Corals closing after cleaning dinos

[jacob4]

I've had a dinos outbreak in my tank, not sure what type yet, but it doesn't go into the water column at night and grows on the sand, rocks and a little on the glass.

I've been cleaning up the dinos every day to every few days, but everytime I do it my corals close and get really ticked off, my torch had a piece of what I didn't realise was dinos go into it a week or 2 ago and hasn't fully opened since. Anyone know a solution to this or if it's the dinos causing this? Also any tips to get rid of dinos would be nice. Thanks

 

[The_Paradox]

First thing to do is throw some activated carbon in the tank. A lot of dinoflagellates are toxic. From there test to see what your nitrate and phosphorus levels are. There is a fair chance one of them is bottomed out at undetectable. If so you need to correct that. Since they are going into the water at night you are lucky. A correctly sized UV unit will clear them in a day or two. You need to run it for at least 12 hours with the lights out. That means the sump also. Recently helped a friend with Ostreopsis and after a week he was whining that it was not working. He forgot to turn off his sump light…
In any case good look and get that carbon in there and cut back the light until you have a UV unit.

 

[jacob4]

First thing to do is throw some activated carbon in the tank. A lot of dinoflagellates are toxic. From there test to see what your nitrate and phosphorus levels are. There is a fair chance one of them is bottomed out at undetectable. If so you need to correct that. Since they are going into the water at night you are lucky. A correctly sized UV unit will clear them in a day or two. You need to run it for at least 12 hours with the lights out. That means the sump also. Recently helped a friend with Ostreopsis and after a week he was whining that it was not working. He forgot to turn off his sump light…
In any case good look and get that carbon in there and cut back the light until you have a UV unit.

I'll put some carbon in now, nitrate and phosphate bottomed out which is probably the reason they started and I'm in the process of raising them now. I meant to say the dinos don't go into the water column so I don't think UV would do too much.

 

[javisaman]

I had the same issue a few years ago. The only corals I was able to save were ones that I temporarily transfered to a quarantine tank. Also be careful with the UV. I managed to kill all my fish overnight when I turned on my UV (55w Lifegard) to kill my dinoflagellates.

 

[jacob4]

I had the same issue a few years ago. The only corals I was able to save were ones that I temporarily transfered to a quarantine tank. Also be careful with the UV. I managed to kill all my fish overnight when I turned on my UV (55w Lifegard) to kill my dinoflagellates.

Sorry for your loss. Do you know why the corals died? And were you able to get rid of the dinos? Thanks

 

[The_Paradox]

I'll put some carbon in now, nitrate and phosphate bottomed out which is probably the reason they started and I'm in the process of raising them now. I meant to say the dinos don't go into the water column so I don't think UV would do too much.

Test pretty often and dose as necessary. You will end up dosing a lot more than you think you will or directions for maintenance direct you to. From there you can usually just ride it out and wait for the cyano or algae to go nuts.

Sorry for your loss. Do you know why the corals died? And were you able to get rid of the dinos? Thanks

Depends on the type of Dino. Some simply smother others produce a lot of toxins such as everyone’s favorite palytoxin.

 

[jacob4]

Test pretty often and dose as necessary. You will end up dosing a lot more than you think you will or directions for maintenance direct you to. From there you can usually just ride it out and wait for the cyano or algae to go nuts.



Depends on the type of Dino. Some simply smother others produce a lot of toxins such as everyone’s favorite palytoxin.

Oh didn't realise that was possible, I don't think mine produce palytoxin because I'd be dead right now, but it's definitely possible that they're toxic because of what's happening to my corals and snails. I'll hopefully be able to get a microscope in the next few days and properly identify them

 

[The_Paradox]

Oh didn't realise that was possible, I don't think mine produce palytoxin because I'd be dead right now, but it's definitely possible that they're toxic because of what's happening to my corals and snails. I'll hopefully be able to get a microscope in the next few days and properly identify them

A ton of things in our tanks produce it and other toxins. Look hard enough and it’s probably in every tank. It’s like lightning. Use common sense.

 

[Ziggy17]

To the OP

Read this and get a cheap microscope to ID the Dino