Dinos with high phosphate?

[kmanuele]

Hello,

I have a 20 gallon tank, about a year old. Entirely softies and macros, no livestock.

About six months ago, most of my macros went sexual while I was on vacation. Soon after, I had a cyano outbreak, presumably due to all the organic matter from the dead macros.

After a few months of this, the cyano abruptly died. I now understand that the phosphate must have bottomed out, because immediately after I had a severe outbreak of dinos. I did a three day blackout and started dosing phosphate, which ended the dinos, but not before I lost a good chunk of my corals. After the dinos disappeared, the Cyano came back.

About a week ago, I started seeing dinos again. I had worried about this, but I assumed that they wouldn't reappear before the cyano went away. Additionally, my phosphate reads as >0.25, and nitrate at 20 on API. Dinos have now mostly replaced the cyano, but there are still large patches of cyano in parts of the tank.

I am planning on another three day blackout. Should I assume the API tests are incorrect and dose phosphates?

Please advice
Thanks

 

[Subsea]

If you question your test results, then bring your water to a reputable LFS. From looking at your photo, I doubt your water is phosphate limited.

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

Hello,

I have a 20 gallon tank, about a year old. Entirely softies and macros, no livestock.

About six months ago, most of my macros went sexual while I was on vacation. Soon after, I had a cyano outbreak, presumably due to all the organic matter from the dead macros.

After a few months of this, the cyano abruptly died. I now understand that the phosphate must have bottomed out, because immediately after I had a severe outbreak of dinos. I did a three day blackout and started dosing phosphate, which ended the dinos, but not before I lost a good chunk of my corals. After the dinos disappeared, the Cyano came back.

About a week ago, I started seeing dinos again. I had worried about this, but I assumed that they wouldn't reappear before the cyano went away. Additionally, my phosphate reads as >0.25, and nitrate at 20 on API. Dinos have now mostly replaced the cyano, but there are still large patches of cyano in parts of the tank.

I am planning on another three day blackout. Should I assume the API tests are incorrect and dose phosphates?

Please advice
Thanks

I went three months before I realized that my API tests were not accurate. Expired reagents? Not shaking bottle? who knows. Was reading near zero nitrates. When I decided to test with a hanna...i as unreadable over 75. So i would suggest starting with a better test kit / confirming your numbers before deciding your next course of action

 

[taricha]

Should I assume the API tests are incorrect and dose phosphates?

no. Just because many systems have an onset of dinos when their PO4 goes very low does not mean that dinos in a high PO4 system will be helped by PO4 going even higher.
raising PO4 to modest levels only helpful or advisable if it was previously being pushed quite low.

Get a UV to go along with any blackout you do. much more likely to be helpful.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Dinos supported by high or low phosphates and thrive best from light. A UV will address any flagellates that go thru UV unit but not address the existing ones. I agree on false readings and suggest to take a good size water sample to a trusted LFS that does not use Api kits and see what readings they come up with and to compare with yours.

Again, prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15% IF you have light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off.
During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons.
Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX as it is food for dinos.
Day 5,, you can start with blue lights - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly

 

[Spare time]

+1 on that you can probably have dinos with high phosphate. Anyone on this forum who tells you they know what causes dinos is lying to themselves. The main info known is that there seems to be a correlation between 0.00ish phosphates and dinos

 

[kmanuele]

Gotcha.

Yeah I guess I'm just kind of confused on what created the conditions that allowed this dino outbreak. Maybe the cyano depleted a different nutrient allowing dinos to outcompete everything? I also get that the microbiome is clearly out of wack and a lot of different things could be happening. Just a little discouraging as I didn't expect dinos to reemerge with my water being "dirty."

I'm a college student running a super low tech set up so I unfortunately can't buy a UV sterilizer. Currently doing a 3 day blackout and hoping for the best.

After 6 months of cycling between cyano and dinos I'm thinking about dosing Dino X or something similar. I really really wanted to avoid a chemical solution, but waiting it out does not seem to be working. The other option I'm considering is essentially breaking down my tank and putting it back together- draining the water and replacing the sandbed. Neither of these seem like great ideas but the problems seem to be intensifying and I'm at a loss.

I think part of the problem is I should have gotten fish much earlier on. I've been having to dose nitrates to keep them above zero as well as chaetogrow and I think the lack of fish waste just keeps the system super unstable. At this point however I basically hand clean the entire tank every day and I am reluctant to introduce a fish into that environment.

 

[kmanuele]

Again, prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15% IF you have light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off.
During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons.
Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX as it is food for dinos.
Day 5,, you can start with blue lights - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly

Yesterday I put the tank in complete blackout. Do you think this a better course of action? If I run blues how long should the photoperiod be? The tank would get some amount of white light regardless as it is right next to my desk and I work from home.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yesterday I put the tank in complete blackout. Do you think this a better course of action? If I run blues how long should the photoperiod be? The tank would get some amount of white light regardless as it is right next to my desk and I work from home.

Lights off is best. IF you have coral like SPS, 6 hours of LOW blue. Ambient light from a desk wont have much impact however a window would

 

[kmanuele]

Lights off is best. IF you have coral like SPS, 6 hours of LOW blue. Ambient light from a desk wont have much impact however a window would

No window, just artificial light. I exclusively have hardy softies - xenia gsp glvoe polyps etc.

The previous blackout I did resulted in some coral deaths and almost melted all my Xenia. I assume that this was less from the lack of light and more from the toxins released from the dino die-off (?)

 

[Spare time]

Gotcha.

Yeah I guess I'm just kind of confused on what created the conditions that allowed this dino outbreak. Maybe the cyano depleted a different nutrient allowing dinos to outcompete everything? I also get that the microbiome is clearly out of wack and a lot of different things could be happening. Just a little discouraging as I didn't expect dinos to reemerge with my water being "dirty."

I'm a college student running a super low tech set up so I unfortunately can't buy a UV sterilizer. Currently doing a 3 day blackout and hoping for the best.

After 6 months of cycling between cyano and dinos I'm thinking about dosing Dino X or something similar. I really really wanted to avoid a chemical solution, but waiting it out does not seem to be working. The other option I'm considering is essentially breaking down my tank and putting it back together- draining the water and replacing the sandbed. Neither of these seem like great ideas but the problems seem to be intensifying and I'm at a loss.

I think part of the problem is I should have gotten fish much earlier on. I've been having to dose nitrates to keep them above zero as well as chaetogrow and I think the lack of fish waste just keeps the system super unstable. At this point however I basically hand clean the entire tank every day and I am reluctant to introduce a fish into that environment.

You can get a uv like the green killing machine for relatively cheap

 

[kmanuele]

Removed the tank from blackout after 3 days.
Seems to have been a bit of a microfauna die off. Piles of dead pods everywhere, and all the stomatellas seem to have died. Tons of living ostracods.
Anyone know what might have happened? Water is kinda cloudy. Corals seems relatively ok.