ID - Diatoms or Dinoflagellates?

[CasperOe]

Hi Reefers

So, I have never really learned to ID the algae going on in my tank; partly because my current tank is fairly new- and partly because i have been lucky enough to not have many issues.

Now, over the past week this has slowly developed in my 6 months Cade 1500 reef tank. It is by no means out of hand, currently only growing on the sand.

Q: What am i dealing with here?

We have been adding a fair bit of life stock recently and the clean up crew isn’t quite up to the task. I have a total of 50 snails of various nature coming in next week and 2 litres of Copepods were just added yesterday.

Time will do its job allright.

Cheers!

 

[blaxsun]

It just looks like standard algae growth. I'd look at upgrading your cleanup crew with some sand sifters, ie: conches, cerith and nassarius snails. Sea cucumbers can do a bang-up job as well.

 

[jjencek]

What are your values of nitrate and phosphate?

 

[I never finish anythi]

Looks like the tank is near a window .

 

[CasperOe]

What are your values of nitrate and phosphate?

Nitrate - 9.3 ppm
Phosphate - 0.10 ppm

Both Hanna

 

[CasperOe]

Looks like the tank is near a window .

Well it’s not really, no sunlight gets to the tank

Theres a window in opposite end of the room but the blind is always down

 

[CasperOe]

It just looks like standard algae growth. I'd look at upgrading your cleanup crew with some sand sifters, ie: conches, cerith and nassarius snails. Sea cucumbers can do a bang-up job as well.

Aye, work in progress as the post says

I have a total of 50 snails of various nature coming in next week and 2 litres of Copepods were just added yesterday.

Will hopefully make a difference

 

[jjencek]

Nitrate - 9.3 ppm
Phosphate - 0.10 ppm

Both Hanna

You might want to lower those. When I had these values, the algae started to be an issue, specially in a newer tank like yours.

 

[Dweezilz]

Honestly to start, those params are fine. You need to be more careful not to lower the phosphate to 0 or else risk Dinos which are a nightmare compared to GHA or Diatoms. .1 PO4 is just fine in the vast majority of cases unless you have some particular corals that need ultra low. Anything 0.05 to 0.1 is usually sited as acceptable. Nitrate of under 10 is also fine and even up to 20 for some people. Can both trigger more algae? Sure, but nothing too outrageous with some upkeep and proper CUC.

From those photos it's impossible to say if it's Diatoms or Dinos but I'd lean Diatoms based on your params and age of the tank. The only real way to tell is by getting a fairly inexpensive microscope from Amazon and taking a look. It's very interesting to see and quite easy to tell the difference from there. Good luck!

 

[CasperOe]

Honestly to start, those params are fine. You need to be more careful not to lower the phosphate to 0 or else risk Dinos which are a nightmare compared to GHA or Diatoms. .1 PO4 is just fine in the vast majority of cases unless you have some particular corals that need ultra low. Anything 0.05 to 0.1 is usually sited as acceptable. Nitrate of under 10 is also fine and even up to 20 for some people. Can both trigger more algae? Sure, but nothing too outrageous with some upkeep and proper CUC.

From those photos it's impossible to say if it's Diatoms or Dinos but I'd lean Diatoms based on your params and age of the tank. The only real way to tell is by getting a fairly inexpensive microscope from Amazon and taking a look. It's very interesting to see and quite easy to tell the difference from there. Good luck!

Oh, a cheap microscope you say? That sounds like a fun extension to the hobby- might end up giving this a go!

Also, just had my latest Triton ICP back tonight:

Phosphate: 0.061 mg/l (PPM)

 

[CasperOe]

You might want to lower those. When I had these values, the algae started to be an issue, specially in a newer tank like yours.

Cheers! Will definitely have a think about that.. Just had my latest Triton ICP back tonight:

Phosphate: 0.061 mg/l (PPM)

Might just hold on trying to lower anything just yet..

 

[Dweezilz]

Oh, a cheap microscope you say? That sounds like a fun extension to the hobby- might end up giving this a go!

Also, just had my latest Triton ICP back tonight:

Phosphate: 0.061 mg/l (PPM)

That's very good about the PO4. The microscope is incredibly interesting. I'm so glad I got one. I got the Swift SW200DL which is under 100. You can get warehouse deals on a bunch too. The types of microscopic creatures you see are amazing. Tiny worms and single cell organisms, things that look like they have a coiled spring and pop out and back and things with tiny claws etc. Even the darn Dinos are interesting to see even though they are the last thing you'd want to see since they are a pain! Diatoms are neat looking too but don't move. If you do have those, basically don't worry and they will go away soon enough. I had them for a month and they came back or so I thought but it turned out to be dinos that second time. Dealing with that now.