WHAT is the junk and how do I get rid of it?!?

[stefdvm]

My tank was fine, very clean, some green algae on the glass that I scraped off every few days. All of a sudden, this brown slime appeared - it's all over the sand, it's on the rocks, on the livestock. I can blow it off with a baster and it's back in no time. I read somewhere here about how to differentiate cyano or other bacteria from dinoflagellates; last night I collected a bunch of the junk, put it in tank water in a container and shook it like mad. I filtered it through a paper towel and had a bunch of brown water left with slimy junk on the paper towel. Of course, now I can't find that thread to see what that means - obviously I wasn't smart enough to follow or mark it.

The overflow looks like it's growing grass!! I cleaned that all out YESTERDAY! it's not unusual for there to be lots of air bubbles in my tank - my return pump and ATO and I are still working on balance and there have been times that the return pump is partially uncovered and sucking some air which it distributes into the tank. However, I cannot say definitively that that is where the bubbles are coming from - it's just what I had assumed. I have had bits of this stuff before, generally on the rocks, looked like tufts of hair, comes right off when I grab it or blast it. But, lately, it's ridiculous.

So... can any one tell me (1) what it is? and more importantly (2) what to do about it? If it makes any difference or helps at all, I do have a microscope at work and I can pull some out and look at it tomorrow, if I know what I'm looking for.

[Alexraptor]

My guess would be Dinoflagellates.

[ClownMan727]

Could be diatoms. I would siphon out as much as you can. How old is your tank?

[codydemmel4]

youre going to have to give specifics about your setup for someone to help.

Equipment, testing levels, how long it has been set up, etc

[stefdvm]

Originally Posted by ClownMan727

Could be diatoms. I would siphon out as much as you can. How old is your tank?

I really don't think it's diatoms; went through that already and my silicates are reading nearly zero. This iteration of the tank is about 7 mos old; some of the rocks were added then, most of the rocks came out of a 2yr old tank

[stefdvm]

Originally Posted by codydemmel4

youre going to have to give specifics about your setup for someone to help.

Equipment, testing levels, how long it has been set up, etc

Gotcha... I read enough on here - should know that by now.

DT is about 135 gallons, sump is 40, I have a refugium that had built up a bunch of cyano and I just recently cleaned that out cause it was gross - I'm almost 100% certain that this stuff started in the DT prior to that anyway. Sump has about 2" of sand and some live rock and rubble, I have a few hermits in there, and 2 snails; I added chaeto about a month ago. I have a 1200W light on it that I keep on for about 16 hrs/day, more or less opposite the DT lighting. I'm trying to grow pods, but either I need new glasses to see them or I suck at it - not sure which.

This tank has been set up nearly 7 mos; most of the live rock came out of a tank that I had had for 2 yrs; some of the rock (dead) and new sand were added at the end of last year as I upgraded from a 50 gal tank. I generally test my water on weekends, and try to do 20% water changes every 2 weeks; last water change was about 12 days ago.

These parameters were from 6/18
Temp 78.2
SG 1.024
pH 8.2
ammonia < 0.25
NO2 0.25
NO3 5
Ca 420
Mg 1260
Phos 0.05
Iodide 0.01 (first time this has been an issue)
Silicate 0
dKH 135 / 7.5

I added some Mg, and a trace mineral supplement, and the rest of the dKH buffer I had here after the testing. I just started testing for dKH recently as I have read that is a better indicator to watch than pH, and have been working on raising it to stabilize my parameters. First of June it was 110 / 6.2!! I just ran out of buffer (didn't realize how small the jar was or how much I would need) and more is on the way. I also ordered some other trace element / coral supplements like Iodide, Strontium etc. I got the Red Sea package. Hopefully that will be here by the weekend. I have kalkwasser and Calcium on a dosing pump which I adjust based on my testing.

I have 2 wp-40s (on the ends of my 6' tank) and 2 small hydors (in the center of the tank on the back); my lighting is 2 arctic revive 24/7s at approx 1/3 and 2/3 tank length, with a kessil 350 in the center; on the 24/7s, whites are currently at 43 and blues at 50 (recently switched to LEDs), blues are on about 14 hrs/day, whites for about 9-10hrs, I think. The lights are about 8" from the water surface and the tank is 24" deep.

My overflow goes half way across the tank and is gravity fed to the sump. I have a set up for 2 filter socks but don't run them all the time - I try to run them on weekends to catch some of the garbage or after a big cleaning event; I also have a dual media reactor for GFO and carbon but don't run it all the time either. I just changed out the media yesterday and was going to see if that helped with the slime, but... I apparently didn't screw the carbon canister in correctly or fully and woke up this morning to a small flood. I had to go to work so I just shut it down until I could fix it. I have a protein skimmer, a Tunze, in the sump; it produces some uber funky skimmate but not an overly large amount - as in, I can empty it every couple of weeks. All of my water is filtered; I have a 3 stage RODI in the garage that fills a 48gal holding container. I use Red Sea coral salt for water changes, obviously fill the ATO with fresh water.

Livestock wise, I currently have 3 btas, a large maroon clown, 2 small oscellaris, a small scopas tang, a yellow damsel, 2 firefish (one red, one purple), 2 zebra barred dart fish, a lawnmower blenny, a pygmy filefish, a couple of hammers, a frogspawn, a small torch, 2 duncans, a small acan, a large purple cap and small red cap, a candy cane, a small group of mushrooms and a bunch of zoos / palys. I also have Mexican turbos and nassarius snails and a dozen tiny blue legged hermits, 2 peppermint shrimp and 2 creepy camel shrimp. I had a snapping shrimp for a long time, but I haven't seen or heard him in weeks so I'm not sure if he's still around or not.

I do feed pretty much every day; I thaw out 2-3 frozen cubes of varying stuff (mysis, krill, plankton, cyclops, etc) and feed about 1/3 of it to the DT, the refugium and what I call my krab shack (a small 20 gal tank where I have a teddy bear crab and a psychotic 3 stripe damsel who killed a bunch of my fish). Maybe I'm overfeeding??

Anyway, I'm sure that's WAY more info that needed, but if I left something out, please let me know. Any help is greatly appreciated. I LOVE my tank and this last week, it's been looking like total crap. TIA

[Timfish]

My guess would be a Lungbia spp. cyanobacteria. If it is it likes clean water and you will need to do frequent water changes siphoning out as much as possible. It can take 3 or 4 months to work through the cycle, sometimes shorter.

[stefdvm]

I took some gunk to work with me this morning, shook it up really well and dropped some onto a slide - I found some weird stuff, very little of which I can identify, lol. So, here's what I've got if anyone can ID any of it..

Assuming that this is a copepod; I found a bunch of them which I was happy to see... this was at 100x mag



I found lots of tiny, wiggly wormy things too... they are the long skinny objects,obviously; one of my (younger and more tech savvy) employees took a video but it's a .mov form and I can't seem to upload it to photobucket; anyway, I don't know what they are but they are definitely alive and active; this was 40x mag



And then there are the teardrop things; thousands upon thousands of them...
they are plentiful in the pic above, but I also magnified them - at 100x



and at 400x mag; these don't seem to move of their own volition so much as they will swirl in the "current" on the slide



and lastly, some very small, very fast moving things; again, have a video that I can't upload, but I did catch one who was stuck on some debris and immobile for a few seconds; they motor all over the slide, there were several of them, but not terribly many; this is 400x mag

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by stefdvm

I took some gunk to work with me this morning, shook it up really well and dropped some onto a slide - I found some weird stuff, very little of which I can identify, lol. So, here's what I've got if anyone can ID any of it..

Assuming that this is a copepod; I found a bunch of them which I was happy to see... this was at 100x mag



I found lots of tiny, wiggly wormy things too... they are the long skinny objects,obviously; one of my (younger and more tech savvy) employees took a video but it's a .mov form and I can't seem to upload it to photobucket; anyway, I don't know what they are but they are definitely alive and active; this was 40x mag



And then there are the teardrop things; thousands upon thousands of them...
they are plentiful in the pic above, but I also magnified them - at 100x



and at 400x mag; these don't seem to move of their own volition so much as they will swirl in the "current" on the slide



and lastly, some very small, very fast moving things; again, have a video that I can't upload, but I did catch one who was stuck on some debris and immobile for a few seconds; they motor all over the slide, there were several of them, but not terribly many; this is 400x mag

this is pretty cool, I am no help in identifying it though. hopefully someone will be of some help soon. your levels of the tank and your equipment seem pretty good. sometimes we all just have a random stage of some nasty algae, hopefully that's all it is and will be gone soon

[stefdvm]

cause everyone loves pics... got mags of the wormy things

at 100x


and at 400x - whole thing wouldn't fit in the field

[stefdvm]

Originally Posted by codydemmel4

this is pretty cool, I am no help in identifying it though. hopefully someone will be of some help soon. your levels of the tank and your equipment seem pretty good. sometimes we all just have a random stage of some nasty algae, hopefully that's all it is and will be gone soon

you and me both -- i am completely freaked out by this stuff! as much as i hate to use a microscope, i'm glad i have one, i think... maybe i would have been happier NOT seeing the microscopic flora / fauna in my tank...

[stefdvm]

I've been googling all day and can't find anything that looks like those tear drop shaped things. That being said, I decided to leave the lights off all day today - didn't totally black out the tank by covering it - there are windows in the room and other ambient lighting - but I figured it wouldn't hurt anything to lose the LEDs for the day. Today when I got home from work, I swear I see a noticeable decrease in the amount of slime algae present. I didn't clean the overflow this morning, just grabbed a nickel sized piece of junk to put under the scope. First pic is from yesterday afternoon, second from this afternoon (I know the lighting isn't good, but I didn't want to turn the lights on at all).

So, yesterday -



and today -


maybe it's just wishful thinking... but I think i'll go lights out tomorrow again
while I continue to try to figure out what this stuff actually is...

[RoxannaBanana]

I had something similar, but my Phosban reactor seemed to eradicate it when I changed out the media.

[stefdvm]

Apparently I have ostreopsis dinos... Issue now is I keep getting conflicting advise, particularly regarding water changes. I hear - don't do them, it replenishes nutrients and then I hear do lots of them to get rid of the funk. So today I'm going to siphon out as much as I can, filter through a sock and replace the water in the tank. I did a 3 day lights out which helped immensely with the Dino but stressed the anemones. I didn't do a total black out, just switched off all lights. Now if I can just figure out the water change issue...

[Capiross1]

Seems like some type of algae which is normal early on I would recommend doing regular water changes no matter what you read and cut down on your feeding also look into getting some type of phosphate reactor, so what your doing is a good start by siphoning what you can out


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[tony727]

To me looks like dinoflagellates and I just let my tank go and they gave not come back since the crash, not to make you lose motivation though...

I believe water changes do not help with the issue.

I would siphon them or into 5 8 inch filet socks every few hours and would be even more frequent after a water change.

[mikeatjac]

I removed my sand bed, lots of water changes, raised my alk to 10, increased flow and added a UV system. Took two-three weeks. Going on 2 months and is not back.

A pita for sure but I believe it gets started when you let your maintence suffer.

Anyway good luck.

[Mache62]

There is a very good thread on here if you do search for dinoflagellates. For me, I stopped water changes, removed gfo and dosed 1st h2o2 followed my mycrobacter7. It has definitely helped. Good Luck!

[stefdvm]

Originally Posted by mikeatjac

I removed my sand bed, lots of water changes, raised my alk to 10, increased flow and added a UV system. Took two-three weeks. Going on 2 months and is not back.

A pita for sure but I believe it gets started when you let your maintence suffer.

Anyway good luck.

I probably need to do more frequent water changes. but I may have upset whatever was keeping the dinos in check when I elongated the cyanogen coating the Refugium - that's when this became a huge issue. My phos is near 0 but there was a lot of debris likely from over feeding - and Ive not kept up with siphoning that out or blowing it into the water column to be filtered out . Hard lesson to learn - this is a pain

[Dogshowgrl]

Dinos. (Possibly calothrix) Black out three days. Not just no lights. Full covered tank. Yes it's coral and fish safe for only a few days. Then syphon again if needed. A few days later if you need to black out again you can. They love clean water. I have been there. Many many times.... your values (dosing) will not make a huge impact like a blackout will. It was hard for me at first, I promise it is works. I am sorry I wasn't here to see this sooner. I see you have worked very hard. Your tank is lucky you are so determined and able to get the extra equipment. The UV filter is a huge perk. If for some reason you get behind the eight ball again try the black out. You might be surprised.

[Squidmotron]

Those teardrop things are dinoflagellates.

It's essentially the worst. I would not bother with lights out, as they'll just come back.

I also went through a "phase" of them, like with diatoms. It happened much later and lasted way longer.

To me it looks like you might have some cyano too, but I can't verify that.

[Kevin Guthrie]

Check your RO/DI, make sure the TDS is at zero. Run all your makeup thru the Kalk, and try not to let the powder into the system - it locks phosphate and can unlock it if the pH goes low.

If you suspect your refugium is loaded with nutrient, consider dumping it.

I have 5 fish and only go thru one frozen food a day. The food and anything slipping past your RO/DI are the nutrient inputs.

The critters are eating the algae - the algae is the problem, not the critters.

Keep removing what algae you can. Your P and N numbers indicate that the algae is absorbing most of what comes in but not all - too much is coming in. So remove the algae and you remove the nutrients from the system. If you filter it, be sure to dump the filtrate quickly or it will break down and return the nutrients to the system.

[Bent]

I had similar algae and it turned out to be cyano.

There's a thread somewhere.

[Squidmotron]

You may have some cyano too, but the microscope pictures essentially prove dinos.

[stefdvm]

Yeah, I accepted that I have dinos and at first I was very stressed - but I did three days without lights on (didn't completely cover the tank) then started back with a limited light schedule -- about 4-1/2 hrs per day. I did a fairly good sized water change and vacuumed the sand - I've been blowing off the rocks when I see slime with bubbles. It seems to be about 85% resolved so I just recently lengthened my daylight time. Everything looks pretty good right now!