Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[XNavyDiver]

Let us know what sort of benefits you notice. I'm excited to see all the new critters.

Sure thing. So far I've spent a few hours last night with a turkey baster blowing off nasty strings of dinos that were coated in the grunge dust. Woke up this morning and the h2o was completely clear before the lights came on.
When I get home from work I'll take a look at where my no3 and po4 are at.
I turned both my WAV pumps up to 100% last night to simulate a storm and to collect as much of the crud in the filter sock, which I had to clean out 2 times last night.

 

[sfin52]

Were do you get your garf from?

 

[zachxlutz]

Were do you get your garf from?

http://www.garf.org/

 

[zachxlutz]

Here's a few shots of some problem areas right after all 8 T5 bulbs kicked on... I don't usually get to see the tank at this time of day but it appears that the dinos are a little whiter in color and not so brown, as they typically are. I'll take comparison photos in a few hours after the lights have been on and see if it has darkened up at all or if I'm actually making some progress...

It should be noted that the overflow and pumps were cleaned off quite a bit within the last few days, you can see what kind of snot I'm dealing with here.

 

[Torqued]

Well guys, I think I may have the dreaded Dinos myself.

I have a brand new tank, its been up and running for less than 1 month. I started with all dry rock (thinking stuff like this is what I am trying to avoid!!!!!!!!!!!!).

Here is a vid of my tank.




It is FULL of cyano and what looks like Dinos. Prior to starting to read this thread, my thought was shut off my lights, and starve it out by putting cheato in the sump and letting it chew all the nutrients down. Maybe even build a turf scrubber (OR BOTH). Because I only have fish in the tank, I dont have corals to worry about, so at this point I just need this stuff gone. If it means no light on the main tank until this problem is resolved, so be it.

My nitrate is fairly high (or at least it was last I checked) at about 25ppm NO3. I have not yet checked my PO4 levels....

All this explains why I have so much dang cyano!!!! I was dosing vinager, though it was a very small amount (like 10ml per day for a 220g total). I thought for sure it was my carbon dosing that made caused this Cyano, but now that I see what I THINK are Dinos, that explains the explosion of Cyano along side of the dinos. I did order myself a microscope to validate it, and I plan to do the "paper towel test" to confirm the dinos.

Assuming i do have Dinos, am I on the right track with treatment? Given I dont have corals, what is my next move from your perspective?

 

[sfin52]

http://www.garf.org/

Thanks

 

[Torqued]

I performed the paper towel test. I removed 1 ply to allow a bit through. The water was still pretty clear, and no algae/dinos reformed. I am feeling hopeful that I don't actually have dinos.......

 

[XNavyDiver]

Update: GARF Grunge has been in the sump for a couple of days now and my water is crystal clear. By the time I get to see the tank everyday it's around 4 pm, when I get home from the office. Dinos have definitely not gotten worse, and have receded just a bit. Did water testing at around 4 pm yesterday. Snap shots of the results below.
I'm going to take a hands off approach as of now and wait and see. I was going to hook up a 55w uv that I have, but I decided to just wait and see what effect the Garf grunge has. As of now, everything in the tank is happy EXCEPT the sps corals. All lps is doing well (chalice's, favia, blastomussa, acans), but all my acros- stylo, millis, strawberry shortcake are still very unhappy. A couple montis and a setosa are fine, but not growing for sure.

 

[zachxlutz]

Update: GARF Grunge has been in the sump for a couple of days now and my water is crystal clear. By the time I get to see the tank everyday it's around 4 pm, when I get home from the office. Dinos have definitely not gotten worse, and have receded just a bit. Did water testing at around 4 pm yesterday. Snap shots of the results below.
I'm going to take a hands off approach as of now and wait and see. I was going to hook up a 55w uv that I have, but I decided to just wait and see what effect the Garf grunge has. As of now, everything in the tank is happy EXCEPT the sps corals. All lps is doing well (chalice's, favia, blastomussa, acans), but all my acros- stylo, millis, strawberry shortcake are still very unhappy. A couple montis and a setosa are fine, but not growing for sure.

Very cool. I'd stay on top of your testing to make sure your nutrients don't bottom out and cause another bloom.

 

[Torqued]

Well guys, I think I may have the dreaded Dinos myself.

I have a brand new tank, its been up and running for less than 1 month. I started with all dry rock (thinking stuff like this is what I am trying to avoid!!!!!!!!!!!!).

Here is a vid of my tank.




It is FULL of cyano and what looks like Dinos. Prior to starting to read this thread, my thought was shut off my lights, and starve it out by putting cheato in the sump and letting it chew all the nutrients down. Maybe even build a turf scrubber (OR BOTH). Because I only have fish in the tank, I dont have corals to worry about, so at this point I just need this stuff gone. If it means no light on the main tank until this problem is resolved, so be it.

My nitrate is fairly high (or at least it was last I checked) at about 25ppm NO3. I have not yet checked my PO4 levels....

All this explains why I have so much dang cyano!!!! I was dosing vinager, though it was a very small amount (like 10ml per day for a 220g total). I thought for sure it was my carbon dosing that made caused this Cyano, but now that I see what I THINK are Dinos, that explains the explosion of Cyano along side of the dinos. I did order myself a microscope to validate it, and I plan to do the "paper towel test" to confirm the dinos.

Assuming i do have Dinos, am I on the right track with treatment? Given I dont have corals, what is my next move from your perspective?

Nothing?

 

[sfin52]

Nothing?

Did you start reading from the beginning. Not real versed in this. My tank had 0 phosphates. I was running loads of gfo because phosphates are the devil. In my case not so much. I needed to add phosphates.

 

[mcarroll]

Nothing?

Without a scope ($12 toy scope is fine....look at my recent threads) it's hard to be more sure than you already are from the paper towel test.

Maybe repeat the test and put the sample under a bright light. Maybe even skip the paper towel part and just shake it up to homogenize your sample and then let it sit.

And consider getting that scope!

How does your system's history measure up to the ideads in the first post and how does it compare with lots of the other folks who've posted in the thread so far? Does your tank's history seem similar or different?

 

[J.durk]

 

[J.durk]

Hey guys sorry I couldn't figure out how to comment on the post with my picture.
And I'm sorry I didn't have time to read all 47 pages in this thread but I have more than a couple of these little boogers on my rock work does that look like Dino to you guys?

 

[mcarroll]

@J.durk sooner or later you're gonna be stuck reading the rest (at least the first post) whether we say yes, no or maybe, so put a little time on your calendar for it!

From the pic I'm gonna say maybe. Can you tell me if your tank seems to fit the profile?

 

[J.durk]

@J.durk sooner or later you're gonna be stuck reading the rest (at least the first post) whether we say yes, no or maybe, so put a little time on your calendar for it!

From the pic I'm gonna say maybe. Can you tell me if your tank seems to fit the profile?

Sorry I am new to the group and starting to try and do some of my own research since my LFS's answer to just about everything is do more water changes, which is probably valid for a lot of concerns.
I am going to go back and try to get through the entire thread but by "fit the profile" do you mean do I have a young tank with no phosphate ? If so, yes when I test I come up with zeros on everything. But I still have algae growing so the LFS tells me that the Algae is sucking everything up faster than I can test for it. this tank is only about 3 months old but 70% of the rock came from my old 100 gallon tank that was up for a year and a half and I have good growth from the coral in the tank even the sps in this tank(I didn't have that much luck with sps in the old tank) but I have these little boogers on all the rock that came from the old tank.

Does that help?

And the new tank is a 180

 

[mcarroll]

Sorry I am new to the group and starting to try and do some of my own research since my LFS's answer to just about everything is do more water changes, which is probably valid for a lot of concerns.
I am going to go back and try to get through the entire thread but by "fit the profile" do you mean do I have a young tank with no phosphate ? If so, yes when I test I come up with zeros on everything. But I still have algae growing so the LFS tells me that the Algae is sucking everything up faster than I can test for it. this tank is only about 3 months old but 70% of the rock came from my old 100 gallon tank that was up for a year and a half and I have good growth from the coral in the tank even the sps in this tank(I didn't have that much luck with sps in the old tank) but I have these little boogers on all the rock that came from the old tank.

Does that help?

And the new tank is a 180

Yes.

Seems like a dino-diagnosis is at least plausible.

How is your CUC? Pods specifically?

Do you do anything for nutrient reduction besides water changes and protein skimming? Stop anything aside from those two items.

Was the rock well-preserved in between tanks?

 

[J.durk]

CUC is about 20 hermits 25ish snails 2 conch and a brittle star. I have a 36 wt uv sterilizer that I'm running about 400 gph through and lastly I have a bag w carbon and gfo mixed in the last chamber between the fuge and return pump.

When you say stop everything but skimming and water changes do you mean socks and the fuge also?

The rock came out of the old tank directly to the new one.

 

[sfin52]

No the fug prob has Dino in it as well. Stop the gfo. GFO is sucking out the phosphates.
I was running heavy gfo that's how my problem started.

 

[sfin52]

I started seeing more pods last night running between the rocks. It was a blessed sight. A couple of small spots of green film algae growing on the tank. And the Dino on the sand and rock is not reappearing as fast. I'm definitely on the right track.