I need this ID'd Im going to blow my head off (VIDEO)

[foundnemo11]

Please help me out Ive sent pictured and never gotten a real answer. I took this video after a 3.5 day blackout. Its been about 2 hours since i turned the lights on. It didnt disappear during the black out, but it did look like a dusting more than a full blown aglae bloom. I was thinkin dinos, ive been told diatoms. I dont know what the hell it is and Ive been fighting it for months. Nothing is seeming to work. I really just need to get this problem fixed. I dont care if its chemical, natural whatever will work!

[Kt8425]

It appears to be diatom algae or the start of a cyano bloom. I would really lean towards diatom algae though.

[foundnemo11]

i hear dinos are toxic. I havent had any deaths in the tank yet. Everything seems good and all the params are good.

[Kt8425]

Overfeeding or not a good clean up crew is likely cause. I use Nassarius snails. They will burrow into the sand and help circulate your sand bed.

[LAKEM0NSTER]

hey , relax, it's going to be ok. I've had this stuff pop up a few times & I eventually rid my tank of the stuff after I got my RODI water filtration system & it hasn't shown up since.

For a while I was using distilled water or RO water from the store for my waterchanges. I'm 99% sure this was the cause because shortly after installing & using my RODI system for WCs, the stuff disappeared for good!

So, if you don't already have a RODI water filtration system, get one & start using it to make up fresh water for your WCs. Also, when you do a WC, try & suck this stuff off of the sand & eventually it should wither away.

Keep us updated w/ how it goes!!

[sslak]

Complete lack of any useful information...unless you verbally explained in the video. I don't have sound...I'm on lunch at work.

Parameters?
How long has the tank been up?
When did it start, and what have you tried?
RODI?
Water change/cleaning schedule?

[foundnemo11]

@lakemonster yeah I buy my water from the LFS . That may be the problem. I have been thinking about buying my own. I probably will sometime soon. I have been hesitant because I live on a well and I am not sure if they work good for wells.

@kt8245 I Don't feed too much. I dont have a huge Cleanup Crew but I have a few turbos, 2 fighting conchs bunch or hermits, and a bunch of other snails(not sure the names) All of these were recommended by the LFS for algae. Also I dont think its Cyano because I dosed for that with Chemi clean and it didn't get any bettter.

[DanielJay]

Foundnemo11, I have a well and I have an RODI unit on my system. I have the BRS 5 stage system that handles 150gpd. My only problem is that the system required higher water PSI than my well produced so I had to purchase a booster pump. Other than that I have not had any problems with it.

[LAKEM0NSTER]

Yup, I'd say there's a good chance that water is causing this issue.. One thing you could do is buy those big blue jugs of RODI water from a water store.

Eventually though, I think you'll need to get a RODI system. I bought a 5stage system from BulkReefSupply that includes a digital monitor for "total dissolved solids" coming out of the filtration system; TDS should be ZERO!! I love this system, & the company, & have no complaints whatsoever.

If you go to their website, there should be somewhere you can chat w/ the staff & ask them what they think about the well water situation. You may just have to buy replacement filters more often..

Good Luck & keep the boards updated w/ your progress!!!

PEACE!!

[foundnemo11]

Ok yeah I have been thinking of it being the water. ONly thing is before I was getting water at the same place and had Crushed coral. never had a problem with algae other than cyano 1 time. I changed it to sand after an ich breakout while I was waiting for it to die off. I thought this had something to do with it.

I think I will order one this week from there I was looking earlier about it, itd save me time and money having it here. alot better than moving 2 30 gallon bins filled w 15 gallons each. every few weeks to a month

[jrp1588]

Looks like dinos, but I don't see any bubbles in it, which is a bit unusual for dinos. Not all dinos are toxic, probably why your CUC isn't taking a hit. Doesn't look like cyano to me, it doesn't tend to flow like that. It just grows in sheets. I've never seen diatoms do more than just a dusting.

I had dino's for a long time, I tried everything, including replacing my RO membrane. Unfortunately, I didn't notice when I replaced my membrane that the stem of the old membrane had broken off in the housing. This prevented the new membrane from filtering properly. At this time I didn't have a TDS meter, and didn't use color changing DI media. Eventually I purchased both and realized my membrane had been putting out water at about 90ppm and my DI media was long exhausted.

After I fixed that problem, my dinos gradually reduced and now I hardly have any. (I'd been pumping this crap water into my system for a long time, so I'd expect it to be a while before all the bad stuff is gone.) I also invested in a GFO reactor which also helped kill off a lot of the dinos.

[foundnemo11]

Yeah it doesn't look so much like Dino's on google images but it somewhat does. It doesn't look like diatoms. The guy at the Lfs said cyano

[sirreal63]

I have a gun you can borrow.

[petere1989]

I have what seems to be some of that in my tank. I have diatoms still too, but this is different. what i have is a grey-ish, kinda, ...stuff that lays on the bottom. ill be watching this for sure!

[jrp1588]

Originally Posted by foundnemo11

Yeah it doesn't look so much like Dino's on google images but it somewhat does. It doesn't look like diatoms. The guy at the Lfs said cyano

I don't think a lot of people are real familiar with dinos. Every time I see a thread where someone clearly has dinos most people say cyano or diatoms. That being said, your algae doesn't definitively look like any of the three. Could you get a closeup picture?

[LAKEM0NSTER]

Originally Posted by sirreal63

I have a gun you can borrow.

ha, that's cold man.

[jrp1588]

Hey, bloomington, I know a few people around there.

[talwen]

For your ro/did filter I would go with a spectrapure there the best in the business and have a sale going on this month and awesome customer service... look for the banner at the top of these forums it comes up often

[Sk8r]

Cyano. Actually fairly simple to fix. I agree with go ro/di---my cylinders have all expired, and I'm going to have to get that fixed. I just cured an outbreak---takes 3-4 days, and a decent skimmer. Poke the blue number on my blog and look for a blog entry titled 'Algae', which has a section on this stuff (which is actually bacteria, not algae.)

When you get your ro/di, start doing a program of water changes. That will help. Most of all, if any direct daylight is getting to your tank, prevent that. And try the 3-day lights-out as described in my blog, 4 days if it's bad. DO an extra day of actinic-only to let your corals and fish wake up gently and not sunburn.