dinos/Algea problems that I can't solve

[mdd1986]

I'm just making this post to see if anyone has any insight on how to deal with this. As so of you may know I made a couple posts in the Dino thread some months back about issues I was having. I wasn't really sure if what I had is actually dinos. I'm just really frustrated and looking for any advice on how to fix this. Below are pictures of what I'm dealing with.

Yesterday I spent all day scrubbing my tank, rocks and sand to rid all of this nuisance algae. But as I was cleaning it I could actually see it growing back on my rocks. It would develop tiny little white specs that look like sand and start to develop into long strings of algae.

Basically my NO3 dropped to zero for a while and my P04s were elevated to around .06PPM. I believe this could have caused this outbreak or prevented it from going away?

Right now here is where my tank sits:
PO4: .037PPM
NO3: 2-5PPM
ALK: 8.0DKH
CALC 420PPM
MG 1500PPM
SG 1.026

I stated the tank with dry marco rocks and sand. I did have some traces of TIN that i did multiple water changes to help lower it. Tank has been setup since Dec 2017.

Right now I'm planning to do a 3 day black out and maintain my levels. Is there anything else I should do?

 

[GoVols]

Dino's are the pits and I sure feel your pain.
I got them back in early 2015.

I tried water changes and it was like adding gas to an fire.

Back then I kept my water column too clean with very low nutrients.

Have you tried to dose bacteria's to out compete your dino's?

@Jason mack
Do you have any incite for @mdd1986 ?

 

[mcarroll]

Tank has been setup since Dec 2017.

Looking back it hasn't had much of a chance to stabilize over the intervening months. Alk issues. Nutrient issues.

I stated the tank with dry marco rocks and sand.

This gives you a pretty low starting point to begin with.

I did have some traces of TIN that i did multiple water changes to help lower it.

Doubtful it's relevant...don't get caught on the details when the big picture is still out of frame.
(Ack...a photography metaphor from a non-photographer.)

PO4: .037PPM
NO3: 2-5PPM

This is very low on both – maybe low enough to be limiting to some desireable organisms.

I just noted on another thread that you have had a chaeto refugium running this whole time.

How's the chaeto been growing?

Basically my NO3 dropped to zero for a while and my P04s were elevated to around .06PPM. I believe this could have caused this outbreak or prevented it from going away?

It probably caused one thing to die off and another to flourish. Typically you don't "trade up" when that happens.

Yesterday I spent all day scrubbing my tank, rocks and sand to rid all of this nuisance algae.

About how much material are you removing from the tank after a session like this? Can you try to quantify it?

But as I was cleaning it I could actually see it growing back on my rocks. It would develop tiny little white specs that look like sand and start to develop into long strings of algae.

I don't know if you've mentioned cleanup crew up to now.

What's in your CUC and how much work do you see them doing on the problem areas?

Right now I'm planning to do a 3 day black out and maintain my levels. Is there anything else I should do?

I'm not sure about the blackout, but what's your photoperiod like?

Do you know what the max. intensity is in lux or PAR?

 

[mdd1986]

Thanks for some help Mcarroll. You have provided insight in the past for me that was helpful.

I was told that those NO3 and P04 levels are reasonable. If they are not what would be better levels to shoot for? I have been having to dose NO3 to prevent it from going to zero.

Basically my chaeto growth is based on how much NO3 is in the tank. It reached to about a softball stize and stopped growing once the NO3s bottomed out. If I keep the N03s elevated it will continue to grow I'm sure.

Hard to quantify how much materiel I was removing. But it was coming off in large clumps from the glass and sucked out with the siphon. Also I had to remove a decent amount of sand because all of it was covered with and the only way to remove it was by removing the sand.

There was also a ton of it in my fuge that I was scooping net fulls out of. It was pretty gross. Now im fuge its only Chaeto growing.

The tricky part is my Fixture is a custom fixture with LEDs and T5s. I can certainly lower the LED output and run 4 of the t5s. I run them for 8 hours a day with 50% output on the LEDs. Do you think its wise to invest in an PAR meter?

For clean crew I have 1 Large Mexican turbo, 1 sea hare and a few trochus snails. But none seem to be able to keep up with the alagea. I also have a kole tang that picks at the algea.

I was also concerned that the surface of the marco rock made it a perfect setup for something like dinos to grow easily over corralline. Not sure how true that is but it was just a thought.

Do we know for sure that this is dinos?

 

[Jason mack]

The only way To know for Sure if its dino’s is too get a sample under microscope at a lfs who can id it ..

 

[mdd1986]

based on what I was seeing under the scope it looked very much like Chrysophytes and not dinos. But I'm no expert and I could be very wrong. I did not see anything moving like in many of the videos of Dinos I have seen.

 

[Jason mack]

based on what I was seeing under the scope it looked very much like Chrysophytes and not dinos. But I'm no expert and I could be very wrong. I did not see anything moving like in many of the videos of Dinos I have seen.

There are a few strains of dino’s .. do you have any sps in Your tank ??

 

[mcarroll]

Doesn't look like dino's but it sure is bubbly! Do you have a microscope to check? (even a toy)

Click the #chrysophytes tag or check out @reeferfoxx's thread on the topic.

Check out the accuracy/error rate of your test kits. Considering that, your readings may be close to actual zero. If I'm right, you might want to keep levels just a little higher. Having the macro algae's demand for nutrients on the system might be the problem. Such a new tank really shouldn't need it anyway.

Why so much light/Why not just LED or just T5? Start with a free lux meter app, get some resdings, and we'll go from there.

What are your tank's dimensions?

So all of your CUC are helping with this algae? Seems like a small crew, but not sure of the tank size.

Dose No3 and PO4 into your water change water up to your minimum levels so neither one bottoms out during siphoning.

 

[Brew12]

I've never had to deal with this mess (thankfully enough!) but this is what I would do. Assuming this is Chrysophytes:

Reduce the photo period of the DT lights to 5 hours per day.

Remove the chaeto and put it in a bucket or bag with tank water where it can get some light to keep it alive.

Run a small amount of GFO (Looking for silicate reduction, not phosphate).

Run GAC.

Dose PO4 and NO3 as needed to stay above .02ppm and 5ppm respectively.

If you don't already have them, add live copepods/amphipods.

I would then pursue one of 2 options if things don't start improving after a week or 2.
1) Perform large manual removal and 3 day lights out.
or
2) Dose Vibrant by UWC at 1ml/10g starting at one time per week.

My preference is the Vibrant dosing (personally, I love the stuff) but I understand why people are hesitant and may not want to dump an unknown bacteria product into their tanks.

One thing that makes them so nasty is that many strains become facultatively heterotrophic and will feed on bacteria and diatoms in your tank. Fortunately, many life forms will use this stuff as food. It's just a matter of getting everything in balance.

 

[mdd1986]

Sorry this is a 40 gallon breeder (36x18x16). The CUC has not really helped with the algea honestly. For the lighting i couldn't deiced on T5 or LED so I went with both. I will try the free app to get an idea.

The NO3 test kits I use are Red Sea and sallifert. I was getting a zero reading on both kits before dosing N03 so it seems to be fairly accurate.

PO4 i use the hanna ULR Phosphate checker. This checker is super sensitive and I have to do a few readings an average them to get something accurate. I do have the calibration kit for it but I guess its possible that I could be getting a zero reading from that.

I have exchanged PMs with reeferfoxx and he has been helpful. Here are some scope pics I have sent him earlier. I can try to get some better shots of it but my scope isn't really the best.

 

[mdd1986]

There are a few strains of dino’s .. do you have any sps in Your tank ??

I have removed most of the corals form my tank at this point.

 

[mdd1986]

I've never had to deal with this mess (thankfully enough!) but this is what I would do. Assuming this is Chrysophytes:

Reduce the photo period of the DT lights to 5 hours per day.

Remove the chaeto and put it in a bucket or bag with tank water where it can get some light to keep it alive.

Run a small amount of GFO (Looking for silicate reduction, not phosphate).

Run GAC.

Dose PO4 and NO3 as needed to stay above .02ppm and 5ppm respectively.

If you don't already have them, add live copepods/amphipods.

I would then pursue one of 2 options if things don't start improving after a week or 2.
1) Perform large manual removal and 3 day lights out.
or
2) Dose Vibrant by UWC at 1ml/10g starting at one time per week.

My preference is the Vibrant dosing (personally, I love the stuff) but I understand why people are hesitant and may not want to dump an unknown bacteria product into their tanks.

One thing that makes them so nasty is that many strains become facultatively heterotrophic and will feed on bacteria and diatoms in your tank. Fortunately, many life forms will use this stuff as food. It's just a matter of getting everything in balance.

Right now I'm planning to do a 3 day lights out. Today is the 2nd day so we will see what happens tomorrow. I'm running a fresh batch of GAC but no GFO. I can remove the chaeto and just keep the PO4 and NO3 levels up. This is triton setup so I was just trying to follow their recommendations. Seems like its complicating things also. I have added PODs from algea barn but i think they all died because I can't find them anywhere in the tank or fuge.

 

[Jason mack]

I have removed most of the corals form my tank at this point.

Ok sps dont fair Well with a 3 day lights out .. so that is also a risk .. i used peroxide too get rid of my dino’s .. have you tried that .. dont clean Your glass for a couple of weeks and let other algea To grow and try and out compete the dino’s .. try and get comformation that iT is in fact dino’s Your dealing with ,also reduce Your white lights too around 5 -5.5 hrs a day

 

[Jason mack]

Sorry this is a 40 gallon breeder (36x18x16). The CUC has not really helped with the algea honestly. For the lighting i couldn't deiced on T5 or LED so I went with both. I will try the free app to get an idea.

The NO3 test kits I use are Red Sea and sallifert. I was getting a zero reading on both kits before dosing N03 so it seems to be fairly accurate.

PO4 i use the hanna ULR Phosphate checker. This checker is super sensitive and I have to do a few readings an average them to get something accurate. I do have the calibration kit for it but I guess its possible that I could be getting a zero reading from that.

I have exchanged PMs with reeferfoxx and he has been helpful. Here are some scope pics I have sent him earlier. I can try to get some better shots of it but my scope isn't really the best.

Doesnt look like dino’s here , were they moving around any when you looked ?

 

[mdd1986]

I did not see any movement at all under the scope. It was a bit odd. I'm going to try to get another sample today and take some better pictures. I believe I did the peroxide test suggested in the Dino thread and found it to not actually be dinos. I will also try that.

I apologize if I come off as short with everyone on my responses. I'm just super frustrated with my tank and I have lost a bunch of corals and money in the process.

 

[Jason mack]

I did not see any movement at all under the scope. It was a bit odd. I'm going to try to get another sample today and take some better pictures. I believe I did the peroxide test suggested in the Dino thread and found it to not actually be dinos. I will also try that.

I apologize if I come off as short with everyone on my responses. I'm just super frustrated with my tank and I have lost a bunch of corals and money in the process.

No need To apologize we all know how frustrating a tank can be when we have problems .. we are all here too help , not too judge ...

 

[reeferfoxx]

@mdd1986 if you are wits end with this stuff, we can get rid of it in 3 days. You will end up with cyano due to the die off but as long as organics aren't heavy, it may not last long. I would also suggest replenishing nutrients after the 3rd day erradication treatment. It's up to you?

 

[mdd1986]

ok guys my P04 is at zero and my NO3 is at 5PPM after dosing it yesterday. I'm on my 2nd day of black out. What should I do for nutrients?

Also using this free lux meter on phone I'm getting a 1200LUX reading about 12" from the fixture to the water's surface.

 

[mdd1986]

Here are some pics of the white specs im talking about. This is what is left behind after cleaning off the algea from the rocks and it strate growing from that into stringy stuff.

 

[mcarroll]

Also using this free lux meter on phone I'm getting a 1200LUX reading about 12" from the fixture to the water's surface.

That might be using the wrong camera on the phone.

Sometimes there's a switch in the app to use the front or back camera. Your reading will be more like 20,000-80,000.

If there's no camera option, try a different app.