Ready to throw in the towel from Dinos

[Calpoly2103]

Thank you... so just to clarify you stopped messing with the sand bed and noticed improvement? I did too untill i decided to blast the rocks last night

Yes, personally i noticed improvement when i stopped siphoning the sand bed and started doing weekly water changes. I had literally tried everything before that. Using my 18" feeder syringe to lightly disconnect the dino's from the top layer of sand every single day into water column. Then collect it by removing the filter flosses daily. I also decreased my light to about 6 hours a day for a few weeks, then increased it by 15 minutes a week to get it back to 7.5 hours. The first couple water changes i actually siphoned out a little bit of the top layer of sand where the dino's were the most present. I'd say I took about maybe 10% of my sand.

I used to siphon the sandbed, and i think by doing so I would keep removing beneficial bacteria. Adding other live rock from established tank I think also helped the problem. There isn't enough good bacteria in your tank. Need to diversify from known established tanks and just keep cleaning & removing. It'll go away eventually.

 

[merereef]

Stopped dino x and startes seeing some dino sporta right away. Will start dosing some bac and plan on loading my fuge with cheato and ulva. Also will dose phyto daily after i get a steady population

Really? Even with your nitrates and phos elevated it came back??????? Mannnnn

 

[merereef]

Yes, personally i noticed improvement when i stopped siphoning the sand bed and started doing weekly water changes. I had literally tried everything before that. Using my 18" feeder syringe to lightly disconnect the dino's from the top layer of sand every single day into water column. Then collect it by removing the filter flosses daily. I also decreased my light to about 6 hours a day for a few weeks, then increased it by 15 minutes a week to get it back to 7.5 hours. The first couple water changes i actually siphoned out a little bit of the top layer of sand where the dino's were the most present. I'd say I took about maybe 10% of my sand.

I used to siphon the sandbed, and i think by doing so I would keep removing beneficial bacteria. Adding other live rock from established tank I think also helped the problem. There isn't enough good bacteria in your tank. Need to diversify from known established tanks and just keep cleaning & removing. It'll go away eventually.

Thank you i will keep this in mind if you think of more helpful tips and advice please share

 

[Alexreefer]

Really? Even with your nitrates and phos elevated it came back??????? Mannnnn

yea i know. it sucks :mad:

 

[merereef]

yea i know. it sucks :mad:

Have you tried dosing microbactr7? It may help

 

[Alexreefer]

Have you tried dosing microbactr7? It may help

I have to get some but i have not tried it yet

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

Have you tried chaetomorpha?

As I mentioned in another topic, this past week I had the worst dinos attack... One of the ways I decided to try was to set up a chaetomorpha refuge... The result could not have been better. My ORP is at a solid 325, my overnight pH above 8.1.
It's already 5 days free of dinos and any algae in the glass and rocks.

Usually this doesn't work due to nutrients already being too low. I think it worked in your case because it is believed that Fe is the limiting factor with dino growth verses other algae growth. It is thought that dinos struggle in an Fe deficient system where other algae, like cheato, can still do well. I think cheato is good at using Fe. So your experience would support this theory.

It really seems like a contradiction. From the beginning, after adding the chaetomorpha, I am daily monitoring NO3 and PO4 (10 and 0.08 - 5 days without dosing NO3 and PO4) and they have not changed at all. The chaeto is growing a lot ...
I made another change, I removed my skimmer for up to 250g and put one for 80g. My reef has 100g.
Somehow, even reducing nutrients, chaetomorpha is a potential competitor, directly interfering with the growth of other organisms.
I know it is in a difficult situation with so many suggestions, but if you have space for chaetomorpha, I believe it will not harm the system and even reducing nutrients, it happens gradually and naturally.

It sounds like you're saying in addition to cheato you also reduced nutrient export by changing skimmers. Was there a difference in the amount in the collection cups? If so, then this would be similar to dosing nutrients.

While increasing nutrients through feeding more (or in your case I suspect skimming less) will work, dosing inorganic nutrients will work better because dinos don't use inorganic sources as well as organic sources. This helps give other algae, like cheato, an advantage in terms of growth rate. And when it grows more it also uses more Fe to create that Fe deficient environment mentioned above.

So the dinos where kind of going away in some spots... i decided to blast the rocks and clean the glass last noght and the dinos came back with a vengeance today... i was going to take out the sand but i just dont have the time to do it right now... so i spent no lie 2 HOURS syphoning the sand... 2HOURS deep syphoning, now going to dose hydrogen peroxide

Water changes tend to make dinos worse. There are usually trace amounts of Fe that fuel it, or so it is thought.

Took me a while but I finally defeated my dinos.... Tried hydrogen peroxide method.....and didn't work, tried Dino X, also didn't work. What finally worked for me, was diligent water changes of about 30-40% every week for several weeks, plus every single day I would come home from work and loosen the dino's from the rocks/sand into the water column. Also, and I can't stress enough I think this is what helped me solve the problem, I would replace the filter floss every day which was covered in dino's. I stopped messing with my sand as I would syphon through it a lot too (I think that was making it worse by removing bacteria). After a few weeks of doing this every day, i stopped seeing dino's.

Also, i got a live rocks/spores from my LFS which helped add more diversified bacteria. This happened to my tank around 6 months in, and due to bottoming out Nitrate/Phosphate. Now I feed a lot more, worry a lot less about getting perfect numbers and my tank is doing great.

Sound like you have a strain that goes into the water column. Socks rated at 5 microns are best for filtering dinos. 10 will work but many go through still. Larger than that is usually ineffective.

Yes, personally i noticed improvement when i stopped siphoning the sand bed and started doing weekly water changes. I had literally tried everything before that. Using my 18" feeder syringe to lightly disconnect the dino's from the top layer of sand every single day into water column. Then collect it by removing the filter flosses daily. I also decreased my light to about 6 hours a day for a few weeks, then increased it by 15 minutes a week to get it back to 7.5 hours. The first couple water changes i actually siphoned out a little bit of the top layer of sand where the dino's were the most present. I'd say I took about maybe 10% of my sand.

I used to siphon the sandbed, and i think by doing so I would keep removing beneficial bacteria. Adding other live rock from established tank I think also helped the problem. There isn't enough good bacteria in your tank. Need to diversify from known established tanks and just keep cleaning & removing. It'll go away eventually.

Definitely sounds like a water column type of dinos. Reducing photo periods and intensity help relieve the bloom and send them into the coulmn. I'm guessing you have LEDs? Usually LEDs have more PAR and it's easy to over due it causing a bloom. More light means more nutrient demand in order to keep up with the increased metabolic rate. If nutrients aren't there, then you've bottomed out and caused a dino bloom.

Bacteria can be found throughout the sand bed not just the top layer. Usually dinos that are primarily in the sand don't go back into the water column, thus filtering and UV won't work, but due respond well to bacteria dosing. I have read many good results with MicroBactor 7.

 

[merereef]

Usually this doesn't work due to nutrients already being too low. I think it worked in your case because it is believed that Fe is the limiting factor with dino growth verses other algae growth. It is thought that dinos struggle in an Fe deficient system where other algae, like cheato, can still do well. I think cheato is good at using Fe. So your experience would support this theory.



It sounds like you're saying in addition to cheato you also reduced nutrient export by changing skimmers. Was there a difference in the amount in the collection cups? If so, then this would be similar to dosing nutrients.

While increasing nutrients through feeding more (or in your case I suspect skimming less) will work, dosing inorganic nutrients will work better because dinos don't use inorganic sources as well as organic sources. This helps give other algae, like cheato, an advantage in terms of growth rate. And when it grows more it also uses more Fe to create that Fe deficient environment mentioned above.



Water changes tend to make dinos worse. There are usually trace amounts of Fe that fuel it, or so it is thought.



Sound like you have a strain that goes into the water column. Socks rated at 5 microns are best for filtering dinos. 10 will work but many go through still. Larger than that is usually ineffective.



Definitely sounds like a water column type of dinos. Reducing photo periods and intensity help relieve the bloom and send them into the coulmn. I'm guessing you have LEDs? Usually LEDs have more PAR and it's easy to over due it causing a bloom. More light means more nutrient demand in order to keep up with the increased metabolic rate. If nutrients aren't there, then you've bottomed out and caused a dino bloom.

Bacteria can be found throughout the sand bed not just the top layer. Usually dinos that are primarily in the sand don't go back into the water column, thus filtering and UV won't work, but due respond well to bacteria dosing. I have read many good results with MicroBactor 7.

After suphoning the sand bed my dinos have come back WAYYYYY worse. Im starting to think its probably best to just leave everything alone. Maybe to just dose microbacter7 and thats it

 

[carrico]

Hi.

@Bret Brinkmann

I worked in several simultaneous ways to solve this dinoflagellate problem. Today after 12 days, no sign of the dinos in the aquarium.

Talking about the skimmer, I removed a Reef Octopus CLASSIC 200INT 8 ”and put a Reef Octopus CLASSIC 152-S 6". The new skimmer was placed on Tuesday 10/15 and to this day I removed the skimmer cup to clean 3 times. The skimmer is working as dry as possible, leaving some of the dirt on the skimmer's own body, which I manually remove.

As for chaetomorpha, I really have the idea that it consumes much of the Fe available before the dinos, anyway, I don't know what the limit of Fe my system has, since my last water change occurred at 30 days and I I have not replaced any elements.

The curious thing is that after I put on the chaetomorpha I only needed to clean my glasses twice in almost 12 days, I have no sign of any other algae in the aquarium. Another curious fact that the same values of NO3 and PO4 (10 and 0.08) that I achieved by dosing neonitro and neophos remain the same over these 15 days.

 

[carrico]

After suphoning the sand bed my dinos have come back WAYYYYY worse. Im starting to think its probably best to just leave everything alone. Maybe to just dose microbacter7 and thats it

Just what happened to me before the dinoflagellate bloom. I did a 20% water change and they started to appear in the sand. I decided to siphon and remove some of the sand where the dinos were and make a 10% change, the other day they were much stronger, even though I removed most of the visible dinos from the sand. In my case, throughout the 3 water changes I made the dinos grew out of the natural control of my aquarium.
If you want to siphon the dinos, then filter the water and return it to the aquarium, do not change the water.

 

[merereef]

Anyone know if dinos will just dissapear in time on their own as tank matures?

 

[panic]

What type of salt mix do you use?

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

After suphoning the sand bed my dinos have come back WAYYYYY worse. Im starting to think its probably best to just leave everything alone. Maybe to just dose microbacter7 and thats it

Siphoning the sand results in a water change unless you reuse the water. Water changes do not help make dinos go away. So this doesn't surprise me. If you have the kind that stay in the sand bed, then you should have very good luck by dosing MicroBactor 7. Have you IDed yours yet?

Hi.

@Bret Brinkmann

I worked in several simultaneous ways to solve this dinoflagellate problem. Today after 12 days, no sign of the dinos in the aquarium.

Talking about the skimmer, I removed a Reef Octopus CLASSIC 200INT 8 ”and put a Reef Octopus CLASSIC 152-S 6". The new skimmer was placed on Tuesday 10/15 and to this day I removed the skimmer cup to clean 3 times. The skimmer is working as dry as possible, leaving some of the dirt on the skimmer's own body, which I manually remove.

As for chaetomorpha, I really have the idea that it consumes much of the Fe available before the dinos, anyway, I don't know what the limit of Fe my system has, since my last water change occurred at 30 days and I I have not replaced any elements.

The curious thing is that after I put on the chaetomorpha I only needed to clean my glasses twice in almost 12 days, I have no sign of any other algae in the aquarium. Another curious fact that the same values of NO3 and PO4 (10 and 0.08) that I achieved by dosing neonitro and neophos remain the same over these 15 days.

Sounds like you did the skimmer swap a day or two from the cheato addition. At some point in dosing nutrients you will reach a stopping point and levels will be maintained on their own. Sounds like the nutrient uptake rate of your cheato is in balance with the natural nutrient production rate of the system.

Anyone know if dinos will just dissapear in time on their own as tank matures?

They will not go away on their own unfortunately. Direct intervention is needed. In your case I highly recommend looking at the first post of the dinoflagellates stick in this forum to help you ID your strain. Then you will know the most effective course of action.

 

[merereef]

What type of salt mix do you use?

i use reef crystals

 

[merereef]

Siphoning the sand results in a water change unless you reuse the water. Water changes do not help make dinos go away. So this doesn't surprise me. If you have the kind that stay in the sand bed, then you should have very good luck by dosing MicroBactor 7. Have you IDed yours yet?



Sounds like you did the skimmer swap a day or two from the cheato addition. At some point in dosing nutrients you will reach a stopping point and levels will be maintained on their own. Sounds like the nutrient uptake rate of your cheato is in balance with the natural nutrient production rate of the system.



They will not go away on their own unfortunately. Direct intervention is needed. In your case I highly recommend looking at the first post of the dinoflagellates stick in this forum to help you ID your strain. Then you will know the most effective course of action.

I checked it first i had the ostrepsis type which uv got rid of and then i got another kind uv dont touch.. its the ampdhid something kind lol dont know the name

 

[merereef]

Siphoning the sand results in a water change unless you reuse the water. Water changes do not help make dinos go away. So this doesn't surprise me. If you have the kind that stay in the sand bed, then you should have very good luck by dosing MicroBactor 7. Have you IDed yours yet?



Sounds like you did the skimmer swap a day or two from the cheato addition. At some point in dosing nutrients you will reach a stopping point and levels will be maintained on their own. Sounds like the nutrient uptake rate of your cheato is in balance with the natural nutrient production rate of the system.



They will not go away on their own unfortunately. Direct intervention is needed. In your case I highly recommend looking at the first post of the dinoflagellates stick in this forum to help you ID your strain. Then you will know the most effective course of action.

My goal now is to reduce light intensity to 20% leave the sand and glass alone and feed heavy run the skimmer dry as possible and maybe dose microbacter7

 

[merereef]

My goal now is to reduce light intensity to 20% leave the sand and glass alone and feed heavy run the skimmer dry as possible and maybe dose microbacter7

I noticed everytime i suphone the dinos in to a filter sock the dinos just come back worse

 

[brandon429]

Anyone who might be nearing max stress on dinos, what hasn't been done here is total sandbed removal. Fight dinos and winning is easier bare bottom, using any menthod of control or doser. They are being protected and fed in the sb

Once beaten, sterilize the bed and put it back. Siphoning sand means mixing portions around in the water. Removing sand to lessen hiding places doesn't block any method of control at all.

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

My goal now is to reduce light intensity to 20% leave the sand and glass alone and feed heavy run the skimmer dry as possible and maybe dose microbacter7

Amphidinium. Definitely dose MicroBactor 7. Don't be afraid to over do it a little. Feeding heavy will increase nutrients but remember food is made up of more than just nitrates and phosphates. You will add things like S from feeding too. Plus inorganic sources give the competition an advantage resulting in faster progress.

I noticed everytime i suphone the dinos in to a filter sock the dinos just come back worse

What is your filter size? If it's too big then you're just mixing them around.

 

[merereef]

Amphidinium. Definitely dose MicroBactor 7. Don't be afraid to over do it a little. Feeding heavy will increase nutrients but remember food is made up of more than just nitrates and phosphates. You will add things like S from feeding too. Plus inorganic sources give the competition an advantage resulting in faster progress.



What is your filter size? If it's too big then you're just mixing them around.

5micron filter sock from amazon.