Dinoflagellates caused by an abundance of untestable organic nutrients in our tanks.

[Chris Villalobos]

So what you did was dose inorganic nutrients and decreased feeding to maintain / lower your TNb? With a current outbreak vaccuming the sandbed for nutrients would make alot of sense then along with a good sump cleaning and baster the rock to make the nutrients go into the water and down a sock / and or other filtration means.



It hit zero in october and i started dosing. I NEVER used gfo yet i got a ICP telling me 0.00 po4. ICP https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/68385/

If you're theory is correct. Dosing inorganic phosphate and nitrate along with removal of organics should lower or lead to the eradication of dinos, am i correct?

Since i got hairalgae and dinos about a month ago i started dosing both phosphate and nitrate. This pretty much lead to the hairalgae getting out of control along with dinos remaining unchanged. I started of doing 0.02 ppm every morning and went up to 0.1 every morning and evening, just 2-3 hours later it always showed zero again.

Make sure the Nitrogen and Phosphorus you are dosing isn't from a mixed source. Some store bought Nitrogen dosing products use Urea and Ammonia for some of the Nitrogen.

My thoughts are that you are not overfeeding, but the lack of Phosphorus degraded your beneficial bacteria population and left an opening for the Dinos to bloom. I would continue what you are doing, keep your Nitrogen where it's at and elevate your PO4, and dose beneficial bacteria to out compete the Dinos. The only problem is that elevating Phosphorus will probably increase your hair algae problem. Do you have Tangs to keep it in check?

 

[Brew12]

Currently have dinos that dont respond to UVC nor dirty metod.

N-doc https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-a/n-doc/1668/
ICP https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/74396/

Have you reached out other reefers in your area to see if you can get a piece of rock or even some sump sludge from their systems?

Dosing inorganic phoshate (expecially) and possibly nitrate doesn't directly eradicate dino's. It is to provide a food source for organisms to utilize that will "out compete" the dino's in our systems. If you don't have the organisms available to utilize those added nutrients they will not do much good. To me, it sounds like you may not have enough bio-diversity.
In my dream system I will grow bacteria and algae in my DT at almost the same rate that they can be consumed by my CuC. This keeps the DT looking nice, helps starve out the more problematic bacteria and dino's and keeps the tank as natural as possible.

 

[m0jjen]

Make sure the Nitrogen and Phosphorus you are dosing isn't from a mixed source. Some store bought Nitrogen dosing products use Urea and Ammonia for some of the Nitrogen.

My thoughts are that you are not overfeeding, but the lack of Phosphorus degraded your beneficial bacteria population and left an opening for the Dinos to bloom. I would continue what you are doing, keep your Nitrogen where it's at and elevate your PO4, and dose beneficial bacteria to out compete the Dinos. The only problem is that elevating Phosphorus will probably increase your hair algae problem. Do you have Tangs to keep it in check?

I have 3 tangs that wont touch it. Bough a sea hare and two urchins that died within a week. Most likely due to dinos sticking to the hair algae (its litterly brown)

 

[Chris Villalobos]

I have 3 tangs that wont touch it. Bough a sea hare and two urchins that died within a week. Most likely due to dinos sticking to the hair algae (its litterly brown)

Probably need to manually remove the hair algae. I have never seen a Tang eat it when its long. If you have pictures it would help.

 

[FlyPenFly]

No3: 2.0
Po4: 0

Tank has been up for abit over a year, dino bloom along with hairalgae came when i decided to rearrange the scape abit and stirred up alot of crap from the sand. Skimmer which produced little to no skimmate for the first year now produces a thick black sludge and alot of it

How deep was your sand

 

[Mortie31]

I have 3 tangs that wont touch it. Bough a sea hare and two urchins that died within a week. Most likely due to dinos sticking to the hair algae (its litterly brown)

If I was you I’d ask this in one of the dinos threads, this has nothing to do with TNb or NDOC results, you merely have 0 phosphate and poor biodiversity, which are a very common cause of dinos. It sounds as if you have minimal CUC so worth exploring your options, you are in an ackward situation as you need to increase nutrients... how easy is it to manually remove rocks and clean any algae of them? There are loads of people in here who have been through this and maybe able to help

 

[m0jjen]

How deep was your sand

About 1 inch

Probably need to manually remove the hair algae. I have never seen a Tang eat it when its long. If you have pictures it would help.

I am already sucking it out daily

If I was you I’d ask this in one of the dinos threads, this has nothing to do with TNb or NDOC results, you merely have 0 phosphate and poor biodiversity, which are a very common cause of dinos. It sounds as if you have minimal CUC so worth exploring your options, you are in an ackward situation as you need to increase nutrients... how easy is it to manually remove rocks and clean any algae of them? There are loads of people in here who have been through this and maybe able to help

I never intended to make this thread about me nor my dinoinfestation. I posted my tritons since it was mentioned earlier in the thread that n-doc results could lead the discussion further i already posted in the dino threads aswell

 

[Mortie31]

I never intended to make this thread about me nor my dinoinfestation. I posted my tritons since it was mentioned earlier in the thread that n-doc results could lead the discussion further i already posted in the dino threads aswell

I’m glad you posted, as we all need to see as many examples of N-DOC as possible and tanks in different stages and health, and sorry you haven’t got the answer you wanted. What advice did triton give you? I may sound harsh on this thread about N-DOC it’s frustration mainly with tritons silence and there unwillingness to provide data or enter into any discussion.. I’ll be sending off a test in a month or so myself once my algae bed is fully established.. have you posted on tritons Facebook page at all?

 

[m0jjen]

I’m glad you posted, as we all need to see as many examples of N-DOC as possible and tanks in different stages and health, and sorry you haven’t got the answer you wanted. What advice did triton give you? I may sound harsh on this thread about N-DOC it’s frustration mainly with tritons silence and there unwillingness to provide data or enter into any discussion.. I’ll be sending off a test in a month or so myself once my algae bed is fully established.. have you posted on tritons Facebook page at all?

The test result help pretty much said all my levels are good.



They say i can dose biobase if needed which actually could be a good idea at this point

 

[Mortie31]

The test result help pretty much said all my levels are good.



They say i can dose biobase if needed which actually could be a good idea at this point

Thanks for the update, it’s a pity that they don’t say why you should dose biobase...
Do you dose any carbon at all? Vodka or NoPox maybe?

 

[brandon429]

mentioned a few pages back, a neat way to test the origination theory for dinos is to invite a dino challenge and then work it using the claimed cause in reverse.

In the emergency forum, under killing dinos, we have a 40 gallon reef that is very clean rocks, no DSB, no organics we can see, and a dinos invasion.

Im not sure how organics factor into his tank, its darn near stripped of them

we are about to work the system using manual cleaning though. Now that they've no place to hide and amass new feed, after some test modeling of a few example rocks in a nano to things like freshwater bath etc, we should have a kill plan.

Id have to claim his dinos are caused by unlucky shopping, we're in the swinging seventies of the frag trade and sometimes you need penicillin and sometimes you don't. vectors range

no place I ever bought from had the cells in tow, so they never got in or the cloudy dsb I have in there would be invaded/theory

I definitely think that organics house and feed and insulate dinos

 

[Paullawr]

mentioned a few pages back, a neat way to test the origination theory for dinos is to invite a dino challenge and then work it using the claimed cause in reverse.

In the emergency forum, under killing dinos, we have a 40 gallon reef that is very clean rocks, no DSB, no organics we can see, and a dinos invasion.

Im not sure how organics factor into his tank, its darn near stripped of them

we are about to work the system using manual cleaning though

Just grab some dinos put them in a tank of fresh rodi salt water hit it with light and flow and see what happens.

There are only two possible outcomes.

1) They disappear overnight or after a couple of weeks.

2) They do what they do.

If its 2) you have saved a lot of time and money testing with triton and changing your environment.

If its 1) then we have proved there is nothing we can realistically do to reduce our saturated tanks to zero organics.
May as well bow out now.

As i said earlier to you i run a 40 litre which is about as clean as i can get it what with daily water changes, ozone, chem media, zeolite, and skimming. I get them. . . . . .

I like your ambition but it just seems flawed.

 

[m0jjen]

Thanks for the update, it’s a pity that they don’t say why you should dose biobase...
Do you dose any carbon at all? Vodka or NoPox maybe?

No dosing besides frozen food and occational pellets. Used to dose aminos and reef roids

Filtration is a bubble king supermarine 200 and a clarisea sk5000 on a reefer 625xxl with an additional 100 litre fragtank hooked up to the same sump. Yeah. Tried to find info on it aswell.

mentioned a few pages back, a neat way to test the origination theory for dinos is to invite a dino challenge and then work it using the claimed cause in reverse.

In the emergency forum, under killing dinos, we have a 40 gallon reef that is very clean rocks, no DSB, no organics we can see, and a dinos invasion.

Im not sure how organics factor into his tank, its darn near stripped of them

we are about to work the system using manual cleaning though. Now that they've no place to hide and amass new feed, after some test modeling of a few example rocks in a nano to things like freshwater bath etc, we should have a kill plan.

Id have to claim his dinos are caused by unlucky shopping, we're in the swinging seventies of the frag trade and sometimes you need penicillin and sometimes you don't. vectors range

no place I ever bought from had the cells in tow, so they never got in or the cloudy dsb I have in there would be invaded/theory

I definitely think that organics house and feed and insulate dinos

Different type of dinos different typ of causes id say. Tho i see many cases of stripped organics or nutrients as one cause i can very well see high organics and nutrients as a factor aswell. In both cases id say some disturbance took place before the bloom.

I might have made a major disturbance to balance when moving rocks and releasing nutrients from the sand. He might starv the bacteria load to death making room for more effecient organisms. Im open to both beeing viable causes

 

[m0jjen]

Just grab some dinos put them in a tank of fresh rodi salt water hit it with light and flow and see what happens.

There are only two possible outcomes.

1) They disappear overnight or after a couple of weeks.

2) They do what they do.

If its 2) you have saved a lot of time and money testing with triton and changing your environment.

If its 1) then we have proved there is nothing we can realistically do to reduce our saturated tanks to zero organics.
May as well bow out now.

As i said earlier to you i run a 40 litre which is about as clean as i can get it what with daily water changes, ozone, chem media, zeolite, and skimming. I get them. . . . . .

I like your ambition but it just seems flawed.

Smart. Im gonna collect 3 dino test batches. One in clean saltwater one in clean saltwater with some food pellets and one with display water with food and see

 

[Mortie31]

Filtration is a bubble king supermarine 200 and a clarisea sk5000 on a reefer 625xxl with an additional 100 litre fragtank hooked up to the same sump

Wow no wonder your struggling with low nutrients that’s a massive skimmer for your system, I’d be tempted to run it for 12 hours a day or less,

 

[m0jjen]

Wow no wonder your struggling with low nutrients that’s a massive skimmer for your system, I’d be tempted to run it for 12 hours a day or less,

Yeah got a massive deal on it tho. Plananing on increasing my volum by adding additional 500 litre to the system via a fragtank and couldnt resist.

Skimmer has been working fine for a year tho and tank has been really good until i rescaped

 

[Paullawr]

Smart. Im gonna collect 3 dino test batches. One in clean saltwater one in clean saltwater with some food pellets and one with display water with food and see

Milage may differ on strain so more strains the better. Ie some consume bacteria, light, nutrients.....

 

[m0jjen]

Milage may differ on strain so more strains the better. Ie some consume bacteria, light, nutrients.....

Im guessing they all wont disappear over night so i can preform a number of 48 hour tests

 

[FlyPenFly]

My theory is that some of the most common kinds of Dino's are silicate friendly and love new sand full of excess silicates. I find that when I am diligent about changing out my Phosguard (excellent silicate remover) they seem to go away on their own despite high traditional nutrients and feedings. IMO, phoguard has a capacity for po4 and a capacity for silicates, just because it sucks all the po4 out doesn't mean it's still being effective in sucking out silicates... but this is all just theory.

 

[m0jjen]

Been recapping the whole thread now and i also find the theory abit flawed. I do fully support the thought that dino is heavily supported by decaying organics and that organics play a huge role in winning the battle. We can see alot of strains taking a huge hit when sand is removed for example, where most organics reside. For example. I know i got m dinos from s LFS looong ago. I have won twice, and both times i removed sand, dosed bacteria, and inorganic nutrients.

I've started to remove my sandbed this time aswell, i took out about 2 kilos of sand into a 30 litre bucket. The sand had to be rinsed 45 times (half bucket then the water got poured out). And the water didnt come out clean anyhow after that. So rinsing with more than 700 litres of water didnt remove all the organics :| Imagin that beeing 2 out of 18 kilos of sand so 1/9. The organics removed is only 1/9 of the total organics exclusivly to the sand. I also cleaned my sump which had a brown sludge on the bottom, all filtration, calcium reactor etc. all came out with some type of organics. The dino took a HUGE hit. But not enough to beat it. So now 2 weeks after those actions the dino is coming back. Probably due to the organics i still have. Im going to remove all sand on sunday, keep blasting rock and so on which should get a majority of my organics out and report back.

Point beeing that these cells dont just evolve spontaneously from organics. They probably originally evolved over afew thousand years. The odds of them evolving faster in a smaller closed system dont feel that likely.

But the fact that they get supported by organic or inorganic componds are more than likely.