Help ! New corals coming and dinos in the tank

[Idech]

I’ve had the dreadful dinos for about 2-3 weeks. They’re not covering everything, but there are big patches with long flagellates on the sand and some on the rocks. Only on half of the rocks, on one side, but pretty much everywhere on the sand.

I’ve noticed my pulsing xenias started to be covered in brown at their base. They are not fully opened as they used to be. Which leads me to believe the dinos are affecting the corals. I’ve just put carbon in my filter to help with that.

Tomorrow I’m getting a bunch of corals that I ordered on line. And I also bought a skunk cleaner shrimp that I have to go pick up at the LFS.

Should I put the corals in this tank (my display tank) or am I at risk of losing them ? They’re all easy corals that I would mostly put near the bottom, where there are more dinos.

And what about the shrimp ? I’ve never paid so much for a shrimp and I would like to keep it alive.

I have another tank, a 13 gallons that’s empty except for a kenya tree, that I almost dismantled but stopped in my tracks today, when I saw the pulsing xenia having trouble. Should I use it to keep the corals and shrimp safe until dinos go away in my DT ?

Thanks for your help.

 

[saltyhog]

It would help if we knew what type of dino you had. Some (Large Cell Amphidinium in particular) are almost never toxic or a problem for corals. Others (Ostreopsis for example) are extremely toxic. It's hard to give firm guidance for you for that reason.

If your present corals are looking stressed then I would do three things. #1 put the new corals in the other tank. #2 start running activated carbon in the infected tank. #3 find out what kind you have.

The best way to determine what you have is a microscopic video of them. There are some inexpensive scopes available on Amazon if you don't have a friend, science teacher,etc. who has one you can use. This is the one I have.

 

[Idech]

It would help if we knew what type of dino you had. Some (Large Cell Amphidinium in particular) are almost never toxic or a problem for corals. Others (Ostreopsis for example) are extremely toxic. It's hard to give firm guidance for you for that reason.

If your present corals are looking stressed then I would do three things. #1 put the new corals in the other tank. #2 start running activated carbon in the infected tank. #3 find out what kind you have.

The best way to determine what you have is a microscopic video of them. There are some inexpensive scopes available on Amazon if you don't have a friend, science teacher,etc. who has one you can use. This is the one I have.

Thank you.

I will do number 1 and 2 for sure (#1 is done). As for the microscope, I’ve looked at them on Amazon part of the day and found one that would work for cheap.

Only thing is budget wise, I’m getting really stretched right now. I wish I hadn’t just bought 300$ of corals and a shrimp. I’m also waiting for the Hanna Phosphate ULR tester that I bought to help with the dinos. So lots of money spent right before Christmas. Sigh.

I’ve also stopped the skimmer, added phytoplankton and raised the temp by 1C (now at 26,5 C). I’ll wait a day or two to see if that helps and if not, then I’ll have to get the microscope.