Dinos or Cyano?

I believe I have one of the these......Please help.
I have been reading for 3 days about cyano and dinos. It seems they are both similiar in appearance one difference is cyano likes low flow and dinos like high flow. So where I am having the worst outbreak seems to be a higher flow area..3 days ago it was a golden brown with strings flowing with the water had bubbles on the strings and in the sand bed(one inch SB ).I did a 10 % water change and siphoned out the bad areas on the sand,stirred the sand. The next day it was showing up again so I siphoned the sand again and put the water back in the tank.
today it is rusty brown in color with strings moving with the flow of water no bubbles on it yet. there are some spots on the back of the tank and on the glass no strings just brown spots. The algae does disappear of the sand when the lights go out and reappears when the lights are on.
lights are on about 8 hours (2 hours with just the Actinic)
I have also reduce feeding to see if that helps. every other day.

This all seem to come about after I took out the factory filter and put in a bag of chemi-pure elite in the first chamber of my biocube 14. I also remove about 4 of the bio balls. I want to slowly take out the bb so the chemi-pure elite will fit in the second chamber. I have cut a small peice of filter pad and put in the middle of the trickle tray in the second chamber.

I have a pair of ocellaris clowns and open brain doing good. Green star polyps have not came out and there is brown spots on it as well. I tryed cleaning the gsp but it keeps coming back on the mat.



Water parameters today are
ph 8.2(usually 7.8 in the mornings)
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 5
phos 0
dkh 12
cal 380
SG 1.024
Temp 78

here are some pics but its hard to really see what it looks like I hope my description is good enough.

 

Looks like a combo of both diatom algae and cyano. The diatoms are the finer rust colored stuff that goes away and re-appears with the lighting cycle. The cyano is the red stringy stuff that is mostly on your rocks. Looks like the two are combining at some places to create the brown stringy stuff.
I wouldn't just take out the bio-balls and replace it with carbon. Those are two completely different filter elements that serve two completely different purposes. If you don't want to run the bioballs, they need to be replaced with rock rubble.
How old is the tank? Is it running just the stock oceanic pump for flow? Are you using RO/DI water or tap? What type of sand did you use?

 

Biocube 14 everything is stock. it is live sand I believe it is argonite(i think thats how you spell it. The tank is new. it cycled in 3 weeks. the water parameters have all been the same since it cycled Jan 12th. the nitrates were around 20 but have been between 0-10 for the last 3 weeks. Would it be ok to use a handfull of the bb rather than live rock rubble. as long as i keep them clean. the water was initially declorinated tap using prime. but as soon as I started water changes I am using ro/di . First water change was 30% second water change was 20 % third was 20 percent and last on was 10%.

 

Hey reef4 i have the same thing happen to me.your pics look just like what was going on in my tank.after talking with a few people here i turned out this would always show up when my pc bulbs are about to die..dont know if this helps as your tanks not to old.

 

Yep, the bioballs are fine if you keep them clean. Just remember to only do a few at a time. You'll have to leave some in there to seed the others. Just rotate which ones get cleaned every time you do them.
The tricky things about the algae is, your nitrates are probably still at 20. The algae will feed off of nitrates, so it will test lower than what would normally be present. Are you making your own RO/DI or buying it? I would test the water you are adding either way.
That being said, this is just one of those things you will go through as the tank ages. Getting algae blooms for the first year or so with a tank is normal. Cutting down on the nitrates, silica's, and phosphates, while increasing flow can help.
One thing I would highly suggest is adding at least a koralia nano, if not a pair of them, to increase flow. The Biocubes have horribly low flow rates, specially if your going to keep corals. Just doing that will help things a lot, and on more levels than just the algae.

 

Please explain this sentence in greater detail. New saltwater as in a partial waterchange or the same water? If it's new saltwater, are you using RO/DI water as the base or treated tapwater?

 

I did a partial water change 10% on Monday with di water and on tuesday I siphoned the areas of the sand where the algae/bacteria came back returning that water back through the filter pad leaving the sand in the bucket to be rinsed with fresh saltwater.the only treated tap water was when I filled the tank the very first time.(didn't know any better)lfs

 

Cyano, dinoflagellates, and diatoms are all smaller than your filter pad can filter....they will go right through. You're just spreading them around now.

 

I have a koralia 1 that I put in and it seem to have to much flow.so I took it back out. What do you think? Where could I put it without it creating a hurricane in my biocube 14

 

what do you suggest ?