Dinos: Prorocentrum - Let's beat this!

bdare · Mar 3, 2020

I added some high capacity GFO over the weekend. Phosphate is down to .71 ppm.

bdare · Mar 6, 2020

Suppose I'm due for updates....

I've been dosing the Sponge Excel from Brightwell. I've added 6 doses so far, but getting nervous about the amount of silicate I'm putting in the tank. I know the GFO will suck up some of the silicate. I want the diatoms to outcompete the dino, but I also don't want a diatom problem. Seems there isn't a good silicate test kit on the market. I'm going to try a Salifert kit to see how that goes.

I also pulled the trigger on a Aqua UV 25 w Sterilizer. Although I'm sure I will draw negative reviews from those that stick to the 1 watt per 3 gallon rule I just don't see how that makes sense. Dinos are algae. I don't want to kill plankton and sterilize the water so it would seem the required wattage is much less depending on flow rates.

taricha · Mar 11, 2020

bdare said:
Seems there isn't a good silicate test kit on the market.

hanna Low Range Silica is great.

bdare said:
Dinos are algae. I don't want to kill plankton and sterilize the water

Our problem Dinos are 30-50 microns, "green water" events are caused by ~5 micron algae, bacteria blooms, smaller than that. Manufacturer recommendations aren't written for dinos (except ones that say "for parasites...").
I don't get that statement at the bottom. What do they think is surviving trips through the UV unharmed? copepod nauplii? very skeptical.

bdare · Mar 11, 2020

taricha said:
hanna Low Range Silica is great.

Our problem Dinos are 30-50 microns, "green water" events are caused by ~5 micron algae, bacteria blooms, smaller than that. Manufacturer recommendations aren't written for dinos (except ones that say "for parasites...").
I don't get that statement at the bottom. What do they think is surviving trips through the UV unharmed? copepod nauplii? very skeptical.

Quoting what the UV manufacturer has written.

bdare · Mar 12, 2020

Well... Hair algae is starting to show up. I suppose that's a good thing. Hopefully it will begin to outcompete the dinos. All the tangs are taking care of most of it in the display. Also got the UV hooked up today.I will problably pull the trigger on a flow sensor for the Profilux so I can be more precise with my dwell time in the not to distant future.

bdare · Mar 17, 2020

I'm optimistic that I'm turning the corner. Although I do still get small dino patches in the sand during the time the lights are on, I'm seeing more and more hair algae and some diatoms starting to sprout up on the glass.

I did lose all my snails

Will buy more later.

NS Mike D · Mar 17, 2020

bdare said:
Well... Hair algae is starting to show up. I suppose that's a good thing. Hopefully it will begin to outcompete the dinos. All the tangs are taking care of most of it in the display. Also got the UV hooked up today.I will problably pull the trigger on a flow sensor for the Profilux so I can be more precise with my dwell time in the not to distant future.

hair algae seems to merely provide and anchor for dinos when my tank was overrun.

bdare · Mar 17, 2020

NS Mike D said:
hair algae seems to merely provide and anchor for dinos when my tank was overrun.

INteresting. I thought the point was to get nusciance algae growing to outcompete the dinos for nutrients? Is that not the strategy for beating these things?

Lithoman · Mar 17, 2020

Yes, that's the strategy …

NS Mike D · Mar 17, 2020

bdare said:
INteresting. I thought the point was to get nusciance algae growing to outcompete the dinos for nutrients? Is that not the strategy for beating these things?

I believe you are correct. I lost my battle with dinos. My corals took a lot of abuse from all the remedies and the dinos eventually suffocated everything.

GeoSquid · Mar 17, 2020

bdare said:
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.

My situation is almost identical to yours. Same bigger tank all dry to start out. I did have cyano and used chemiclean. The chemiclean worked but about a month after the treatment I got dinos. I've never used a quick fix and i've been doing this for a long time. I will never do it again. I have two horizontal algae scrubbers in my surge tanks that double as a fuge. I noticed the dinos love the high flow of the algae scrubber. My scrubbers are bit undersized for the stocking I have and I couldn't think of another way to increase the capacity. I saw PaulB on this forum had and "algae tray" on the back of his tank. I decided to implement one like his since it was an empty space. It cost me about $30 although I had a couple small harbour freight 160 gal pumps hanging around. It's been running about a week and the dinos are really starting to grow in the new device and I'm seeing way less in the display tank. I'm hoping the turf algae will start taking over in the new scrubber but if I can get the dinos to grow there and not the display I'll be pretty happy. No additives or quick fixes. I feel the chemiclean made my situation worse in the long run.

bdare · Mar 18, 2020

GeoSquid said:
My situation is almost identical to yours. Same bigger tank all dry to start out. I did have cyano and used chemiclean. The chemiclean worked but about a month after the treatment I got dinos. I've never used a quick fix and i've been doing this for a long time. I will never do it again. I have two horizontal algae scrubbers in my surge tanks that double as a fuge. I noticed the dinos love the high flow of the algae scrubber. My scrubbers are bit undersized for the stocking I have and I couldn't think of another way to increase the capacity. I saw PaulB on this forum had and "algae tray" on the back of his tank. I decided to implement one like his since it was an empty space. It cost me about $30 although I had a couple small harbour freight 160 gal pumps hanging around. It's been running about a week and the dinos are really starting to grow in the new device and I'm seeing way less in the display tank. I'm hoping the turf algae will start taking over in the new scrubber but if I can get the dinos to grow there and not the display I'll be pretty happy. No additives or quick fixes. I feel the chemiclean made my situation worse in the long run.

It's very odd indeed. I've been in this hobby over 20 years. This is my 5th personal tank and I've helped others setup multiple. This is the first time I've ever had this many issues. I keep trying to go back and think what I've done differently here compared to other tanks. Besides technology changes like the type of movement pumps and the type of LED lighting it's all pretty consistent other than this fake live rock...

bdare · Mar 27, 2020

Busted out the microscope today to see what I could scrape off the walls of the tanks and sump. Pretty interesting stuff IMO.

Marc2952 · Mar 27, 2020

bdare said:
I added some high capacity GFO over the weekend. Phosphate is down to .71 ppm.

im going through but found that whatever is inmy tank is consuming a TON of phosphates, im currently dosing 50ml of neophos and still stays at 0 but gonna switch to the dry since it gets expensive. I found that adding phyto feast is actually making mines worse though.

Marc2952 · Mar 27, 2020

ScottB said:
I'll be curious to see if you can knock them down without UV. Someone around here also said they used 1 micron filter socks to trap dinos. Another used a diatom filter. The concept being Remove, versus Irradiate.

Your lighting modifications should inhibit the dino reproduction... but these might also limit the ability to grow competitive film algae. I don't know.

Stick with it; keep us informed.

The 1 micron filter sock siphon did worked great for me but they slowly come back.

ScottB · Mar 28, 2020

bdare said:
Busted out the microscope today to see what I could scrape off the walls of the tanks and sump. Pretty interesting stuff IMO.

Digging the heart shaped organism. The large cell amphid not so much but I would guess with so few on a slide the tank is looking fine?

jmichaelh7 · Jun 1, 2021

dwest said:
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.

A couple?

Aren’t they 3-4 hundred a pop. I thought this Dino doesn’t go into water column