Options for Combating a Dino Outbreak

[CHSUB]

Same for me. My acro and SPS are growing like crazy with great color and PE and my nitrates are around 50 and phosphates around 0.15.

Different for me…my tanks are always zero nitrates on Salifert going back to the 90’s as it very easy to keep nitrates low with maintenance and a moderate fish load. In all those tank I’ve never had a dinoflagellate problem. Recently I purchased a microscopic and found a few dinos as
expected.


Referring to corals and hobby tested zero nitrate:

 

[JonasRoman]

I tried Blackout. And I have a UV that I am running. After the blackout, the sand was clean. And then they came back. The sand does still mostly clear at night so I assume they are in the water column. But that didn't work.

Specify the UV, age of UV, wattage, circulation/h of UV pump, tank size and that your UV-pump was in display tank (as a temporary)
All these must be done correct.

 

[docscorals]

Same for me. My acro and SPS are growing like crazy with great color and PE and my nitrates are around 50 and phosphates around 0.15.

Different for me…my tanks are always zero nitrates on Salifert going back to the 90’s as it very easy to keep nitrates low with maintenance and a moderate fish load. In all those tank I’ve never had a dinoflagellate problem. Recently I purchased a microscopic and found a few dinos as
expected.


Referring to corals and hobby tested zero nitrate:

Awesome. And they look great. Mine never had great color or PE until my numbers started creeping up. I have found that trying to keep my nitrates between 25-50 and phosphates between 0.10-0.15 seems to be perfect for my tanks. Although I really don’t react much unless my nitrates get below 10 or over 50 and my phosphates are below 0.05 or over 0.25.

There are so many factors and every rank is different. That’s why they say chase consistency, not numbers .

 

[Patrick Cox]

Specify the UV, age of UV, wattage, circulation/h of UV pump, tank size and that your UV-pump was in display tank (as a temporary)
All these must be done correct.

I have a microscope but I am unable to take a picture. from the slide it looks like Prorocentrum to me. Like small pointed eggs. (like the small pointed dots in the picture above.)

UV is 25 watt Aqua Ultraviolet...

Bulb is about a year old.
Tank is 140-150 gallon total water volume
pump is in the sump
I did have it dialed up and now it is dialed down.


https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/25-w...D=9973&indexName=brs_prod_m2_default_products

 

[JWsticks]

I appreciate all of the replies and discussion on this topic. As someone said above, there are obviously different ways to be successful in this hobby. I have been in the saltwater hobby for 15 years and I still feel like a newbie. Or maybe I know just enough to be dangerous. LOL. It likely makes sense for me to choose the approach where I can get some in person support from someone who knows a lot more than I do.

@Randy Holmes-Farley ,
I asked AI about the Polyp Labs Media I just removed from my system and here is what it had to say...

"That Polyplab Genesis Rock Power Rack is an enormous amount of biological surface area. BRS says each of the four Genesis Rocks provides over 1,000 m² / 11,000 ft² of surface area, and the rack is specifically designed to move water through that media.

For your roughly 140–150-gallon system, that's substantial additional biological capacity. BRS even states that each block can support around 350 gallons, although I'd treat that as a manufacturer sizing claim rather than a literal filtration requirement. "

It sounds like I may have been over processing dissolved nutrients. And maybe that condition brought on the Dinos. It will be interesting to see how that changes over the next few days. I will report back on this point.

Thanks!

I've just recovered from a minor dino outbreak. I reintroduced bleached Marco rock and my PO4 crashed to 0. I also run a well lit refugium to export PO4 by dosing NO3 weekly which made it worse. Noticed the snots a week after rocks were in the tank and quickly dosed PO4. A week of dosing PO4 and dinos were gone. Probably fast for my case due to being barebottom and high flow. Also, I kept the refugium and skimmer running normally. NO3 and PO4 can always be dosed to desired levels.

Are you also carbon dosing with the biomedia? How are you driving PO4 lower? Are you dosing anything else to lower PO4 specifically?

For your case, I would dose PO4 to 0.10 and check the following day how much PO4 was consumed. Then dose PO4 to maintain 0.10 on a daily basis. Check daily and eventually your tank will stop consuming and will see a large excess build up and dino should've receded. Keep a log and you will see a trend develop.

 

[Patrick Cox]

I've just recovered from a minor dino outbreak. I reintroduced bleached Marco rock and my PO4 crashed to 0. I also run a well lit refugium to export PO4 by dosing NO3 weekly which made it worse. Noticed the snots a week after rocks were in the tank and quickly dosed PO4. A week of dosing PO4 and dinos were gone. Probably fast for my case due to being barebottom and high flow. Also, I kept the refugium and skimmer running normally. NO3 and PO4 can always be dosed to desired levels.

Are you also carbon dosing with the biomedia? How are you driving PO4 lower? Are you dosing anything else to lower PO4 specifically?

For your case, I would dose PO4 to 0.10 and check the following day how much PO4 was consumed. Then dose PO4 to maintain 0.10 on a daily basis. Check daily and eventually your tank will stop consuming and will see a large excess build up and dino should've receded. Keep a log and you will see a trend develop.

Thanks for sharing your experience. My current guess is that the Polyp Lab Genesis Rock Rack that I installed has been consuming all of my nutrients. My tank is ~145 gallon total water volume and this kit is advertised to "support systems up to 1400 gallons" of water volume. I removed that this morning so we will see what happens over the next few days! LOL. Thanks.

 

[CHSUB]

A week of dosing PO4 and dinos were gone

So the po4 dosing killed the dinos?

 

[mcarroll]

I am not sure how this happened but I have been battling a Dino outbreak for several months. I am currently trying Silicate dosing and even though I see a lot of Diatoms in the sand, rock and glass, the microscope still shows a lot of Dinos in the samples I have taken from the sand...

I don't have any corals right now. I have lost the few that I had. Also, the tank is about 3 years old.

So, I was thinking about this step...

Removing most of my sand and replacing it with some Live sand from Tampa bay Saltwater. Any thoughts on if that would likely help me get rid of the Dino outbreak?

Thanks.

Tank is 5'x2'x22". ~150G total water volume. I have a good skimmer, roller mat, Algae scrubber and UV. My guess is I ran the UV too much and that created an environment for the Dinos to grow. it also started when I added a few pieces of Dry rock to my established aquarium.

This is not a typical toxic dino bloom, but reading about them might give you some ideas and at least some perspective....the first post is all you NEED to read, but reading some of the cases in the other thread posts might also be interesting (there's 12,000+ of them tho....no need to read them all!!):
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/

You might also consider posting there and/or having your thread moved to that subforum:

Nuisance Algae (including bacteria)​

Thanks Randy. What would be the order of priority for removing the Bio Media vs the Algae Scrubber? I am assuming I don't want to remove all but maybe. Thanks.

If things are suffering due to the ultra-competition for nutrients, then I'd decommission all of the extras you added. There should be no downside. (The downside would be allowing things to continue as-is.)

Thanks for the replies. I am a little confused / unsure about something...

I local guy I know who maintains tanks and has for 30+ years stopped by and looked the tank over and he said my tank is too dirty and it needs a deep cleaning. He did a 25 gallon water change and cleaned the sand bed pretty heavily. He said there is way too much fish and food waste built up in the sand bed and in the rocks. He also said I need better flow through the rocks and the tanks. He thinks this is the cause of my issues. It is true that I have not been cleaning my sand bed. I don't really do a lot of water changes but for a while I did do ~ 10% auto water change per week. Tank is ~ 3 years old.

So, can it be true that my water tests show very low nutrients but the tank is still dirty and needs to be cleaned better?

I would consider this guy to be "old school".

Thanks!

I think he's probably correct on all counts. For certain on the cleaning up the tank part.

Using a small powerhead to blast the rocks and sand is one way. Siphon cleaning the sand is another.

If you have been broadcast feeding, stop.

When you feed the fish make sure you only put as much in the tank as they can consume in a given time.....don't put so much that it can drift down to the sand or into the rocks without being eaten. Do everything you reasonably can to NOT waste food in the tank.

It's hardly ever true that a tank has "enough" flow.....an improvement is almost always possible.

How does that explain tanks that have 3" of detritus in the sump and grow SPS like crazy? The older the tank the higher the nutrients usually. The older the tank the less algae there is.

This can be true, but it is definitely not necessarily true....plenty of tanks with a lot of detritus that have problems. And old tanks have their problems as well...."Old Tank Syndrom" is the catch-all term for many of them.

Not sure your question, however it is established science what causes dinoflagellates blooms and “Red Tides”.

More of an ongoing concern than established if you ask Google Scholar.

The only generic term to characterize the causes is "disturbance". Disturbances cause HAB's. (Harmful Algae Blooms)

What kind of disturbance matters depends on which dino (or other algae; cyano and others are also capable) we're talking about. There's still VERY active research in this area tho....not that much feels really settled to me.

I have a microscope but I am unable to take a picture.

You can lay your phone-camera's lens on the eyepiece and get good photos. This even worked on the toy scope I started out with. Takes a little finesse, but it's doable.

UV is 25 watt Aqua Ultraviolet...

Make sure flow is correct for their rating vs parasites. (Double check on their website.)
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...-b1ec-465e-b087-6fbe63031952.pdf?v=1741196543

Looks like you should measure about 400 GPH coming out of the UV......check it with an actual measurement of water flow if possible. E.g. catch return flow in a cup or bucket and time how long it takes to fill it up. Do the math to arrive at gallons per hour.

Bulb is about a year old.

This is more or less expired. Carefully check that the quartz tube is more or less clean while you're changing the bulb.

 

[JonasRoman]

I have a microscope but I am unable to take a picture. from the slide it looks like Prorocentrum to me. Like small pointed eggs. (like the small pointed dots in the picture above.)

UV is 25 watt Aqua Ultraviolet...

Bulb is about a year old.
Tank is 140-150 gallon total water volume
pump is in the sump
I did have it dialed up and now it is dialed down.


https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/25-w...D=9973&indexName=brs_prod_m2_default_products

Thats why it doesnt work. Pump must be a temporary installation in displaytank (you will not catch all dino otherwise), and in your case approx 2000 l/h(tank vol 4 itmes /hour) , and for that the UV must be double from you have now, 55w. Also, as yours is one year, its even less effective.

 

[JonasRoman]

Blackout UV only works on ostreopsis

For prorocentrum uv slows it down but you need to siphon it out with a 1 micron sock

Amphidinium can be outcompeted by diatoms. So dose silicates.

Maybe you misunderstand. Black out is not to kill dino, its to force them into water column, and then the UV kills them (proper dose kills "everything"...). I have had many different species, also those that traditionally did not leave sand, that was the reason I tried combine totall black our with proper (strong) UV, and it succeded also for those species. So, yes, black out doesnt kill anything, just force them into the UV sooner or later. For the most stubborn I had the sand was still brown after 1 days of black out, but after 2-3 days white sand even in those cases. I cant say it helps versus alla species as its impossible to test that, but so far it has been working for me in all cases since I started with this.
I cant understand how so many here dare dose Po4 as dinos loves that. We have definitely a huge difference here how we manage this between maybe europe and USA? Its nothing wrong with that, I like differences. And ofcourse all has to do what they believe in. But for Dino, the time as an importsnt factor, we often dp not have time to wait too long for results as dino as exploding and can determine a tank quite fast. That is what I like with the method I use, its fast. I promise report also if I fail, but "unfortunately " I havent had dino since long time now.

 

[JonasRoman]

Blackout UV only works on ostreopsis

For prorocentrum uv slows it down but you need to siphon it out with a 1 micron sock

I just checked and cant find any evidence that there is any Dino that is totally resistent against UV, but its just different doses. Have you any article that support your statement?:-)
Maybe many has too weak UV? When I struggled back in the days and did not succeed I had a weaker UV, so for me huge difference was when I swithced to TMC semipro UV 55w.

 

[EnterName]

I'm fairly sure there is no absolute UV immunity. Dinos vary in UV resistance and can recover from damage, so contact time and exposure need to match.

This is going to be controversial, but: I'm always astonished how sure people are about their method, even when it's based on just their tank or verifiably flawed hobby "knowledge".

• Day/night migration isn't black and white. Cells are found 24/7 in both plankton and benthos (e.g. Pavaux et al., 2021). @RobertK and I verified this in tanks for Ostreopsis cf. ovata (identified by thecal plate structure), and also some cf. Amphidinium. "Coolia" and Prorocentrum are pending. Cell density obviously still differs and affects UV susceptibility.
• Toxicity depends on strain and environment, so it shouldn't be attributed to a genus (e.g. Tartaglione et al., 2017).
• Besides Amphidinium, some tanks very likely have Testudodinium. The "LC Amphidinium" in a document from Mack's Reef is most likely Testudodinium cf. maedaense. Paramphidinium might be present too, yet people treat them as the same thing.
• Coolia is also hard to distinguish from other spherical benthic dinos, so different genera may be involved here as well.

Nutrient dosing doesn't work in every tank, but in some. In mine I can reliably start and stop dino growth with it. In theory nutrients should feed dinos, but it also shifts nutrient ratios and may change the periphyton, which I suspect plays a major role since we are talking about benthic species (credit to @Dan_P for that idea). The periphyton could explain why dinos sometimes stay in spots seemingly incapable of spreading to other spots. Verifying or refuting that theory will unfortunately take quite some effort so until then, take this with a grain of salt

I think we should move past "my approach works, yours doesn't" and "high/low nutrients/flow/light is the cure". If something works in your tank, great! But the many examples here on R2R show these "treatments" are hard to get right, and some just might be ineffective depending on the tank or dino species. Let people test various approaches until one works for them.