Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[madweazl]

Ah. Sorry about the losses. They likely starved as the dinos consume everything. Here is the "conventional" method arrived at over the last 436 pages:

a) UV. 1 watt per 3 gallons. Run as slow as possible ~ 300 gph
b) Assuming you have no nitrates or phosphates (likely) you will need to start dosing both. NeoNitro and NeoPhos are premixed, easy, expensive. Many good DIY solutions too. NO3 > 10ppm; PO4 > .1ppm
c) Remove all GFO, reduce refugium hours to minimum, skim dry. In short, dirty up the tank.
d) Run GAC (activated carbon). Ostreos produce toxins you want to remove.
e) Manual removal of dinos. At a minimum you want to disturb them; get them into the water column.
f) A simple trick for manual removal: clamp a bunch of filter floss in location they likely to live. Generally high flow & high light areas. Rinse each night.

It can take a few weeks. A little cyano is common but not a problem. Ultimately you should be getting some algae to grow/compete.

The dinos collected on the corals directly (and everything else for that matter). Where they attached, the corals would STN. Nutrients were low but not the cause of the coral's demise. The dinos disappear nightly so that also points to ostreopsis migrating to the water column at night; makes life easier with the UV sterilzer so I'm glad I ordered it when I did. Recommend flow is about 250gph through our unit (Pentair 40w) so I'll run it off a maxi-jet 1200 and see how it goes (I may connect it to the manifold later).

Edit: Maxijet wont work because of how the unit needs to be mounted (creates head pressure). No biggy, I'll just plumb it into the manifold.

 

[ScottB]

The dinos collected on the corals directly (and everything else for that matter). Where they attached, the corals would STN. Nutrients were low but not the cause of the coral's demise. The dinos disappear nightly so that also points to ostreopsis migrating to the water column at night; makes life easier with the UV sterilzer so I'm glad I ordered it when I did. Recommend flow is about 250gph through our unit (Pentair 40w) so I'll run it off a maxi-jet 1200 and see how it goes (I may connect it to the manifold later).

Sounds good. Yeah, once the dinos are gone it will feel good to move it down to the sump.

 

[DTz]

I would not advise doing it this way simply because if your return pump fails, clogs, or is turned off you will flood your sump. Don't ask me how I know this. I am trying to forget.

besides the flooding reason . the method that im using will work for dino rite? btw.. how long does it take to c the difference with uv?

 

[Lithoman]

besides the flooding reason . the method that im using will work for dino rite? btw.. how long does it take to c the difference with uv?

Read my thread

Another Dino or Cyan ID Please

Help... what am I fighting? Dino X coming in a few day ..got Chemiclean if needed.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[ScottB]

besides the flooding reason . the method that im using will work for dino rite? btw.. how long does it take to c the difference with uv?

In that you are pulling water direct from affected display into the UV: Yes.

It is just safer to return it back to display as a closed loop.

 

[JasonKlink]

HELP! I have a 225 tank that's been up since July of 2019. Initially it was stocked with fish (Gem, Red Sea Sailfin, Sohal, Blonde Naso, Regal Tangs as well as a school of blue chromis [15-20]) and the rock work with no corals. Recently (probably 2 months ago) I decided to introduce SPS to the tank. I changed the lighting from 2 T5's to 4 Radion XR30 G4 Pro's and 4 T5 (2 Coral+ and 2 Blue +). When it was fish only with live rock I had green algae on the rockwork and back wall. I decided to run Cheato for a bit to bring the nitrates down from 75 to 25 ppm as well introduce a clean up crew. The cleanup crew consists of 20 hermit crabs, 10 turbos snails and 10 Asteria snails. The turbos made quick work of the green algae that was in the tank and basically took it back to bare white rock. I've since tossed the Cheato. I'm starting to get coralline algae on the bare bottom and rock work now too. However, I'm also getting what I believe are dinos. I have another tank which was having similar issues, I transferred most of the SPS from. The SPS seem to be happier in this tank, however I think I have the dreaded dinos that where an issue in the prior tank. I'm changing the filter socks daily and have a micron pad in the tank opposite the Vortechs that I change every night. I can see stringy brown (dino looking stuff) on the rock work, frag plugs and any tissue free parts of the coral. I've been blowing it off every night with a turkey baster, Additionally, I get a brown film across the glass everyday. The film is so thick that it makes the tank almost look cloudy if left there. The tank has always had a 57W UV that's fed from half the flow from the return pump (Varios 6). Additionally, my tank parameters are as follows...

Salinity - 1.026
Mg 1400
Ca - 450
KH - 9.05
No3 - 10
Po4 - 8-11 ppb

I've recently stopped doing water changes and started dosing Trisodium Phosphate. My P04 is currently 11 ppb. I've noticed that my daily ALK uptake is starting to drop as well. Additionally, I started dosing MicroBacter7 this week and will do so weekly to help seed the tank with "good" bacteria.

Any suggestions on what I can do? I've attached pic of the micron pad in the evening and what the glass looks like.

My LFS suggested doing a 3-4 day blackout and keep the UV running during the blackout. After the blackout only run the blues in the Radions for a week. The next week start ramping the Radions back up over 3 week period. Finally after the Radions are ramped back up stat running the T5's for about 1.5 hrs/day. Then start ramping the T5's back up a bit each week.

 

[Lithoman]

I feel your pain... but that pic does not help.. You should get a cheap microscope to identify what type dino's you are dealing with..... if in fact its dinos..

 

[Lithoman]

This is the type pics needed to get the correct method of treatment.

 

[ScottB]

@JasonKlink
Assuming this is dinos (long snotty strings with bubbles that get worse during the photoperiod) you can improve your odds by doing this:

You are a little underpowered on the UV but not by much. 1 watt per 3 gallons would be 75 watts. You can improve its performance by moving it so that it runs into/out of the display.

Add some more floss in high flow/light areas or wherever they seem to prefer to congregate.

Increase feedings. You have enough tangs in there to handle any potential algae growth.

Stop aminos -- they are dino food. Phytos are OK.

You may want to try a blackout once you move the UV up. Keep stirring up the dinos so they are removed or sterilised.

And yeah, keep an eye on ALK. My consumption fell by more than 1/2.

@Lithoman those are some gorgeous ostreopsis you have there.

 

[edolan]

I couldn't get video to upload. I could make out amphi moving around. Lots of spirulina. I am not sure what the other spherical objects are but they are not moving. Possibly encysted? Under attack by cyano? Makes my tank ugly but looks cool up close ☹

 

[Gildo]

Who has been successful with UV, can you tell me what uv system has? (the model, not how many W per gallon etc.)

 

[Lithoman]

Who has been successful with UV, can you tell me what uv system has? (the model, not how many W per gallon etc.)

check out this thread

Another Dino or Cyan ID Please

Help... what am I fighting? Dino X coming in a few day ..got Chemiclean if needed.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[madweazl]

Who has been successful with UV, can you tell me what uv system has? (the model, not how many W per gallon etc.)

I just fired ours up (Pentair 40w) and hopefully I'm reporting good news within the next few days.

 

[drawman]

Who has been successful with UV, can you tell me what uv system has? (the model, not how many W per gallon etc.)

If you have the money to spend AquaUV and Pentair are good brands to go with. Jebao tend to have issues over time from what I've read (never used them myself).

 

[ScottB]

If you have the money to spend AquaUV and Pentair are good brands to go with. Jebao tend to have issues over time from what I've read (never used them myself).

+1 on these brands. If your tank is small enough, the green killing machine seems to work, is cheap and easy to deploy in small displays.

 

[taricha]

I could make out amphi moving around. Lots of spirulina. I am not sure what the other spherical objects are but they are not moving. Possibly encysted?

agreed on the amphidnium and spirulina.
The other round cells could be dino cysts - I've seen them in a dino infested test tank before. Or they could be a diatom. I looked closely at them under the scope and couldn't tell.

 

[madweazl]

Who has been successful with UV, can you tell me what uv system has? (the model, not how many W per gallon etc.)

Our tank has been looking pretty good the past couple of days. Some remains on the acroporas that are still alive but I have a feeling those will be gone in the next few days (the corals and dinos). None left on the sand and very little left on the rocks by the end of the photo-period. Knock on wood, it looks like it made all the difference for our tank.

 

[drawman]

Thankfully still dino free. I've stopped turning my UV light on for a solid 2 weeks now I probably should move it to the sump and run it again just for maintenance.

What did it in? Was it raised alkalinity, turf algae growth, UV? It's hard for me to say other than to expect it was a mix of things.

 

[ScottB]

I am about 2 months clear of ostreopsis now. A few weeks without UV and all good. I am certain I could still find some dinos in a scrape viewed at 400X. NO3 and PO4 always > 10 and .1.

Aminos will remain in the fridge for a good while. They seemed to provoke a relapse around New Years so...

UV and higher nutrients seem to solve mine every time.

 

[DTz]

I am about 2 months clear of ostreopsis now. A few weeks without UV and all good. I am certain I could still find some dinos in a scrape viewed at 400X. NO3 and PO4 always > 10 and .1.

Aminos will remain in the fridge for a good while. They seemed to provoke a relapse around New Years so...

UV and higher nutrients seem to solve mine every time.

Mine was improving and I started amino again. Boom. Dinos back.