Dino Outbreak .. Why has it become so common?

[Leo58]

Do you know that there are many different types of dinoflagellates and that zooxanthellae are dinoflagellates. When Po4 and No3 are zero, zooxanthellae cannot function and get expelled out (ie bleaching); they might still survived and even strived in the absence of competition by feeding on ammonia causing by dying corals and macroalgae. That is my theory.;)

 

[eskymick]

There was a time when I felt that a nearly daily cleaning of that dusty green algae from the tank glass was a sign of a dirty reef and one on the verge of a major nuisance algae bloom. I’m now feeling that the daily film is a sign of a healthy reef.

 

[Jose o deligne sr]

.

 

[stacksoner]

I’ve been keeping marine tanks for the best part of 35 years. I started with FO tanks and eventually migrated to SPS dominated reefs (about 15 years ago).

Just recently, I decided to start a nano reef from scratch … meaning starting a tank with all dry rock and cycling the old-fashioned way.

To my horror, I see that some of the largest and oldest threads on R2R are all about long-term dino outbreaks. In all the years I’ve had marine tanks, I’ve never had even a small outbreak of dinos, nor have any of my aquarist friends. I’ve not even seen a tank with a dino infestation. I’ve seen plenty of tanks with GHA and other algae problems, but never one with dinos.

That brings the question to my mind … What has changed in the hobby that seems to make this plague so prevalent? How has the husbandry changed so that it now seems almost inevitable that one will experience some sort of dino outbreak?

“Back in the day”, we had FO tanks that were started with an aragonite “sand” bed and a décor of dead, bleached coral skeletons. Many of my first FO tanks didn’t even have a skimmer. Not once did I have an outbreak of anything other than some turf algae. And as I mentioned, that seems to be the same experience with everyone I knew in the hobby.

As a progressed to a full reef, I still never had an infestation worse than a tuft of GHA here and there or a small patch of red cyano. There again, my fellow hobbyists experienced pretty much the same. It came to the point where it seemed relatively easy to maintain a SPS dominated reef. Granted, we had skimmers, lots of flow, and often times a chaeto fuge and/or a small GFO reactor, but no additional chemicals other than the two-part dosing.

Unless the plague is less common than it seems by the number of posts in the forums, it seems something has changed in accepted husbandry making the modern reef system more prone to a dino infestation.

Does anyone have any ideas or input to this observation? Agree? Disagree? Is it not as common as it seems?

The recent development of Web 2.0 gave the entire world a platform to share their reefing experiences that I imagine were previously just limited to LFS discussions, reefkeeping magazine articles, and local reefing club meetings.

 

[MrObscura]

IMO, it's a result of the belief that no3/po4 should be feared like the plague. And the endless presuit to reduce them as much as possible.

 

[Frogger]

Whereas biodiversity is a key to helping control unwanted pests I believe its the belief in running our systems at ULNS to avoid unwanted algae as the main culprit.

The quick use of chemicals to control things like cyano or bryopsis etc has likely contributed to the loss of biodiversity (mostly bacteria) in our systems making them more susceptible.

Dinos are always present just waiting for an opportunity to proliferate in less than ideal conditions.

 

[JaimeAdams]

I do wonder how many tanks have dinos present and just never have an outbreak. I wonder if it is just part of the microfauna of most tanks and are just kept in check by competing bacteria and algae. I'm personally very paranoid about dinos. I do believe that it could also be like any epidemic. It could be people passing infected frags around and stores selling coral from infected systems and everyone is catching it through sharing. I know that when I started the hobby I didn't see dinos in the tanks at the stores while out shopping like I do now, just brown strings coming off the corals that are being sold and sent home to infect another tank and to be spread out to infect more tanks. I really don't know what the answer is, but it surely is something that I think about often. Yesterday I had a customer (I manage the LFS) come in talking about his "brown hair algae" while I didn't look at a sample under the microscope the pictures where text book dinos. Then just this evening after work I went to consult on a guys tank and I'm pretty certain he too has dinos, brought a sample to check out at work tomorrow. It seems like daily I am dealing with, talking about, looking at, dinos.

 

[Dan_P]

Before the internet we did not hear about many things. So, do we have the situation of an increased number instances or the same number of cases just hearing about them more. Also, when we hear about dinoflagellates, what percent is correctly identified?

If the issue of dinoflagellates has increased, we would have to factor in the number of new aquarists. Are there more these days? And is the desire to go fast and have instant gratification exacerbating things? Are systems being stocked too soon and too quickly?

Finally, people are making money selling dinoflagellate cures these day. Maybe that’s the best indication that the problem is real.

 

[Reefbuds]

I agree with keeping tanks too clean. I never had a dino outbreak until I vodka dosed to 0 nutes, which is what most people suggested. You proboly never had a problem because the accessible technology never existed to keep nutes so low. Nowadays its commonplace to try and keep your nutes as low as possible.

 

[evoreefer1320]

Sadly i have battled dino's in 2 of my tanks both started with dry rock. For the Led comment my first tank with dinos was under all t5. One thing i have noticed was i couldn't grow any algae. Once the tank was either mature enough/dirty and algae would grow they would disappear. It seems to be a problem in new tanks mostly under a year old and not mature. If you have the time to have your take mature they will go away. Never vodka dose or run gfo on a new tank you will be a shoo in to get dinos.

 

[Mark Gray]

I have to disagree with the dry rock. I set up many tanks the first one was I think 1973 or 74, with my dad. UG filter dry sand and dead coral skeletons. Repeated this I bet 10 times. I think it may be due to to much filtration.

 

[Wen]

My expereince is that unstable ULNS plus lack of good bacteria diversity allow Dinos to flourish.

First 7 years, I did water changes with Gulf of Mexico saltwater, DSB, LEDs, liverock, undetectable nitrates and phosphates, softies & LPS looked amazing = no dinos.
Then, I switched to Coral Pro Salt, corals started getting pale = no dinos.
The following year, Coral Pro salt, started dosing nitrates and phosphates = DINOs! (It took me months to get stable numbers-here is the problem.)

Today, I have mostly SPS that look amazing. While nitrates and phosphates have been stable 6 months, I battle dinos and cyano weekly. very frustrating.

Gulf water infusions are starting today!

Stable numbers plus natural seawater bacteria have to turn things around eventually.

 

[TexasTodd]

All great input and backs up there's not just one way to run a tank or fight a problem.
One of the largest draws to reefing for me is the challenge. Although I do think LED's have a factor, I'm also not going away from using them. In fact, I've even held off adding any supplemental T5 etc., determined to make it work. Not to mention our electrical bill can eclipse $600/mo in the summer without a tank. My last Halide system the chiller pretty much ran 100% of the time the halides were on, year round.
On my current system, it is not running ULN and is pretty much just like my last system as far as export. It's not overrun with dinos, but they have been a problem and peak at certain times. The system is not new (3 years) but was moved 1 year ago and I have added some dry rock to it.
I'm also running a river style algae scrubber. Ironically, the largest outbreak I've had was when the pump to the scrubber failed and the algae had a die off percentage. Maybe caused an imbalance as it certainly wasn't lack of nutrients.

There's another new thread started where a member is looking a specific light spectrum and ways to possibly feed green but starve out brown growth items.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/l...cyano-algae-blooms.566108/page-2#post-5801061

 

[Fritzhamer]

I think it’s a byproduct of our obsession to control and maximize every aspect of this habitat. How many “I grow cheato great but which light would make it grow BETTER?” Posts are there? Or “my skimmer is great but if u were to upgrade which one...”

As was mentioned we’ve gone so crazy with filtration that some of us are adding nitrates to keep alive the algae we use to remove nitrates!?

I agree that a total lack of biodiversity and sterile conditions (in terms of nutrients) are why we have this plague. I beat off my last bout with Dinos by dumping a mix of potassium nitrate and iron/magnesium into the water. The green film was back on the glass in a day and the Dinos started receding.

What’s odd is that they came about during a time when my nutrients should have spiked. I went away on vacation, pulled my skimmer offline, trimmed my fuge back much, MUCH further than I should have and I stirred up all the sand in my display. I expected this would cause elevated nutrients during my vacation.

I returned to find foot long Dino strand covering everything, stressed corals and a few dead fish. I should have tested at that point but instead I just made up some nitrate juice with stump remover, added some fertilizer for freshwater tanks to it and poured a bunch in each day. After four days of this the dinos are about gone.

What’s crazy is that my nitrates are still almost undetectable. I plan on swapping out my super grow bulb in my fuge to something really weak and off spectrum. I think maximizing my fuge growth was partly to blame here.

 

[Pola0502ds]

I know some people don’t like Fauna Marin DinoX, in fear it will crash the take or kill corals. But i have to say, the few times i have used it and the people that i have recommended that used it, we all had success with it with zero issues. I feel that the people that have had issues with it had those problems because they didn’t follow the instructions properly. But its not their fault, the instructions on the bottle is just a portion of them, if you go to their website and download the full instructions and follow them, you will have success. I can’t believe a company wouldn’t post all their instructions on the bottle. I personally did a write up on this product and provide full instruction. You can see the write-up here:


https://www.facebook.com/440872412982797/posts/635857090150994?sfns=mo

 

[User1]

I'll go the other route and say it isn't because the tanks are too clean. Too much information is out these days to say otherwise. Everywhere you read regardless of what board there are beautiful tanks with low numbers just as they are with high. Not many shoot for 0 anymore. Personally I think it may be that the hobbyist who is posting about an algae issue misrepresents the numbers out of fear of back lash or embarrassment.

Heck, use me for an example. I was looking at possibly trying Vibrant on my tank because I have no idea what this is on my year old 210 gallon upgrade with 'led's and dry rock'. No hair algae bloom, off and on diatom dusts which cleared up, small cyno, all part of the new cycle and upgrade. This though is from something I'm not sure what other than possibly not changing my ri/do in a year and using it up making the water, changes, etc although I would have thought the 6 stage I have last a little longer.

Here is mine - you can see that I have plenty of nutrients :) But in the end I'm really not sure why the pattern seems to be happening more. Could be lighting which could explain it as we all dial in the spectrum that meets our taste/eyes.

Salinity (NaCl) (35.24 PSU)
Nitrate (28.05 mg/l)
Phosphate (0.27 mg/l)
pH 8.3

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/v...iscussion-thread.271428/page-264#post-5807914

 

[Chris Villalobos]

In my tank Dinos pop up when I let my NO3 and PO4 drop to zero or near zero. I also have chronic Cyano on my sand bed. I just got back my second N-DOC from Triton and look at total Organic Nitrogen in my tank vs. NO3 and PO4. Totally out of balance. Is this causing my bad bacteria problems?

 

[eskymick]

In my tank Dinos pop up when I let my NO3 and PO4 drop to zero or near zero. I also have chronic Cyano on my sand bed. I just got back my second N-DOC from Triton and look at total Organic Nitrogen in my tank vs. NO3 and PO4. Totally out of balance. Is this causing my bad bacteria problems?

The question to ask ... What methods have you employed to strip your reef of Nitrates and Phosphates?

 

[Chris Villalobos]

The question to ask ... What methods have you employed to strip your reef of Nitrates and Phosphates?

Chaeto, Skimmer, and Live Rock. Actually I had the skimmer off for one of my tests and with it on I couldn't see a difference in lower organics, which blew my mind. Anyone else have Dinos or Cyano and have done an N-DOC ?

 

[Chris Villalobos]

I think it’s a byproduct of our obsession to control and maximize every aspect of this habitat. How many “I grow cheato great but which light would make it grow BETTER?” Posts are there? Or “my skimmer is great but if u were to upgrade which one...”

What’s crazy is that my nitrates are still almost undetectable. I plan on swapping out my super grow bulb in my fuge to something really weak and off spectrum. I think maximizing my fuge growth was partly to blame here.

What I've found in my tank is that my NO3 and PO4 export is overkill, but my tank has a large amount of organic Nitrogen and a moderate amount of organic Carbon. The only way for the average reefer to test for those nutrients right now is using Triton's N-DOC. So while many reefers may think they have a "ULNS" they just haven't been able to test for organic nutrients.

For whatever reason raising NO3 and PO4 balances out the tank nutrients and the Dinos go away.

I'm like you and plan to lower the light level in my fuge and turn off my skimmer again. In the long term maybe we will all figure out how to lower organics in our tank. Possibly feeding too much is causing the high organics in my tank.