Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Qasimja]

ive been running UV for about 8-9 days now every night i scrape the back wall and blow the rocks and stir the sand where the dinos accumulate i can really say the uv did the trick they arent coming back anymore my sand hasn't been this clean for months

 

[jeffww]

I had amphidium that ID'd using a scope at work and it took about 2 months to clear using UV, nutrient dosing and mechanical removal.

 

[taricha]

The mucus nets don't entirely disappear, but IME they do lessen. You may have to encourage them into the water manually.

Wanted to chime in on this point from a few pages back. When dinos do their nightly migration into the water, they seemingly leave their mucus attachment behind. So the sand/rock may appear lighter and darker and lighter etc. But the slimy-ness may be more constant.

 

[Nanorock1970]

It never hurts to have a good microscope on hand, and the practise will be good for when you really need it. I would also recommend the Hanna ULR checker. I use the Phosphorus one as it is said to be better for marine applications. Take the number it gives you then multiply by 3.0661, then divide by 1000 so you can quote the phosphate numbers we all quote around here.

If you really have .03 to .1 PO4, those are certainly diatoms. I think you can breathe easy and just keep doing what you are doing. Diatoms are fine creatures; never hurt a thing. A sand sifting goby can handle the aesthetics of white sand pretty well IME.

Cyno or red coraline? I had bright red Cyno before and with a baster, I was able to blow it off, This stuff does not.

 

[ScottB]

I had amphidium that ID'd using a scope at work and it took about 2 months to clear using UV, nutrient dosing and mechanical removal.

Amphids are the toughest to crack. Difficult to get them into the UV. Glad you are clear now.

 

[ScottB]

Cyno or red coraline? I had bright red Cyno before and with a baster, I was able to blow it off, This stuff does not.

My experience with cyano has all been the type you can blow off. My experience with turf algae has all been the green variety but have seen some red/purple stuff here and there. Is the stuff "soft" or more like a calcareous, hard texture?

 

[paparoof]

Okay so I appear to have joined this club now. Hoping for some help narrowing this down to an action-plan.

30 gal bare-bottom AIO (IM 30L). Been up ~4 months, started with dry rock. Pair of clowns, midas blenny, yellowtail damsel (he's a dick). CUC is four trochus snails, a single hermit crab and whatever's left of the 10,000 pods I added a couple months ago. Acans, zoas, euphyllia.

Things have been going slowly, but well overall so far. A few weeks ago I ditched the skimmer (tank is in my bedroom and skimmer noise was bothering me) and opted for packing a rear compartment with chaeto - lit for 17 hours/day. Was seeing some clumps of GHA overtaking some small zoa frags, so I dosed 1ml/gal Vibrant once a week for the last two weeks, Seneye started showing NH3 creeping up slowly (currently at .035) so I upped my vacuuming heavily - especially this last week. Still don't know what's causing the NH3 reading.

Now brown snot has started growing everywhere in the last week, digging around for info lead me to this thread.

I appreciate any assistance/advice y'all have to offer.

Nitrate: really, really close to 0
Phos: .04
Alk ~8.0

 

[Dsantamaria29]

Question for those fighting Dino’s. In regards to water changes, has anyone continued water changes but added nitrate / phosphate to the new salt water?

 

[ScottB]

Okay so I appear to have joined this club now. Hoping for some help narrowing this down to an action-plan.

30 gal bare-bottom AIO (IM 30L). Been up ~4 months, started with dry rock. Pair of clowns, midas blenny, yellowtail damsel (he's a dick). CUC is four trochus snails, a single hermit crab and whatever's left of the 10,000 pods I added a couple months ago. Acans, zoas, euphyllia.

Things have been going slowly, but well overall so far. A few weeks ago I ditched the skimmer (tank is in my bedroom and skimmer noise was bothering me) and opted for packing a rear compartment with chaeto - lit for 17 hours/day. Was seeing some clumps of GHA overtaking some small zoa frags, so I dosed 1ml/gal Vibrant once a week for the last two weeks, Seneye started showing NH3 creeping up slowly (currently at .035) so I upped my vacuuming heavily - especially this last week. Still don't know what's causing the NH3 reading.

Now brown snot has started growing everywhere in the last week, digging around for info lead me to this thread.

I appreciate any assistance/advice y'all have to offer.

Nitrate: really, really close to 0
Phos: .04
Alk ~8.0

Yup. Welcome to the club. Ostreopsis. Good news: very susceptible to UV. Bad news: they produce toxins that kill off competitors, pods, can damage/kill corals.
a) Get a UV, 1 watt per three gallons. Slow flow TO/FROM the display not the sump.
b) Baste regularly; remove manually as much as possible.
c) Run some GAC
d) Dose NO3 and PO4 to 10-15 and >.1 respectively
d) Stop all forms of nutrient removal. Dry skim is fine. Very limited fuge lighting if at all.

If you are pulling all of the above levers, you should be clear inside a month.

 

[K.miller]

Question for those fighting Dino’s. In regards to water changes, has anyone continued water changes but added nitrate / phosphate to the new salt water?

I just did this last night so i could suck out some sand. Ill see what happens over the next couple days and report back

 

[ScottB]

Question for those fighting Dino’s. In regards to water changes, has anyone continued water changes but added nitrate / phosphate to the new salt water?

Intuitively this would help minimize the chance of enhancing dino growth. I don't have a definitive answer though. I guess there is a chance that the NSW replaces some trace elements that the dinos depleted. Dinos "seem to have" depleted Iodine and Potassium in my system according to what Instant Ocean RC says it mixes versus what ICP said was missing in my water post dinos.

If the WC is done in order to physically remove dinos, I believe it is an OK risk trade. Anyone want to take the other side of the argument?

 

[paparoof]

Yup. Welcome to the club. Ostreopsis. Good news: very susceptible to UV. Bad news: they produce toxins that kill off competitors, pods, can damage/kill corals.
a) Get a UV, 1 watt per three gallons. Slow flow TO/FROM the display not the sump.
b) Baste regularly; remove manually as much as possible.
c) Run some GAC
d) Dose NO3 and PO4 to 10-15 and >.1 respectively
d) Stop all forms of nutrient removal. Dry skim is fine. Very limited fuge lighting if at all.

If you are pulling all of the above levers, you should be clear inside a month.

Thanks Scott - I made it about 800 posts into this thread last night before I nodded off, but what you've typed up there was essentially the action plan I'd arrived at too. Good to have the confirmation. Like others, I didn't realize the dangers of going "too-clean". I do now...

I've got a fresh cup of ROX carbon hanging in the rear sump section now. I dropped the fuge lighting WAY back to 6 hours overnight.

I live about 5 minutes away from BRS so I ordered Brightwell Neonitro and Neophos and I'll go pick 'em up shortly.

I'm considering also grabbing one of these UV units (https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/auqa-shield-uv-sterilizer-midsize-innovative-marine.html) it's not super powerful, but it's made to fit my tank. The tank has two overflows, so I could actually run a pair of them so that I'm sure ALL the water is forced through. Then I'll dial back the return pump to its slowest speed and cross my fingers.

Current dilemma: I jumped the gun a little little last night on the "bio-diversity" front and ordered 5 pounds of GARF grunge before reading far enough into the thread that I realized I should probably get NO3 and PO4 into line and the dinos on the ropes before piling on the bio-diversity. I now understand things are likely to get uglier before they get better and there was an image of a dead pod stuck in lump of dinos that made me sad. I also read that UV will sterilize the pods I have now so they can't reproduce - yeah I know most of the pods are on/in the rock and not going to flow through the UV but read on...

So this got me thinking (uh-oh); if the GARF arrives before I've got my NO3 and PO4 in line, I'm considering setting up a second tank I already have (10 gallon) as a holding zone. I could throw the GARF and my current chaeto ball in there to try to keep everything alive until its ready to go back in the 30 gal. This of course means twice as much NO3/PO4 dosing and testing since I'm sure there are dino cells/spores/cysts in the chaeto (appears clean so far though). But this would allow me to go guilt-free full-bore with the dosing/dual-UV plan on the 30 gal while keeping (at least some) of my pod population and the GARF happy and reproducing until I'm ready for them to join the fight.

So I guess the question there is if y'all think it's worth it to setup the temporary second tank as described or if I should just dump in the GARF when it gets here and buy new cheato and pods when the time comes.

 

[ScottB]

So jealous that you live 5 minutes from BRS. No. Scratch that. Your HIGH temperature for tomorrow is 12F. Nevermind.
But glad you can start dosing right away. Note that dosing NO3 will lower PO4, so if you are going to aggressively dose just keep that in mind. I ramped gradually the first time, and IMO was just wasting time. When I suffered my second bloom, I intentionally hammered the system with NO3 and PO4. Resolved things faster. Left me with a touch of cyano for a while but that stuff is no big deal in a bare bottom.


If you are OK with the additional work/testing I won't try to talk you out of setting up the 10G holding tank. It is probably good practise for setting up an emergency tank someday. The surfaces of that holding tank are going to be sterile, so you have to accept the risk that dinos might find that hospitable.

 

[paparoof]

Note that dosing NO3 will lower PO4, so if you are going to aggressively dose just keep that in mind. I ramped gradually the first time, and IMO was just wasting time. When I suffered my second bloom, I intentionally hammered the system with NO3 and PO4.

Yeah I'm planning to just go for it. dang the torpedos and such...

If you are OK with the additional work/testing I won't try to talk you out of setting up the 10G holding tank. It is probably good practise for setting up an emergency tank someday. The surfaces of that holding tank are going to be sterile, so you have to accept the risk that dinos might find that hospitable.

The big risk with setting up the second tank is the eye roll I'm gonna get from Mrs Paparoof.

 

[ScottB]

Yeah I'm planning to just go for it. dang the torpedos and such...



The big risk with setting up the second tank is the eye roll I'm gonna get from Mrs Paparoof.

Haha! Yup know that look. I keep a separate suite of tanks in MY part of the house--the unfinished basement.

 

[paparoof]

insert the reefing version of this classic:
"my biggest fear is that when I die my wife will sell all my guitars for what I told her I paid for them".

 

[paparoof]

Alright you dinos. Better get yer things in order and make peace wherever you need to, cause here comes the double-barrel middle finger of justice!

 

[ScottB]

Like a couple A-10 Warthogs coming in low...

Gonna be a rough night for those dastardly dino critters.

 

[Evan228]

Need help with ID please

 

[Evan228]

Need help with ID please