 ppm. I'll admit (please be kind) I went kinda fast with things....it now has 3 fish (clown, royal gramma, pygmy wrasse) and several LPS including acans, blastos, torches, hammers, and a trachy.

From the start I have been in the habit of siphoning/blasting the rock with a turkey baster and changing 10% of the water weekly.

About 2 months ago this snotty looking stuff started appearing on the rock and back wall. Not in the sand at all (though I have lots of sand sifting snails). Here is a video of it from today:
The sand has what I believe is a bit of diatoms (but nothing out of control) as you can see here. For what its worth, the sand looks slightly worse the past week or so:

If left unchecked the stuff on the rocks grows a few inches long, covers much of the rock, and looks like snot with bubbles in it. Fairly easy to remove from the rock.

I have a 15-watt Aquatic Ultraviolet UV that was running at about 200 gph originally when this stuff appeared. Now running at 575 gph. I do not currently use filter socks. I also have not been running a skimmer, especially since my nutrients have been low. I did buy and install a Santa Monica Algae Scrubber, the DROP 1.4, 3 weeks ago but it has not had any growth in it yet.

Concerned I had too sterile a tank (with not enough bacterial diversity) I began dosing Microbacter7 and Microbacter Clean daily for 2 weeks according to instructions on the bottle. About a week and a half ago I stopped using the Clean and went to MB7 once a week as maintenance. I also began doing Dr Tim's Eco Balance once a week. The water seemed to clear up nicely at first and I did see a reduction in the snotty stuff. However, my nitrates plummeted to about 1 ppm and I think my corals are suffering for it. Today I lost a gold hammer.

Most Recent Parameters -

SG: 1.025
Temp: 78.5
Nitrate: 1 ppm
Phosphate: 0.1 (this is from a couple of weeks ago from the LFS - I ordered a Hanna Phosphate but do not have it yet - would not be surprised if it is lower now)
Alk: 9.1
Calcium: 515
Magnesium: 1360
Ammonia and Nitrite are both at 0

So, here are some questions I have for the many of you smarter and more experienced than I

1) Is the snotty stuff dinos? I know a microscope is the only definitive way to tell but I don't have access to one right now so am looking for your best guess.

2) Am I just being an impatient new reefer? Do I just need to keep at it and wait this out?

3) I'm considering some other interventions and would love some thoughts. For example (a) I have a 3+ year old nano reef that is going great. Started from live rock/sand. Thought about taking a scoop of sand from that and seeding the 65g with it to help biodiversity, (b) ordering the IPSF Live Sand Activator package (https://ipsf.com/livesand.html), (c) trying Dino X after a 3-day blackout, (d) dosing hydrogen peroxide

4) What else, if anything, should I be thinking about/doing?

 

[just4plaay]

It looks to me like you have Dino's. Try the backup method for identifying dino's as described below:

• Try siphoning about 1-2 cups of water/algae into a 1-1.5 L water bottle (about half full).
• Shake the water as hard as you can for about 30 seconds then strain the water through a paper towel into a large cup. Make sure all of the water passes through the paper towel and none bypasses the paper towel.
• Let the water sit in the cup for an hour in ambient light. (upload pictures if you can)

Dino's will pull together and become snotty again after doing this. Cyano and diatoms will not.

More information on this process can be found on this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/helpful-method-for-identifying-dinoflagellates.216508/page-2

 

[beesnreefs]

It looks to me like you have Dino's. Try the backup method for identifying dino's as described below:

• Try siphoning about 1-2 cups of water/algae into a 1-1.5 L water bottle (about half full).
• Shake the water as hard as you can for about 30 seconds then strain the water through a paper towel into a large cup. Make sure all of the water passes through the paper towel and none bypasses the paper towel.
• Let the water sit in the cup for an hour in ambient light. (upload pictures if you can)

Dino's will pull together and become snotty again after doing this. Cyano and diatoms will not.

More information on this process can be found on this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/helpful-method-for-identifying-dinoflagellates.216508/page-2

Thanks! I’m going to try this right now and will upload pictures in an hour

 

[attiland]

Even if the above method confirmed this is dinos which it looks like buy a microscope. It will come handy anyway.
There are different types of dinos and the treatment is different and you need an exact ID otherwise you will just experiment with them.

Read the Dino tread too
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/

 

[beesnreefs]

Even if the above method confirmed this is dinos which it looks like buy a microscope. It will come handy anyway.
There are different types of dinos and the treatment is different and you need an exact ID otherwise you will just experiment with them.

Read the Dino tread too
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.2

It looks to me like you have Dino's. Try the backup method for identifying dino's as described below:

• Try siphoning about 1-2 cups of water/algae into a 1-1.5 L water bottle (about half full).
• Shake the water as hard as you can for about 30 seconds then strain the water through a paper towel into a large cup. Make sure all of the water passes through the paper towel and none bypasses the paper towel.
• Let the water sit in the cup for an hour in ambient light. (upload pictures if you can)

Dino's will pull together and become snotty again after doing this. Cyano and diatoms will not.

More information on this process can be found on this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/helpful-method-for-identifying-dinoflagellates.216508/page-2

So I did this twice. First time I went through paper towel, second time through coffee filter.

First go through paper towel after an hour the water looked pretty much clear.

Second shot through coffee filter, after an hour looked like this:

There are some very small clumps in there but honestly it’s hard to tell if this is what I should see with dinos.

Thoughts?

 

[beesnreefs]

Saw on another thread something similar...they thought it was chrysophytes...???

 

[HermitFish]

My is advice would be to use a product like Vibrant or Microbacter Clean. You’ll need to show patience the tank is going through it’s normal “ugly phase” but in 6 to 8 weeks of good maintenance and husbandry you’ll have a beautiful tank again! Remember it took months for the problem to develop so it’ll probably take time to go away
hope it helps

 

[Nitcrawler]

Going through a headache my self