Diatoms

[Bob Lauson]

What is the dirty method

 

[Bob Lauson]

We did the blackout for 3 days while running GAC.

We finished yesterday and was happy to see zero brown crap anywhere (except for what I had to vacuum out laying on the bottom. All the fish, corals, snails, anenome, etc made it through with no issues. The live rock is clean and does not feel the least bit slimy as it did prior to the blackout. I have started dosing H2O2 and am anxious to see if any dinos come back.

 

[Bob Lauson]

Into my second week and no return of the dinos. I did two 50 gallon water changes (50% of the total volume) and will do another this weekend. I have continued to run GFO and GAC along with H2O2 dosing at 1 ml/10 gallons. In addition I added 20ml of Vibrant one week after the blackout. Prior the blackout I was running my lights 12 hours per day and have reduced it to 9 hours. During the dino fight, I ended up vacuuming out all of the infected sand and, as you can see below, I was feeling confident (properly translated as incredibly impatient) and added 75 lbs of white live sand back in.

 

[brandon429]

Well done Bob

Your cure was facilitated best by directly dealing with the invader, well done. Handling the sandbed and replacing, dosing peroxide correctly, and the blackout made for a nice outcome. That's why the entire board at nano-reef.com is free of persistent invasions. That's a clean build for sure so installation would be hard, but oversized UV light would beat peroxide in terms of preventing growback.

The sand was a major harbor and pulling or replacing it anytime is no harm, it houses nothing your tank needs at all.

 

[sfin52]

The "dirty method" is really just raising po4 and no3 to appropriate levels to allow other organisms to out compete the Dino. Low nutrient systems are not the best. Remember the Zooxanthellae in coral need po4 and no3 to grow and they are a dinoflagellate. People that keep no3 and po4 in the tank have better growth and color in their coral. I would remove the gfo. That is a good looking tank.

 

[Bob Lauson]

I like to think that it also helped that I battled this for months prior to the blackout approach. I would vacuum the sand at least once a week to get rid of any dinos until all the original sand was gone. Then I vacuumed the bare tank bottom as needed. I was removing the rock I could at least weekly to scrub off the dinos and any other evil organism. For the rocks I couldn't remove I would take a dental water pick and blow off the rocks and then once the water cleared I would change the filter socks. Basically I was trying to at least keep the problem for getting worse. I just got to the point that I needed to stop playing defense.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Well done !

 

[brandon429]

Agreed

My entire beef with the dirty method is this:
Order of operations, and getting cure pics in the threads is painfully slow but still forgiven as it's an emerging science. The bed cleaning threads churn out cure pics like machine, sustained fixes with unreasonable expectation that first go should correct fifty months of hesitation and the method still usually does meet that high bar.

I think the dirty method might be the best and most powerful preventative found, still in tuning phase. It should be ran -after- the medical exclusion approach you just took, it shouldn't be a remover of an invader or the slowness of afterpics with six pages of pasted scholar articles between partial cure updates might drive me battier.

If keepers will combine brute force disallowance with guided balanced restoration of competition, after the work is done, the nutrient spiking or the staving of water changes can be tried because the invaders mass is gone or highly reduced

Gfo is harsh agreed, I'd choose battle then coax with competition any day.

Soon we'll have fluconazole resistant algae. No algae adapts to being blasted or scraped out then burned with an oxidizer, for example. Though our means are barbaric, good luck getting an entire board under control with an alternative.

 

[Bob Lauson]

It's been a month since I lifted the Blackout and the dinos have stayed away. I have kept up the dosing of H2O2 on a daily basis and adding 25 ml of Vibrant on a bi-weekly basis. I have also vacuumed the sand a couple of time when I see any sign on brown residue. I have also continued to run GFO. It is nice to not have to look at the brown crap all over the aquarium. Corals are looking more healthy than prior to a the blackout/dino infestation. Feeling I am ready to restart adding corals. Thank you for all the advice along the way.

 

[Bob Lauson]

After adding a couple of coral and some nice white sand, I was basking in the glory of my Dino free aquarium.....they came back. At first I thought it was just brown algae then I started to see the little air bubbles at the tips of the strings and my heart sank. I identified them as Amphidinium. After I ID'd the little jerks, I added some Dino-X to the slide on the microscope - it was kind of enjoyable to see them stop in their tracks.

My intention now is head down the Dino-X path and see if it takes care of them. I also increased the pH up to 8.35 to 8.45 as and article by Randy Holmes Farley suggests this typo of Dino is affected by higher pH.

Just FYI, My nitrates are 5 ppm, phosphate 0 ppm, Alkalinity 8.0 dKh, Calcium 475, Magnesium 1425.

 

[Bob Lauson]

After further review, the dinos are more sesame seed shaped so most likely ostreopsis so am fearful of using Dino-X. Thoughts?

 

[Brew12]

After further review, the dinos are more sesame seed shaped so most likely ostreopsis so am fearful of using Dino-X. Thoughts?

I would try running less GFO, or none at all. It sounds like your tank has hit a phosphate limitation and opened the door for the dino's to take over.

 

[Bob Lauson]

I am not going to do Dino-X but rather try and raise the notates a bit and phosphate. I ordered a Hanna phosphate checker so I can read the lower levels. I am getting a new batch of cheato for the refugium, getting some pods, and have ordered some GARF grunge. I really want to avoid a chemical assault that may or may not be effective. After reading the Dino threads it seems the consensus is that Dino-X is not effective against osteropsis Dino anyway and a dirty approach is the preferred method.

 

[Bob Lauson]

It's been several weeks and my dinos appear to be either eliminated or severely in check. I did not go to the full on dirty approach I ended up getting rid of all the cheato in the refugium and leaving the refugium lights off. I thoroughly vacuumed the sand, live rock, and anyplace else I saw the dinos. This includes the refug/sump which I completely drained and cleaned out. I then let the lights just stay off for about 3 days. (Not a complete blackout). I did put in some GARF grunge but don't think it has added much value since I never saw much life from it. I am adding 25 ml of vibrant weekly and have been running both GFO and GAC. Last week I also added some copepods. I did get the Hanna phosphate checker and am reading 0 phosphates. My nitrates are 5 ppm.

Overall I am very pleased to not have to vacuum out dinos every other day and am optimistic for the first time in months after 3 weeks of decent results.

 

[reeferfoxx]

@Bob Lauson I hate to say it but the GFO and vibrant dosings will only prolong this battle. Once you think you've been in the clear and you decide not to waste more income on media and bacteria, you'll see your bloom again. These efforts aren't actually killing your outbreak but only suppressing dinos into cyst mode only to return when conditions are right. The lack of nutrients is also not allowing predators to flourish this also includes beneficial bacteria that aim to rip the armor off dino. Believe it or not the GARF grunge was a good attempt but can't be sustained without nutrients.

If you start today, I think you can sustain a proper reef if you understand what exactly is going on. We've seen huge success without nutrient export medias, measurable nutrients(including po4), and the use of UV sterilization. Weekly GAC change outs and upkeep of water quality. It really is as simple as that. No black outs, vibrant dosings, GFO or heavy water changes.

 

[Bob Lauson]

@Bob Lauson I hate to say it but the GFO and vibrant dosings will only prolong this battle. Once you think you've been in the clear and you decide not to waste more income on media and bacteria, you'll see your bloom again. These efforts aren't actually killing your outbreak but only suppressing dinos into cyst mode only to return when conditions are right. The lack of nutrients is also not allowing predators to flourish this also includes beneficial bacteria that aim to rip the armor off dino. Believe it or not the GARF grunge was a good attempt but can't be sustained without nutrients.

If you start today, I think you can sustain a proper reef if you understand what exactly is going on. We've seen huge success without nutrient export medias, measurable nutrients(including po4), and the use of UV sterilization. Weekly GAC change outs and upkeep of water quality. It really is as simple as that. No black outs, vibrant dosings, GFO or heavy water changes.

I understand the comment regarding GFO since my phosphates are at zero. However help me understand the comment about stopping Vibrant. Vibrant is primarily bacteria and amino acids which should be beneficial.

 

[reeferfoxx]

I understand the comment regarding GFO since my phosphates are at zero. However help me understand the comment about stopping Vibrant. Vibrant is primarily bacteria and amino acids which should be beneficial.

Well, vibrant won't exactly give details out about it's secret sauce but with nutrient reduction properties it would make more sense that its more like carbon dosing along with bacteria. As aminos provide protien which get consumed and become nitrogen and nitrate. Or at least my bottle of vibrant has never given me nitrates.

 

[Brew12]

Vibrant is only 0.5% vinegar for carbon dosing and 1% aspartic acid (amino acid).

Vibrant works by adding strains of bacteria with 2 functions. The first is a group that efficiently consumes nutrients, especially nitrates. This mimics carbon dosing without adding the carbon source. The other class of bacteria appears to directly consume chlorophyll from algae. This is the stuff we don't have much information on but Jason did capture it occurring under his microscope.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Vibrant is only 0.5% vinegar for carbon dosing and 1% aspartic acid (amino acid).

Vibrant works by adding strains of bacteria with 2 functions. The first is a group that efficiently consumes nutrients, especially nitrates. This mimics carbon dosing without adding the carbon source. The other class of bacteria appears to directly consume chlorophyll from algae. This is the stuff we don't have much information on but Jason did capture it occurring under his microscope.

I wonder why they chose one negatively charged amino as opposed to any at all?

None the less, I still stand my ground that once gfo and vibrant are off line, dinos will return. We see it all the time on the major dino thread.

 

[sfin52]

Once gfo is removed you need to increase nutrients. Dosing po4 and No3 should be done depending on levels. Po4 is .1 and No3 5-10 ppm. ID the species of Dino will help with treatment methods. Uv starilizer should be used in display tank. Granulated activated carbon is a must run in a dino tank. Carbon dosing needs to be stopped. Hope this helps. Further question direct them to mcarrol Dino thread stickied to the algea forum.