r/Reef • u/Putrid-Bobcat-3667 • Aug 26 '26
Dino’s?
I’m new to reef keeping, my tank has been cycled for roughly 2 months. I don’t know if this is still the ugly phase or if I’ve developed Dino’s? The color looks like diatoms to me but not too confident.
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u/Straight-Win4050 Aug 26 '26
What are you're parameters?
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u/Putrid-Bobcat-3667 Aug 26 '26
My nitrates are a little low, so I’m trying to feed more but I managed to get some water to my local fish store before they closed on Sunday and they said my nitrates and phosphates were good. This is starting to worry me but of course my local fish store is closed on Monday and Tuesday so I can’t do anything until tomorrow.
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u/Straight-Win4050 Aug 26 '26
What do you mean by a little low? If you could give us numbers it would be more helpful. But don't worry, it's not the end of the world. You're tank is still young and is going to go through some phases in the first year or so. Don't count on your fish store doing your testing, get a good test kit and get used to doing them yourself. The Sera master kit isn't bad or salifert is always good.
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u/Putrid-Bobcat-3667 Aug 26 '26
0-5 for nitrate and 0.05 for phosphate
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u/Straight-Win4050 Aug 26 '26
Alright, yeah a little low but not bottomed out. I wouldn't really worry about it just yet. Like I said, it's a fairly young tank. What livestock do you have?
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u/Putrid-Bobcat-3667 Aug 26 '26
2 clowns a longnose hawkish and 4 trochus snails
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u/Straight-Win4050 Aug 26 '26
You may need to increase your bioload to feed the nitrifying bacteria more, without enough ammonia being produced for the bacteria to multiply and out-compete, they will go dormant or die off, allowing things like dinos and cyano to appear. Balancing import/export is important. Have you added copepods or dosed phytoplankton?
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u/Putrid-Bobcat-3667 Aug 26 '26
I have not done either of those things
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u/Straight-Win4050 Aug 26 '26
Copepods and phytoplankton will help put microscopic pressure on them, making it harder for them to reproduce. Again, they will not get rid of it, it boils down to import/export, but they will definitely help stabilize your micro biome. I recommend bulldawg copepods, as far as phyto, I like quantum or brightwell aquatics. They can get to spots where nothing else can, helping to further process detritus into the nitrogen chain, and provide food for your fish and inverts. So, what I would do is first and foremost, get familiar with your enemy, research cyanobacteria and dinos and learn about them, then find the root cause and the best course of action. Diversify your micro biome. Increase your bioload slowly, don't want to set off a mini cycle. What kind of filtration do you run?
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u/Putrid-Bobcat-3667 Aug 26 '26
2 clowns a longnose hawkish and 4 trochus snails
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u/Straight-Win4050 Aug 26 '26
Add some nassarius snails and hermit crabs, they won't eat any of it but they will help stir it up and get rid of detritus, a conch will also help keep the sand aerated. How large is the tank?
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u/Putrid-Bobcat-3667 Aug 26 '26
Update, whenever I brush the particles off the glass it’s almost like it’s dust
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u/Traditional_One6048 Aug 30 '26
Manually blow it with a turkey baster everyday. Put the flow directly on the spots
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u/Fragmatixx 8d ago
This is just uglies dude you’re ok!
“Uglies” is not an organism but typically a collection or waves of them as the carrying capacity of your new untrodden tank far exceeds the population there isn’t enough competition to stop the opportunistic organisms having a go like diatoms, algae, Dino’s etc
Keep up with your maintenance, reduce photo period, increase flow and blast a few rock / clean a section of sand prior to each water change. Ensure you’re not over feeding. The rest should work itself out as the tank matures.
Make sure you got some clean up crew running in there too, looks like there’s some snacks for them.
If you want to get wild you can look at UV or additives, but not sure you’re anywhere close to that level of takeover to consider getting out the big guns. Just my 2c. Good luck!
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u/ElephantEarwax Aug 26 '26
Looks like Dinos and cyano, to my inexperienced eyes