Temporary coral placement

[SuthernReefer]

I have been struggling with GHA for awhile. I've beat it in the past, but I couldn't get rid of it this time. It was to the point I was honestly ready to just give up. In a last ditch effort, I did what I know better to do. I pulled the rocks and took them outside and cleaned them with a hose. Took some of my old sand and replaced with new sand over a few weeks. I'm talking handfuls at a time.

Gha is coming back, but it's still manageable and I'm going to get a sea hair to knock it out if I have to. Tank is 4 years old. My nutrients are good (.05 p04, 2.0 n03), RODI water is 0tds. In the past, I have beat it with reef flux. This time it laughed at me. Started with marco rock and live sand. Only difference this time, was that I used the microbacter cycle kit for the dry rock, but I'm pretty sure this stuff rode in from ASD. Anyway, this is the least of my worries right now.

I'm getting a dino outbreak. I'm currently running UV, but it's not doing anything. It's doubling everyday for a week. I've tried blasting it into the water column for the UV, but I think it just made it worse. This is a sumpless 75 gallon mixed reef.

I battled this years ago when I first got into the hobby and the only thing that worked was dino x, but I lost over half my coral.

I have a little 10 gallon aquarium that I used to use for qt or emergency. It's currently dry, but I'm wondering if I could move my corals in there while I dose dino in my main tank?

I have scolymia, chicago sunburst anemone, elegance coral, some not so cheap acro frags, Aussie gold torch coral, goniopora, etc. that I can't risk losing to dino or dino x. I think my fish will be ok, they made it last time.

Yall think I could place these in a new tank for a few days to a week and they be OK? Probably have to go get a 20 gallon though.

Has anyone done this? I was thinking of using some of my current tank water before dosing dino x. I figure frag expos must do this all the time when they set up.

Thanks in advance

 

[tbrown]

Are you sure you have Dinos and not Cyano? I've seen Cyano come in after Flux is used.

When you baste it into the water column, if it's Dinos, try putting some filter floss hanging in the tank in an area of flow. Rinse it or replace it a little before the lights go out and again a little before or shortly after the lights come on.

What test kits are you using?

 

[tbrown]

@Fish Styx any advice? I don't do temporary coral housing/QT...

 

[Fish Styx]

Okay, there's a lot going on here. Let's eat this elephant one bite at a time.

First, responding to Tim's bat signal, let's talk about the QT system. Given the list of corals you stated, I would go with a 20b for the temporary QT setup to give some breathing room between them. Even still, you'll need to be mindful of sweepers and the possibility of a rampaging nem, so place strategically. You'll want to fill it with water from your existing tank and ensure that there is LR in there to preserve the bio filter. Get a heater, powerheads for flow (ensure surface agitation), and a light and you should be gtg for temporary housing. I say "should be", as there are countless variables here that I don't know, and as a result you may experience loss(es).

Now, to backtrack a bit. Let's discuss your husbandry a bit. GHA isn't a plague like say, briopsis. It is fairly easy to tackle. On one hand, I want to say that your low nutrient levels are responsible for the dinos, but I am torn, because I feel that those numbers are artificially low due to sequestration by the nuisance algae, and would like to confirm the ID (more on that in a minute). What test kits are you using? Walk me through your maintenance routines, please. We'll come back to this after you provide more info.

Next, I would not add a seahare. They are extremely sensitive animals. Plus, after the gha is gone, they will likely starve. A more sensible approach would be a good old fashioned Lawnmower Blenny and a beefed up CUC, IMO.

Finally, have you ID'd the particular flavor of dinos you are dealing with? Are you sure they are dinos and not say, diatoms? The addition of the new sand and its corresponding silicates could be triggering a bloom.

Can you provide pictures for us under white lights, please?

 

[NewGuy8899]

100% look into using hydrogen peroxide to beat it. I just transferred everything to a new tank and I got a bad GHA outbreak with some Dino’s. Used UV, lower light schedule, and 1ml per 10g of water every 12 hours and it was gone within a little over a week.

I just tried to squirt the hydrogen peroxide directly on gha. Then I tried pulling all the gha into the water column and a little manual removal.

Good luck!

 

[Fish Fan]

Just my personal opinion, but I don't care for adding hydrogen peroxide to a running display tank. It's an indiscriminate oxidizer, and will affect everything, and not just target the hair algae exclusively, which can disrupt the good microorganisms as well. Hydrogen peroxide will oxidize everything and anything organic in the tank, and a dose such as 1 mL of 3% H2O2 to 10 gallons of water would be used up almost instantly.

For GHA, have you tried some predators, lower lighting, lower nutrients, etc.?

 

[SuthernReefer]

Ooops. Something happened with this post... See next reply

 

[SuthernReefer]

P04 and N03 were with Hanna. Everything else, Salifert. I do 15 gallon water changes bi-weekly. Use RS blue bucket. I have not ID them with a microscope yet, but plan to get one this weekend.

As an aside, I just ordered the UV sand bed sweeper last night. Seems everyone on here who had tried it has found success along with recommend bacteria. 3 jars of pods should be here any minute now along with phyto. Also ordered some AF life source (MUD). And some NEO Nitro and phos just in case.

It could be Diatoms, but its stringy with bubbles, blows off in strands, not dust. Probably cyano mixed in too.

I plan to order order microscope tomorrow.

 

[SuthernReefer]

Just my personal opinion, but I don't care for adding hydrogen peroxide to a running display tank. It's an indiscriminate oxidizer, and will affect everything, and not just target the hair algae exclusively, which can disrupt the good microorganisms as well. Hydrogen peroxide will oxidize everything and anything organic in the tank, and a dose such as 1 mL of 3% H2O2 to 10 gallons of water would be used up almost instantly.

For GHA, have you tried some predators, lower lighting, lower nutrients, etc.?

I have. No luck. My CUC is pretty low right now, but they didn't help much to begin with. Die off, I repopulate. I do have a diamond goby and some Mexican turbo snails now. Urchins die, probably from dinoflagellates toxicity.

2 tangs and a fox face. They don't touch the gha very often either.

 

[BryanM]

Maybe obvious, but don't forget about lighting if you go with a seperate tank while you fight this fight.

 

[Fish Fan]

P04 and N03 were with Hanna. Everything else, Salifert. I do 15 gallon water changes bi-weekly. Use RS blue bucket. I have not ID them with a microscope yet, but plan to get one this weekend.

As an aside, I just ordered the UV sand bed sweeper last night. Seems everyone on here who had tried it has found success along with recommend bacteria. 3 jars of pods should be here any minute now along with phyto. Also ordered some AF life source (MUD). And some NEO Nitro and phos just in case.

It could be Diatoms, but its stringy with bubbles, blows off in strands, not dust. Probably cyano mixed in too.

I plan to order order microscope tomorrow.

I'm also in the market for a microscope, and would be interested to know what you end up getting.

I'm not seeing Green Hair Algae in your pics here, these look like Dinoflagellates to me

Your posted parameters seem good, but with NO3 at about 2.0 ppm, that's pretty close to 0, and if your test kit is a bit off, you may indeed be running at zero NO3.

@tbrown
@Fish Styx
Can you guys take a look at the OP's newest pics and weigh in please?

 

[Fish Styx]

Definitely appears to be dinos under the whites. You'll need to raise your nutes as part of your treatment plan, as your bottomed out NO3 is a large part of what is allowing them to gain hold.

 

[SuthernReefer]

Forgot about this thread, but just an update.

Dinos were identified with microscope as Prorocentrum. I have been fighting with multiple methods. UV, bacteria, copepods, phytoplankton, and the uv sand bed sweeper.
I've decide to go with dinox before this stuff starts killing off my coral. I have about 40 coral in this tank.

I went out today and picked up a 20 gallon tank to serve as qt tank while I dose dinox in my display. I guess what I'm worried about is the qt tank not being cycled. Initially, I was going to transfer some water, filter, sand, etc. from display to qt, but then I'd just be spreading dinos into the qt tank.

I think the dinox treatment is like 10 days give or take. Do yall think the coral would be ok in a new tank, not cycled for that amount of time?

I have phosphate, nitrate, bottled bac, phyto and stuff like that to add to the qt if needed. I'm hoping I I can just use some ammonia lock and be ok if a cycle did try and start?

 

[tbrown]

I had good success with prorocentrum by raising my phosphate to 0.1 and blowing them off the rocks a couple of times daily with filter floss hanging from.the lid and rinsing that off before the lights come on and shortly before they go off. I was also dosing MB7 (I've heard mixed things with that though). I ran UV in my DT 24/7.

It took about 2-3 days to start seeing improvement with Dinos completely gone after about 3 weeks.

 

[SuthernReefer]

I had good success with prorocentrum by raising my phosphate to 0.1 and blowing them off the rocks a couple of times daily with filter floss hanging from.the lid and rinsing that off before the lights come on and shortly before they go off. I was also dosing MB7 (I've heard mixed things with that though). I ran UV in my DT 24/7.

It took about 2-3 days to start seeing improvement with Dinos completely gone after about 3 weeks.

I did raise phos up to those numbers. Was as high as .12 fir a week. I was dosing pns, microbelift, microbacter7 and clean too. Run uv during lights out and uv sweeper at peak lighting. Sandbed would clear, but after 2 days of not sweeping would come back to Sandbed. Rockwork is just getting worse regardless

I have some 10 micron socks I thought about trying to siphon and recycle the tank water, but I think I'd rather try dinox and a qt tank at this point.

Dinos are the devil in this hobby!

 

[tbrown]

I did raise phos up to those numbers. Was as high as .12 fir a week. I was dosing pns, microbelift, microbacter7 and clean too. Run uv during lights out and uv sweeper at peak lighting. Sandbed would clear, but after 2 days of not sweeping would come back to Sandbed. Rockwork is just getting worse regardless

I have some 10 micron socks I thought about trying to siphon and recycle the tank water, but I think I'd rather try dinox and a qt tank at this point.

Dinos are the devil in this hobby!

Hopefully you get a handle on them and all turns out good!

 

[slingfox]

I did raise phos up to those numbers. Was as high as .12 fir a week. I was dosing pns, microbelift, microbacter7 and clean too. Run uv during lights out and uv sweeper at peak lighting. Sandbed would clear, but after 2 days of not sweeping would come back to Sandbed. Rockwork is just getting worse regardless

I have some 10 micron socks I thought about trying to siphon and recycle the tank water, but I think I'd rather try dinox and a qt tank at this point.

Dinos are the devil in this hobby!

If you try Dinox I hope it works. There is a chance it gets rid of the Dino’s temporarily but I bet the uglies will return and you will battle with Dino’s again a few months down the line. I hope I am wrong!

One thing you should consider to help with to Dino export: Buy a large roll of filter floss on Amazon. Cut it into large rectangles and hang it inside your aquarium (I just clip it to the sides of the tank). Large amount of Dino’s will resettle onto the filter floss which you can rinse out once a day. Do this along with dosing bacteria/niteate/phosphate/silicon, basting the rocks, UV, siphoning the sand, etc. and you have a ch ace of staying ahead of Dino’s.

 

[Fishy888]

I've beaten dinos a few times now. You need to launch a multi-pronged approach.

Keep using the UV sterilizer. Get some TRULY live rock from someone who's had it in a well established system. Even 5 or 10 lbs should help tremendously. Keep nitrates and phosphates around 10 ppm and 0.1 ppm respectively. DO NOT perform any water changes! Dinos love trace minerals!

You won't hear me say it often, but cyanobacteria are your friend right now. GHA and diatoms are as well.

I don't like using products like dinox because they can cause more harm than good, especially if used incorrectly. They're often ridiculously expensive. Otentimes, assuming they even work, they just mask the symptoms without curing the "disease".

 

[SuthernReefer]

Do yall think i should dose n03 and p04 to the coral qt tank?

 

[tbrown]

Do yall think i should dose n03 and p04 to the coral qt tank?

Depends on the type of corals.