How I beat dinos: an ode to Brandon 429 work thread

[thrillreefer]

B) change filters daily before lights on.

This one seems harder to diligently follow. Especially if you work outside your house etc.

 

[hotdrop]

This one seems harder to diligently follow. Especially if you work outside your house etc.

You can do it in the morning before you leave should take like a minute at most

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Update on fight against dinos:

The key to my fight against dinos was to establish, as closely as I could, a complete bottom-to-top ecosystem. Notice I put ‘bottom’ first. IMO, many of the issues reefers face…particularly with new-wave reefing strategies…is they the bottom half of the ecosystem is not only ignored, but is actively eliminated.

Yes, people put a lot of emphasis on bacteria. But unless you run an aquarium with 10ppm bleach, the bacteria are going to be there no matter what.

It’s the next couple of levels up that are ignored. Level 1 is the protists. Not just the many types of reef algae that reefers work so hard to eliminate, but the next level up…the many types of heterotrophic protist. I’m not going to name all of them, because it’s such a massive collection of groups, and to be honest, I don’t know all of them in terms of their importance to reef ecosystems. Maybe this will encourage me to learn them.

But, the ciliates, radiolarians, foraminiferans, amoebas, etc are all important heterotrophic protists, and modern reefing has worked to eliminate their presence from reef systems. Then we have the next level up of consumers that includes sponges, fanworms, tunicates, etc that are crucial in managing microfauna/plankton populations. Most modern reef tanks have some incidental populations of this consumer level, and over time, if space and time are allocated for them, robust populations can form. But a lot of people need that sparkling clean sump, back panel of tank, and overflow, so a lot of this stuff gets removed.

tl;dr if you don’t want a simple unicellular organism to completely overtake your tank, don’t prevent or eliminate all of the organisms that would keep their numbers in check.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Update part 2:

In order to have what I considered to be the best chance of managing various algae, I incorporated the bottom-up consumer element from the previous post, and then also encouraged the competition element.

There is no such thing as bad algae. There is only too much algae.

In natural ecosystems, it is very rare for populations of any given organism to blow up unchecked. Everything is food for something, and everything has competition. These are the fundamental drivers of community ecology.

When we actively work to prevent or eliminate algae in our tanks, whether by working to prevent the addition of them to our reefs, or go crazy with nutrient export, we simply stack the deck against ourselves.

Competition is an incredible equalizer. Among algae, it’s a roughly billion year old war. When one strategically pits these things against each other, an amazing thing typically happens…they keep each other’s numbers in check.

Competition among algae manifests in a lot of ways. Outcompeting for nutrients. Outcompeting for space. Use of allelopathic compounds to by one to reduce the growth of others, etc. Establishing a designated algae zone is great way to let these guys duke it out without them showing up in your display.

The refugium is not a new concept. But how we manage them will determine how successful we are in truly establishing competition that will ultimately favor easier to manage algae types.

To me, I could not truly establish a healthy algal community without bringing everything found in nature into my system. That’s why I use maricultured live rock. And not just a piece here and piece there…I used about 25lbs in my system.

This accomplished both establishment of the organisms from the 1st update, and bringing all
of the algae in as well.

Here is my macro-algae tank early on:

C. prolifera, Halimeda, and Gracilaria, plus whatever came in on the rock. At the time this was started, I had a heavy dino presence in the display tank. The dinos fought back hard against the macros, and I did have to help out a bit by blowing the dinos off the algae a few times a day. But after a week, the macros (minus the Halimeda, which died off pretty quickly), settled in pretty well.

Here is the macro tank a few weeks later:

As you can see, there are very few dinos. Notice I didn’t say ‘no dinos’. Of course they’re in there. I can’t eliminate them. But I’m also not trying to. Also worth noting that by this time, dinos are virtually absent from main display.

In the Great Algae Wars, chalk another victory up for the macros.

The macro tank has continued to evolve. There are some different turf and hair alga carving out space, and a couple of very small pockets of Cyano (mainly between the C prolifera stems on the bottom). When I get back to school Monday, I will take some current pics.

I want to emphasize….i have not done a single water change, treatment, sterilization, black-out, or really anything to knock the dinos back. Just put the organisms that would be found on the reef in the system and let the minutes, hours, and days pass.

 

[Ziggy17]

For that Dino,

A) get nutes in check
B) Run UV at night using a closed system in the DT.
C) run some carbon to pull out toxins released by Dino die off.

The easiest of the Dinos to get rid of.

 

[Ziggy17]

This one seems harder to diligently follow. Especially if you work outside your house etc.

Unless you’re using a 5 micron sock or smaller, it won’t matter.

 

[BetterJake]

"There is no such thing as bad algae. There is only too much algae."

Very true!

Dinos/GHA/Cyano/Diatoms are always present in some amount, but should be in balance and not really visible ("too much")

It's when a void exist that allows one to take over, try to nuke Dinos with something like DinoX, immediately run into a cyano bloom, use chemi clean and then right back to Dinos..

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

"There is no such thing as bad algae. There is only too much algae."

Very true!

Dinos/GHA/Cyano/Diatoms are always present in some amount, but should be in balance and not really visible ("too much")

It's when a void exist that allows one to take over, try to nuke Dinos with something like DinoX, immediately run into a cyano bloom, use chemi clean and then right back to Dinos..

Exactly.

Organisms on the level of dinos are what I consider ‘easy come, easy go’ in the broader context of an ecosystem.

But when we eliminate everything above them, then it’s ‘easy come, no go’.

 

[brandon429]

Gregg the pics are outstanding. that's what scuba diving looks like, from a healthy zone. things are busy per square inch, diverse, all kinds of packed in life but we don't see the cyanobacteria or dinos as the main eye-catcher. they're suppressed clearly.

that's diversity so sharply in focus it's neat to see the little competing periphyton/SantaMonica's favorite word and the suppression of the target without making a sterile-looking environment. pics are such great drivers of work threads nicely done.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Gregg the pics are outstanding. that's what scuba diving looks like, from a healthy zone. things are busy per square inch, diverse, all kinds of packed in life but we don't see the cyanobacteria or dinos as the main eye-catcher. they're suppressed clearly.

that's diversity so sharply in focus it's neat to see the little competing periphyton/SantaMonica's favorite word and the suppression of the target without making a sterile-looking environment. pics are such great drivers of work threads nicely done.

Thanks. The tanks look even better now. I’ll add some updated pics on Monday.

The next step that I did was adding the CUC to the macro-tank. But by CUC, I mean a couple of snails and a couple of crabs, etc. Not enough to actually ‘clean’ it up, but rather to keep the turf and hair algae in check by cleaning off small patches of rock here and there and giving other algae a chance to set up. Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis stuff.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

OK, here is how the tank is looking 4 months (?) after getting the macro algae tank set up. As you can see, virtually no visible dinos:

Here is the macro tank:

Notice when I zoom in:

There is some macro, some cyano, some turf algae, some GHA, some turf, probably a few strands of Bryopsis in there, unicellular algae that I haven’t looked at under the scope and keyed out, sponges, fan worms, prob lots of pods, prob lots of unicellular heterotrophs, etc

So am I saying ‘Just make a refugium’?

No. A simple refugium with maybe a ball of Chaeto in there is better than doing nothing, but simply adding a macro wasn’t going to solve this problem. Adding a separate tank where all of this algal diversity can battle each other 24/7 is going to solve it. Several types of algae, very little (but not zero) herbivory, and may the best competitor win. It’s managing an ecosystem by including as many of the natural parts of the ecosystem as possible…even ‘pests’ and ‘nuisance algae’.

I haven’t seen noticeable dinos in the display in months.

Water changes: 0
Physical removal: 0
Filter socks/bags: 0
Black-outs: 0
Chemical treatments: 0
Sterilizer: 0
Skimmer: 0
Messing with PO4 and NO3: 0

 

[BetterJake]

OK, here is how the tank is looking 4 months (?) after getting the macro algae tank set up. As you can see, virtually no visible dinos:

Here is the macro tank:

Notice when I zoom in:

There is some macro, some cyano, some turf algae, some GHA, some turf, probably a few strands of Bryopsis in there, unicellular algae that I haven’t looked at under the scope and keyed out, sponges, fan worms, prob lots of pods, prob lots of unicellular heterotrophs, etc

So am I saying ‘Just make a refugium’?

No. A simple refugium with maybe a ball of Chaeto in there is better than doing nothing, but simply adding a macro wasn’t going to solve this problem. Adding a separate tank where all of this algal diversity can battle each other 24/7 is going to solve it. Several types of algae, very little (but not zero) herbivory, and may the best competitor win. It’s managing an ecosystem by including as many of the natural parts of the ecosystem as possible…even ‘pests’ and ‘nuisance algae’.

I haven’t seen noticeable dinos in the display in months.

Water changes: 0
Physical removal: 0
Filter socks/bags: 0
Black-outs: 0
Chemical treatments: 0
Sterilizer: 0
Skimmer: 0
Messing with PO4 and NO3: 0

Bryopsis is the only one I am still struggling with in my tank. I'm not really sure on how to cut it down since nothing really consumes it. Only option seems to be fluconazole, while keeping in mind that completely eliminating something can lead to other issues as well..

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Bryopsis is the only one I am still struggling with in my tank. I'm not really sure on how to cut it down since nothing really consumes it. Only option seems to be fluconazole, while keeping in mind that completely eliminating something can lead to other issues as well..

A lot of things will eat Bryopsis. I had turbo grazers, tuxedo urchins, and an orange shoulder tang. That was light work for that crew. I let the bryopsis grow, harvested big tufts out by hand (ie nutrient export), and added the animals and they wiped the rest out.

The dinos came back strong after the bryopsis was gone.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Quick update:

If you recall from earlier in the thread, I posted that dinos and other base-level algae were, by nature, ‘easy come, easy go’. I also stated that I didn’t eliminate dinos, but just ecologically shoved them into the far corners of the tank where they would linger but probably never flare back up.

Well, last week, a few started to pop up again:

These were different than the earlier dinos. I tried to get a pic of them under the scope, but couldn’t get a good one. Smaller and more round.

My initial thought was that I was going to pay for my hubris and that this whole thread was about to blow up in my face.

But without doing anything to remedy the situation. they more or less disappeared over the course of a week. I still see a tiny blob here and there, but they’re basically gone. That is my experience and expectation with these lower algae…door opens a little bit, they barge in. But then just as quickly, the door slams on them.

Back to essentially dino-free.

 

[brandon429]

Reporting small challenges and ways to press onward is such a good demo for readers with harsh dinos challenge tanks, great update. The good and the bad being showcased is such a well-rounded work thread and progress report.

 

[Ziggy17]

From my experience, you can’t or at least shouldn’t lay claim to Dino defeat until you can go a year without seeing them again. They are Stubborn and adaptive.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

From my experience, you can’t or at least shouldn’t lay claim to Dino defeat until you can go a year without seeing them again. They are Stubborn and adaptive.

This isn’t my first go-round with dinos.

They can be as stubborn and adaptive as they want to be. They can’t compete.

 

[Ziggy17]

They can’t compete.

Clearly they can.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Clearly they can.

When you remove all competition by creating a low bio-diversity system (dry rock, bottled bacteria, etc), life is easy for them.

The only competition they get in most modern reefs is other base-level algae. That competition is weak.

It would be like this: you have a plot of land that you remove all plants from. Given a little time, grasses will move in. If you actively prevent any higher plants from getting onto the plot, then you’re going to have grass. You’re not going to be able to get rid of it, and even if you perform some serious remediation, it will still come back. If you just let other grasses move in, they’re just going to go back and forth forever, and they’re never going to go away.

Plant some shrubs and trees? Bye bye grass.

And that’s just the competition side. There’s also the consumption/herbivory side as well.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Quick update:

I have been crazy, crazy busy over the last month, so haven’t been able to update on the dinos. Here it is now:

A few little pockets of dinos popped up for a couple of weeks. Not Ostreopsis, but I never bothered to key them out. Doesn’t matter…they’re all gone.

There’s a small pocket of cyano on the bottom behind the rock on the left, but it hasn’t grown. There’s not much flow in that spot, and food and detritus accumulates there.

Macro algae and mangroves growing really well. The mangroves have gone from unopened propagules to already having branches in around 4 months.

Still have not done any water changes, used any sort of filtration, UV, chemicals, etc.