Help?! What Is This?

Pot calling the kettle black again I see?

Dinoflagellates is what you're talking about and they are more brown than purple/red. That doesn't mean that what's shown in the picture can't be dinoflagellates.

As for the cyano and/or dino affecting your animals, not to worry. You'll just have to take certain measures to get rid of the stuff. How old is this tank? What are the water parameters? Are you using r.o. or tap water in the tank?

 

The tank is exactly 2 months old and has:
2 false percs
1 diamond goby
2 nassarius snails
2 turbo snails
5 hermit crabs
1 electric blue crab,
and 1 skunk cleaner shrimp.

All the water parameters have always tested good.. ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate >10ppm, salinity 1.022, temp 77 degrees. I have the coralife lunar deluxe lighting that has 1 96 W 10K and 1 96W Actinic and a lunar light.

I top off the tank DAILY with tap water treated with Amquel to get rid of the chlorine and chloramines. I do about 10% water change every 2 weeks that has tap water treated with Amquel and Instant Ocean Salt that I leave out for about a week.

I have, however, been treating the tank with Iodine (7 drops daily) and Liquid Calcium (appx 1/4 teaspoon daily) to help the growth of coralline algae. It was only after I started using these two additives that I noticed a lot of the Cyanobacteria starting to form and grow upward. But when I stopped using the two additives, my rocks started to turn white again... CATCH 22!!! WHAT TO DO!!

 

OK, this explains a lot. Here's what I think are the causes of the cyano and/or dinos

1. Your tank is relatively young which means that it will be prone to cyanobacteria outbreaks until it is fully "mature"

2. You're using tap water. A big no no when it comes to keeping saltwater aquariums. Your tank water may test out ok but it's doubtful that your tap water will.

3. You're adding supplements without testing for them. Another big no no. I see no reason for you to be adding iodine to your system at the moment and you could easily overdose it and kill everything in your tank. Iodine has also been reputed to cause algae blooms. As for the calcium, I don't see anything in your system at present that would require the addition of calcium. The fact that you're doing regular water changes also tells me that you don't need to be supplementing either of those elements at this time.

Solutions?

1. Start using r.o. water. Start doing weekly water changes with r.o. water until you start to see an improvement in the algae. When doing water changes, try to siphon as much of the slime algae out as you can.

2. Stop dosing supplements.

3. Buy yourself a test kit for calcium, alkalinity and magnesium and learn about how these elements work with and against each other. Keeping these levels nice and steady will ensure coralline growth.

 

Wow, that was great... Thanks for the help!!