Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[BeejReef]

Sounds like you had ostreopsis. IME, they are the quickest to get zapped by the UV.

You will be able to put the UV away, but not sure I would remove it so quickly. At a minimum, be sure you have a feeding or dosing regimen that maintains >10 and >.08 for NO3 and PO4 CONSISTENTLY.

The dinos are still around, just waiting for the chance to outcompete. I was "clear" for a couple months, but could always take a scrape off the glass and find dinos under the scope.

Yea, running relatively rich nutrient levels may bring about a period of "uglies". That is just part of the deal when nutrients swing way down/up. Only now, after about 5 months post dinos is my frag system really back to full strength coralline and no algae. Running 15 and .14 by dumping buckets of chum for the fish three times a day.

Ty, I appreciate the insights.
I'm also using trisodium phosphate and have stabilized between .08ppm and .12, depending upon the time of day, for several weeks. Nitrates are (and have been) quite stable in the 15-25 range. It's a year+ old and caked with coraline. The plan was to let the UV run another couple of weeks and keep up with a more aggressive vacuuming, scraping, sock changing regiment and hope for the best. I could easily be talked into letting the UV run for longer.

 

[ScottB]

Ty, I appreciate the insights.
I'm also using trisodium phosphate and have stabilized between .08ppm and .12, depending upon the time of day, for several weeks. Nitrates are (and have been) quite stable in the 15-25 range. It's a year+ old and caked with coraline. The plan was to let the UV run another couple of weeks and keep up with a more aggressive vacuuming, scraping, sock changing regiment and hope for the best. I could easily be talked into letting the UV run for longer.

Oh, one other point. A few weeks post UV, I went back to dosing aminos (acropower) and Bam! Darn things broke out the next day.

 

[Shane B.]

Question for those who have beat dinos - how long until you decided you've "won"?? I did a 4 day blackout and am running UV, dosing NO3 and PO4, phyto, and Dr Tims and things are MUCH better. Corals and fish are very happy and my snails can come out to play. However I still have to manually remove small rust colored patches from a few spots every day. I'm on like week 3 of my battle. Can I anticipate another 3 weeks or so?

 

[fuelman]

Folks often use NeoPhos from Brightwell. Fine for mid to small systems. If you have a large system, you can burn a bottle in a week or so as the rocks soak up what the dinos leave behind. I mix my own using trisodium phosphate but you have to careful ordering this as there are many "substitute" products you don't want anything to do with. This works for me:

Seachem flourish phosphorus also, in addition to ScottB suggestions

Thanks @ScottB & @taricha I will order that from Amazon & the lfs has the seachem in the mean time.

 

[Justdrew]

How big of a difference is there between 24w green killing machine and 36w Jabeo UV. 40 breeder is the size. About 50 gallons total.

 

[ScottB]

How big of a difference is there between 24w green killing machine and 36w Jabeo UV. 40 breeder is the size. About 50 gallons total.

Either offer plenty of wattage for 50G.

I have seen many anecdotal complaints here about the jabeo units. Cracked housings, leaks, etc. and the Amazon reviews don't look any better. 30% gave 1 star.

I think if you compare the Amazon reviews -- and there are many -- you'll opt for the Green Killing machine.

 

[taricha]

how long until you decided you've "won"?? I did a 4 day blackout and am running UV, dosing NO3 and PO4, phyto, and Dr Tims and things are MUCH better. Corals and fish are very happy and my snails can come out to play. However I still have to manually remove small rust colored patches from a few spots every day.

If 1) I see no visible signs
2) all livestock, including corals, ...and nutrient consumption (Alk, N , P) act as though there are no dinos.
3) normal maintenance (water changes, dosing, disconnecting UV) does not restart dinos
4) the above are in place for 3-4 weeks ...
Then I'd feel like a system is "over it".
But cells remain. Some high risk things still won't be possible for a long time, without risking a return

 

[GeoSquid]

I've been trying a different approach to my dino situation. I've been fighting them for about 4 months....maybe longer. My issue started when I had a bad outbreak of cyano. I've had this quite a few times over the years and usually just let it work itself out with good husbandry. This time I tried chemiclean....it worked! Then, about 2 months later I got dino's. I feel it was a direct result of using chemiclean and I just traded one thing for the other. I think I prefer fighting cyano over dino's. Anyway...no more quick fixes and I decided to treat dino's like a normal algae succession that happen all the time in our tanks. I was using Algae scrubbing at the time but decided to incorporate more algae scrubbing to make it way oversized for my tank. Since doing this....My dino's have been slowly leaving the display tank and growing in the algae scrubbing system. Rather than scrapping the algae screen, I've just been rinsing in tap water and rubbing with my fingers. The dino's are removed easily and the GHA stays. Now, I haven't beaten dino's yet, but there is very little in my display. I was having to blow off dino's from corals twice a day....now it's more like every third day I'm blowing them off or not at all. I do have a little on the sand after my lights have been on for 6 or so yours. When I started this process, I stopped doing water changes for a month and noticed no difference, so I started water changes every week, vacuuming the sand to suck up what dino's are there. One weird thing is my corals are growing better and faster than they have in a long time....mostly softies but a couple monti caps.

 

[ScottB]

I've been trying a different approach to my dino situation. I've been fighting them for about 4 months....maybe longer. My issue started when I had a bad outbreak of cyano. I've had this quite a few times over the years and usually just let it work itself out with good husbandry. This time I tried chemiclean....it worked! Then, about 2 months later I got dino's. I feel it was a direct result of using chemiclean and I just traded one thing for the other. I think I prefer fighting cyano over dino's. Anyway...no more quick fixes and I decided to treat dino's like a normal algae succession that happen all the time in our tanks. I was using Algae scrubbing at the time but decided to incorporate more algae scrubbing to make it way oversized for my tank. Since doing this....My dino's have been slowly leaving the display tank and growing in the algae scrubbing system. Rather than scrapping the algae screen, I've just been rinsing in tap water and rubbing with my fingers. The dino's are removed easily and the GHA stays. Now, I haven't beaten dino's yet, but there is very little in my display. I was having to blow off dino's from corals twice a day....now it's more like every third day I'm blowing them off or not at all. I do have a little on the sand after my lights have been on for 6 or so yours. When I started this process, I stopped doing water changes for a month and noticed no difference, so I started water changes every week, vacuuming the sand to suck up what dino's are there. One weird thing is my corals are growing better and faster than they have in a long time....mostly softies but a couple monti caps.

Yeah, the link between Chemiclean and dinos is a strong one.

Yours is an interesting case -- getting the dinos to move to the sump/algae scrubber. I have seen/heard of this before. Dinos are very motile and will move to a "better" environment. I don't know the species you are dealing with, but most will move into the water at lights out. What hours are you running the ATS? If you have a dark cycle, maybe you could hook up a UV for the sump?

 

[GeoSquid]

Yeah, the link between Chemiclean and dinos is a strong one.

Yours is an interesting case -- getting the dinos to move to the sump/algae scrubber. I have seen/heard of this before. Dinos are very motile and will move to a "better" environment. I don't know the species you are dealing with, but most will move into the water at lights out. What hours are you running the ATS? If you have a dark cycle, maybe you could hook up a UV for the sump?

I don't have a microscope, so not sure of the species. They are definitely long and stringy and got worse the longer the lights in the display are on. I run the scrubbers on a reverse light schedule from the display at about 16 hours of light on and 8 hours off. It's a 180 gallon tank with two surge tanks above the display that incorporate the ATS. I added an additional scrubber tray like Paul B's (his 47 year old tank) old one that sits right above the display in the back.

 

[NS Mike D]

I don't want to lose another battle with Dinos, so I am checking in this thread. I tore apart my tank (I'll link that thread) and suspected some dinos were creeping back on the cheato and wasn't sure the stuff on the new sand bed was dinos or diatom (which is may still be). My NO3 was racing up to 64 last week, so I started carbon dose and run the skimmer. Bad idea and it caused an bacteria bloom and NO3 bottomed. out.

Here is where I am today

AkK 9.0
Ca: no test (still in transit from 12 days ago)
Mg. 1400
SG 1.026
T 78.6°
Ph. 8.16
No3 1.5ppm
PO4 0.06ppm


My kenya tree closed up 3 days ago and the brown started to show up on it (this is was call to action as I've seen this before). Also, I siphoned the sand last night and then stirred the little dusting this morning but by the afternoon the brown dust on the sand was in full force.

I am taking mo chances. I turned the light and the skimmer off. I kept the sumps lights on since they both have chaeto.

I have have pods arriving later this week I will be culturing and my live phyto arrived today which I started a culture. I has a little live phyto I can dose.

I ordered a microscope that will arrive Monday.

I will stop water changes.


What else should I be doing between now and monday when I get the microscope?


link to my restart thread

Build Thread - Redo Taking Lessons From My Failures - The Dino's won Round1

I am I the process of breaking down my 29gal mixed reef tank, doing a complete scrub and starting somewhat anew. I'll link my tank thread for background, but in a nut shell, I started about 5 years ago on a whim with a 29gal petco tank, some live rock and a pair of clowns. The tank did...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[GeoSquid]

I don't want to lose another battle with Dinos, so I am checking in this thread. I tore apart my tank (I'll link that thread) and suspected some dinos were creeping back on the cheato and wasn't sure the stuff on the new sand bed was dinos or diatom (which is may still be). My NO3 was racing up to 64 last week, so I started carbon dose and run the skimmer. Bad idea and it caused an bacteria bloom and NO3 bottomed. out.

Here is where I am today

AkK 9.0
Ca: no test (still in transit from 12 days ago)
Mg. 1400
SG 1.026
T 78.6°
Ph. 8.16
No3 1.5ppm
PO4 0.06ppm


My kenya tree closed up 3 days ago and the brown started to show up on it (this is was call to action as I've seen this before). Also, I siphoned the sand last night and then stirred the little dusting this morning but by the afternoon the brown dust on the sand was in full force.

I am taking mo chances. I turned the light and the skimmer off. I kept the sumps lights on since they both have chaeto.

I have have pods arriving later this week I will be culturing and my live phyto arrived today which I started a culture. I has a little live phyto I can dose.

I ordered a microscope that will arrive Monday.

I will stop water changes.


What else should I be doing between now and monday when I get the microscope?


link to my restart thread

Build Thread - Redo Taking Lessons From My Failures - The Dino's won Round1

I am I the process of breaking down my 29gal mixed reef tank, doing a complete scrub and starting somewhat anew. I'll link my tank thread for background, but in a nut shell, I started about 5 years ago on a whim with a 29gal petco tank, some live rock and a pair of clowns. The tank did...

www.reef2reef.com

As I stated above, I've chosen a much different approach. One thing I might add to your situation (if your not doing it already) is to make sure to use something like a turkey baster to blow the dino's off your coral. I was doing it at least twice a day when I started. I think it made a difference as I had a large kenya tree that would do the same thing. It did seem to affect hard corals with points much more than the softies. I don't have many sps but i have a small Poci and the dino's keps settling on the same tips over and over. It seemed to keep attacking the same spots sort of speaking. Monti caps didn't seem effected at all. I would blow off the soft corals and they would open fine until covered again.

 

[Michael Gray]

I don't want to lose another battle with Dinos, so I am checking in this thread. I tore apart my tank (I'll link that thread) and suspected some dinos were creeping back on the cheato and wasn't sure the stuff on the new sand bed was dinos or diatom (which is may still be). My NO3 was racing up to 64 last week, so I started carbon dose and run the skimmer. Bad idea and it caused an bacteria bloom and NO3 bottomed. out.

Here is where I am today

AkK 9.0
Ca: no test (still in transit from 12 days ago)
Mg. 1400
SG 1.026
T 78.6°
Ph. 8.16
No3 1.5ppm
PO4 0.06ppm


My kenya tree closed up 3 days ago and the brown started to show up on it (this is was call to action as I've seen this before). Also, I siphoned the sand last night and then stirred the little dusting this morning but by the afternoon the brown dust on the sand was in full force.

I am taking mo chances. I turned the light and the skimmer off. I kept the sumps lights on since they both have chaeto.

I have have pods arriving later this week I will be culturing and my live phyto arrived today which I started a culture. I has a little live phyto I can dose.

I ordered a microscope that will arrive Monday.

I will stop water changes.


What else should I be doing between now and monday when I get the microscope?


link to my restart thread

Build Thread - Redo Taking Lessons From My Failures - The Dino's won Round1

I am I the process of breaking down my 29gal mixed reef tank, doing a complete scrub and starting somewhat anew. I'll link my tank thread for background, but in a nut shell, I started about 5 years ago on a whim with a 29gal petco tank, some live rock and a pair of clowns. The tank did...

www.reef2reef.com

Mike noooooooo not again buddy. Guess we can tackle this together. We both will defeat this.

 

[Brian barranco]

How big of a difference is there between 24w green killing machine and 36w Jabeo UV. 40 breeder is the size. About 50 gallons total.

I have the 9w green killing machine on my 30 gallon and no more dinos

 

[NS Mike D]

Mike noooooooo not again buddy. Guess we can tackle this together. We both will defeat this.

Yes we will. Thanks for the pep post!

 

[NS Mike D]

As I stated above, I've chosen a much different approach. One thing I might add to your situation (if your not doing it already) is to make sure to use something like a turkey baster to blow the dino's off your coral. I was doing it at least twice a day when I started. I think it made a difference as I had a large kenya tree that would do the same thing. It did seem to affect hard corals with points much more than the softies. I don't have many sps but i have a small Poci and the dino's keps settling on the same tips over and over. It seemed to keep attacking the same spots sort of speaking. Monti caps didn't seem effected at all. I would blow off the soft corals and they would open fine until covered again.

Thank you, yes, I have a Julians Thing for blasting the suckers. Also, right now, since this is a restart after losing my first battle of the dinos, I have a few zoa frags and a nem so not lps or sps. (i lost them to dinos).

 

[taricha]

It did seem to affect hard corals with points much more than the softies. I don't have many sps but i have a small Poci and the dino's keps settling on the same tips over and over. It seemed to keep attacking the same spots sort of speaking. Monti caps didn't seem effected at all. I would blow off the soft corals and they would open fine until covered again.

I have a Julians Thing for blasting the suckers.

Keeping dinos off of corals is crucial for coral survival. Check this post below on an easy way to export any dinos that are settling on coral tips etc.

Poor Man's UV
I wanted to (re)post this, as recently I've seen a couple of people with massive populations of dinos who are not apparently doing any real export. And this idea seems to have been lost in the depths of a few thousand posts. I originally stole it from user nvladik.
Hang some filter floss directly in front of one or two of your powerheads. Let it blow in the flow like a flag. Ostreopsis will attach to floss more than anything else in the tank. Turns out they don't care what they attach to - just looking for a good spot with tons of flow and some light, and they actually prefer rough surfaces to slime coats etc. Rinse the filter floss out daily (or a couple times a day) in tap water until it's white again. Use gloves - the toxins in question are serious business.

(above pic shows the accumulated ostreopsis from a single lights-on cycle in a tank with barely visible dinos, then wrung out into a beaker showing what's collected is 90%+ pure ostis)

This is for those with cells that go into the water - Ostreopsis especially - but it may work with others prorocentrum, coolia, etc I didn't try when I had those. This trick will allow you to easily concentrate and export almost exclusively dinos. It's also appropriate while UV is getting set up - may suffice in some cases as "poor man's uv" , or in addition to UV.

This will export a large majority of the ostreopsis daily. It is not a cure, but it is control for you, relief for your coral and other tank inhabitants, allows you to do whatever your corals need (water changes, Ca, Alk, etc), removes urgency and anxiety, and gives you flexibility for your next move. This is how I had ostreopsis for a couple of months without losing any livestock or it being able to form stringy masses in my tank. Ostis stayed almost invisible while I had filter floss. (I actually never ran UV on my main tank.)

Additional benefits:

• physical removal of the majority of dinos is an important step in advancing any other treatment plan.
• prevents stringy masses from forming on corals.
• turns brown to show you if it's working.
• can be easily wrung out into a beaker to sample what you have.
• may possibly work as a diagnostic test for whether your strain is UV targetable / is going into the water. I don't know how well types other than ostis will attach, but the stringier it is, the likelier they will attach.
• is a really easy tune-up if a small smattering of dinos re-appears.
• is very selective: removes pretty much exclusively dinos

 

[ScottB]

Keeping dinos off of corals is crucial for coral survival. Check this post below on an easy way to export any dinos that are settling on coral tips etc.

Poor man's UV. Love it. Just piling on here...

 

[Gildo]

It was a bit that I no longer saw ostreopsis in the tank, not even several fields analyzed under a microscope, I decided to slowly decrease no3 and po4 which I kept at EXAGERATED values.
unfortunately my tests were probably not very good, and I dropped too much nutrients and they are back!

So I ask you advice on what should be the optimal values to keep when the tank has healed! no3: 5ppm and po4 0.01 or 0.1 ppm?

finally advice on what to buy for tests! better hanna HI-714 (from 0 to 0.90) or hanna HI-713 (from 0 to 2.50) ?? and for NO3?
@taricha

 

[NS Mike D]

Keeping dinos off of corals is crucial for coral survival. Check this post below on an easy way to export any dinos that are settling on coral tips etc.

Q. When I get the filter floss for the poor mans UV, Can I also use that to siphon the sand bed - turn off the ATO and pumps, siphon through the floss into a bucket and then return the filtered water into the tank? Or would that be counter productive by removing the good organisms I'm trying to cultivate to fight the dinos?