Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[kecked]

I love bristles. Had them in every tank and they keep the house clean. Even keep clams and all is well.

 

[shred5]

Dino's are anything but simple. If you know the kind you're dealing with they can be predictable...but I'm not sure it gets any better than that. Ostreopsis is one type we know that doesn't fit the low-PO4-spike cause all that well....still fits, just not all that well. It's complicated.

Dead rock has multiple problems as far as I can tell...all pretty much related. At least these...

A) it's a virtually unprotected and unlimited source of PO4 for organisms that can get to it
B) it's a peculiarly successful home for bacteria and algae settlers that would ordinarily be more limited to nutrients available in the water
C) one aspect of this peculiar home for settlers is that there's nothing else there to eat them, compete for space with them, etc. it's just wide open, po4-laden spaces​

If the rock happened to be "clean" of PO4 somehow, BTW, it would suck all the PO4 out of your water and be the cause of different bad range of side-effects, probably promoting a different specie of dino vs what you have. (The opposite, leaching PO4, can happen, but it isn't the problem.)

"clean" is such an abused concept.

Its not real dead rock as in Marco, pukani or reef saver .. It is real reef rock so it is devoid of anything other than bacteria. It has no phosphate in it and is man made. They also cycle it for a long time. I have used it several times before but mostly with live rock too.

I do understand what you are saying I have posted about it several times.

I think it just has nothing to compete against it including other micro and macro algae.

Still funny the live rock has zero on it in the same tank. I put it in there hoping some life would move off of it.

 

[Deezill]

I love bristles. Had them in every tank and they keep the house clean. Even keep clams and all is well.

All this time I thought britle worms were bad go figure.

 

[fishbox]

I was able to get my nitrates up by feeding twice a day heavy and leaving my filter socks in for longer periods of time. I normally change the socks every two day but I let them go like 5 to seven days without changing them that got my Nitrates up but I had to dose for Po4.
I purchase some stuff Randy recommended on amazon which is Disodium Phosphate. It has a 99% purity rate and it is good stuff. My Hanna checker for month did not register any phosphates but I dosed one teaspoon into 160mL of water from my tank stired it up good
and poured it in. 1 teaspoon was way to much I should have only used a quarter of a teaspoon for my tank which is 150g. My Po4 levels shot up from 0.00 on the hanna checker to 2.50. I had to run GFO for a few days to bring it back down. Once it got to 0.90 i turned off the gfo and let it drop naturally. i am still waiting on them to drop to 0.25. the stuff Randy had me get is below
https://www.amazon.com/Disodium-Pho...1528228339&sr=8-7&keywords=disodium+phosphate

if you get it i would suggest that you measure it in grams for your tank so you don't over shoot the desired level. I have not seen any fall out or anything but hey it's always silent before the thunder lol even though its been a few weeks and nothing bad has come I still say measure it in grams 99% purity is very high grade.

Thanks for the link. I was planning on getting the seachem phos stuff but this seems to be a much better bang for your buck.

 

[fishbox]

So the tank that I'm battling Coolia in is a 40B that I plan on upgrading to an 80g Deep Blue Rimless in 6mos. When I upgrade I'd like to go with a bigger grain sand. So my question is should I just go ahead and change the sand in the 40B now before adding the Indo Pacific Mud & Activator?

 

[Deezill]

So the tank that I'm battling Coolia in is a 40B that I plan on upgrading to an 80g Deep Blue Rimless in 6mos. When I upgrade I'd like to go with a bigger grain sand. So my question is should I just go ahead and change the sand in the 40B now before adding the Indo Pacific Mud & Activator?

If I had the chance to upgrade i would not take anything from a tank with dinos. Why even risk it. I do know one thing when I do upgrade from my 150 to my 240 or 300 I am still going to use the brs reef saver like ihave in the 150 but I wont let nitratesbottom out along with phophates. I will add live rock from my lfs and Dr. TIMS to aid the cycle but nothing from old tank could come over.

 

[fishbox]

If I had the chance to upgrade i would not take anything from a tank with dinos. Why even risk it. I do know one thing when I do upgrade from my 150 to my 240 or 300 I am still going to use the brs reef saver like ihave in the 150 but I wont let nitratesbottom out along with phophates. I will add live rock from my lfs and Dr. TIMS to aid the cycle but nothing from old tank could come over.

True.... The dino infested 40B only has a couple corals. I would at least like to transfer the fish. Maybe I should focus on getting the 80g up and going since the uv light seems to be helping the 40.

 

[reeferfoxx]

If I had the chance to upgrade i would not take anything from a tank with dinos. Why even risk it. I do know one thing when I do upgrade from my 150 to my 240 or 300 I am still going to use the brs reef saver like ihave in the 150 but I wont let nitratesbottom out along with phophates. I will add live rock from my lfs and Dr. TIMS to aid the cycle but nothing from old tank could come over.

Thing is though, dinos are at the lfs, live rock, even that live sand from Indo Pacific. A healthy reef has Dino's just like a healthy reef has cyano, chrysos, gha, etc etc. When something is out of wack, they can pop up. Seasoned mature live rock from the ocean has all these things but more than likely has all the beneficial competitors.

 

[enb141]

Well, it's the inorganic nutrients we can test for. Organic would be food before it breaks down. So, if you feel you have sufficient bioload (ie fish) you've covered nitrates. The other would be phosphates like particulate coral foods or allowing frozen and pellet foods to decompose. Understanding that, you'll also need to know that high po4 can drive nitrates low and high nitrates can drive po4 low. Keepin that in mind and you should know when and what to feed.

About bio load, I only have one small Yellow Tang on a 20 gallon (I know, he's waiting for a new tank soon), about food the reason why I have dinos is because of reef roids / coral frenzy activated them so for now I pass on coral food, instead I'm feeding my Surgeon twice a day.

 

[reeferfoxx]

About bio load, I only have one small Yellow Tang on a 20 gallon (I know, he's waiting for a new tank soon), about food the reason why I have dinos is because of reef roids / coral frenzy activated them so for now I pass on coral food, instead I'm feeding my Surgeon twice a day.

If you are over feeding resulting in higher po4, you can inadvertently reduce nitrates. If you have any other forms of nutrient reductions such as bio-balls, bio-pellets, or pond matrix, you are reducing nitrates. A refugium will help reduce both as well as aggressive water changes or excessive use of GFO to correct the high po4. I can't say for certain what might have thrown your tank out of wack BUT if you believe food is the cause, than it's also possible the food breaking down created a larger than normal ammonia spike resulting in something dying off. Thats the best I got lol

 

[enb141]

If you are over feeding resulting in higher po4, you can inadvertently reduce nitrates. If you have any other forms of nutrient reductions such as bio-balls, bio-pellets, or pond matrix, you are reducing nitrates. A refugium will help reduce both as well as aggressive water changes or excessive use of GFO to correct the high po4. I can't say for certain what might have thrown your tank out of wack BUT if you believe food is the cause, than it's also possible the food breaking down created a larger than normal ammonia spike resulting in something dying off. Thats the best I got lol

Nope, nothing of the above, I've learn from the past, GFO, biopellets, etc will welcome dinos so now I only use Chaeto with lots of lights when needed, every few days I'm adding KNO3 just to try to compensate the Phosphates, so I'm trying to keep a 10:1 in N : P.

The only weird thing is that in my tank by somehow, filtration sponges if I left them in the tank for a few weeks they reduce all nitrates to 0, even when dosing lots of KNO3, that's why this time I got dinos again because I couldn't keep nitrates above zero (plus adding reef roids / coral frenzy as dino activator).

Probably the ammonia was due to a few of my snails died, two turbos, two margaritas, maybe that created an above the normal ammonia.

 

[ebeez]

One day after my first treatment of Dino X. Tank looks good but it's mainly because I had the lights out for two days prior to this. Today was the first full day with the G4 Pro's on.

 

[enb141]

One day after my first treatment of Dino X. Tank looks good but it's mainly because I had the lights out for two days prior to this. Today was the first full day with the G4 Pro's on.

If I were you I programmed the radions with only blues and also with acclimation option for 6 weeks, I did it and I got good results, by the way Dino X is snake oil, pretty much is useless in 99% of the Dino Cases.

 

[reeferfoxx]

The only weird thing is that in my tank by somehow, filtration sponges if I left them in the tank for a few weeks they reduce all nitrates to 0, even when dosing lots of KNO3, that's why this time I got dinos again because I couldn't keep nitrates above zero (plus adding reef roids / coral frenzy as dino activator).

I think the more annoying issues is we think once we dose nutrients up, we can stop dosing. That just isn't the case. You have to tediously keep dosing nutrients till you grow the wanted/unwanted algae like green hair and cyano. Creating a shift from dinos to other algaes provides a food source for other microbes. Once you reach that point, you then can stop dosing nutrients, remove unwanted algae, and maintain proper feeding and maintenance regimen.

 

[reeferfoxx]

It's blood, sweat, and tears. I wanted to reboot my tank so many times. Luckily some awesome folks in this forum persisted in helping me not doing that. I even tried ignoring them to the point where I stopped taking care of the tank. I stopped dosing all nutrients and elements as well as water changes. Funny thing for me is, that helped to an extent. Not doing anything allowed the tank to almost heal itself. It almost needed that moment of stability without fluctuations to regain itself. After seeing that, that pushed me to try harder. In the end, the tank is beautiful

 

[Deezill]

@reeferfoxx how long did it take for the beauty of your tank to come back?

 

[enb141]

I think the more annoying issues is we think once we dose nutrients up, we can stop dosing. That just isn't the case. You have to tediously keep dosing nutrients till you grow the wanted/unwanted algae like green hair and cyano. Creating a shift from dinos to other algaes provides a food source for other microbes. Once you reach that point, you then can stop dosing nutrients, remove unwanted algae, and maintain proper feeding and maintenance regimen.

I was dosing and dosing and dosing KNO3, but still the nitrates were 0, it's really weird because the filtration sponges are supposed to increase nitrates over time if you don't clean them but in my case they reduced my nitrates to zero.

I know how you feel, sometimes you get upset because one day you have a beautiful tank and a few days later everything is dying.

 

[shred5]

I think the more annoying issues is we think once we dose nutrients up, we can stop dosing. That just isn't the case. You have to tediously keep dosing nutrients till you grow the wanted/unwanted algae like green hair and cyano. Creating a shift from dinos to other algaes provides a food source for other microbes. Once you reach that point, you then can stop dosing nutrients, remove unwanted algae, and maintain proper feeding and maintenance regimen.

I think one of the hard parts about it is sometimes as you dose more nutrient the dinos just grow faster and use up the excess nutrient not leaving any left for other algae, plus in some cases they grow so fast they smother them.. Slowing the dinos some first helps so it is easier to build up the nutrients.

In my case the tank is so sterile there are no other algae to compete with dinos.

Also like someone said above dinos never go away they are there just like cyano and other stuff. Even if there was a way to kill dinos and its spores it would most likely be reintroduced again. It is all about balance.

 

[mcarroll]

but P is zero. I get it back up and in a week its zero again.

What if you retest one hour after dosing?

It has no phosphate in it and is man made.

We sold one load of that where I used to work. But I don't know much about it.

Is it not even made from aragonite sand and cement like most fake live rock?

(Aragonite or other calcerous mineral like calcite is what binds the phosphate...works almost like GFO.)

 

[kecked]

@shred5
REEF HERPES.......