How to get rid of Dinos (I think)?

[nanoreefguy]

Hey everyone so I'm pretty sure I'm having a dino outbreak. Tank is 25 gal and been setup for a few months but with some existing live sand and rock from my previous tank. Tank is an AIO so I just have basic filtration in the back and was running chemi pure elite. I then switched to chemi pure blue because my phosphates were a little higher than desired. However, this dropped my phosphates to 0.00 for about a day. Right now they are ranging from 0.05-0.10. Nitrates have stayed at about 10. I believe that zeroing out my phosphates caused the outbreak and I therefore believe that I have autotrophic dinoflagellates. I attached pictures fo you to see because maybe I am wrong.

My game plan is to blackout the tank and run my ai prime blue at 5% for about 4 days. Will this hurt my corals? I have some beginner sps like stylophora and don't want to cause them any damage. I also plan on dosing microbacter 7 daily and frequently changing out filter floss. I will continue to feed my 3 fish as normal. I turned off all flow except for the main return pump. This is what my research has told me to do. Is any of this wrong, or is there anything else I should be doing? I don't have much sand in the tank as it is but would it be smart to suck all the sand with dinos out of the tank? I would greatly appreciate any advice.

 

[SMSREEF]

Doesn't look like dinos to me. Looks more like diatoms, maybe chrysophyte. But you really need to look under a microscope to be sure.

Are they attaching to your corals and irritating anything?

 

[nanoreefguy]

Some of the corals have some dead or at least bleached parts that hairy looking algae are growing on. One of my zoas that has been open everyday closed up for some reason as of yesterday. All of my paramaters haare in check, ph of 8.3 and so on. Other than that, corals look great and I see growth everyday.

 

[SMSREEF]

Some of the corals have some dead or at least bleached parts that hairy looking algae are growing on. One of my zoas that has been open everyday closed up for some reason as of yesterday. All of my paramaters haare in check, ph of 8.3 and so on. Other than that, corals look great and I see growth everyday.

Does the hairy looking brown algae make a lot of bubbles? Does it leave the sand at night and then return later in the day?
Do your snails eat this stuff at all?

The bleaching of some corals could be due to the sudden drop in phosphate you had. especially since other corals are thriving. The zoa upset could be dino's but maybe just zoa being tempermental.

If most of your corals are doing ok, I would take it slow. You could get a cheap microscope because they come in really handy. I have used it to look at all kinds of things from my tank.

I would leave your wavemakers on.

You can do something that I saw @taricha post.
I wanted to (re)post this, as recently I've seen a couple of people with massive populations of dinos who are not apparently doing any real export. And this idea seems to have been lost in the depths of a few thousand posts. I originally stole it from user nvladik.
Hang some filter floss directly in front of one or two of your powerheads. Let it blow in the flow like a flag. Ostreopsis will attach to floss more than anything else in the tank. Turns out they don't care what they attach to - just looking for a good spot with tons of flow and some light, and they actually prefer rough surfaces to slime coats etc. Rinse the filter floss out daily (or a couple times a day) in tap water until it's white again. Use gloves - the toxins in question are serious business.

 

[nanoreefguy]

Does the hairy looking brown algae make a lot of bubbles? Does it leave the sand at night and then return later in the day?
Do your snails eat this stuff at all?

The bleaching of some corals could be due to the sudden drop in phosphate you had. especially since other corals are thriving. The zoa upset could be dino's but maybe just zoa being tempermental.

If most of your corals are doing ok, I would take it slow. You could get a cheap microscope because they come in really handy. I have used it to look at all kinds of things from my tank.

I would leave your wavemakers on.

You can do something that I saw @taricha post.
I wanted to (re)post this, as recently I've seen a couple of people with massive populations of dinos who are not apparently doing any real export. And this idea seems to have been lost in the depths of a few thousand posts. I originally stole it from user nvladik.
Hang some filter floss directly in front of one or two of your powerheads. Let it blow in the flow like a flag. Ostreopsis will attach to floss more than anything else in the tank. Turns out they don't care what they attach to - just looking for a good spot with tons of flow and some light, and they actually prefer rough surfaces to slime coats etc. Rinse the filter floss out daily (or a couple times a day) in tap water until it's white again. Use gloves - the toxins in question are serious business.

Some of the hair algae has bubbles and is very red. Ok thanks, that is helpful. Would you recommend removing the sand that contains this stuff?

 

[SMSREEF]

Some of the hair algae has bubbles and is very red. Ok thanks, that is helpful. Would you recommend removing the sand that contains this stuff?

Yes. I would take the top layer of sand out that has the algae and clean it off. You will not be taking much sand out. I would also siphon out what I could off the rocks. The red sounds like hair algae. It may not come off easy and you will need to manually remove. You can buy disposable eyebrow brushes On Amazon to twist and remove longer algae if suction doesn’t work.

If you have a sump, siphon straight into a filter sock. If it is Dino’s, you don’t want to do water change. If it’s not Dino’s then it doesn’t matter.

Jut rinse the small amount of sand you remove a bunch of times with tap water to get rid of the algae and then final rinses a few times with RODI.
you won’t be doing enough to mess with The bacteria in the sand bed.

If the stuff grows back in 3 Days, you may need to try something else. But something else really depends on the exact microbe you are dealing with.

 

[SMSREEF]

Also this is a good page from reefcleaners that can help you with ID.

Nuisance Algae ID Guide- Reef Cleaners

Nuisance Algae ID Guide. Red Slime, Cyano, Cyanobacteria. Green Film Algae, Film Algae. Green Hair Algae. Green Turf Algae. Bryopsis pennata and B. plumosa. Bubble Algae, Valonia. Lobophora. Blue Green Cyano.

www.reefcleaners.org