Strange slime coat on sand bed

[mr_X]

it's like red slime/cyano, but it's much darker. it holds bubbles. it can be blown off with a powerhead. any ideas?

i was wondering if it had something to do with my bulbs which have noticably changed spectrum :?

 

[ChrisRD]

It's cyano. It can vary anywhere from red to purple to nearly black.

Changing the lamps might help. Also the usual suspects (nutrient levels and circulation).

 

[trido]

Mmmm. Looks good, maybe on some toast. Wheat bread of course.


Ya, what ChrisRD said.

 

[mr_X]

yay....was thinking it might have been dynoflangelates

 

[ryanrad17]

i had that in my tank for awhile, but they i found out that over feeding and not enough water movement in areas caused it to appear... u can easily get rid of it by increaseing ur water flow in the areas where u c it and by feeding alittle less

 

[warloc4326]

If you post some of your params it would help. My suspicion is like the others posted. I might look into the phosphates and other organics feeding it. One thing that I found that helped a lot in my case was to run phosban or the like. I tried it as I had no readings of nitrates, nor any other organics including phosphates. It was a last ditch attempt and It helped. Well around the same time I also started dripping kalk so the combination could have been what kicked it.

 

[mr_X]

salifert phosphate test says zero. i do have a large refugium though, so i suspect this to the causing the zero reading.
my nitrates are a steady 5.
i have tossed in 2 x Koralia 4's along with my mag24 return and sequence dart CL.
i suspect my old bulbs.

 

[warloc4326]

It's possible the bulbs. But, something also has to be feeding the algae / bacteria as well. I had posted about an article I read a while back in coral magazine that went pretty in depth as to the concerns surrounding cyano.

 

[mr_X]

my tank is literally 6 weeks old. this is all ordinary, and expected. my question was basically about the blackish slime i've not seen before. if it's cyano, which is what i hope it is, i'm not alarmed, nor am i even concerned. i do feed very heavily and i have a good idea how to combat cyanobacteria.
i appreciate your reply. :wink:

 

[warloc4326]

Yes I would have to concur with the others that Yes it is cyano I've seen this particular color variation once in a while on some of the worse off tanks that I had to service. Usually I also found something dead/rotting near it... Be it food or some critter.

 

[mr_X]

hmm...nothing rotting here. the thing is, it's not in any shade areas really. that's what leads me to believe it's the bulbs. it's only in the open area where i will keep my brains and things that i want on the sand bed. it's not in low flow areas behind rocks(there is also only indirect light back there).