Look what I've got

[kotlec]

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4048&d=1362515079

What that is? It is everywhere, but especially it likes gorgonians. I clean poor animals at morning and evening and still they hardly find time to open polyps. All sand bed is also covered with that stuff. These hair grows 5 inch per day at some places.

Seems like I cant get rid of that.
I also have picture of sand bed if that will help.

N= 7 (usually is 0)
P= 0.00
Silicates =0
Cal =440
Alk = 8.2

[Nick28]

What lights do you have?

If there T5HO a bulb is old run

460nm and 420nm only

trust me battled them for about 9 months

I removed an old 10k and 12k and replaced them with 460nm and 420nm and they were gone in 3-4 days

[Nick28]

i found your tank in the scrubbed display section it appears you have LED's just run

cool whites, royal blues, cyan and I'm guessing pink is violet if you can

[SantaMonica]

Looks like some type of worm. Means there is food in the water :)

[Nick28]

type of dinoflagellate

[kotlec]

Yes , I run LEDs.
There are 4 pieces of 420ers running at 1w. Others are nw,cw and rb,. Blue, green and red are few supplemental only like violets.

You suggesting me to run tank few days only in blue spectrum ? Did I understood it right ?

S.M. , I dont thing its worm. Unless there are thousands of them, but then I would see at least few. This stuff is multiplying at terrible speed and after it reach some mass it slows down. Every time I clean gorgs, they are covered under this spider nest in few hours. Not only hairs , but also gorg body all is enclosed in brown skin.

There how bottom looks -
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4049&d=1362558181

[Nick28]

yes keep reds and neutral whites off

[SantaMonica]

I do think they are an animal that looks like a thread.

[kotlec]

Second day - only blues on. No changes .

S.M. Yes I understand that these thread should be sub product of some animal . But I cant find a single one.

[Nick28]

you can siphon them out to speed things up

mine did not regrow under blue and violet lighting

[Floyd R Turbo]

Am I the only one that sees nothing but dinos in those pics? These are not a sub product of any animal. These are dinoflagellates, I have a hard time understanding how they could be interpreted as anything else, it's pretty obvious. I've had outbreaks of these in the past. Usually high nutrients, can be food related, they are like cyanobacteria in the way that they grow fast and are generally a pain, and can smother corals and have toxic effects.

You need to siphon them out several times a day. I do this using a piece of airline tubing, you can go through your whole tank and only siphon out about 1 gallon of water if you pinch the hose when not sucking the dinos off. Restrict feeding to a minimum, and only right before lights out. Increase flow if you can. Raise pH to 8.4 and try to keep it there (especially at night) - this is the hard to do, but it is supposed to work.

If you google dinoflagellatesm, you will get articles that tell you to black out the tank and not feed for like 3 days. IMO this is not ideal because it it hard on your corals. SM told me to try the opposite on the lighting, that is, to run the lights longer while restricting feeding. The idea being that you allow photosynthesis (symbiotic azooxanthellate) to take out the nutrients that the dinos are feeding on. This, in combination with manual removal seemed to work.

Bottom line is that something is out of balance, and the dinos take advantage of this, and you basically have to let it run it's course. Hard to say what is out of balance. There are so many things we cannot test for.

At least, that's my take.

[Garf]

Looks like some type of dino's. Means there's dino food in the water :(
What's your pH Kotlec?

[Nick28]

I've tried all of the above none worked

bulb change worked for me

and they absolutely were dinos not diatoms or cyano

if you siphon out dinos and look at them they are bunch of brown dots in a mucilage


give my method a few days

[kotlec]

My ph is on low side. I was rambling about that a week ago. What is best way to rise it at current situation ?

Problem with siphoning is that they dont want to separate easily. Only longest hair is siphoned but not the body. I remove hair using tooth brush or paint brush in tight spots.

I let it go with minimal feeding and blue light only for two more days. If not success , then Floyds method next with not feeding and stronger photosynthesis.

But ph is better to rise anyways. Would be good to know why its dropping first of all...

[Garf]

I've known for a while that whilst running a scrubber with a pH of 7.8 to 8.0 (on my tank) grows dino's. Increasing this to a steady 8.1 to 8.2 tends to eliminate them. I've also recently discovered that wildly varying pH seems to encourage its growth (Photosynthetically Induced Phosphate Precipitation experiment). Not saying this is what's happening with your tank, just an observation of my own, fixed by aeration to stabilise pH.

[SantaMonica]

I was talking about the threads strung between the branches.

[rleahaines]

The Ph of the tank seems to have dropped to between 7.8 and 8.0 since I installed a UAS.

I wonder why. I would think that the bubbles from the constant airstone in the UAS would actually help to stabilize Ph to higher than 8.0.

Any ideas?

[kotlec]

Not saying this is what's happening with your tank, just an observation of my own, fixed by aeration to stabilise pH.

I run small skimmer to keep aeration goin on last few months. Why this not helping then ? Possibly skimmer introduces too many co2 ?

Just measured ph again . Its down to 7.6 Alarm ! Possibly due to only blue lights ?- No idea how to fix it...

[Garf]

Not sure how your skimmer cup is situated with regard to the sump but you need to put a vent line from the top of the skimmer cup to the outside of the sump and lower than the sump (Co2 is heavier than air alone). If the air is coming out of the skimmer cup back onto the surface of the sump, it gets reintroduced. In the short term, put a small fan blowing over the surface of the sump to cause air turbulence, and leave the sump doors open if necessary.

Edit - Rleahaines. Sorry, only just read your post. The same applies to UAS. If the UAS air is allowed to sit on the surface of the water, any aeration advantage is lost, you could try a similar corrective method as large bubbles do aerate the water (mainly from atomisation of the bubbles bursting), but not as effectively as small skimmer size bubbles.

[kotlec]

Ok , I'll try that.

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4056&d=1362748203

Screen is growing nicely those days. VLGH (very long hair algae :D) No bubbles trapped inside green. But some inside yellowish alien . Something to thing about for you great theoretic.

[Garf]

Have you been doing any waterchanges ? Just remind us about your scrubber lighting boss.

[kotlec]

Yes I do water changes . Last month about 50% total. 15% week ago.

Scrubber is lit by 5 reds and one blue 1w leds for 13 hours.

[SantaMonica]

If the flow is good, add some iron.

[kotlec]

Flow is very good. Will add.

[Nick28]

If you find the light method not working at all

It could be a non-photosynthetic dino

although I have to admit it looks exactly like the one I had but maybe not under a microscope.

[Garf]

Iron just increases the dino supply, it's something else.

[kotlec]

Hmm.
Third day in to reduced light. For today I decided to switch all lights completely. No food yesterday and minimal previous days. No other changes for experiment clarity.

[Nick28]

have they been reduced at all?

[kotlec]

Hard to say , since today is dark in the tank :D

I believe they are reduced some at least. Yesterday, when I cleaned gorgonians, they were less covered in that hell stuff.
Also yesterday I moved bottom substrate in to small hills instead of leaving it plain after cleaning. The hill in the nearest corner (I can see it in darkness) is not covered in brown threads .

[kotlec]

So dark cycle is over and lights are back.
There was much less brown hair when I just brought my lights back on , but after just few hours I noticed that gorgonians are covering in brown again.
Some ciano also noticed, where flow is restricted. Like under rocks for example.
Problem not solved.

Increased kh via kalkwasser dripping up to 10. PH only rised to 7,9. Possibly my problem is in low pH ? Why it is not rising ? Windows are airtight and my son is 13 years teen that lives and breathes in that room . May be this ? Outside is -8 degree Celsius if you gona advice to open windows :D. And no this is not normal temperature for March here.

[SantaMonica]

See how it develops over many weeks.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Do you run a skimmer?

If so, can you pipe in the airline intake to the skimmer from the outside?

[kotlec]

Yes , I have very small skimmer mostly for aerating purposes and its airline goes outside. It skims very wet , like dark tea.