Dinoflagellates my experience......h2o2 reefing tool!!!!!

[brandon429]

imo no ats can consistently beat it. We can't even get the near lethal tankwide measures such as jacked kh to make consistent responses.

I'm equally guilty of once thinking hard peroxide doses would kill all dino infestations as well. By all means try what we think works, but a division begins if you seek out the true hard invaded tanks and try and one off apply what may have worked in a few tanks.

imo nobody is currently capable of beating dinos across challenge tanks with a consistent method.





Porkchop express on nano reef.com has a striking example

For three months we've done

High peroxide above 1:10

Hand removal daily with no gains of biomass but also no cessation. Hand removes twice a day three months

Pure taped black tank black outs so long it was killing the coral, week at a time while max dosing with peroxide

High alk and pH boosts

Phosphate scrubbing before and during the invasion (ats will have no benefit here)

Only a 55 watt pond based uv sterilizer is affecting a control (on a nano reef FYI)
Rated for multi hundred gallon pond

Grossly oversized uv is the Hail Mary pass for the bad tanks check it out

Even that can't be assured to work, all it did was lessen his grow back it didn't remove the entire biomass

 

[Wiz]

The overall thing to remember with any algae, especially dino's which are the easiest to get rid of, is that your export is simply too little. When you increase your export, the dino's go away first, then gha.

You cannot be serious? It's like someone skinny telling someone that's been battling weight issues that it's easy to lose weight.
I'd be very curious to hear what experience you have battling Dino?

although I agree that there is no consistent method. I was successful beating dinos using a couple of methods at the same time. and my tank parameters were perfect. I don't think that export has anything to do with dinos.I had nothing left to export and still had dinos pretty bad. Good tank husbandry, low light cycle, and high alkalinity were what did it for me

 

[SantaMonica]

I'd be very curious to hear what experience you have battling Dino?

Yes when you get good export, dino's are the first to loose the battle. GHA second, and bubble/cyano last. Have seen it so many times that it's very predictible.


Peroxide, by the way, kills your periphyton, which is the single strongest filter you have.

 

[UK_Pete]

Hi Pants,

Thanks for your reply. One thing thats a bit weird is that these don't disappear at night, the mucous mats seem quite stable, and thats one thing thats made me question what exactly they are. I came across a reference by accident to chlorella, and I even wondered if thats what I am seeing, since the size seems closer to 5 or 6 microns than 10, although I have no idea if thats a useful diagnostic point or not. Perhaps my measuring technique is not good, I viewed a ruler under 100x mag, then assumed the field of view was 10x smaller under 1000x. Then I used the computer to work out the 5 to 6 micron size. But video 3 does look quite similar, it would be interesting to see a macro picture of that stuff if you have one.

I have had the ones that go at night before, and its interesting how quick they build up during the day. These ones I currently have are greener, I would say more fragile, and don't coat the white plastic egg crate or corals in the same way that the browner fast accumulating ones do. The browner ones seem more stringy, wheras my current ones seem more like mucous, thicker strands (maybe because only thicker strands have the strength to hold together). These are making very fragile mats over rocks, and given enough time (several days), they start to string a bit, growing up in wavy strands which break free with the slightest extra flow. Its possible that I am catching them now in the last stages of they dying out, as I cleaned the tank out a few days ago, and I have very little growth of them since. There are a couple of places where I didn't clean them well (cracks) and I am seeing a little bit of growth from those areas, but its taking days for only a couple of mm 'growth'. Conditions have changed in the tank with pH going from 7.9 to 8.4 now, and carbon added, and nutrients increased, so that might be harming them. What I see in the microscope though is that the density of cells compared to clear stuff (slime) is low, there arent many cells as you can see from the 100x picture above.

As I say one strong differentiator for me is that a piece of egg crate left in the tank with the browner, fast growing ones is covered in hours, whereas in my tank, a piece of egg crate left in for several weeks have not a spot of this stuff on it. It took a long time for it to build up on a back wall, and really its almost entirely on just the rocks.

What do you think about the amount of slime compared to the amount of cells? I will take a sample of water and have a look through the scope, but since the water is extremely clear I am not expecting much.

 

[UK_Pete]

It would be interesting to hear from people who have tried hydrogen peroxide with positive or negative results, as to whether they are also using UV. I found a interesting paper which describes using hydrogen peroxide in combination with UV to destroy organics by creating OH radicals, which are apparently far more powerful than ozone, but this technique apparently dosent leave any residual products in the tank like ozone does (like bromates etc). I wondered if maybe those who are using UV had more positive results than those who are not using UV with peroxide. If anyones interested I'll find the link to the paper, I was interested in using it for destruction of organics, like ozone would be used for, but safer and more powerful. I lost interest a bit when Randy said he didn't think it had much value though. But still, in this thread where people are discussing hydrogen peroxide, it might be interesting to fine out who is using UV as well, and the results compared. Perhaps its combining peroxide with UV thats working, although it seems unlikely, but who knows.

 

[UK_Pete]

Sorry to triple post but I just thought of another thing relevant to the discussion directly above about nutrient export. My problem, which might not be dinos I guess, but Pants seems to think it is at the moment, came when my nutrients dropped to absolute zero. Not the slightest trace on any standard test kit that is. LFS and my salifert kits, and the hanna phosphate tester, all came out to zero. This happened because I returned from a work trip away to find only one fish left, and I pretty much stopped feeding him (blue damsel) since he seemed to be surviving on pods. The vodka doser continued to dose vodka though. Several months later I had this slimy stuff which you can see the microscope piccies of in the last page, and I realised my nitrate and phosphate are so low that my coral frags are dying, hence I am having to dose those nutrients now. So I don't personally believe you can starve this stuff, whatever it is, to get rid of it, without starving your tank completely.

 

[brandon429]

Im not against ats, I just think it can't do a thing for the meaner dino infestations, and a few of them already have ats on line before the outbreak
at that point not much of the other methods are any better, we're combo sparring always

 

[TheDude]

So I have an out break and I thought I'd play along. I'm no expert and after reading the last 35 pages have become more confused then when I started. However, having said that I started 3 days ago at the recommended dose. I do see an improvement but it could be from a number of the variables listed below.

1. I stopped the second feed which was flake food for the Tangs. They get 1 cube of mysis and that's all. I did drop a small chunk of nori on a clip today(day 3) for the tangs.

2. I brushed the rocks where I could with a tooth brush to mobilize the scum.

Needless to say there is an improvement, pretty sure it's me being more diligent about things but who knows. Here is a couple start photos...

I'll post day 4 photos tomorrow. One thing i noticed was the corals looked great during the treatment, acans and all the sps were more vibrant 30 minutes post introduction of the H2O2. My zoas receded and I noticed a big chunk of hair algae on one frag. I will try the dip on that one and report it onthe thread also.

 

[Pants]

This is probably a stupid question, but is it safe to assume UK_Pete that you are in the UK?

If so mailing me your algae would probably not be terribly useful (its would freeze and rot!). Do you think you would like to try your hand at a DNA extraction (it is surprisingly easy)? DNA would be much easier and cheaper to mail.

 

[TheDude]

Here is the day 4 photos. Significant difference.

 

[UK_Pete]

Hi Pants,

Yes thats right in the UK. As you said, I think sending by mail would be a failure since its such a long flight, and as for DNA extraction, I would be happy to learn a new technique and try it. I have no idea at all how its done though! I assume I would need things like special enzymes or something to do that?

Anyway the situation in my tank has changed at the moment, this might be interesting and might mean I can't get a sample of the stuff at the moment at least. In a 165 litre water volume tank I dosed about 2.5 ppm nitrate (made by neutralising a measured amount of 5M nitric acid with an excess of calcium hydroxide so I guess I dosed calcium nitrate), and I also dosed about 2 drops of 75% phosphoric acid (so probably about 0.1ml = about 75mg phosphate = about 0.5 ppm phosphate). I did this because after a forum post by Randy I realised the coral food I had been feeding dosed sufficient organic carbon along with the nitrate and phosphate in it to act as bacterial food for the nitrate and phosphate to be removed - IE it was a balanced bacterial food, which would not result in a net addition of either nitrate or phosphate to the aquarium. I also stopped my vodka dosing. Within a day the aquarium algae had changed significantly and its continuing to change.

The less interesting effects:
I had a few free coral frags given to me recently which were STNing, this seems to have sped up now and I am losing tissue faster on them :-(
Mushrooms looking happier and zeos too, and a tiny bit of monti cap I had from long ago, the only surviving patch on this frag, whos polyps seem to be extremely happy looking the largest I have seen them in months.
Few little patches of hair algae have benefitted, growing a bit and looking stronger, but I don't consider hair algae to be that hard a problem now, these bits are just because I havent bothered to deal with them for months.

More interesting effects:
Rocks seem to be getting cleaner. I did brush / siphon these rocks a week or so ago and they were looking better anyway, but now they seem to be cleaning up on their own.
Rear wall glass is now collecting that dusty type of algae which grows on the front glass of all aquariums. This wall did have the problem slimy algae we are talking about, that I posted the microscope views of. That was cleaned off with a brush a week ago and slimy algae had started to very slightly return from cracks in the back wall (there are pieces of glass siliconed on to the wall which have small gaps the brush could not get into). Since dosing the nutrients, the dusty 'front glass' type algae has covered around 50% or more of the rear glass and not been cleaned off, and I can't see any of the slimy algae on it now. There is only one little patch of the slimy algae left that I can see, and thats on a rock (last picture, on top right edge of picture). I might be able to get a sample of it but whether its the same algae I'm not sure without checking with the microscope.

Piccies before:



Piccies now:



Sorry about the odd rotation of these photos... same rocks in top two pictures and bottom picture.

Not sure that the increased nutrients have resulted in an overall improvement generally really, but its certainly changed the algae balance in the tank. Immediate increase in dusty glass covering algae, and it does seem like the slimy algae is not doing very well. How much of this is down to the cleaning I dont know but my impression is that the nutrient change has had a most significant effect on the slimy algae. Areas I was unable to clean with the light brushing I did (crevices in rock etc) seem to be free of the slimy algae now. I think I'll dose some iron citrate today, just a little, both to bring the phosphates down a bit, and for algae nutrient purposes.

While the effect on the STNing frags has not been good, if it were not for them, overall the tank seems to have benefited slightly from the nutrient addition. Its looking a bit more 'normal' with the dusty algae on glass, and the egg crate is not so clinically clean looking as it was before, good or bad, it just looks more normal compared to a healthy tank. I do feel my nutrients were depleted before, but that I might have either overshot on the dosing, or done it too quick for nutrient consumers to adjust to.

 

[UK_Pete]

Didnt mean those pictures to be attachments, here they (should be) are.

First, second and last pictures are the same couple of rocks. Third pic is back glass wall. First 2 pics are a couple of weeks ago (maybe slightly more). Last 2 picks are today.

 

[kniquy]

I have been battling what seems to be a combination of cyno and Dino for quite some time. After reading this thread I figure h2o2 is worth a shot and I don't really have much to lose. Just added 8 ml to my 75 gal DT with sump @ 9:30 pm. We shall see what the morning brings.

 

[kniquy]

I figured I would show some before pics.

.

 

[UK_Pete]

Looks pretty bad. Whats your nitrates and phosphates and how old is the sand bed? Cant help but think that it looks like the nutrients might be highish.

 

[JasonJ]

Would the peroxide kill this?...what would be your recommended dose for a 90 gallon

 

[TheDude]

Would the peroxide kill this?...what would be your recommended dose for a 90 gallon

I can't be certian from the picture but it does look like you got the dinos.

I'm using the 1ml per 10 gallons dose. Some others have had luck with higher doses.

They suggest you account for your sump (if you have one) and your rock weight. So, for instance, I have a 75gal with 15gal in my sump and approx 40lbs rock. However, I'm not much of a math guy so I just went with 7.5ml or enought to treat 75gal, which is how I generaly dose product anyway.

 

[TheDude]

kinquy,

Do you have any livestock in your system? If not and it was mine I would be inclined to remove as much as I could manualy such as the powerhead and rock without coral attached.

 

[kniquy]

Looks pretty bad. Whats your nitrates and phosphates and how old is the sand bed? Cant help but think that it looks like the nutrients might be highish.

When I have tested my nitrates and phosphates they are always zero. I do think that it could be falsely low due to the algae consuming the phosphates.

I am on day 3 of the H2o2 (dosing around 10ml daily) and I am beginning to see a bit of die off on some of the green algae. I am thing about removing some of the worst rocks a dipping in a h2o2 mixture. Would I do a 50/50 mix of tank water to peroxide?

As for the sand bed, it is old, probably around 8 years so I imagine there is a lot of crap in that. When I do clean out the algae I have been scooping out a bit of sand each time. I have been considering going bare bottom thinking it might help my battle, but I don't think I will like the look.

 

[TheDude]

I am thing about removing some of the worst rocks a dipping in a h2o2 mixture. Would I do a 50/50 mix of tank water to peroxide?

I believe that was the dose some were using as a coral dip so I imagine it would be fine for plain rock.