Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[mcarroll]

Keep dosing....the only danger is from keeping levels near-zero.

It's a little unusual for N to be taking so much but for P to be quenched so easily, so maybe verify your nitrate kit just to be certain things are as they appear. But if they are, then keep dosing! I'd add +1 mL (or maybe +10 mL given your dose size....big tank?) to every dose until you get a number in range (or more) that sticks. You can normalize your doses to what you calculate after that.

 

[SDboatguy]

100g tank plus sump. Red sea nitrate test, also tested with API last night to verify I wasn't going sideways. Hanna ULR for the phos. So I will test tonight and dose accordingly. Side note , should I leave red turf algae alone for now,get some CUC or manually remove it? Lots of " other" algea poppin up in the system

 

[mcarroll]

Side note , should I leave red turf algae alone for now,get some CUC or manually remove it? Lots of " other" algea poppin up in the system

Any sign of pod activity by chance? I'd say you're at least borderline....pods buzzing would seal it for me.

I think I'd keep the algae under control since you're the #1 cleanup crew right now – pull it.

 

[ReefFreak@]

Lower ≠ Zero

That part should be later on in the treatment too....after nutrients have already been raised for a period of time.



You may just be taking things out of order in the story...perhaps trying to skip to the conclusion. Understandable if that's the case, but not recommended.

At the beginning the tank has usually been starved half to death and dino's nuke it "the other half to death".

That makes job #1 restoring nutrients long enough for things to start growing

Bacteria are largely redundant since there's not likely any shortage in the tank AND they are food for dino's when they are in bloom mode.

In our case, biodiversity (hopefully) implies "more than bacteria and dino's". Hopefully worms large and small,



Get serious about removing carbon dosing from your equation. Using it is contrary to growing new tank into a balanced, healthy reef. This is especially true for a tank that's already had balance issues like this.

In fact, nutrient levels (including nutrient inputs) that are balanced and consistent over time are what is important – not some particular number.

Striving to zero your nutrients rather than balance them is sorta what got you into trouble. (It's what get's most folks here into trouble.

Check out Global microbialization of coral reefs for a high level view of what happens in our little ocean when carbon dosing has gone wrong. (Which is what has happened in most dino cases and appears to be the case with your tank too.)

Role of elevated organic carbon levels and microbial activity in coral mortality shows you the corals view of carbon dosing.

I have lots of resources to share with you on healthy "high nutrient" reefs, positive effects of nutrients on reefs and other related aspects if that's something you'd wanna read more about!! PM me!

Mcarroll thanks for all the clarifications i did skip around a little. This is a big thread. I should of probably mentioned this before. This is an established system. Started out as a softie tank in 2014 then mixed.Now it is an acropora/monitpora reef with a few other sps thrown in. When making the switch from softie and mixed i felt my nutrients were on the high side and started dosing NOPOX (about a year ago now) and got very consistent nutrients. 5ppm nitrates and phosphate were 0.03-0.01. My phosphate hit zero but nitrates stayed at 5. At that time i started getting some cyano(didn't know at the time cyano could come from low nutrients to) so i increased my carbon dosing to i hit 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate(figured my test were giving me false readings and the results were higher). After seeing that the corals didn't like that i rose nitrates back up to 5ppm. I figured phosphate would of rose as well but it didnt. Me being silly i dosed the tank about a month ago with chemiclean, to wipe out the cyano. I mistakenly left the perfect opportunity for dinos to come in. Being busy with school/work/life i didn't look much into the brown algae slowly growing in my system(figured it was just the normal hair algae) then a friend asked what i was doing about the small dino in my tank and then it hit me. This wasn't hair algae it was dino's. NOOO!!! I don't think carbon dosing is the enemy here there is a lot of people that use it successfully , but what i have learned is you need to use it in moderation and just because you can bottom out your nutrients dose not mean you should. I tested my water yesterday and got 5ppm nitrate but 0ppb +/- 5% phosphate. I discontinued use of any phosphate remover and will hopefully see a slow rise of my phosphate over this week. If not i have some stock solution of kh2poh(mono potassium phosphate) mixed up and ready to dose. I have my uv sterilizer coming in the mail hopefully by friday so plan/goal is to wipe out the dino's and increase phosphate to prevent them from coming back. Im also considering a algae scrubber so if anyone has had experience or can point me to a thread about that, i would really appreciate it.

 

[ReefFreak@]

just realized that paragraph had a lot of mistakes. I fixed them if you care to read it again lol. I don't like sounding like an idiot, my apologies

 

[mcarroll]

I don't think carbon dosing is the enemy here there is a lot of people that use it successfully

It seems like a fair characterization to say that the tanks that use it with apparent success are withstanding it....not benefiting from it per se.

Some methods of carbon dosing seem less likely to over-do....namely vinegar. Strangely nobody but nobody (now that @Randy Holmes-Farley's tank is down) seems to dose vinegar anymore. Pellets are at the opposite end of the spectrum....they appear to be the easiest to over-do.

What's more ideal than carbon dosing is to do a better job of managing nutrient inputs and keeping changes in nutrient levels small when there are changes. Sometimes easier to say than do, but it's possible...and it's better than hacking nutrients on the back end after they're already in your system.

To put some jargon on it, we eutrophy our tanks by overloading them with organics, then we try to create an oligotrophic tank with hacks like carbon dosing and GFO.

Here's what the microbes think of that idea:
Response of heterotrophic bacteria, autotrophic picoplankton and heterotrophic nanoflagellates to re-oligotrophication

In a nutshell, all organisms seem designed to recycle nutrients within the system once they have them. So getting the nutrients back out is not as simple as removing dissolved nutrients from the water – lots of nutrients are locked up in biomass. Plus, dissolved nutrients aren't even the real problem – they're only a symptom.

I tested my water yesterday and got 5ppm nitrate but 0ppb phosphate. I discontinued use of any phosphate removing and will hopefully see a slow rise of my phosphate over this week. If not a have some stock solution of kh2poh(mono potassium phosphate) mixed up and ready to dose.

Good move! I'd start dosing P now IMO. The risk is in the current condition and waiting.....there's no risk to adding phosphate to the system in a controlled manner like this. Even over-shooting your dosing target is not a problem.

 

[mcarroll]

just realized that paragraph had a lot of mistakes. I fixed them if you care to read it again lol. I don't like sounding like an idiot, my apologies

I'm fluent in that kind of writing.....I didn't even notice.

 

[mcarroll]

5ppm nitrates phosphate 0.03-0.01.

Looking back, you were right where you wanted to be.....0.03 ppm would have been a nice lower-limit to keep.

 

[rockstarta78]

I think I am back on this Dino thread again (hopping I am wrong tho). My No3 are 5ppm and PO4 and 0.06ppm yet I am seeing some bubbles on my Cyano. Confused. Looks like the cyano is turning into Dino. Or that the Dino is trying to get a foot over the Cyano. there's weird war going on. But fact of the matter is my tank is not nutrition starved, which makes this even more interesting.

 

[mcarroll]

I think I am back on this Dino thread again[...] yet I am seeing some bubbles on my Cyano.[...]

Cyano can trap bubbles, but it usually looks pretty different from dino bubbles.

Hit it with the shake-up test and the cyano test to see if you get any affirmatives.

 

[ReefFreak@]

I think I am back on this Dino thread again (hopping I am wrong tho). My No3 are 5ppm and PO4 and 0.06ppm yet I am seeing some bubbles on my Cyano. Confused. Looks like the cyano is turning into Dino. Or that the Dino is trying to get a foot over the Cyano. there's weird war going on. But fact of the matter is my tank is not nutrition starved, which makes this even more interesting.

I have seen this happen in my tank. Dino's will grow over cyano

 

[ReefFreak@]

It seems like a fair characterization to say that the tanks that use it with apparent success are withstanding it....not benefiting from it per se.

Some methods of carbon dosing seem less likely to over-do....namely vinegar. Strangely nobody but nobody (now that @Randy Holmes-Farley's tank is down) seems to dose vinegar anymore. Pellets are at the opposite end of the spectrum....they appear to be the easiest to over-do.

What's more ideal than carbon dosing is to do a better job of managing nutrient inputs and keeping changes in nutrient levels small when there are changes. Sometimes easier to say than do, but it's possible...and it's better than hacking nutrients on the back end after they're already in your system.

To put some jargon on it, we eutrophy our tanks by overloading them with organics, then we try to create an oligotrophic tank with hacks like carbon dosing and GFO.

Here's what the microbes think of that idea:
Response of heterotrophic bacteria, autotrophic picoplankton and heterotrophic nanoflagellates to re-oligotrophication

In a nutshell, all organisms seem designed to recycle nutrients within the system once they have them. So getting the nutrients back out is not as simple as removing dissolved nutrients from the water – lots of nutrients are locked up in biomass. Plus, dissolved nutrients aren't even the real problem – they're only a symptom.



Good move! I'd start dosing P now IMO. The risk is in the current condition and waiting.....there's no risk to adding phosphate to the system in a controlled manner like this. Even over-shooting your dosing target is not a problem.

I completely agree with this! I wish it was just as simple to remove nutrients than it is to put them in. Good point about limiting nutrients in but when doing this all i did was starve the poor fish. Now feeding rinsed frozen and a few sprinkles of dry(sometimes more i can't help myself) My fish are all fat and happy. Reading Randy's carbon dosing article is what made me look into carbon dosing in the first place. When first starting my system i was only for all natural methods but i quickly realized our glass box reefs are not miniature reefs, but more like look alike's that have there very own way of processing nutrients. The naturally way wasn't cutting for me( 20ppm nitrates and 1ppm phosphate) .Vinegar was the first carbon source i tried but required to much vinegar to the point i was severely lowering ph. NOPOX is definitely more potent and i don't get the ph crash. Mcarroll do you run a refugium/ algae scrubber? Your making me really considering using algae filitration another try. Will i give up my trusted go to NOPOX? Maybe ill reduce the dose lol

 

[rockstarta78]

Cyano can trap bubbles, but it usually looks pretty different from dino bubbles.

Hit it with the shake-up test and the cyano test to see if you get any affirmatives.

Does Cyano look stringy?

 

[ReefFreak@]

Does Cyano look stringy?

Both can be stringy. Do you have a picture? I know expert on dinos but i do currently have a small out break so i no what they look like. Also by posting a picture a more experienced person on dinos can help. Do you have access to a scope by chance?

 

[rockstarta78]

Looking back, you were right where you wanted to be.....0.03 ppm would have been a nice lower-limit to keep.

I don't know if you can tell from the crappy cell pic. But there are some strings sticking out from the cyano. Does it look like dino to you?

 

[rockstarta78]

Couple more pics for reference. Also note, recently all my chaeto died. And I can't figure out what caused it to die.

 

[kecked]

I have. Used the micron filter for three days in each tank. No sign of Dino’s on the rocks. A tiny bit on walls. This is VERY effective. Used with uv and raised nutrients I think I found my controls. Worth trying. I clean the filter daily with hot water. Really stinks. Maybe pod time? Nay waiting 30 days more.

Forgot my star polyps came back out. One more week and I’ll add a little more light.

 

[ReefFreak@]

Couple more pics for reference. Also note, recently all my chaeto died. And I can't figure out what caused it to die.

From those pictures the stringy stuff looks like dino's, but the only way to be 100% certain is if you look at it under a microscope. Is the stringy stuff brownish(rusty) color?

 

[taricha]

I don't know if you can tell from the crappy cell pic. But there are some strings sticking out from the cyano. Does it look like dino to you?

That's not cyano. At least not only cyano. I'll be shocked if there aren't Dino strands holding that mess together.

 

[taricha]

I clean the filter daily with hot water. Really stinks. Maybe pod time? Nay waiting 30 days more.

Forgot my star polyps came back out. One more week and I’ll add a little more light.

When corals are all open and happy, and things don't stink anymore - that's when it's safe to add pods.