Mark
Active Member
I went from 78 to 82 in 24 hours. Slow is good, go with what you are comfortable with.
Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?
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I went from 78 to 82 in 24 hours. Slow is good, go with what you are comfortable with.
I spoke with AquaUV the other day and they said my MJ600 putting out 160 gph was too slow turnover for my 26g lagoon with an AquaUV 15w Advantage to be fully effective. They recommended a minimum of the stated 230 or so gph which would be a MJ900. Is it really worth it to change to that pump for the extra few turnovers per hour or am I doing the right thing for my persistent coolia? Here’s how it’s set up in the tank on the back wall.
note my tank kind of gyres clockwise due to the MP40 in the back left corner and an icecap gyre more forward on the right.
note my tank kind of gyres clockwise due to the MP40 in the back left corner and an icecap gyre more forward on the right.
So, I read an article about dinos, particularly the more toxic strains like ostreopsis being dangerous because of palytoxins they produce? The article said that the room should be well ventilated and you should stay away from the aquarium as the dinos start dying off. Is there truth to this? Are these things a danger to my health?
true only for osteropsis, but they have a very strong and annoying smell! you realize if there is a problem! however solve by ventilating the room and using activated carbon. the important thing is to make the bad smell disappear.
From my experience, flowrate turnover 100% makes a difference. I also used an Aqua UV 15w hang-on to deal with a dino outbreak in my 50g and originally had a 104gph pump thinking that longer exposure in the unit would mean more effective kill of the free swimming dinos. This had little effect for over a week. I watched this BRSTV video on UV flow rates and upgraded to a Sicce Silent 1.0 that pushes 251gph. In a couple days the amount of dinos that would repopulate when the lights turned on went down significantly and eventually went away. So really, 250gph is just as effective as killing dinos as 100gph through this particular sterilizer as studied and published by Aqua Ultraviolet. After that, it's the ability to process enough water to kill enough before they have a chance to repopulate.
Wow. I’m glad I asked! I have a MJ1200 which is 295 gph is 60 gph more than the recommenced 233. Is that too much? It’s like Goldilocks here.
I think that'll be fine still. 295gph still going to get about 75,000 µw/cm² of UV exposure which is enough for disease control. I'm no scientist but based on my readings while frantically trying to figure out how to eradicate dinos, they're single celled organisms which require less UV exposure to be killed compared to diseases which are usually larger organisms.
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given that we know yours is going into the water, and you have seen little effect from UV, I would up the flow at this point. It is possible that more thorough mixing in the water and higher flow-through rates can get enough cells into the UV and start showing an effect. 160 to 230 is almost 50% higher, so not a totally meaningless change.
There have been a few limited reports. Respiratory irritation and skin irritation (hands in the tank). The issue is rare, but real.
I've always wondered if the smell was toxin-related, or if it was telling us something about bacteria that hang out with the dinos.
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the light connection is not obvious. They can survive in darkness for a decently long time, and they live on near-surface substrates. They have ways to deal with (low or high) light stress. So it's probably not a good way to target them.
hotashes
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hotashes
Well-Known Member
AbjectMaelstroM
Valuable Member
Are these dinos?
Do doing a water change today, once water movement stopped I noticed these brown clouds coming off of the sandbed...slowky going up onto water column and staying in little clumps.
They aren't visible once flow gets moving and only appear when I kill pumps for feeding and wc.
Tank is 5 months old, NO3 is 5ppm PO4 I dose to 0.04 daily otherwise it drops to 0.
Let me know if other images/info are needed. Unfortunately I do not have a scope right now but I suppose easy fix from Amazon. Not seeing any bubbles and I have some hair algea growing.
Do doing a water change today, once water movement stopped I noticed these brown clouds coming off of the sandbed...slowky going up onto water column and staying in little clumps.
They aren't visible once flow gets moving and only appear when I kill pumps for feeding and wc.
Tank is 5 months old, NO3 is 5ppm PO4 I dose to 0.04 daily otherwise it drops to 0.
Let me know if other images/info are needed. Unfortunately I do not have a scope right now but I suppose easy fix from Amazon. Not seeing any bubbles and I have some hair algea growing.
I've upped my temp to 82.5 over the last few days and seems to be having a positive effect. I've been battling 2 types on and off for months. No longer seeing the long strings each day just on the sand. Fingers crossed. I just noticed my UV bulb is not working too.
Mark
Active Member
Good to hear. For me it got a little worse after a few days, and then they rapidly disappeared after a week. They still haven't come back either and corals are doing well.
Putrescine
Community Member
My Dino battle has been long, since December of 2019. I posted earlier in this thread in January of this year. I started my 108g tank on October 5, 2019 after a seven year hiatus from the hobby from a tank that I bought from another person who was moving from the area. After I left the hobby, my previous tank was a little neglected, and had nitrates well above the range that could be tested on my API test kits, I never tested Phosphates. I had fish, and basically a couple leathery pieces, gorgonians, and GSPs, and mushrooms, and Paly's. That was about all I could keep LPS, SPS would never last long in my old tank.
This time around, I was going to do my research. I remember dealing with hitch-hikers, flatworms, aptasia, and I was going to therefore start with dry rock this time, aragonite live sand. I picked up the Neptune Apex controller, and I was excited about this new technology which wasn't available with my previous tank. I bought Salifert Kits, Hanna Kits because I was going to check my levels this time. I remember reading that SPS required near zero nitrates and phosphates and I had that goal in mind. I read about NoPOX, Refugiums, Chaeto, and all those methods that helped to keep nitrates and phosphates in check. I set my tank temp at 79F through the Neptune Apex.
Started off with a Dr. Tims fishless cycle, quarantined some clownfish, and got started with the tank. I thought to myself as I would slowly add fish, I knew that feeding and fish waste would add to the nitrates, so within a month I had started Chaeto in the fuge, and NoPox dosing per the label. Of course, I never had any Nitrates and Phosphates read out on my kits. Went through the Diatom phase, never really saw any green algae. Wasn't worried about it since I was expecting it. 28 days into it, I went and got a ricordea, zoa frag, and Favites brain coral. I then picked up a Neptune Trident so I could automate the big 3.
By the end of November, I had added a couple of SPS frags as well - birdsnest and a cheap acropora. I started noticing more red cyano building up. My Alk/Ca/Mg were dialed in and stable. Coralline was starting to appear on the back glass and rocks. Nitrates and Phosphates were zero. No green algae. I thought I was golden. Cyano really was driving me nuts just before Christmas before I went on a long weekend trip. I got impatient, and decided I was going to do Chemi-Clean. Chemiclean worked within days. Sand looked awesome, rocks were clean of the red cyano. By the time the new year came, I was getting a brown deposit on the sand once again, and also had bubbles. Rock had bubbles. SPS and LPS had evidence of the brown algae on them. I was puzzled and didn't think another Diatom bloom would do this. They would tend to disappear at night.
I bought a microscope, and confirmed I had Prorocentrum and Ostreopsis in early January 2020 when I had posted in this thread. My nutrients had been 0 Nitrates and 0 Phosphates since day one basically. I started with dosing KNO3 - Tree Stump Remover mixed up, and Brightwell Phos. I found that for the first couple of weeks, I could not keep my phosphates above zero, dosing sometimes twice a day. Nitrates stayed elevated up to 10. My strategy was well known to this thread:
1. Nitrates up to 10, phosphates up to 0.1 and keep them there
2. Let the glass get dirty, turned off my fuge. Stopped the NoPox.
3. 3 Day Blackout
4. Buy the 55W Bazooka from Jebao and Plumb it directly into the display
5. Filter Floss in High Flow Areas
6. Frequent blowing of the dinos off the rocks.
7. Turned down the intensity of my lighting to 50% from 100%
8. Dose Microbacter 7
9. Dose Phytoplankton and Copepods
I did this for about two weeks. The GHA started to appear big time on the rocks and backwall. The glass looked like hell. The SPS Corals succumbed quickly, and the Brain coral was looking bad. The Zoas were looking bad. By third week of January, the sand looked better but not completely normal. I decided I was going to let my light ramp up again, but I was going to maintain my Nitrates at 10-20 and Phosphates at 0.08-0.1 by dosing and checking once or twice daily. By January 25, I was getting more browning of the rocks, and the appearance was all Prorocentrum. I made the conclusion that they were not leaving the sand bed to be nuked by the UV sterilizer so...
I pulled my entire 80lb, 1.5 inch deep sand bed.. I had marinepure in my sump, so I figured I wouldn't trash my tank with an inadequate bioload.
After that, no more brown on the bottom of the tank. Problem solved, just maintain the nitrates and phosphates right? Disconnected the 55W Jebao UV sterilizer. Lets add some more Acans, Elegance, Hammer Coral, and some more SPS frags! Things were looking pretty good, until we got to late February, when there was more browning of the rocks, and bubbles, and a little snot. There was recession the LPS, and STN, followed by rapid colonization of the coral skeleton with the algae. Maybe it was just another GHA as I was still dealing with that. I decided I would check it again...
All Ostreopsis, no prorocentrum. dang...
Jebao Bazooka back online, 3 day blackout, blast the rocks. Continue to maintain nutrients. Figured I would now start adding 1ml/10gal of Vibrant into the tank to deal with the GHA twice a week. Took all the way until early April before the GHA disappeared. The Ostreopsis disappeared from microscope view within a week. I would continue the UV sterilizer through this. Elegance, Acan recessed severely, but not completely dead.
By Early-Mid April, I was pretty satisfied with how the tank looked. NO3 now 15-20 steady, Phos 0.06-0.08 steady. Alk dialed in at 8 with dosing, Mg at 1300, Ca at 430. No visible dinos, and maybe would see one ostreopsis per slide and sometimes another funny looking dino which I would come to ID later as Amphidinum. Out with the UV Sterilizer and ramp up the lights again.
Bought a cheap Acro frag, an Alveopora, another Acan, and another Favia to see if these guys can hang in there this time.
By mid April, im testing Nitrates and Phosphates daily, and keeping the Neptune Trident running with the levels dialed in solidly stable. Minimal amounts of hair algae. Scaled way back on the vibrant. Still dosing Microbacter 7 weekly. Start dosing NoPox at 25% of recommended value to see if I can get my Nitrates to 5-10 and my phosphates to 0.04. Start to see the Acro Frag within 4 days of placing him stop extending polyps and losing his green color. The other Alveos, Acan, Favia still look great. See one or two bubbles on a patch of algae on the back wall that my magnet cleaner doesn't get. I also sampled some spots on the rock where some (like 1 or 2) bubbles were forming in the little GHA that was left. I put it under the microscope.
Algae, but probably about 5-10 ostreopsis, and 40-50 Amphidinum cells on my slide, this is right at the start of this month May. Granted, you really could not see any evidence of dinos at this point, but I wasn't going to let them get ahead of me. Also will not that Alk consumption drops as well when the dinos have taken hold, and that was starting to happen on the Trident.
UV Back on, Light intensity dropped. NoPox stopped.
Vibrant Stopped
I started surfing the Amphidinum thread on this forum, and saw what @Mark had posted about raising the tank temperature. I started raising my tank temperature on May 5th, and in 24 hours on May 6th, I was at 82.2F and holding steady. Today, I have checked my glass, rocks, floor of the tank, base of my coal frags under the microscope multiple times today. I have only seen one amphidinum cell so far and no ostreopsis. Corals did not seem to mind at all the temperature increase over the 24 hour period.
I'll keep checking under the microscope daily, while holding the temp at 82.2F and we'll see how things go.
This time around, I was going to do my research. I remember dealing with hitch-hikers, flatworms, aptasia, and I was going to therefore start with dry rock this time, aragonite live sand. I picked up the Neptune Apex controller, and I was excited about this new technology which wasn't available with my previous tank. I bought Salifert Kits, Hanna Kits because I was going to check my levels this time. I remember reading that SPS required near zero nitrates and phosphates and I had that goal in mind. I read about NoPOX, Refugiums, Chaeto, and all those methods that helped to keep nitrates and phosphates in check. I set my tank temp at 79F through the Neptune Apex.
Started off with a Dr. Tims fishless cycle, quarantined some clownfish, and got started with the tank. I thought to myself as I would slowly add fish, I knew that feeding and fish waste would add to the nitrates, so within a month I had started Chaeto in the fuge, and NoPox dosing per the label. Of course, I never had any Nitrates and Phosphates read out on my kits. Went through the Diatom phase, never really saw any green algae. Wasn't worried about it since I was expecting it. 28 days into it, I went and got a ricordea, zoa frag, and Favites brain coral. I then picked up a Neptune Trident so I could automate the big 3.
By the end of November, I had added a couple of SPS frags as well - birdsnest and a cheap acropora. I started noticing more red cyano building up. My Alk/Ca/Mg were dialed in and stable. Coralline was starting to appear on the back glass and rocks. Nitrates and Phosphates were zero. No green algae. I thought I was golden. Cyano really was driving me nuts just before Christmas before I went on a long weekend trip. I got impatient, and decided I was going to do Chemi-Clean. Chemiclean worked within days. Sand looked awesome, rocks were clean of the red cyano. By the time the new year came, I was getting a brown deposit on the sand once again, and also had bubbles. Rock had bubbles. SPS and LPS had evidence of the brown algae on them. I was puzzled and didn't think another Diatom bloom would do this. They would tend to disappear at night.
I bought a microscope, and confirmed I had Prorocentrum and Ostreopsis in early January 2020 when I had posted in this thread. My nutrients had been 0 Nitrates and 0 Phosphates since day one basically. I started with dosing KNO3 - Tree Stump Remover mixed up, and Brightwell Phos. I found that for the first couple of weeks, I could not keep my phosphates above zero, dosing sometimes twice a day. Nitrates stayed elevated up to 10. My strategy was well known to this thread:
1. Nitrates up to 10, phosphates up to 0.1 and keep them there
2. Let the glass get dirty, turned off my fuge. Stopped the NoPox.
3. 3 Day Blackout
4. Buy the 55W Bazooka from Jebao and Plumb it directly into the display
5. Filter Floss in High Flow Areas
6. Frequent blowing of the dinos off the rocks.
7. Turned down the intensity of my lighting to 50% from 100%
8. Dose Microbacter 7
9. Dose Phytoplankton and Copepods
I did this for about two weeks. The GHA started to appear big time on the rocks and backwall. The glass looked like hell. The SPS Corals succumbed quickly, and the Brain coral was looking bad. The Zoas were looking bad. By third week of January, the sand looked better but not completely normal. I decided I was going to let my light ramp up again, but I was going to maintain my Nitrates at 10-20 and Phosphates at 0.08-0.1 by dosing and checking once or twice daily. By January 25, I was getting more browning of the rocks, and the appearance was all Prorocentrum. I made the conclusion that they were not leaving the sand bed to be nuked by the UV sterilizer so...
I pulled my entire 80lb, 1.5 inch deep sand bed.. I had marinepure in my sump, so I figured I wouldn't trash my tank with an inadequate bioload.
After that, no more brown on the bottom of the tank. Problem solved, just maintain the nitrates and phosphates right? Disconnected the 55W Jebao UV sterilizer. Lets add some more Acans, Elegance, Hammer Coral, and some more SPS frags! Things were looking pretty good, until we got to late February, when there was more browning of the rocks, and bubbles, and a little snot. There was recession the LPS, and STN, followed by rapid colonization of the coral skeleton with the algae. Maybe it was just another GHA as I was still dealing with that. I decided I would check it again...
All Ostreopsis, no prorocentrum. dang...
Jebao Bazooka back online, 3 day blackout, blast the rocks. Continue to maintain nutrients. Figured I would now start adding 1ml/10gal of Vibrant into the tank to deal with the GHA twice a week. Took all the way until early April before the GHA disappeared. The Ostreopsis disappeared from microscope view within a week. I would continue the UV sterilizer through this. Elegance, Acan recessed severely, but not completely dead.
By Early-Mid April, I was pretty satisfied with how the tank looked. NO3 now 15-20 steady, Phos 0.06-0.08 steady. Alk dialed in at 8 with dosing, Mg at 1300, Ca at 430. No visible dinos, and maybe would see one ostreopsis per slide and sometimes another funny looking dino which I would come to ID later as Amphidinum. Out with the UV Sterilizer and ramp up the lights again.
Bought a cheap Acro frag, an Alveopora, another Acan, and another Favia to see if these guys can hang in there this time.
By mid April, im testing Nitrates and Phosphates daily, and keeping the Neptune Trident running with the levels dialed in solidly stable. Minimal amounts of hair algae. Scaled way back on the vibrant. Still dosing Microbacter 7 weekly. Start dosing NoPox at 25% of recommended value to see if I can get my Nitrates to 5-10 and my phosphates to 0.04. Start to see the Acro Frag within 4 days of placing him stop extending polyps and losing his green color. The other Alveos, Acan, Favia still look great. See one or two bubbles on a patch of algae on the back wall that my magnet cleaner doesn't get. I also sampled some spots on the rock where some (like 1 or 2) bubbles were forming in the little GHA that was left. I put it under the microscope.
Algae, but probably about 5-10 ostreopsis, and 40-50 Amphidinum cells on my slide, this is right at the start of this month May. Granted, you really could not see any evidence of dinos at this point, but I wasn't going to let them get ahead of me. Also will not that Alk consumption drops as well when the dinos have taken hold, and that was starting to happen on the Trident.
UV Back on, Light intensity dropped. NoPox stopped.
Vibrant Stopped
I started surfing the Amphidinum thread on this forum, and saw what @Mark had posted about raising the tank temperature. I started raising my tank temperature on May 5th, and in 24 hours on May 6th, I was at 82.2F and holding steady. Today, I have checked my glass, rocks, floor of the tank, base of my coal frags under the microscope multiple times today. I have only seen one amphidinum cell so far and no ostreopsis. Corals did not seem to mind at all the temperature increase over the 24 hour period.
I'll keep checking under the microscope daily, while holding the temp at 82.2F and we'll see how things go.
Mark
Active Member
A big thank you and credit to @hankacrank for sharing his discovery. Your story reminds me of mine. After decades of reefkeeping and fighting the usual pests or hiccups, I was beginning to think I finally ran into a chronic pest that would make me want to quit. Both of my reefs suffered from it, which led me to realize I wasn't going to get past it by starting over with new rock, substrate, etc. And I couldn't make sense of why Dino's were never a big deal in the past. We didn't need to dose nitrate, run UV, etc. How did an algae that was previously just a short hiccup in a new tank transition to being a plague that persists and chokes the life out of a tank today. You see veteran reefkeeping youtubers/bloggers/podcasters struggle to give advice on it, because they have never had longterm issues with it. Like diatoms, they were a temporary setback. I spent a long time wondering what changed. What's new in our methodology? Was it the bacterial dosing bottoming out nitrates? Iron from GFO? Lack of diversity due to the disappearance of real live rock in the hobby? Perhaps it was a more seasonal temperature range, since we used to bake our tanks with metal halides and T5's. It wasn't uncommon for my older tanks to hit 82 in the summer months. Who knows really though. All I know is that since I've bumped my temps up, the Dinos have vaporized and my corals are extremely happy and growing. And my tank smells like the ocean in a good way again.
Now I'm left wondering why the increased temperature works. Does it impact the lifecycle of Dino's? Does it affect availability of trace elements or metals? Does it impact denitrification and keep nutrients from bottoming out?
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Very Similar story here. It started with Amphidinum in Oct. after running too much GFO and a fuge. I tried H2o2, blackouts, Waste-away/Refresh etc. and finally just let the nutrients build back up by stopping the skimming/fuge and feeding heavy. I eventually started growing GHA in the fuge and the dinos slowly went away. I was good from Dec-Feb then the tank got REALLY dirty with detritus. I did a water change, dosed some Waste-away and cleaned the fuge of the GHA. Mistake #1. Osteoporosis then bloomed quickly. Killed all my Trochus snails (that were now breeding regularly) and my CUC. Tank was now a mess. I decided to tear it down and clean it in March. I waited about a month dosing NeoNitro/Neophos and I started growing green algae again. I thought I was out of the woods so I added back a new CUC. Mistake #2. They ate all the algae and I started to see brown in the sand again and the long strings (even tho my PO4 was .16 and NO3 was 10-20).
This is where I'm at now also. No longer seeing anything but some brown on the sand. I hoping it's just some diatoms but they are disappearing at night. I'll have to check with the microscope later today. I'm only starting on day 4 of 82.5 degrees so hoping by day 10 this will be gone.
I have no real understanding of why temperature would beat the dinos but I do remember from a class long ago how temperature changes that seem relatively minor can affect big changes in enzyme activity, etc and it’s possible that the Dinos we face have deteriorated metabolic function while their competitors possibly even see an increase allowing them to outcompete. Watching along to see how this plays out for folks.
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