Brown film on sandbed

[FuEl]

If they form a film and trap air bubbles and resemble cyanobacteria but they are BROWN, they are dinoflagellates. I'm having a bout of them right now as I had disturbed my liverock and sand while I tried to catch out a bugger.

Been reading about how to get rid of them. So far I have obtained these information. Hope it could be useful to other reefers. Mostly they occur when you disturb your setup after it has been established. Things you could do to get rid of them are as follows.

1)Siphon the top of your sandbed to get rid of excess nutrients every few days and replace the water with newly mixed sea water.

2)Lower salinity and keep pH on the higher end (according to Anthony Calfo)

That's about all I could dig up...hope it was useful.

[moron_clown]

thanx for the useful info fuel.i've suffered countless algae outbreak in my less than a year old tank.i find changing water the most useful..these outbreaks happens even when my po4 reads zero.

[twrs]

To fight those algaes instantly, get yourself some blue and reg legged hermit crabs. They'll gladly eat those dinos or any nasty algaes off your sand and rocks till they disappear within a few days. In the meantime, keep your nitrate and phosphate low so they won't appear again.

[Achilles Tang]

I highly doubt that claim.

There are a lot more tasty things for them to eat than toxic cyano or dinoflagellates.

[tineng]

how about maxican turbo snails? saw a bunch of them slowing moving across my sandbed and it turns white......but then i'm not really sure if they are just turning over the sand or eating the dinoflagellates.....

[FuEl]

Waterchanges work the best. Mine almost gone already. Only changed one coralife bucket of water. Maybe change again 3 days later..

[Kalib]

For those without reef tanks, can try doing a blackout.

I did a 4day blackout and hey, all the dinoflagalletes are gone.

[Acanthurus pyroferus]

For those without reef tanks, can try doing a blackout.

I did a 4day blackout and hey, all the dinoflagalletes are gone.

4 days thats alot......

[Acanthurus pyroferus]

I highly doubt that claim.

There are a lot more tasty things for them to eat than toxic cyano or dinoflagellates.

and why not? clean up crews react differently in our tanks then in the wild so their behaviour takes a turn to other things in the tank.

[Kalib]

4 days thats alot......

Yup

But for FOWLR, who cares. 4days is ok.

[terryansimon]

the fishes just swim around in darkness thats all.

I used to do blackouts when I had no corals within my tank. it works very well if you ask me. (=

[vincegoh]

and why not? clean up crews react differently in our tanks then in the wild so their behaviour takes a turn to other things in the tank.

Blue leg hermit will cause more problem then eat up the dinoflagellates. That is personally experience.

Or maybe the one I got has a different personality than other.

[ligerton]

Blue leg hermit will cause more problem then eat up the dinoflagellates. That is personally experience.

Or maybe the one I got has a different personality than other.

Hi bro, could you share your bad experience with blue leg hermit? I just bought one. Thought it will cleand the browny sand bed.

[Godzilla]

imho..just do your normal maintainence n dun worry too much bout them. As your tank matures they will disappear. Patience is the word......

[Anemone]

my blue-legged very clumsy. kept on knocking over corals, clams, etc.

look for the dwarf hermits. not as strong so wont knock over much.

[vincegoh]

Hi bro, could you share your bad experience with blue leg hermit? I just bought one. Thought it will cleand the browny sand bed.

My ex-blue hermit will happily snip away all my macro-aglae. It also tried to snip at my fishes when they r sleeping at night. Occasionally, it also disturb my tube anemone.

Also, it usually eat meaty stuff, not diatoms or algae. However, it did help to disturb the sandbed when it "walk" around searching (sieving) for food.