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electricreefer 
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 Topic: Help! Is This Dinoflagellates???
Posted: January 27 2016 at 6:52am |
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And thanks to you too Adam for offering your insight and help.
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electricreefer
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Posted: January 27 2016 at 6:43am |
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Excellent thanks for posting those pics jfinch.
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Adam Blundell
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Posted: January 26 2016 at 11:24pm |
Landon- I have an excellent scope you are welcome to use. From my lab. It has oil immersion, you can go 1000x if you want.
Adam
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jfinch
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Posted: January 26 2016 at 4:57pm |
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That dino looks to be 640x...
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Fatman
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Posted: January 26 2016 at 4:28pm |
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Humm, wonder how high of magnification they used? Mine is 7-45X.
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jfinch
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Posted: January 26 2016 at 1:43pm |
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Oh and just to make it confusing, diatoms look kinda like a mix between the two :)
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jfinch
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Posted: January 26 2016 at 1:35pm |
Under the microscope if it looks like individual "sputnik" satellite shaped objects it's Dino.
If it looks like a long train of connected cars, it's cyano.
... let me google a bit...
Dino:
cyano:
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: January 25 2016 at 9:40pm |
 electricreefer wrote:
Hi pharmaski I have a microscope.... I was going to pull up pictures on Google then compare what I see to what I can find online. |
I'd love to see what you find. I hope you'll post/link to the pic when you find the match.
Coincidentally or not, I'm dealing with the same exact stuff in one of my maintenance tanks. It's growing worse than the pics in the OP. The snails are clearing it up but there aren't enough snails. That's partly why it bloomed, because I had let the snail population get too low and let the PO4 level get too high.
Maybe it's the season for this kind of Cyano. The beginning of summer is the time of year when we see an increase in typical Cyano blooms.
Aloha, Mark 
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Fatman
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Posted: January 25 2016 at 3:38pm |
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I have a low power stereo microscope in my electronics lab.
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electricreefer
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Posted: January 25 2016 at 2:55pm |
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Hi pharmaski I have a microscope you are welcome to try out. But I am no expert in using it or identifying the algae/bacteria. I was going to pull up pictures on Google then compare what I see to what I can find online.
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PharmaSki
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Posted: January 25 2016 at 1:40pm |
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Reefdup mentions using a microscope. Is there anywhere or anyone that has a microscope and can confirm Dinoflagellates?
Edited by PharmaSki - January 25 2016 at 1:42pm
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Yes, I'm a Pharmacist.
No, the blue lights at my house are not growing "pharmaceuticals"...
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: January 24 2016 at 1:38am |
Mark Peterson wrote:
I too have for many, many years thought that this was dinoflagellates, until another local expert, ReefdUp, explained it to us in another thread here in this forum just a few months ago.
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Aloha, Mark
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electricreefer
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Posted: January 19 2016 at 9:42pm |
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P.s. Sorry about the blue pic it just happened to be all that was still saved on my phone that was an fts.
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electricreefer
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Posted: January 19 2016 at 9:41pm |
Excellent info mark thanks. And thanks catch of the day for sharing your experience as well. I will keep an eye on it, continue to cut back on feeding and also lighting period. All my parameters are great so i guess I will let it get a little worse before it gets better for now and not do a water change. If I don't start to see a change for the better in a week or so I am going to try a lights out. I also have a microscope and I am going to attempt to actually identify the bacteria/ algae. Just for reference sake and to better know what it is I am trying to treat before I get too crazy. Thanks again for all your input.
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catchoftheday
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Posted: January 19 2016 at 7:59pm |
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No it never came back and to be honest the water after was so clean after
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I currently have a 24 gallon JBJ all in one tank has two powerheads a phosphate reactor with the small bubble skimmer it is also powered by 2 X165 W LEDs and as a mixed reef
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: January 19 2016 at 6:10pm |
First, let me say that this looks to me like a mild case, nowhere near the point where it will seriously bother anything. It's good to be concerned and working on the problem, but there's no need to worry. As far as the dead snails, I don't know. I would have to see the tank in person to know for sure. Their passing could easily be a coincidence.
It has been only a little over a month since I last had this issue myself. Yes, admitting this is embarrassing .  I had been woefully short on snails for a couple months. I had recently removed some fish from the system to my customers tanks and hadn't cut back enough on the feeding. Alk and Ca also had been ignored and had dropped below range. The brown Cyano looked terrible so on several days I wafted the algae to send it swirling up into the water column and was chopped up by the powerheads.
Then I simply added a bunch of snails and a few hermits, including small Pacific Turbo Snails and stopped feeding as described above. I didn't do any water changes then, nor have I yet done a water change in that system This two tank system is a remnant of my coral farm. It gets a 10% water change every two months, if that. Of course, Alk and Ca supplements have brought water chemistry back within range. 
One thing that I should point out is that cutting the feeding does not yield immediate results. Algae growth slows and it's up to the additional herbivores to eat up the remaining algae. In my system the difference was noticeable within a week and the nuisance algae was completely gone by 2 weeks, while I just sat back and watched.
That tank pic is so blue that it's very difficult for me to get a good idea. If forced flash is used and the camera is positioned at an angle to the front pane of glass, the pic might be more revealing.
One of the things that changes Cyano growth is water flow. Re-positioning return nozzles and powerheads can have beneficial effects. That's just one of the suggestions you'll find in the Reefkeeping Tip topic about eradicating Cyano. I assume you have read that Tip, right?
In this hobby, because each tank is a different ecosystem, not much ever responds exactly the same, so the things that recently worked for me, may not work as well in your tank, but trying any of the other suggestions in that Cyano thread, including a change in lighting (brighter or dimmer) the Cyano should soon disappear.
Aloha, Mark
P.S. LED lights lose intensity over time, about 5%/year. Just thought you ought to know, because less light, yes, less light can sometimes bring on a bloom of Cyano.
Edited by Mark Peterson - January 19 2016 at 6:14pm
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Adam Blundell
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Posted: January 19 2016 at 5:42pm |
All good stuff. Yes on dino, but no reason to worry. It will just pass. Good water flow and filtration always helps but I wouldn't worry about it.
Adam
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electricreefer
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Posted: January 19 2016 at 4:53pm |
what I'm scared of is this situation getting much worse! 
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electricreefer
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Posted: January 19 2016 at 4:47pm |
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Hello Mark, thanks for your input/advice. So dO you think I should or shouldn't go with a blackout. Do you think that the feeding schedule I follow is too much? I did already reduce feeding to every other day shortly after this started showing up. I also reduced my photo period a few hours at the same time. That makes sense about the water changes supplying food to this (algae) but how do I keep it from smothering everything and choking off my coral if I don't siphon it out? Vicious cycle for sure. What would you suggest I do next? Thanks!
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: January 19 2016 at 4:11pm |
I too have for many, many years thought that this was dinoflagellates, until another local expert, ReefdUp, explained it to us in another thread here in this forum just a few months ago. It's really much easier to eliminate than you may think. The truth is out there(here). You just need to know where to find it and who to listen to.
Aloha, Mark 
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