Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[reeferfoxx]

Thank you, what is the best method to dealing with this strain?

Most strains of dinos are delt the same. With the exception of amphidinium and gambrierdiscus. Ostreopsis is the easiest to get rid of with nutrients and UV. All others take the same approach but takes a little longer to go away. Just read the first post to this thread.

 

[Leyth]

Most strains of dinos are delt the same. With the exception of amphidinium and gambrierdiscus. Ostreopsis is the easiest to get rid of with nutrients and UV. All others take the same approach but takes a little longer to go away. Just read the first post to this thread.

Thank you

 

[JAMSOURY]

Can you guys please help
Me id these?

Just wondering, what are the different characteristics are we looking for when id’ing Dino’s? A few of them tend to look very very similar.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Can you guys please help
Me id these?

Just wondering, what are the different characteristics are we looking for when id’ing Dino’s? A few of them tend to look very very similar.

Ostreopsis.

 

[JAMSOURY]

Ostreopsis.

Thanks!!

Weird how it just showed up in my tank. My nutrients are super high at the moment. 60 nitrates and .15 phosphates. Nutrients have been high the last couple months. They’ll still show up in these conditions?

 

[reeferfoxx]

Thanks!!

Weird how it just showed up in my tank. My nutrients are super high at the moment. 60 nitrates and .15 phosphates. Nutrients have been high the last couple months. They’ll still show up in these conditions?

Temp fluctuations, long photo period and a deficiency in microfauna can claim it to be the dominant organism. Could also be an increase of a particular ttace element.

 

[enb141]

Hi guys I'm here to post again about my Dino Experience:

3 years ago, as many of us had dinos without knowing what was happening to my tank, so until I did lots of research, I found a thread in reefcentral (this long thread didn't exists back then) so we were learning about what could be causing dinos, back then the cause I had was that the filtration sponges were reducing my nitrates and that's why I was getting 0.00 nitrates, so after removing them the dinos wen't off slowly.

1 year ago my tank crashed, I did a bad water change that killed all my corals, even after doing water change the damage was done so I had to start from scratch, all my corals and all my fish died.

This year I started again the tank again, but this time I knew a little bit about dinos so I was taking care of not letting the nitrates to get to 0.00 but eventually they did, even adding KNO3 I wasn't able to keep up the the nitrates, so I still didn't had dinos but then I decided to add coral food (reef roids / coral frenzy), that food activated / introduced them again and I had dinos once more, so again I was battling dinos and after about 3 months of no water changes I finaly was able to get my corals to recover slowly (the new ones), so then I was doing water changes but with Real Sea Salt water, so I did this a few times, about 30% water change of real sea salt for the next few months, so I thought I was water change safe so then I decided to do a water change, this time I used Red Sea Coral Pro Salt Mix with RODI, WROOOOOOOOONG DECISION, now I got dinos back, even adding nitrates and phosphates to compensate the lack of nutrients didn't help, so my advice is to not do water changes with synthetic sea salt, I hope somebody else can try this and confirm this, I think there's something more than just trace elements that are included in synthetic salt mixes that Dinos love.

After re reading first page it seems that now appears to be recommended to remove chaeto, where or how or somebody can explain me that?

 

[NefTunzReef]

Ostreopsis.

Yes, prorocentrum.

Thank you @reeferfox!

 

[dwest]

Hi guys I'm here to post again about my Dino Experience:

3 years ago, as many of us had dinos without knowing what was happening to my tank, so until I did lots of research, I found a thread in reefcentral (this long thread didn't exists back then) so we were learning about what could be causing dinos, back then the cause I had was that the filtration sponges were reducing my nitrates and that's why I was getting 0.00 nitrates, so after removing them the dinos wen't off slowly.

1 year ago my tank crashed, I did a bad water change that killed all my corals, even after doing water change the damage was done so I had to start from scratch, all my corals and all my fish died.

This year I started again the tank again, but this time I knew a little bit about dinos so I was taking care of not letting the nitrates to get to 0.00 but eventually they did, even adding KNO3 I wasn't able to keep up the the nitrates, so I still didn't had dinos but then I decided to add coral food (reef roids / coral frenzy), that food activated / introduced them again and I had dinos once more, so again I was battling dinos and after about 3 months of no water changes I finaly was able to get my corals to recover slowly (the new ones), so then I was doing water changes but with Real Sea Salt water, so I did this a few times, about 30% water change of real sea salt for the next few months, so I thought I was water change safe so then I decided to do a water change, this time I used Red Sea Coral Pro Salt Mix with RODI, WROOOOOOOOONG DECISION, now I got dinos back, even adding nitrates and phosphates to compensate the lack of nutrients didn't help, so my advice is to not do water changes with synthetic sea salt, I hope somebody else can try this and confirm this, I think there's something more than just trace elements that are included in synthetic salt mixes that Dinos love.

After re reading first page it seems that now appears to be recommended to remove chaeto, where or how or somebody can explain me that?

I removed my chaeto as it was efficient at removing nutrients I was trying to elevate.

 

[Reefer1978]

Hi guys I'm here to post again about my Dino Experience:

3 years ago, as many of us had dinos without knowing what was happening to my tank, so until I did lots of research, I found a thread in reefcentral (this long thread didn't exists back then) so we were learning about what could be causing dinos, back then the cause I had was that the filtration sponges were reducing my nitrates and that's why I was getting 0.00 nitrates, so after removing them the dinos wen't off slowly.

1 year ago my tank crashed, I did a bad water change that killed all my corals, even after doing water change the damage was done so I had to start from scratch, all my corals and all my fish died.

This year I started again the tank again, but this time I knew a little bit about dinos so I was taking care of not letting the nitrates to get to 0.00 but eventually they did, even adding KNO3 I wasn't able to keep up the the nitrates, so I still didn't had dinos but then I decided to add coral food (reef roids / coral frenzy), that food activated / introduced them again and I had dinos once more, so again I was battling dinos and after about 3 months of no water changes I finaly was able to get my corals to recover slowly (the new ones), so then I was doing water changes but with Real Sea Salt water, so I did this a few times, about 30% water change of real sea salt for the next few months, so I thought I was water change safe so then I decided to do a water change, this time I used Red Sea Coral Pro Salt Mix with RODI, WROOOOOOOOONG DECISION, now I got dinos back, even adding nitrates and phosphates to compensate the lack of nutrients didn't help, so my advice is to not do water changes with synthetic sea salt, I hope somebody else can try this and confirm this, I think there's something more than just trace elements that are included in synthetic salt mixes that Dinos love.

After re reading first page it seems that now appears to be recommended to remove chaeto, where or how or somebody can explain me that?

I don't think synthetic salt (or more specifically Red Sea salt) has anything to do with what you are dealing with. I am using Red Sea salt exclusively and no Dino's 2 years +.

 

[Subsea]

Dino’s are very efficient at surviving/thriving in low nutrients. By raising nitrates, other higher level/desirable macros are able to thrive. However, manual removal of undesirables is required to give desirable an advantage to dominate.

I doubt that Red Sea salt is the problem. However, Red Sea salt mix is in part derived from actual evaporated salt water and some bacteria are encapsulated in these grains of salt.

 

[BurgerFish]

So, dinos are back (100% on sand). No changes in the tank (no WC, no dosing, nothing, except UV removal), they just go back after 2.5 months.
I installed back UV in the filter chamber area and ready to syphon it. I think, UV must be running all the nights forever, if not, dynos will always go back again.

No real cure, except closing the tank.

 

[enb141]

So, dinos are back (100% on sand). No changes in the tank (no WC, no dosing, nothing, except UV removal), they just go back after 2.5 months.
I installed back UV in the filter chamber area and ready to syphon it. I think, UV must be running all the nights forever, if not, dynos will always go back again.

No real cure, except closing the tank.

When you said no dosing what do you mean? no more nitrates/phosphates dosing?

What tank size you have and what UV filter were you using?

 

[Mark_4880]

Hello all,

I setup a new tank (90gal 29 sump) back in April, dry dock, dry sand, even dipped my coralline encrusted seed rock I used Dr Tim one and only and 2 clowns I never really saw any spikes in my levels but kept adding fish every couple weeks. All was going well, coralline growing, corals growing, chaeto growing fast nitrates were low so I kept adding and adding then I found out about biopellets for heavy stocked tanks figured I'd give it a shot. I believe this is where my tank started doing bad, I got what I figured was diatoms on sand bed, all growth slowed down except chaeto. I started dosing CaNo3 to 5 ppm and usually by the next morning that was gone, I didn't add it regularly. Then I thought this is counterproductive so I removed the pellets. Po4 has always been what I considered high based on online information (between .1 and .25) I never really knew because I couldn't read that darn salifert kit. I added gfo and bought Hanna ULR and and I couldn't get phosphate down below 60ppb and "diatoms" returned with a vengeance on my sand bed and bubbles in my rock now as well. Back to the internet I went, this time I found info on the No3 Po4 relationship and ultimately this thread (after original thread) I removed gfo and started dosing No3 daily which of course dropped my Po4 to 1ppb so I bought flourish phosphorus started dosing to .1 the first couple days I was dosing morning and night but after 3 days levels stabilized I haven't dosed now in 5 days I'm sitting between 10 and 20 with No3 and 31 to 38ppb Po4 and Dino's aren't gone yet but, they are definitely less, coralline is growing again I can see more daily, the Dino's were never really on my rocks until I started dosing both nitrates and phosphate it never got really bad and yesterday after work was the best my tank has looked yet!!

I've made it to page 175 on this thread but it's getting redundant, has there been anymore groundbreaking stuff found out since then?

I don't have a microscope I might get one but, in 8 days my tank has done a 180 and I'll probably just ride it out considering only 1 coral seems irritated. My fish are even picking at the rocks again!

 

[dwest]

Hello all,

I setup a new tank (90gal 29 sump) back in April, dry dock, dry sand, even dipped my coralline encrusted seed rock I used Dr Tim one and only and 2 clowns I never really saw any spikes in my levels but kept adding fish every couple weeks. All was going well, coralline growing, corals growing, chaeto growing fast nitrates were low so I kept adding and adding then I found out about biopellets for heavy stocked tanks figured I'd give it a shot. I believe this is where my tank started doing bad, I got what I figured was diatoms on sand bed, all growth slowed down except chaeto. I started dosing CaNo3 to 5 ppm and usually by the next morning that was gone, I didn't add it regularly. Then I thought this is counterproductive so I removed the pellets. Po4 has always been what I considered high based on online information (between .1 and .25) I never really knew because I couldn't read that darn salifert kit. I added gfo and bought Hanna ULR and and I couldn't get phosphate down below 60ppb and "diatoms" returned with a vengeance on my sand bed and bubbles in my rock now as well. Back to the internet I went, this time I found info on the No3 Po4 relationship and ultimately this thread (after original thread) I removed gfo and started dosing No3 daily which of course dropped my Po4 to 1ppb so I bought flourish phosphorus started dosing to .1 the first couple days I was dosing morning and night but after 3 days levels stabilized I haven't dosed now in 5 days I'm sitting between 10 and 20 with No3 and 31 to 38ppb Po4 and Dino's aren't gone yet but, they are definitely less, coralline is growing again I can see more daily, the Dino's were never really on my rocks until I started dosing both nitrates and phosphate it never got really bad and yesterday after work was the best my tank has looked yet!!

I've made it to page 175 on this thread but it's getting redundant, has there been anymore groundbreaking stuff found out since then?

I don't have a microscope I might get one but, in 8 days my tank has done a 180 and I'll probably just ride it out considering only 1 coral seems irritated. My fish are even picking at the rocks again!

No groundbreaking new stuff. You did the right thing. Your tank looks great!

 

[Mark_4880]

I'm going to write off Dino's as part of the ugly stage and take it as a positive, as I'm much more aware of all levels in tank and know how to adjust them based on need of inhabitants.

 

[Reefbuds]

So I've been told really the only way to get rid if GHA is to starve it from nitrate and phosphate. Well I did that, GHA is still there and NOW I have dinos. Ugh.

 

[reeferfoxx]

So I've been told really the only way to get rid if GHA is to starve it from nitrate and phosphate. Well I did that, GHA is still there and NOW I have dinos. Ugh.

How did you starve out the gha?

 

[Reefbuds]

How did you starve out the gha?

Vodka and prime

 

[reeferfoxx]

Vodka and prime

Carbon dosing is one of the reasons people get dinos. Not sure if you grabbed my starving out gha in this thread but that was never my instructions to starving it out. Starving it out literally means to let GHA consume available N and P until it cant consume anymore. After N and P are consumed, the gha will fall off the rocks. Its a slow and steady process that needs to be practiced to maintain a successful reef. Fast and efficient isnt the best route when it comes to nature.