Dinos in high nutrient environment

[kjmsmith]

So after fighting what I thought was a diatom outbreak for the past several months, I was finally able to get a sample under a microscope and the results confirm I have been chasing the wrong problem. The videos below clearly show what appear to be dinos, and I’m thinking they are ostreopsis. It looks like there may be some other things going on in the water but I think dinos are the main issue. The reason I was thinking diatoms was that my tank is a high nutrient environment. My NO3 usually runs between 25-50 and recently PO4 0.5 -1.0 and most of what I read was that dinos thrive in low nutrient environments - apparently thats not always the case! As I battled this thinking diatoms I increased my H2O changes but it seemed to worsen the situation. This led me to my RO source and TDS was 14. I added a DI filter and this dropped my TDS to 0-1 so I thought I would beat the diatoms. But things didn’t improve. I also trialed vinegar dosing to reduce NO3 and subsequently PO4 thinking this was feeding the outbreak but this only made the outbreak worse and created a cyano problem and the NO3 and PO4 didn’t come down. I also tried running some GFO Phosguard but PO4 didn't budge and the rust colored outbreak continued. I was able to isolate my substrate as leaching PO4 so I’ve been in the process of removing the sandbed with plans to replace it with new. I’ve removed anout 75% over the past 3 weeks and only have about 10lbs remaining in the tank. This still didn’t help. Frustrated, with kids back in school I asked my daughter to take a sample to put under a school microscope and this is the result. It makes sense now thinking about carbon dosing making it worse, as was running GFO, mass water changes and regularly blowing off the rocks and sand. All of these as I understand it actually promote dino spread. I have also been seeing some snail deaths which apparently is another consequence of dinos.
So, what to do....

My system:
-90g sumpless running 8 years
-Fluval FX6 Canister with foam pads, matrix and GAC (I know, the canister is a ‘nitrate factory’ but I’ve successfully run the system for years being sumpless hence the long time high nutrient environment)
-Reef Octopus BH1000 HOB skimmer
-3 Koralia Powerheads
-Apx 50lbs live rock
-lightly stocked - 2 ocellaris, regal blue tang, foxface, six line wrasse, yellow tail damsel, BTA, mix of LPS, acros, zoas, softies, CUC only feed 1.5 cubes frozen/day and half sheet of nori

I’m likely going to be selling this set up including livestock as I am downsizing my living space and may be going to a 10 or 20g waterbox. But I dont want to pass this on to someone who takes the system. I am hoping not to spend more $$ investing in a UV sterilizer so other than vacuuming with a sock to manually remove the dinos, stop H2O changes, maybe do a 36 or 48 hour blackout...any other advice? Not too thrilled about using chemicals but may not have a choice. Most solutions involve raising NO3 and PO4... not an option in my situation as they’re already high.
Hopefully this info will help others and if anyone has any other suggestions, Im happy to hear.
Thanks!

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

The movement doesn't look like typical ostreopsis back and forth motion. They look like the are going in straight lines. I have heard of a few cases of dinos with high nutrients though. What lights do you have and how long are they on?

 

[OpenOcean33]

Is it on the sand bed only? On rocks ..? If you can get a closer picture as smell it would be great. The big thing with dinos is to increase biodiversity. Bacteria diatoms.. other alage. Also the green killing machine is cheap iv sterilizer is 50 bucks, not sure how. If your tank is mine is 70 and it helps alot

 

[kjmsmith]

Re the strain of dino, I am tending to agree they are not ostreopsis after watching more videos n movement characteristics. I’m now leaning towards them being amphidinium. As far as lights, I use 2 Ocean Direct T247. I only run them 6 hrs white @ 35% and 8 hrs blue @ 55%.

 

[kjmsmith]

Is it on the sand bed only? On rocks ..? If you can get a closer picture as smell it would be great. The big thing with dinos is to increase biodiversity. Bacteria diatoms.. other alage. Also the green killing machine is cheap iv sterilizer is 50 bucks, not sure how. If your tank is mine is 70 and it helps alot

It mainly forms on sand although I’ve removed 75% of the substrate the remainder is covered with it. It also forms on the rocks and blows away with turkey baster. Here is a still pic:

 

[Mark Gray]

I had Dino's for about a year. I have just now gotten rid of them but my nutrient was low. I raised it it helped but did not cure it believe it or not what I think finally finished them off was adding micro bubbles to my return pump. Try running an air pump in your taan next to a high flow area and see if it will help, it did with mine. Good Luck

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

I recommend manual removal when the clumps get big enough. If you can get other algae to grow, then let it grow and don't remove it. This tends to help suppress dino blooms. Adding Si can help diatoms bloom as well.

A UV will only help if the dinos go into the water column. If the clumps seem to get smaller overnight, then they are going into the water column. Otherwise a UV will not help. This is also a sign that they are getting too much light and a reduced photo period or reduced intensity will help.

I suspect that they can't metabolize your nutrients for some reason and have become light stressed, hence the bloom. The water change was probably adding Fe into the system which, last I checked, was theorized as being the limiting factor for dino growth. If this is true, then switching to the Tropic Marin Classic salt would make the dino bloom worse than before as it has even more Fe than Aqua Forest or Reef Crystals. But the ESV has no Fe so it should make it better or no change at least.

 

[kjmsmith]

I had Dino's for about a year. I have just now gotten rid of them but my nutrient was low. I raised it it helped but did not cure it believe it or not what I think finally finished them off was adding micro bubbles to my return pump. Try running an air pump in your taan next to a high flow area and see if it will help, it did with mine. Good Luck

Thx, I will consider micro bubbles as part of my plan of attack.

I recommend manual removal when the clumps get big enough. If you can get other algae to grow, then let it grow and don't remove it. This tends to help suppress dino blooms. Adding Si can help diatoms bloom as well.

A UV will only help if the dinos go into the water column. If the clumps seem to get smaller overnight, then they are going into the water column. Otherwise a UV will not help. This is also a sign that they are getting too much light and a reduced photo period or reduced intensity will help.

I suspect that they can't metabolize your nutrients for some reason and have become light stressed, hence the bloom. The water change was probably adding Fe into the system which, last I checked, was theorized as being the limiting factor for dino growth. If this is true, then switching to the Tropic Marin Classic salt would make the dino bloom worse than before as it has even more Fe than Aqua Forest or Reef Crystals. But the ESV has no Fe so it should make it better or no change at least.

Ok, I am going to try keeping my tank ‘dirty’ and let algae grow on the glass if you think this will help. I plan to vaccum with 10 micron sock and not do any water changes. Fwiw, I use Aquavitro Salinity which reports an Fe level of 0.0097-0.0103. Not sure what this means if its good or bad. I will also turn my lghts down and limit time on to just a couple hours/day and see what happens....

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

Don't forget to manually remove clumps with a baster if they get big enough. I had to do this once a week when I had them. Keep us posted with your results. Your circumstances are a bit unusual so I bet many of us, myself included, are very eager to hear your results.

 

[kjmsmith]

I was planning to remove the rest of the substrate today and keep it bare bottom for a bit to see what happens. I’m not sure if this is going to further worsen any biological imbalance or if this will help eliminate them if the dinos have no place to exist except on the rocks. Thoughts? Am I better off replacing the substrate with new? Adding new aragonite may naturally add silicate to help compete against them. I have a thread on this here for more background https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/po4-source-experiment.636375/

 

[OpenOcean33]

It mainly forms on sand although I’ve removed 75% of the substrate the remainder is covered with it. It also forms on the rocks and blows away with turkey baster. Here is a still pic:

Its looks like ampidinum dinos to me but you can post it on the dino thread to make sure. I had the same thi g I used microbacter 7 weekly and dosed silicates daily to create a diatom bloom and increase of biodiversity. They were gone in two weeks.

 

[Idoc]

It mainly forms on sand although I’ve removed 75% of the substrate the remainder is covered with it. It also forms on the rocks and blows away with turkey baster. Here is a still pic:

Small cell amphidinium dinos. I had these dsame looking ones! Increasing biodiversity seemed to be the best for me. Removing the sand bed has helped many others as well. I wouldn't add any new sand until completely eradicated, though.

 

[kjmsmith]

Small cell amphidinium dinos. I had these dsame looking ones! Increasing biodiversity seemed to be the best for me. Removing the sand bed has helped many others as well. I wouldn't add any new sand until completely eradicated, though.

Thank you.I will remove the rest of the sand today, give the rocks a good vacuum, hold off on H2O changes and decrease light and see what happens. I will update this thread as I go...

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

I've also heard that removing sand helps but once it is put back they bloom almost immediately. You probably won't be able to put sand back in for several months after more biodiversity has shown up and been sustained.

Adding new sand isn't a good way to add Si. I used Sponge Accel to raise my Si. The only good test kit I found for Si was the Hanna one though.

 

[Idoc]

I dosed SpongeExcel Silica. I never saw a diatom bloom occur during dosing. I didn't purchase a Hanna Si checker... just winged it with 3 "squirts" each night for a couple months. I didn't see any improvement until I started adding more biodiversity with MicroBacter7.

 

[OpenOcean33]

I dosed SpongeExcel Silica. I never saw a diatom bloom occur during dosing. I didn't purchase a Hanna Si checker... just winged it with 3 "squirts" each night for a couple months. I didn't see any improvement until I started adding more biodiversity with MicroBacter7.

I was dosing about 12ml a day of sponge excel, never checked and used microbacter 7 as well.