What Is this? What do I have going on?

[Dj City]

What is this?
Tank is just about 3 months old. This is not my 1st reef tank.
I want the communities insight on this.

Paramaters
Alk........8.19 (Trident)
Cal........440 (Trident)
Mag......1345 (Trident)
Nitrate..0 - 5ppm (ReefBot API Reagent)
Phos.....0.08 - 0.12 (ReefBot Red Sea Reagent)
Ph.........8.03 (Apex Probe)
Salt.......35.8 (swings with temp) (Apex Probe)
Orp.......344 (Apex Probe)
Temp....78.1 (Apex Probe)

Tank was started with dry rock and dry sand and old established media.

Ask whatever questions you may have and I will answer them.

I want to beat this whatever it is.

 

[Kremis]

Dinos or cyano probably, tank is new so this will go away with establishment

 

[MichaelReefer]

You're still in the Ugly stage. Stuff like this is going to happen for the first six months to a year.

 

[jeffchapok]

If it blows away easily like dust, it's probably diatoms. They go away on their own in a couple of weeks as the tank matures.

If it doesn't blow away real easily, I'd say it's cyanobacteria. Cerith snails will reportedly eat it, so you might adding a few. Either way, they are good CUC.

I wouldn't panic about dinos yet. I think a lot of cases that get diagnosed as dinos are one of the others above. They are much more common.

The only way to be certain is to look at it under a microscope. Perhaps if you take some to a LFS they can help you identify it.

 

[Dj City]

My LFS really isn't able to help me. I think I know more than they do.

I will wait and keep an eye on it's behavior.
It really looks like dinos though. It does NOT blow away. I have TONS of flow in the tank with 4 Neptune Wav's and 2 Gyre 350's.

I might start Vibrant.
Any thoughts?

 

[Dj City]

I'm 99.8% sure it's dinos.
It has taken off in growth. It is not cyano. Its killing coral.

I will be setting up the UV soon as possible and taking a power head to blow this stuff into the water column.

Pics to come tomorrow.

 

[Dj City]

I can't get the pics to load.

I started the 3 or 4 day blackout with the UV sterilizer installed.
I have 1017 gph going through the Pentair Smart 40UV. That's the right flow for what i'm trying to do. I have taken a powerhead and blew the rocks RELLY well dislodging a lot of "stuff". I wiped the glass down and wiped the powerheads down along with the return plumbing. I turned all the sand.
I pretty much made the biggest mess I could and got as much crap into the water column as possible,
I've done this twice so far since starting this blackout yesterday and will continue to do it at least twice a day for the duration of the blackout,
After 3 or 4 days of this, I will let light into the tank for a day or two while keeping the UV going and continuing to blow the rocks and turn the sand.
Then I may go with another 3 day blackout but this time without blowing the rocks off twice a day so I get a TRUE 3 day blackout with the UV running.

 

[Dj City]

Finally. I don't know why I had such a hard time posting these pics.
This stuff was EVERYWHERE! I'm convinced it's dinos. I hope the properly sized UV with the correct flow along with the blackouts knock the dinos out!
I will probably dose Vibrant after the blackouts.

wish me luck.