Dinos: Prorocentrum - Let's beat this!

[bdare]

Hello all,

My microscope showed up today. Can anyone help me ID this thing? I know people are trying different treatment options based on the type of dinos. Based on the ID can you provide me any details on the best way to eradicate these?

Thanks,
Ben

 

[bdare]

Maybe Prorocentrum?

 

[dwest]

Maybe Prorocentrum?

I agree based on this:

Dinoflagellate Identification Guide

I've had this laying around for a while. Had some recent interest, so I tweaked it a bit and am posting it. Not really about cures just ID pictures, videos, and a few short facts. Hope it can be helpful.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[bdare]

So just raise nutrients, add phyto, reduce lighting, reduce fuge photoperiod?

 

[dwest]

If you have read any dino threads, and I‘m guessing you have, you will read lots of ways to do this. If you haven’t read some, I would.

Here’s what I would do:
1. Make sure the tank has measurable nitrates and phosphate. Dose them if needed.
2. Run UV in the tank, from DT back to DT. At least 1 watt UV per 3 gallons of tank water. Run about 1-3 tank volumes per hour through the UV.
3. Use GAC and replace weekly for now.
4. Blow off rocks nightly with a powerhead or turkey baster.
5. Do a blackout period if needed.

 

[dwest]

So just raise nutrients, add phyto, reduce lighting, reduce fuge photoperiod?

Just checked your build thread. Great tank! Your old 120 was really nice. My dinos got me when I moved from a 125 to a 180.

 

[bdare]

Just checked your build thread. Great tank! Your old 120 was really nice. My dinos got me when I moved from a 125 to a 180.

Thanks. I've been keeping reef tanks off and on for over 20 years. This is the first time I've ever been struck with this stuff. I'm a firm believer that this has something to do with dry rock.

I don't have a UV sterilizer and will cost me 4-600 to buy one and I'm concerned about how I would plumb in such a massive device. I'm going to try to beat this without one to start.

Here is what I have done so far:
- Reduced photo period on my fuge from 12 to 3 hours. In all my old tanks I ran my fuge with a cheap CF bulb in a shop light. Worked great. This time I bought a Kessil H380. Clearly way more powerful and my cheato grows like a WEED. Where in the past a 12 hour refuguim lighting period was standard, now perhaps it should be adjusted based in nutrient export requirements.
- Reduced the airflow to my skimmer. I don't want to only run the skimmer for X hours a day as I'm a big fan of the airation they provide. Since my skimmer is powered by a varios pump I'd like to try to skim less by "turning the skimmer down".
- Ordered dry nitrate and phosphate for dosing. Will maintain 5-10 ppm nitrates and .1 phosphate
- Removed all UV, RED and GREEN from the lighting spectrum on my LED's. Since I never had dinos or any of these light colors in my old tanks, despite running ULN I'd like to just eliminate that as a variable. Also, I think there's evidence that RED led encourages algae growth.
- Started dosing phyto - I'm sure I'm over dosing at the moment, but what's the worst that could happen? I'm using Phytofeast by Reef Nutrition.
- Stopped all water changes - Since part of beating Dinos is dirtyting up the water and not adding any trace elements I won't be doing any water changes until this is resolved.

 

[bdare]

I'd also like to add a few notes about how I think I got here...

This is the biggest tank I've ever setup at 210 gallons. My last tank was a 120. At the onset I wasn't planning to do water changes. I neglected them forever on my 120 and the tank ran great.

I started this tank with dry rock and dry sand. Previous tanks were all real live rock. My favorite was pukani. All previous tanks all started with dry sand as I never bought into the "bacteria in a bag" thing in an effort to speed up a cycle. Back then that's what it was about. We didn't have to worry so much about bio diversity. To get the cycle started on this build I used ammonia nitrate and Fritz bacteria in a bottle.

Not sure how, but my nitrates got VERY high. I used both Salifert and Red Sea Pro test kits. Both read somewhere in the 75-100 range. Since I wasn't doing water changes I tried using Cheato. It apparently also doesn't like super high nitrates and it died. At some point I decided to try carbon dosing. I ramped up slowly till I was adding like 50-60ml per day spread out over several doses. Once my nitrates hit 10 I stopped.

I eventually started seeing ugly brown patches on my sand. Although dinos were in the back of my mind I just assumed Cyano. I figured there was no way with as high as my nutrients had been that dinos would start that fast.

I went through 2 doses of Chemiclean to eradicate cyano before I decided to buy a microscope and validate it's actually dinos.

Trying hard not to be discouraged by the countless people I read about who've been battling this for months. I'll try to keep this thread updated with my progress.

 

[bdare]

This is what I'm working with...

 

[dwest]

This is what I'm working with...

We have similar back stories and similar beliefs. I hope your methods work. But I’ll throw one more suggestion your way if it you need it: You could buy a couple of jebao 55 watt sterilizers and run them in series and give that a shot. You’d know in a few days and it could be hooked up temporarily just to see if it helps. Good luck either way.

 

[bdare]

We have similar back stories and similar beliefs. I hope your methods work. But I’ll throw one more suggestion your way if it you need it: You could buy a couple of jebao 55 watt sterilizers and run them in series and give that a shot. You’d know in a few days and it could be hooked up temporarily just to see if it helps. Good luck either way.

Ugh... You're gonna make me pull the trigger on a UV sterilizer. Since this is 250 gallons of total water do I really need 83 watts? I haven't even seen one that big. Surely 40 or 50 watts of a decent unit would suffice?

 

[dwest]

Ugh... You're gonna make me pull the trigger on a UV sterilizer. Since this is 250 gallons of total water do I really need 83 watts? I haven't even seen one that big. Surely 40 or 50 watts of a decent unit would suffice?

If you read some of the looong dino threads, there seems to be a pattern. Enough UV, plumbed the right way, often works. Thats where the 1 watt per 3 gallons comes from. Sometimes less will work, but often not. If you go the jebao route, you could try 55 watts. If that doesn’t work, you could add another in series. If you a more expensive model, you might as well get a big one from the start. At least that’s what looked best to me. Almost 2 years ago to the day, I bought mine.

 

[bdare]

If you read some of the looong dino threads, there seems to be a pattern. Enough UV, plumbed the right way, often works. Thats where the 1 watt per 3 gallons comes from. Sometimes less will work, but often not. If you go the jebao route, you could try 55 watts. If that doesn’t work, you could add another in series. If you a more expensive model, you might as well get a big one from the start. At least that’s what looked best to me. Almost 2 years ago to the day, I bought mine.

Yeah. Been around long enough to know, "buy cheap / buy twice" in this hobby. That's why I'm dreading it so hard. The one at BRS I need is like $800. It's 45" long and 6 inches in diameter! No where to put that behemoth.

 

[dwest]

Yeah. Been around long enough to know, "buy cheap / buy twice" in this hobby. That's why I'm dreading it so hard. The one at BRS I need is like $800. It's 45" long and 6 inches in diameter! No where to put that behemoth.

I use aqua uv brand. Still high quality but maybe more compact. You might check them out too.

 

[bdare]

Part of my Dino fighting kit arrived in the mail today...

 

[sfin52]

@bdare I'm dealing with them again. Last time was 2017. Check out my build thread for how I felt with them and how I'm dealing with them now.

It hasn't been mentioned yet but stop water changes. Synthetic sw seems to fuel them.

 

[bdare]

@bdare I'm dealing with them again. Last time was 2017. Check out my build thread for how I felt with them and how I'm dealing with them now.

It hasn't been mentioned yet but stop water changes. Synthetic sw seems to fuel them.

Definitely. I forgot to mention that above. I did do ~40 gallon water change this past weekend because it was following a chemiclean treatment, but I will definitely NOT be doing any more until this is resolved. Thanks for the reminder!

 

[sfin52]

Definitely. I forgot to mention that above. I did do ~40 gallon water change this past weekend because it was following a chemiclean treatment, but I will definitely NOT be doing any more until this is resolved. Thanks for the reminder!

For cyno look at waste away.

 

[bdare]

Ok. I found a calculator and dosed nitrate and phosphate.

On 2/10:
Nitrate - 0
Phosphate - .05 ppm

After about an hour I tested.
Nitrate - 10
Phosphate - .9

I used API because I'm not looking for an exact number... just a range.

Today lights were on for a total of 6 hours. No whites. Just blue.

 

[bdare]

Tested my water again to ensure nutrients stay high. They do not seem to have budged from yesterday. I can only assume that reducing the photo period on my fuge had something to do with that.

I "swept" the sand this morning to get the dinos into the water column. This also lets me see how fast they grow back etc. Although I'm only about 2 hours into my 6 hour lighting cycle for the day things are looking PRETTY good. I will post a picture later tonight as we get closer to the end of the 6 hours.