Dinos and Nutrient dosing

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hi all. I assumed I had Dino’s as this was what they appeared to be with there stringy snot and bubbles on the end initially. However, the reddish brown stains still plague my sand bed.

Recently, I’ve noticed that the red/brown stuff got on a rock, and it looked matted like cyano. I’ve heard it’s quite possible to have both in some cases.

It may very well be that most or if not all the Dino’s are gone but still have remaining cyano. It’s just some reefer said it still looks like Dino’s during one of my Reddit posts and I just assumed it was still this. Either way, it’s still a nutrients issue.

Sorry if I have wasted anyone’s time.

But I still have some questions. If nutrients make them worse, and i starve my tank to get rid of them (only thing that has ever made progress) won’t they just come back if the nutrients are raised again? Seems like a losing battle lol.

I’m just thinking if I starve the bacteria out, that just starves the beneficial bacteria right? So to my basic understanding, that would be a waste of time.

I am not sure how, that logically, raising the nutrients for good algae will do anything but fuel the cyano/dinos. Which will out compete the good algae. But if starve the tank, nothing will grow lol.

Seems to me I am at a stale mate unless someone has other information or can explain what I am not understanding.

To my understanding, I need enough nutrients to grow good algae. But my only logical thought on this would be that there has to be more good algae in the tank than cyano or Dino’s, that the majority competes against the minority. Would physical removal of the Dino’s be my only option to create this environment?

My recommendation for cyano is manual removal, organic reduction, and higher flow. Cyano is about the only organism in a reef tank that can get N from N2 in the air, making nutrient reduction a seemingly poor for it.

 

[141918]

Hi thanks,

I do however need to feed. This is inevitable. However, my only coral food is reef roids. This stuff makes cyano/dinos explode and have been refraining from using it. Just the slightest bit that escapes the corals makes the bad bacteria have a graduation party lol. Should I opt in for phyto or musics? Will this be a better option?

I have 1 turbo snail plus a tuxedo urchin. They have been pretty valuable in keep the rocks clean but don’t spend much time on the glass lol. I also have 3 or 4 various snails including a couple of ninja hermits.

I haven’t done a water change in quite some time due to low nutrients. However, since the seachem remediation lowers this stuff and is aiding my solution, I may start 10 to 20% water changes per week and try to starve it out further.

I really think my only viable solution left is to try and siphon out as much cyano/dinos as I can weekly and pray in time that leaving the good algae will one day outcompete the bad stuff.

Has anyone had any luck with Sunny’s calcium carbonate water clarifier with bacteria method?

 

[141918]

Hi thanks,

I do however need to feed. This is inevitable. However, my only coral food is reef roids. This stuff makes cyano/dinos explode and have been refraining from using it. Just the slightest bit that escapes the corals makes the bad bacteria have a graduation party lol. Should I opt in for phyto or musics? Will this be a better option?

I have 1 turbo snail plus a tuxedo urchin. They have been pretty valuable in keep the rocks clean but don’t spend much time on the glass lol. I also have 3 or 4 various snails including a couple of ninja hermits.

I haven’t done a water change in quite some time due to low nutrients. However, since the seachem remediation lowers this stuff and is aiding my solution, I may start 10 to 20% water changes per week and try to starve it out further.

I really think my only viable solution left is to try and siphon out as much cyano/dinos as I can weekly and pray in time that leaving the good algae will one day outcompete the bad stuff.

Has anyone had any luck with Sunny’s calcium carbonate water clarifier with bacteria method?

I just wanted to add that I may first try recycling the water through a filter sock. This way I still leave some nutrients for the good algae but remove as much cyano as possible while helping the good algae get a foot hold

 

[CHSUB]

Hi thanks,

I do however need to feed. This is inevitable. However, my only coral food is reef roids. This stuff makes cyano/dinos explode and have been refraining from using it. Just the slightest bit that escapes the corals makes the bad bacteria have a graduation party lol. Should I opt in for phyto or musics? Will this be a better option?

I have 1 turbo snail plus a tuxedo urchin. They have been pretty valuable in keep the rocks clean but don’t spend much time on the glass lol. I also have 3 or 4 various snails including a couple of ninja hermits.

I haven’t done a water change in quite some time due to low nutrients. However, since the seachem remediation lowers this stuff and is aiding my solution, I may start 10 to 20% water changes per week and try to starve it out further.

I really think my only viable solution left is to try and siphon out as much cyano/dinos as I can weekly and pray in time that leaving the good algae will one day outcompete the bad stuff.

Has anyone had any luck with Sunny’s calcium carbonate water clarifier with bacteria method?

an example of my experience: i feed reef Roids 1/8 of a tsp with Red Sea AB+, reef frenzy and a few large pellets of coral food every other day directly to corals. Feed fish daily 1/2 cube of frozen and currently have zero nuisance algae and “excellent” color and coral growth. I don’t believe your problem is what you add, it’s what you don’t remove? Yesterday my ICP tested po4 and no3 was .009 and .1 ppm. Today I’m cleaning the glass, blowing the rocks and cleaning the sand with a 6 gallon weekly WC that visually doesn’t seem needed. Don’t make this more difficult than it is, feed your animals and remove the waste products including po4 and no3 which is technically only algae food.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Don’t make this more difficult than it is, feed your animals and remove the waste products including po4 and no3 which is technically only algae food.

You claim corals do not use inorganic nitrate or phosphate?

 

[CHSUB]

You claim corals do not use inorganic nitrate or phosphate?

I think amounts are very insufficient, almost zero directly. Not sure, do you believe/know differently?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I think amounts are very insufficient, almost zero directly. Not sure, do you believe/know differently?

I know corals use them so would not refer to it as “technically only algae food”.

 

[141918]

an example of my experience: i feed reef Roids 1/8 of a tsp with Red Sea AB+, reef frenzy and a few large pellets of coral food every other day directly to corals. Feed fish daily 1/2 cube of frozen and currently have zero nuisance algae and “excellent” color and coral growth. I don’t believe your problem is what you add, it’s what you don’t remove? Yesterday my ICP tested po4 and no3 was .009 and .1 ppm. Today I’m cleaning the glass, blowing the rocks and cleaning the sand with a 6 gallon weekly WC that visually doesn’t seem needed. Don’t make this more difficult than it is, feed your animals and remove the waste products including po4 and no3 which is technically only algae food.

This would be awesome but I’d practically bet my right arm that if I added these to the table my cyano or whatever would bloom so badly that my tank would literally be completely covered in it.

The reason my nitrate is zero is because the cyano and other organisms are absorbing it faster than the water column can hold any.

Not trying to be difficult here and I know people are kindly providing their time to help me out.

As indicated above, everything needs some kind of nutrients to survive. But by adding nutrients, it just makes the problem worse. At least in my case.

However, if I starve the tank, everything suffers lol.

At one time, a lot of it was gone. Then started dosing to keep n03 and p04 at acceptable levels and it came back with a vengeance. Tried silicates but doesn’t seem to do anything. However, noticed some sponges growing under some rocks lol.

My only options left now are to do weekly water changes and try to eliminate the nutrients as best as possible by siphoning it out. I got a 40 gallon skimmer running 24/7 which is filling up once a week with dark skimmate

 

[CHSUB]

Coral..food..waste..bacteria processing…po4,no3..zooxanthellae food…more coral food from zooxanthellae…maybe technically simplified.

I have had good results starting with food.

 

[CHSUB]

My recommendation for cyano is manual removal, organic reduction, and higher flow

I’m cleaning the glass, blowing the rocks and cleaning the sand with a 6 gallon weekly WC

My only options left now are to do weekly water changes and try to eliminate the nutrients as best as possible by siphoning it out

Yes…

 

[141918]

Would anyone happen to know if old salt can cause issues in this regard?

My salt was a couple years old that I’ve been using.

Noticed my alk was on the lower side of 7.9.

Picked up a new bag of Fritz. Did a 5 gallon water change on Friday and doing another today. Then I will continue to just do once a week. Weekly changes should help keep my alk suitable. Only have lps and softies so no need to dose nutrients with these small colonies at the moment.

Got rid of quite a bit of the red stuff on the sand bed in the first change. It obviously came back a bit but that’s expected.

I will keep an eye on things and touch base as time goes by to see my result by nutrient exporting to starve it out.

I also got some mysis shrimp and starting to feed my corals so they don’t starve.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I cannot see any reason for old Fritz salt to encourage cyano.

 

[141918]

Hi all,

Went for another dose of chemi clean to reduce the cyano while doing a black out. I thought that adding nitrate and phosphate in this stage would benefit the good algae in the tank to help out compete the cyano and boy I was wrong, and I am an idiot for doing so.

Cyano exploded with a vengeance. After day 1, cyano has already increased by 200 to 300%. At this point, the only method that is proven to reduce them is exfiltration of nutrients. No other method has provided results. No once can convince me otherwise. I’ve seen the results first hand.

From this point on, or until otherwise needed for other reasons, I will never introduce additional nutrients on top of what feeding or my fish produce daily. In my case, that would be a recipe for disaster. No matter the smallest amount, the cyano always wins while contending the top spot in my tank. I think at this point I have been defeated for this round. Seriously considering taking everything out and retaining some good seeded live rock from a very old tank or procure some ocean live rock. My tank from 12 years ago never had these issues, because it was started properly.

 

[CHSUB]

I thought that adding nitrate and phosphate in this stage would benefit the good algae

There is no such thing as good or bad algae, only what we as hobbyists assign as good or bad. Adding nutrients fuels all algae, it’s a myth that the hobbyist can selectively target a specific algae they assign as “good”.

From this point on, or until otherwise needed for other reasons, I will never introduce additional nutrients on top of what feeding or my fish produce daily

I believe this is the right approach.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hi all,

Went for another dose of chemi clean to reduce the cyano while doing a black out. I thought that adding nitrate and phosphate in this stage would benefit the good algae in the tank to help out compete the cyano and boy I was wrong, and I am an idiot for doing so.

Cyano exploded with a vengeance. After day 1, cyano has already increased by 200 to 300%. At this point, the only method that is proven to reduce them is exfiltration of nutrients. No other method has provided results. No once can convince me otherwise. I’ve seen the results first hand.

From this point on, or until otherwise needed for other reasons, I will never introduce additional nutrients on top of what feeding or my fish produce daily. In my case, that would be a recipe for disaster. No matter the smallest amount, the cyano always wins while contending the top spot in my tank. I think at this point I have been defeated for this round. Seriously considering taking everything out and retaining some good seeded live rock from a very old tank or procure some ocean live rock. My tank from 12 years ago never had these issues, because it was started properly.

Ensuring nutrients is a dino treatment, not cyano.

 

[141918]

Hi all,

I know this is old but wanted to provide an update.

Did a series of water changes over the last while. Typically and usually weekly. Used some fluvo clear max to help lower the phosphates and nitrate and it worked really well. My cyano is very limited in small areas. I would say at least 75% of it is gone or so. Removing excess nutrients definitely helped clear up a lot of it.

I switched to mysis to feed my corals. This way, the reef roids don’t have a chance to broadcast and feed the cyano on the sand. I can simply feed each coral directly.

My question is now that I am close to the cyano being non visible , what is the best approach?

I at this time have zero po4 and n03. How do I naturally get back to having decent nutrient levels without fueling the cyano? This has me baffled because if I dose, I’ll just be undoing all my patience and work up to this point.

There is something here I am not understanding. I can’t understand how to make the transition to a balanced tank without the cyano always winning with almost any solution.

Has anyone here been in a similar situation?

 

[CHSUB]

Hi all,

I know this is old but wanted to provide an update.

Did a series of water changes over the last while. Typically and usually weekly. Used some fluvo clear max to help lower the phosphates and nitrate and it worked really well. My cyano is very limited in small areas. I would say at least 75% of it is gone or so. Removing excess nutrients definitely helped clear up a lot of it.

I switched to mysis to feed my corals. This way, the reef roids don’t have a chance to broadcast and feed the cyano on the sand. I can simply feed each coral directly.

My question is now that I am close to the cyano being non visible , what is the best approach?

I at this time have zero po4 and n03. How do I naturally get back to having decent nutrient levels without fueling the cyano? This has me baffled because if I dose, I’ll just be undoing all my patience and work up to this point.

There is something here I am not understanding. I can’t understand how to make the transition to a balanced tank without the cyano always winning with almost any solution.

Has anyone here been in a similar situation?

Imo, there is no balancing of inorganic nutrients in a reef aquarium. The goal is fed fish and fed coral, the excess shows up in hobby testing. In the ocean it goes to the vastness, in glass boxes we should remove it. Some don’t because they think they are smarter than “mother nature”….manual removal, WC, CUC and consistency.

 

[141918]

Imo, there is no balancing of inorganic nutrients in a reef aquarium. The goal is fed fish and fed coral, the excess shows up in hobby testing. In the ocean it goes to the vastness, in glass boxes we should remove it. Some don’t because they think they are smarter than “mother nature”….manual removal, WC, CUC and consistency.

Thanks for the reply.

But if I keep up this approach, I’ll never have a detectable level of po4 or no3 for the life of the tank. Anything less than 0 for both respectively blooms my cyano issue. The only reason the cyano went mostly away is because my tank is practically nutrient void.

Never had this issue in my older tank. Always had detectable no3 and po4 and corals grew decently without feeding. But I started that tank with real live rock.

At this point, I don’t see how there is any possible way to have a flourishing tank unless I completely tear the tank down and start fresh. It’s either cyano forever or start over. Anything above zero and my tank resorts back to being covered in cyano.

If a tank can exist free of cyano blooms with detectable nutrients, I don’t know how I’ll get there, but there has to be a way to get it there somehow without starting over. It may take a long time but hopefully one day I’ll find the answer.

 

[CHSUB]

But if I keep up this approach, I’ll never have a detectable level of po4 or no3 for the life of the tank

I don’t see a problem, unless corals look pale and/or stop growing. I have dosed po4 before, but now I would just prefer feeding the corals directly. Even SPS catch and consume foods as large as mysin shrimp. Reef aquariums are never done managing.

 

[141918]

I don’t see a problem, unless corals look pale and/or stop growing. I have dosed po4 before, but now I would just prefer feeding the corals directly. Even SPS catch and consume foods as large as mysin shrimp. Reef aquariums are never done managing.

I would like to take this approach since reducing nutrients seems to be the only way I am winning the first part.

How often would you recommend feeding if my corals are only able to rely on direct servings? 2 to 3 times a week plenty? Or less at once a week?

I’ve thrown out my reef roids. Because any residual just fuels the cyano. I’m having way better luck feeding mysis. It allows me to carefully target the coral and not the tank.