Dinoflagellates (I think) are stripping me of my joy for this hobby.

Mr. Experience · Mar 17, 2019

Hello everyone, I'm having major frustration with a side tank (Biocube 32) that I setup 3 months ago in December. This is probably about the 5th tank I've setup and its giving me more problems than the first 4 combined. I originally first notice my new tank syndrome beginning with the diatoms as I started with dry rock to avoid any hitch hikers or parasites, however, after about 3 weeks and the persistent darkening of rocks, I began to get a bit worried and took to the web to find out what it could be. The moment I was informed of a possibility of dinoflagellates, especially in such a low nutrient environment, I immediately adjusted my light schedule, but wasn't aware that water changes accelerate their growth. However, about two days after turning the lights to the tank back on (I have no corals yet so nothing to worry about other than two clownfish and a coral beauty) the Dinos returned almost immediately. I don't have an exact picture but I'm almost 99% sure it was Dinos as it formed long brown strings with air bubbles attached to the ends and matched up with pictures from online and I will be testing this for sure tomorrow when my microscope arrives and I can ID them. I've stopped doing water changes for over a month, dosed peroxide, dosed chemiclean (as I was getting small patches of cyano in random spots), installed a UV Sterilizer, added new live rock, copepods, and phytoplankton to assist with biodiversity, installed a refugium with chaeto, AND done multiple 5 day blackouts, and THEY'RE STILL THERE. I believe they are also growing on my chaeto to which I've also reduced the lighting schedule on that as well. And what really frustrates me is that I can even see the rocks turning the golden brown in spots where no light even reaches... as in literally under a rock...? At this point I've spent quite enough trying to control these things and it all just seems like a waste of time and money. BTW my Nitrates are around 20 sometimes 30 yet phosphates are 0 no matter how much overfeeding I do. I'm gonna take only a few more steps to try and fix this before I bring this tank to an end as I have a VERY busy schedule. I've ordered higher quality live rock in a larger proportion and plan to mix it as a majority with my current "live" rock and hope theres no large ammonia spike, and add a gallon or two of mixed natural bacterially cultivated marine water from my local fish store and remove my filtration system (except for filter floss) to increase nutrients for competition. Deep down I'm hoping what I see is cyano and not Dinos but ill find out for sure tomorrow when I ID them. If anyone can please give me some sort of hope if you've been in a similar situation or have dealt with these before I would appreciate it. Here are some pictures of my rock AFTER reducing light schedule to under 3 hours a day:

Coralreefer1 · Mar 17, 2019

I feel your pain, grief and discouragement, believe me, I’ve been there myself. Their is hope though as my tanks have ended up clearing up in due time. Periodically, I will witness a flair up of dinoflagellates and/or Cyanobacteria but they go away.
One thing I will say is you are trying to over think and do too much to rid your tank of your problem. Time, effort and money by dosing chemicals, installing a UV sterilizer etc. are not necessary, in my opinion.
All i did was adjust my lighting, alter feeding, water changes and use a turkey baster to remove the sedentary microalgae and INCREASE WATER FLOW! Either rearranging or adding more flow will make a big difference in minimizing your problem. I believe this is the one thing that you neglected to try and it will work.
Best of luck and you will get through this period of frustration...
Hope this helps!

Mr. Experience · Mar 17, 2019

Coralreefer1 said:
I feel your pain, grief and discouragement, believe me, I’ve been there myself. Their is hope though as my tanks have ended up clearing up in due time. Periodically, I will witness a flair up of dinoflagellates and/or Cyanobacteria but they go away.
One thing I will say is you are trying to over think and do too much to rid your tank of your problem. Time, effort and money by dosing chemicals, installing a UV sterilizer etc. are not necessary, in my opinion.
All i did was adjust my lighting, alter feeding, water changes and use a turkey baster to remove the sedentary microalgae and INCREASE WATER FLOW! Either rearranging or adding more flow will make a big difference in minimizing your problem. I believe this is the one thing that you neglected to try and it will work.
Best of luck and you will get through this period of frustration...
Hope this helps!

Thankyou! I will see how things go

Hermie · Mar 17, 2019

I'm kind of in a similar boat where I have previously dry rock that has algae issues (and cyano I assume) and it turns light golden brown/tan where light doesn't even reach, but it comes back to the question, what do we want our rocks to actually look like? I mean I want coralline algae growing all over but apparently that takes a really long time, so in the mean time, there's got to be some algae growing on the rocks or something. My best advice is to try to achieve stability for your tank and like coralreefer1 said, to take a step back and give it some time, try not to resort to chemical treatment, but I will say that phyto probably won't help. If anything, the phyto that dies will get eaten by diatoms or cyano or whatever else is on your rocks if the copepods dont eat it. Just try limiting your light to give your microfauna more of a chance to catch up with the microalgae growth.

Mr. Experience · Mar 17, 2019

NotASpammerDude said:
I'm kind of in a similar boat where I have previously dry rock that has algae issues (and cyano I assume) and it turns light golden brown/tan where light doesn't even reach, but it comes back to the question, what do we want our rocks to actually look like? I mean I want coralline algae growing all over but apparently that takes a really long time, so in the mean time, there's got to be some algae growing on the rocks or something. My best advice is to try to achieve stability for your tank and like coralreefer1 said, to take a step back and give it some time, try not to resort to chemical treatment, but I will say that phyto probably won't help. If anything, the phyto that dies will get eaten by diatoms or cyano or whatever else is on your rocks if the copepods dont eat it. Just try limiting your light to give your microfauna more of a chance to catch up with the microalgae growth.

Thankyou I never realized that about the phyto although I haven't seen many pods recently anyway so I guess ill cut that down. I also heard that although chaeto removes what they need from the water, they also like to host them so I removed that as well (and it was gross).

vetteguy53081 · Mar 18, 2019

lower bright lights, add chemi-clean (which does work) and as it breaks down, use Re Sea No4Pox3

Jonreefer · Mar 18, 2019

I dont see any Dinos anywhere. Just looks like typical growth on rock that darkens it up.

Jdurm55 · Mar 18, 2019

i started like you with dry rock to keep pests out. turns out im never going to start with dry rock again. the dry rock i got from bulk reef supply was leaching phosphates. after about a couple months of not being able to get rid of the green hair algae and dyno i got rid of the rock and restarted with some good live rock from a trusted fellow reefer. have had 0 problems since.

IslandLifeReef · Mar 18, 2019

I agree with @Jonreefer, where are the dino's?

Mr. Experience · Mar 18, 2019

Jonreefer said:
I dont see any Dinos anywhere. Just looks like typical growth on rock that darkens it up.

Do you know what could be causing bubbles then? They seem to form after about 3-4 days of 7 hours of light alongside the rocks turning golden

Mr. Experience · Mar 18, 2019

Jdurm55 said:
i started like you with dry rock to keep pests out. turns out im never going to start with dry rock again. the dry rock i got from bulk reef supply was leaching phosphates. after about a couple months of not being able to get rid of the green hair algae and dyno i got rid of the rock and restarted with some good live rock from a trusted fellow reefer. have had 0 problems since.

Thankyou for the warning! I'm looking into live rock as of this very moment to increase biodiversity in general.

Jonreefer · Mar 18, 2019

i dont see any bubbles either. Doesnt always mean Dino. could be diatoms or other items turning into nitrogen gas from it being a new tank and still maturing.