Dinos Wreaking Havoc

[mimi117]

Hey yall.

I'll make this post short and concise.

About 1.5 weeks ago, I started noticing what I thought was diatoms, started as green slime algae on rocks, coated my rocks a nice dark green color, then I saw brown algae on the sand, so I siphoned it up for a few days, noticed it got worse.

Thought it was cyano, but I am 99.9% sure its Dinos.

Yesterday, I didn't clean the sand bed and it got very heavy thick film of the Dino, so before lights out, I vacced it up through a mesh filter and replaced the water.

This morning, I woke up and my fish were super lethargic, the blenny was breathing heavy in his hole where he hides, I fed the tank and nobody ate, the fish were breathing a little heavy, my goby was acting strange hiding in the corner of the tank, labored breathing, and my wrasse was nowhere to be found.

so.. last night I bought some Dino-X its already here, along with Neophos, my Phos and Nitrates are both 0, I have been dosing Sodium Nitrate for the past week, still no reading on my API kit (api kit works because when I cycled it was reading nitrates at 80+ ppm, so I know it's not that).

I took down the tank, took out the rock, and netted my fish in a 5 gallon bucket with fresh salt water at 1.022, I have a heater in the bucket at 77 degrees and a small air stone for gas exchange.

I plan to dose Dino-X tonight, and hopefully in the next few days they are gone.

Any suggestions about when to put the fish back? should I just keep them in a bucket, and change out the water everyday to make sure ammonia doesn't build up?
I don't want to add them prematurely to the tank, I am pretty sure the dino's were releasing toxins and affecting the fish.

I will add my carbon back into the tank after the treatment, I also was using phosguard, but I am going to remove that as I think it's stripping my phosphates to 0.

Thanks for the read.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Its not mentioned the tank size or how many fish are in the bucket? Did you put any rocks in the bucket? Why is the salinity only 1.022? How old is the tank? Seems your not sure of the parameters? Did you test for ammonia when the fish were breathing hard?.... Its really a lot going on and seems a lot of instability. Pictures would really help to get an idea of the dino's and identify it.

Trying to clear out dino's in just one or two weeks to me is unrealistic. I would get the tank in order and stabilize the parameters (with good test kits) and over time it will improve. It took me 5 months to beat out dino's, its a long battle.

 

[CHSUB]

morning, I woke up and my fish were super lethargic, the blenny was breathing heavy in his hole where he hides, I fed the tank and nobody ate, the fish were breathing a little heavy, my goby was acting strange hiding in the corner of the tank, labored breathing, and my wrasse was nowhere to be found.

Did you qt? Fish are likely suffering from a parasite.

Dino-X its already here, along with Neophos

dosing Sodium Nitrate for the past week, still

Stop all dosing, absolutely unnecessary.

am pretty sure the dino's were releasing toxins and affecting the fish.

Nearly impossible in a closed system. I have witnessed dinoflagellates poisoning wildlife and the blooms are as thick as beef stew, and only a few dinoflagellates have the ability to release these toxins. If it was happening, you would likely feel the effects yourself.

You are chasing a boogeyman that doesn’t exist. You need to follow sound reefing advice from Sprung, Tullock, Vargas, etc; and stop seeking guidance from the internet.

 

[Ramon84]

Did you qt? Fish are likely suffering from a parasite.



Stop all dosing, absolutely unnecessary.

Nearly impossible in a closed system. I have witnessed dinoflagellates poisoning wildlife and the blooms are as thick as beef stew, and only a few dinoflagellates have the ability to release these toxins. If it was happening, you would likely feel the effects yourself.

You are chasing a boogeyman that doesn’t exist. You need to follow sound reefing advice from Sprung, Tullock, Vargas, etc; and stop seeking guidance from the internet.

Agree with sticking to a small handful of people for advice. To much from different sources will have u changing things that will have affects in the long run! Hope you get it figured out and everything works out for you and your tank!

 

[mimi117]

Appreciate the comments,

Ammonia in tank was 0 so it's not that.

The reason I am dosing nitrates is because both nitrates and phosphates are 0, I just got a reading of around 5ppm nitrates, and I have around .03 phosphates as of today.

Did a short 6 hour blue light only schedule today, noticed way less bubbles forming on the rocks compared to the day (before I dosed) so I think it's working, I didn't get the chance to siphon out the stuff on the sand last night before I dosed, today it grew very little, so I siphoned the sand 30 mins before lights out.

Tomorrow I'll run another full blue spectrum for 6 hours and see if there is any more growing on the sand.

Fish are in a 5G bucket with an airstone and heater, they are doing well, I have not fed them since yesterday to help minimize ammonia in the water.

As I type this I have fresh salt water mixing and waiting for it to match temp before I move them over to a new 5G bucket, I plan to do this until I don't notice any more of that algae growing on the sand.

I know you guys think its impossible for the toxins to cause issues with the fish but I know how they act, the blenny was like in a trance, breathing heavy, the goby was swimming in the water column, he never swims like that, then landed in the corner of the tank, it's almost like they couldn't breathe. Both clowns were breathing heavy but swimming fine, and the wrasse was under a rock in a trance like state as well, he's usually out swimming around happy.

I guess I panicked but better to be safe than sorry, I'll probably put them back in within 48 hours and let the reef gods handle the rest.

 

[Ramon84]

Glad that things are working out for you

 

[mimi117]

Dosed some more nitrates, I originally had them coming out of a doser with my kalkwasser, but I was at no detectable amount for over 1.5 weeks, so I just did a corrective heavy dose last night after my water change to see if anything would register today, checked nitrates and I am somewhere between 10-20ppm! happy about that, literally been at 0 for weeks which is why I think this issue came about.

Also phosphates are detectable as well, had to do a few ML's of NeoPhos to get them detectable but now I will just monitor and dose when needed!

Fish are going in today, I think they are ready to see their new home, taking down the tank gave me opportunity to rearrange the rock work, hopefully that chills the fish out a little too.

Haven't added carbon back to the tank yet, skimmer is working good too, so far just producing a light tea brown color.

Going to bump my whites up 5-10% and ride it out.

Now that my nitrates are higher up and phosphates are readable, is there anything outside GHA and some Cyno I should expect moving forward? I am also doing Microbacteria everyday.

Will my corals consume nitrates throughout the day, or does it just stay present in the water column?

 

[mimi117]

Update, I have dosed Dino-X 4 times, running protein skimmer 24/7 - added UV sterilizer to one of the return pumps.

Resumed adding amino acids, and kept the whites turned down, sand bed and rock algae has slowed/halted, cant be sure if its the whites coming down, the dino-x working, or uv helping, but whatever it is seems to have fixed the issue.

I also changed my filter socks for the first time since I have had the tank running. 8+ weeks, took out the carbon and phosban, not sure if I'll add it again, maybe carbon in the future since it helps with making sure no toxins remain in the water column.

Phosphate is between .03-.1, least that is what my salifert test says, and I checked nitrates a few days ago it was registering between 10-20 ppm, hopefully keeping these levels elevated helps with dino's not coming back, i'll keep you all updated!

Thanks for all your recommendations.