Quote:
Originally Posted by DNA
Does anyone have a solid way to eyeball diatom mats from dino mats on the sandbed.
A microscope would be the best way and there could be a mix at any ratio of the two.
If fish are eating the stuff and staying alive it's sure to be diatoms.
Not to forget that diatoms stay for the night.
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Those are the same ways I try to tell from simply eyeballing brown algae. If it stays overnight and if the fish eat it it's probably diatoms. I've also had a little bit of luck blowing some brown algae over a small area on the sand or on power heads with my flow shut off completely to see if the brown algae form snotty strings in the calm water. If they do it's dinos.
And then obviously the bubbles can mean either cyano or dinos. I think that comparison is a little harder to make because it can also be both dino with cyano. However, my cyano mats have been a lot thicker than when I had a bad dino bloom.