dinos?

[quickwiz00]

Hello Reefcentral just bumbed into this great forum last night.

Ok so for about the last 2-3 weeks my tank has developed a nasty looking algae bloom. There is definitely some hair algae on the walls but there is also a significant amount of what looks like dinos growing amongst the HA. The HA and probable Dinos seem to be confined to the back wall and sides of the glass.

Tank is 72G has a hob octopus bh 300-f (removes about a half gallon of green tea skimmate a day), lighting is 4 10K 65 watt pc's (about one month on the tank)

I do have an algae blenny who has been gorging himself. If It was Dinos shouldn't he be dead?

The picture of the Sand covered in green was covered in the same algae as the back wall but after doing a 20% water change and skimming wetter it has lost its reddish colors and bubbles leaving the green remnants in the picture.

water paramaters:
Ammonia=0
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=0
pH=8.1
SG= 1.024
Temp= 77-79

Also I have a microscope with the capacity to magnify 400x and 1000X(oil immersion). I tried finding some good images of the Dinos online but there seems to be quit a variety of them. If anyone has some good links to what Dino Blooms common to reef tanks look like that would be great.http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z37/quickwiz00/tankpicts044.jpg http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z37/quickwiz00/tankpicts042.jpg

[cloak]

Here's a couple good articles.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-05/eb/index.php

[JEFFR259]

up, looks like dinos alright. Regarding the blenny, I've never had them affect fish. I've been led to believe their harmful to corals and inverts (especially snails)

[quickwiz00]

Yeah, I was almost certain it was Dinos but After spending hours looking at multiple samples under the microscope and comparing it to images of Dinos, and Cyano found online I am even more confused. The samples from my tank were identical to Cyano and Hair algae. I did however spot some Dinos but compared to the Cyano and HA the number of Dinos was negligible. I'd say literally 99% of the algae matched Cyano or HA with a free swimming Dino here or there (some samples had no Dinos at all). I also found numerous copepods nematods and other life forms which further leaves me to believe that this is not Dinos. The most frustrating part is not knowing if I should treat for Cyano or Dinos.

[Merfin70]

I would have thought it was just the algae releasing gases forming the bubbles since the algae is pretty prolific. The dinos I have seen are, forgive the slang, more "snotty" looking that those.