Help With Brown Algae

[Mark092]

I have had this brown algae on the sand bed for months now (at least 5 months I would say). I am wondering if anyone can help identify what it is? My PO4 is 0.02 (Hannah ULR), but my nitrate test kit is expired. I know my next step should be to get a nitrate kit, but just wondering if I should pick up anything else while I order. I have tried a large bottle of Vibrant, which did nothing for the brown algae and caused some green cyano and killed my chaeto. There is not really any other algae in the tank, aside from on the glass, which seems to come back very quickly. I am running GFO and skimming pretty heavily, but no more cheato. I was feeding very heavily for a while, but have since cut back over the last couple months, with some larger water changes. My nitrate when I was feeding more was 12-20ish (Nyos).
The algae stays on the sand for the most part and does not really look like dinos (no strings). It is a brown/rust colour. It has some bubbles in it, but only in the lower flow areas and if I leave it for a few days without disrupting it. It somewhat dissipates at night, but still lots on the sand. I have been reading about diatoms, different types of cyano, or dinos, but am at a loss. I did a three day blackout which helped, but it came back within a few days.

My next step is to buy a new nitrate test kit and maybe try some chemi clean. Anything else you would recommend for the time being?

Thanks!

 

[Winks]

IMHO it looks like cyano. Chemclean will take care of it. Cyano is usually caused by lack of flow in that area and will pretty much disappear at lights out but reappear during the day. If it were me, I would use chemclean then try to increase the flow in the areas which is hard to do with finer substrate.

 

[Josh]

That looks like either diatoms or dino's.

Diatoms can spark up in a tank if you stir the sand and stir up some of the buried silica's. If its diatoms they typically go away after the silica's are done leeching out, they can be reintroduced through bad RODI(or no rodi). Im on month ~4 of diatoms in my display. It takes a while for them to burn off all the silica's in the sand and rock, sand is by far the worse of the 2 for the silica's. Mexican turbos and cerith have been doing a good job eating mine. There is salifert silica test kits available if you ant confirmation of silicates.

Dino's are usually from an inbalance of nutrients. If you read either 0 phosphate or 0 nitrates then they are likely dino's. Be careful if they are dinos its 1 of the more dangerous of the nuisance algae/bacteria's. By the sounds of it you likely have 0 nitrates. Depending on your system you will need to get that number above 0. I fought dino's in my frag tank for months and within a week of dosing nitrate (potassium nitrate) my dinos started to die off. DISCLAIMER : Do your research before dosing nitrate, if you have questions feel free to PM me, i use spectricide stump remover mixed with RODI and i use VERY little, there is a bunch of guides online, there are better options than potassium nitrate like sodium nitrate or calcium nitrate however both of those are difficult/controlled substances in Canada.

Hope this helps! Good luck with the diagnosis, its hard to see off photos so its up to you to figure out what you have. @Winks could be right about it being cyano however i do not think so based on the photo, if it is cyano his suggestions are bang on!

Good luck

 

[Winks]

The reason I believe it's cyano is the fact that it "somewhat dissipates at night". I don't believe that dinos does that.

 

[Josh]

im really leaning diatoms on this one to be honest. Silicates, possibly spent RODI. Could be cyano, the part about it being on the glass is what made me think diatoms. Diatoms are single cell algae cyano is bacteria and chemiclean is an antibacterial so treatment will give you your answer, make sure you have lots of oxygen if you use chemiclean it strips oxygen out of the water, air pump, skimmer (lid off) etc etc

 

[Mark092]

Thank you guys for the informative responses, much appreciated. From my research, some forms of dinos leave the sand bed and are free swimming at night, while others stay on the sand bed. I was wondering about diatoms, but I change my RODI filters and resin pretty regularly. I stir my sand bed pretty often, but the tank is 18 months old now and sand has been siphoned many times. I use those Rubbermaid stock tanks for a sump and Brute trash cans for water storage, but I don't think they are suppose to leach anything?
I plan to get a nitrate kit soon which will give me a better indication, but is it safe to say that dinos are from a lack of nutrients, while cyano is from too much? Or is case dependent?
Pistol has offered to take a look at it under a microscope for me to give me a better idea. I think I will do this before I buy any treatment.

 

[Shooter000]

The reason I believe it's cyano is the fact that it "somewhat dissipates at night". I don't believe that dinos does that.

Dinos do to winks, trust me

 

[Josh]

microscope will 100% tell you what it is. Lucky to have a good guy like @Pistol around.

 

[Mark092]

Yes indeed we are! Great community here.