Dinoflagellates - dinos a possible cure!? Follow along and see!

[mcarroll]

Carbon dosing (vodka, biopellets) is not the same as using activated carbon (ROX, Black Diamond, Reef Carbon, Matrix Carbon).

Carbon dosing slants your tanks phyto community toward blooms.

Activated carbon adsorbs "dissolved organics"...including Dino toxins we hope.

 

[mcarroll]

I meant to @bh750 on that last post.

 

[bh750]

Carbon dosing (vodka, biopellets) is not the same as using activated carbon (ROX, Black Diamond, Reef Carbon, Matrix Carbon).

Carbon dosing slants your tanks phyto community toward blooms.

Activated carbon adsorbs "dissolved organics"...including Dino toxins we hope.

Ahhh! Ok thanks. got it.

 

[becks]

I keep seeing people (thought you too) saying to stop dosing carbon

Anyway I'm seeing very positive results manually raising my NO3 and PO4 over the last two weeks. Dinos 85% gone!!

I'll post more details very soon with pictures.

What's your po4 and no3? Because since I've gone dirty mine have been taken a beating

 

[mcarroll]

@bh750 if you haven't already seen (or clicked through) on the link in post #4146 try it and see if there's some good/interesting info.

 

[Pmj]

Update after @mcarroll 's last instructions. I stopped all carbon dosing & H202. Carbon seemed to massively help what I think were dino toxins. I did a 3 days lights out with just 2% moonlights for a bit each day. I was blowing off corals multiple times a day and cleaning the filter sock twice a day b/c it was completely covered in brown gunk. Dinos like 90% gone for now. I may have to do another blackout in a month but I'm hoping as nutrients rise they will die too.

Corals and nem are much better and recovering. A few corals lost tissue b/c of the dinos irritating them, not sure if I should clip them or just hope it heals. It's such a terrible feeling watching corals die. PO4 at .045 now.

Thanks for help all.

 

[mcarroll]

@Pmj @becks (and anyone else who appears to be done) would you mind posting a synopsis of how your situation went here:
Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

 

[bh750]

What's your po4 and no3? Because since I've gone dirty mine have been taken a beating

Checkout below. Gonna post all details right now...

@bh750 if you haven't already seen (or clicked through) on the link in post #4146 try it and see if there's some good/interesting info.

Actually I've been there! Great post and helped me get to where I am now.

So maybe for the first time in 5 years I can say I might have beaten the Dinos. And thanks to all of you here. First a picture from 2 weeks ago:

5/11/17 this is what it looked like:

I finally went an purchased a very good quality microscope to identify exactly what I had. I finally learned I had Dino Amp. spp.

Here's what it looked like yesterday 5/26/17

Its hard to tell completely from the pics but they're 90% gone. Completely gone from the rocks and almost gone off the sand!!!!
Can't say how excited I am.

I learned on here the important if a balance between NO3 and PO4. I used to strive for a zero nutrient system. All of the last 15 years until now.

So here's what I did:

1) Purchased some reliable, new test kits to test both NO3 (Nyos) and PO4 (Hanna low range checker)
2) Purchased Stump remover to dose NO3
3) Purchased Seachem Flourish Phosphorus (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002APIJQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
4) Measured NO3 and PO4 each day, dosing to keep them within specific levels.

Goals:
NO3: between 3-10PPM
PO4: between 0.01 and 0.10 (anything above zero really since I always get a 0.00 reading)

Turned out my NO3 was already within range so actually never had to dose it. So simply dosed the Seachem Phosporus.

Here's my log

I have ~280g system of total volume. I started out dosing 10ml of PO4. I immediately noticed a difference after the first day!! Nothing big, very subtle. But I've been staring at these things for 5 years so I can tell. Each day they seemed to get darker and gain white patches, spots or breaks in them showing the white sand beneath the Dino mat. Each day I could tell. I really, really wanted to take it slow so I dropped it back to 5ML for two days. But I couldnt notice any impact so moved back to 10ML. In the end I moved it up to 20ML -- guess I got impatient, but really just experimenting. Missed a couple of days here and there b/c of work. Also once I got a PO4 reading in the range I did not dose PO4.

When I turned on the lights yesterday after being gone a few days I swear it looked like the morning after I dosed Chemiclean!! The tank was pure white with purple algae on the rocks, clear water. Dinos hardly visible. They gained a little as the day went on.

Oh, also, I just did this on Friday:

- Expanded my refugium space by adding 4 x 10 gallong tanks dedicated solely to growing out beneficial critters.
- Added macro algae (from the Algae Barn): Chaeto, Red Gracilla, Sea Lettuce
- Added 10,000 copepods, 3 different types, (also from the Algae Barn)
- Dosed phytoplankton (also from Algae Barn)

Not sure about the Phyto but it came with my order and figured it would only add to the biodiversity of my tank and help feed the new copepods.

My plan is to keep testing as much as I can, daily for now. And dose as needed to keep NO3 and PO4 within levels.
Really work on strengthening my fuges to keep things healthy.

Its still early and I've lost many a battle with this stuff.
But for the first time EVER I am hopeful, and excited!!

 

[Jolanta]

Checkout below. Gonna post all details right now...



Actually I've been there! Great post and helped me get to where I am now.

So maybe for the first time in 5 years I can say I might have beaten the Dinos. And thanks to all of you here. First a picture from 2 weeks ago:

5/11/17 this is what it looked like:

I finally went an purchased a very good quality microscope to identify exactly what I had. I finally learned I had Dino Amp. spp.

Here's what it looked like yesterday 5/26/17

Its hard to tell completely from the pics but they're 90% gone. Completely gone from the rocks and almost gone off the sand!!!!
Can't say how excited I am.

I learned on here the important if a balance between NO3 and PO4. I used to strive for a zero nutrient system. All of the last 15 years until now.

So here's what I did:

1) Purchased some reliable, new test kits to test both NO3 (Nyos) and PO4 (Hanna low range checker)
2) Purchased Stump remover to dose NO3
3) Purchased Seachem Flourish Phosphorus (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002APIJQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
4) Measured NO3 and PO4 each day, dosing to keep them within specific levels.

Goals:
NO3: between 3-10PPM
PO4: between 0.01 and 0.10 (anything above zero really since I always get a 0.00 reading)

Turned out my NO3 was already within range so actually never had to dose it. So simply dosed the Seachem Phosporus.

Here's my log

I have ~280g system of total volume. I started out dosing 10ml of PO4. I immediately noticed a difference after the first day!! Nothing big, very subtle. But I've been staring at these things for 5 years so I can tell. Each day they seemed to get darker and gain white patches, spots or breaks in them showing the white sand beneath the Dino mat. Each day I could tell. I really, really wanted to take it slow so I dropped it back to 5ML for two days. But I couldnt notice any impact so moved back to 10ML. In the end I moved it up to 20ML -- guess I got impatient, but really just experimenting. Missed a couple of days here and there b/c of work. Also once I got a PO4 reading in the range I did not dose PO4.

When I turned on the lights yesterday after being gone a few days I swear it looked like the morning after I dosed Chemiclean!! The tank was pure white with purple algae on the rocks, clear water. Dinos hardly visible. They gained a little as the day went on.

Oh, also, I just did this on Friday:

- Expanded my refugium space by adding 4 x 10 gallong tanks dedicated solely to growing out beneficial critters.
- Added macro algae (from the Algae Barn): Chaeto, Red Gracilla, Sea Lettuce
- Added 10,000 copepods, 3 different types, (also from the Algae Barn)
- Dosed phytoplankton (also from Algae Barn)

Not sure about the Phyto but it came with my order and figured it would only add to the biodiversity of my tank and help feed the new copepods.

My plan is to keep testing as much as I can, daily for now. And dose as needed to keep NO3 and PO4 within levels.
Really work on strengthening my fuges to keep things healthy.

Its still early and I've lost many a battle with this stuff.
But for the first time EVER I am hopeful, and excited!!

I really hope it wont be like my story that blackouts always fools me and I think Im winning and then two weeks later Im depressed couse they are back.
Today in Mexican forum a friend posted this video
I dont know if someone speak spanish to understand it but if not I will tell you shortly. This guy had ostreopsis ovata and tried everything literaly, including dirthy method that took his tank to grow a lot of hair algae ( like you can see in his video) and ostreopsis still cooexist with the hair algae , he tried also two months of blackout, dinox, dinoxal, h2o2, he says the only hope is to be lucky and to get in a frag or rock a tipe of fungus that atacks ostreopsis, its the only think that kills it. He decided to better restart his tank. I think I will take his exaple, maybe try one month more with dosing phosphate and diatom filter cleaning and if I dont see any improvemnet I will also restart all and if I still get ostreopsis I think I will need to change the hobby ...

 

[rog2961]

dinos need to be handled slowly. there is no quick fix to them

 

[becks]

@Pmj @becks (and anyone else who appears to be done) would you mind posting a synopsis of how your situation went here:
Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

Yep I will do, I'll see how it goes this week as I cleaned my tank yesterday, I had green algae covering the glass, and I had green hair algae grow over the top of the dinos, my dinos did not get long and stringy and generally stayed on the sand bed, it behaved in all the usual Dino test.

But since cleaning the tank completely yesterday they have not came back, previously they would start re appearing within a few hours of cleaning the sand bed and all is clean, I have a few bits of green algae on the rocks in a few places which I left as I would rather have some hair algae than dinos. I definitely think there is some kind of imbalance in the system that is cause because prior to dinos I never ever had any type of green algae growing anywhere.

If it has worked I'll detail everything I done in the thread you quoted.

 

[mandrieu]

I really hope it wont be like my story that blackouts always fools me and I think Im winning and then two weeks later Im depressed couse they are back.
Today in Mexican forum a friend posted this video
I dont know if someone speak spanish to understand it but if not I will tell you shortly. This guy had ostreopsis ovata and tried everything literaly, including dirthy method that took his tank to grow a lot of hair algae ( like you can see in his video) and ostreopsis still cooexist with the hair algae , he tried also two months of blackout, dinox, dinoxal, h2o2, he says the only hope is to be lucky and to get in a frag or rock a tipe of fungus that atacks ostreopsis, its the only think that kills it. He decided to better restart his tank. I think I will take his exaple, maybe try one month more with dosing phosphate and diatom filter cleaning and if I dont see any improvemnet I will also restart all and if I still get ostreopsis I think I will need to change the hobby ...

Gracias!

 

[mcarroll]

This guy had ostreopsis ovata

That doesn't look like a harmful algae bloom, though it does look like A LOT of algae!

Do you know what problem he was experiencing related to the algae, if any? Doesn't look like there were ever corals in the tank.

A bloom of hair algae is a pretty normal response when a PO4-loaded system gets dosed with a spike of nitrates.

But that kind of system is not typically the kind that generates a harmful algae bloom. It seems like something doesn't add up.

This guy had ostreopsis ovata and tried everything literaly, including dirthy method that took his tank to grow a lot of hair algae[...]
[...]he tried also two months of blackout, dinox, dinoxal, h2o2,

It would also be interesting to know more about the history on this tank. Based on the treatments attempted is it fair to guess he was also using GFO and carbon-source dosing?

Based on what I see and what little I know so far, I would hesitate to compare your case with his too closely.

 

[Jolanta]

That doesn't look like a harmful algae bloom, though it does look like A LOT of algae!

Do you know what problem he was experiencing related to the algae, if any? Doesn't look like there were ever corals in the tank.

A bloom of hair algae is a pretty normal response when a PO4-loaded system gets dosed with a spike of nitrates.

But that kind of system is not typically the kind that generates a harmful algae bloom. It seems like something doesn't add up.




It would also be interesting to know more about the history on this tank. Based on the treatments attempted is it fair to guess he was also using GFO and carbon-source dosing?

Based on what I see and what little I know so far, I would hesitate to compare your case with his too closely.

The point of the video was to show that even if you have a hight nutrient system and a lot of green algae it won´t kill ostreopsis ovata, it will cooexist with the hair algae like it is in my tank also, so the dirthy method wont work. In the tank he shows he dont have corals but in the other one algea killed all his sps. Let me check on his videos and I will let you know how his problem started and the methods he tried couse I dont remember it all, in the video says he tried 2 months of blackout, a lot of h202, dinox, adding pods to the tank ..

 

[mandrieu]

The point of the video was to show that even if you have a hight nutrient system and a lot of green algae it won´t kill ostreopsis ovata, it will cooexist with the hair algae like it is in my tank also, so the dirthy method wont work. In the tank he shows he dont have corals but in the other one algea killed all his sps. Let me check on his videos and I will let you know how his problem started and the methods he tried couse I dont remember it all, in the video says he tried 2 months of blackout, a lot of h202, dinox, adding pods to the tank ..

Yep, that's exactly what he's saying (lucky me for being bi-lingual). Ostreos are mean...

 

[rog2961]

did he mention what his phosphate and nitrate levels were? I would imagine that newer tank with high nutrients, without much competition would cause a dino bloom. On established tanks, raising nutrients work because of a abundance of other algaes to outcompete. His tank does look relatively new so this may be the reason why. Also dont see corals which work as a scrubber of sorts.

 

[Jolanta]

did he mention what his phosphate and nitrate levels were? I would imagine that newer tank with high nutrients, without much competition would cause a dino bloom. On established tanks, raising nutrients work because of a abundance of other algaes to outcompete. His tank does look relatively new so this may be the reason why. Also dont see corals which work as a scrubber of sorts.

I think for having so much hair algea his nutrients are really high. His tank had dinos about one year now so I' sure the tank is more then one year old. My tank is a year old and when I rised my nutrients from 0 to 30 nitrates and 0.059 phosphates I can see hair algae and a lot of ciano and of course ostreopsis dinos, they stay the same as when I had 0 nitrate and phosphate, only the blackout and the diatom filter can keep then under control.
I decided to make other small tank with new water, dip my remining coral in fresh water and maybe tank water with peroxide before putting them in, turn my DT light off (only turn on for feeding the fish) then use my diatom filter two time a week, maintaining my nutrients high and maybe that way copepodes will take care of some few dinos that my filter missed. What do you thing, it could work? I really dont know what more to do to save my tank.

 

[rog2961]

have you tried adding rock/sand/crap from other peoples tank? At this point your tank is probably pretty beat with whats happening. I'd go for a light bleach dose to really knock them back, and then start dosing phosphates and nitrates as needed. I know people are scared to try it and for good reason. I have a fallow tank and it worked fine, with fish if you go with a lower dose I dont think you'll have problems. I think it was the other thread, but the dinos have the ability to uptake wide ranges of nitrates, so it may just be you have forms of nitrate the dinos are able to uptake. Stick with simple forms of nitrates/phophates and you may have a chance.

 

[Jolanta]

have you tried adding rock/sand/crap from other peoples tank? At this point your tank is probably pretty beat with whats happening. I'd go for a light bleach dose to really knock them back, and then start dosing phosphates and nitrates as needed. I know people are scared to try it and for good reason. I have a fallow tank and it worked fine, with fish if you go with a lower dose I dont think you'll have problems. I think it was the other thread, but the dinos have the ability to uptake wide ranges of nitrates, so it may just be you have forms of nitrate the dinos are able to uptake. Stick with simple forms of nitrates/phophates and you may have a chance.

I have a friend in a local fish store who can take care of my fish and corals meantime and I can use bleach freely but Im scared I will reintroduce dinos putting my fish and corals back. Im also scared that my fish could stress a lot and die in a fish store. From other stories I know bleach with fish in is really risky so I would prefer to take then out.

 

[rog2961]

the bleach doesn't 100% fix it, but it does get it down to a manageable level where you can start introducing controlled amount of nitrates and phosphates. Im running fallow so its not an issue with fish, but if you have another tank you could easily start that up and transfer them into that one.