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!

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[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. :fun4: 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!!:bum:

[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]

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]

I have a gun you can borrow.

ha, that's cold man. :lmao:

[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.