Algae Issue/Looking for advice!

[YHSublime]

1 hour ago, Squishie89 said:

I might be closer to you than the NoVa people and I've got a microscope if ya ever need. 

Good luck with the diatoms

 

I appreciate ya!

[ReefdUp]

2 hours ago, YHSublime said:

First rodeo here, is that like dosing silicate to get the dinos? 

 

Sorry... was in a rush while on a shuttle. Dosing *silica* will feed diatoms to outcompete the dinos. 

[YHSublime]

So it's been 10, maybe 11 days since I identified a problem. Life has been pretty hectic and busy, and I've not gotten this stuff under a microscope yet, HOWEVER:

 

What I'm doing is working, as I keep chanting to myself; "nothing good happens fast." 

 

So what am I doing, and what have I done? Great question. 

 

1. I did a "black out." And by that, I mean I turned my lights off for 48 hours. 

2. I reduced my photoperiod by 3 hours. 

3. I started feeding 3 times a day. 

4. I turned my skimmer off, and then set it to skim super dry after the blackout. 

5. I started siphoning out what I could see during the tanks lit hours into filter pads, that then go through filter socks. Every day there is a little bit less. 

 

It might come back in full force, but that doesn't seem to be the direction like it was aggressively about a week back. I'm definitely going to knock on wood, but I think I might have this close to nipped. 

[YHSublime]

Oh, I also added a couple chunks of rock from my frag tank. I've been wondering how I let the dinos out compete, and I think I've checked a few boxes. 

 

1. It's a fairly new tank, I don't think this was an issue, as the rock was rock I've been using for almost a decade, almost identical contents, smaller volume. Same lights, same pumps, same flow, etc. BUT

2. The filtration on this tank is pretty efficient. On my old tank, I was literally skimming, and sometimes doing water changes. Everything flows through filter floss, pads, then socks, before it gets pumped back into the top. 

3. The super aggressive 100% water change coupled with adding Carbon. 

4. I don't have the science to back this up, but I had already identified the new salt I was trialing was giving me problems. Inconsistent mixing, dKH levels all over the place. I'm back to IO. 

[YHSublime]

On 5/28/2025 at 10:57 AM, ReefdUp said:

Ugh, that's unfortunate.

 

If things seem to improve with lights-out, then... unfortunately, that's worse news. It's probably Ostreopsis, which migrate into the water column during lights-out and coagulate (for lack of a better term) on surfaces when the lights come on. Lights-out doesn't kill them or stunt their growth. It can buy your corals time, though, and it can get them moving into a UV sterilizer. 

 

@DFRwas kind enough to lend me a microscope. I am having a heck of a time taking a photo through the microscope, but from what I can tell, it looks like Large cell amphidinium, but then I pulled the ID guide on Ostreopsis, and it looks like that as well. 

 

it looks very similar to this kind of clustering, which is ostreopsis, but then I look at the other types, and they all look the same to me. 

 

I was seeing a little bit of movement like roomba type, but about 10 minutes later, nothing. 

 

I suppose the next step is getting it to where I can snap a photo. 

[YHSublime]

Would it be worth bothering with something like this:

[DaJMasta]

FYI, the image looks sharp but is only a thumbnail, not really able to see much.  Sometimes IDing can be helped with getting an approximate size - you should be able to do a little math with the field number of the eyepiece and the magnification of the objective to get you an effective full field of view, then estimate how many cells end to end it would be to span it and divide by that number.  Could at least get you a ballpark and discern 100s of microns vs. 10s of microns.

 

A UV will likely help at least somewhat in most dino situations, not sure if that power level is going to have a large effect - but you can probably find others mentioning what UV they used for fighting dinos and whether it helped.  I've also heard there's a pretty active dinos help group on facebook if you use it.

[YHSublime]

1 hour ago, DaJMasta said:

FYI, the image looks sharp but is only a thumbnail, not really able to see much.  Sometimes IDing can be helped with getting an approximate size - you should be able to do a little math with the field number of the eyepiece and the magnification of the objective to get you an effective full field of view, then estimate how many cells end to end it would be to span it and divide by that number.  Could at least get you a ballpark and discern 100s of microns vs. 10s of microns.

 

A UV will likely help at least somewhat in most dino situations, not sure if that power level is going to have a large effect - but you can probably find others mentioning what UV they used for fighting dinos and whether it helped.  I've also heard there's a pretty active dinos help group on facebook if you use it.

yeah. I think I’ll need to get it under a microscope that can take photos and video.

[DaJMasta]

I'm not that close and I know you've got several other offers, but I've got one that's setup for imaging if you find you need some pictures.