James's 60 Gallon Cube Reef

[sewerman45]

Originally Posted by Slyguy00

Dinos are usually a dark brownish algae that forms a nasty layer over everything, generally starting on the sand. It will start off in thin layers here and there, but eventually will start to get thick, stringy and will be full of air bubbles. If you don't have a microscope a way to sort of gauge if it is dinos is the speed it grows back. If you clean your sand and it reappears within hours or even less its usually dinos. It can be one of the hardest forms of algae to get rid of. I have read about a lot of different ways to get rid of it, none that seemed to work for me. I eventually did a total black out for 3 days, and that solved my problem completely.(Look into it before trying it) Anyway I hope it isn't, but if it is maybe this will help a little bit.

That is helpful. I am going to try to clean a ton of it out and see what happens.

If it isn't dino and is diatom or something else what would be my best course of action? Should I get some macro algae and a light for the sump? Feed less? More water changes? Any help anyone can give me would be great.

[sewerman45]

I'm pretty sure it's dino. I am going to black out the tank for 3 days and hope that I can clear it up before it gets out of hand. Anything else I can do?

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by sewerman45

I'm pretty sure it's dino. I am going to black out the tank for 3 days and hope that I can clear it up before it gets out of hand. Anything else I can do?

Nope, not really. Everyone tries lots of other things, but it usually comes down to a black out. Best to do it now before you're fully stocked with coral.

[mikellini]

Some of my corals have looked their best the day after a 3 days blackout. Granted, there's still ambient light (I don't cover the tank). There was a thread on RC all about using no-light days to stimulate growth, colouration, polyp extension etc...

[Aquattro]

That may be so, but the best results in eradicating dinos has always been a full black out. If OP wants to play with dark days, fine, but maybe fix the problem first.

[sewerman45]

Yeah I figured a full blackout would be best. I covered the tank in cardboard and blankets. We'll see what happens.

[sewerman45]

Well I covered it for 2 and a half days. The algae looks a lot better. Where it was thick on rocks it is still similar but all the little bits of it everywhere is gone.

I am going to take the rocks that still have it on it and put them in the sump for a bit and scrub what I can off the others. I'm still not convinced that it's actually dino.