Why are people getting Dino outbreaks after using an algae removal chemical?

[ScottR]

I suspect it works in a different way, most marine macroalgae are made of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, amino acids fatty acids and vitamins. In the event of any off the above being depleted from the water column the algae will start to die off and as that happens bacteria will start to break it down back to carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, aminos, fatty acids and vitamins. Bacteria cultures will transform carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus and the protein skimmer will remove the rest. Bringing the balance back. This process can take sometime just a week to happen.

Bare in mind that heterotrophs are organisms that eat plants and animals for their energy, not wait for them to die. I believe flesh-eating bacteria would be classified as such. They don’t wait for their food to die but are predatory rather; eating at them as an open food source. I’d imagine that nutrient rich algae would be fair game and provide them with all they need. Products like vibrant need to be constantly added to keep their populations strong enough to make an impact on algae. I’d imagine that they don’t reproduce well in a reef tank where countless other bacterial strains also live. I’ve read quite a bit about vibrant and wanted understand more about it before adding it. It is much different than carbon dosing to bolster nitrifying bacteria to tackle nutrients to starve out algae.

 

[Braves Fan]

I wasn't going to post here ,, but since I make plenty of pointless post in the Forum ,, I figured this is something that does concern me ,, why not lol

I had a bit of bubble algae that showed up in the tank ,, came from my Chaeto source I saw a video Mr Saltwater Tank made saying Vibrant was good at ridding the tank of the stuff ,, so I bought a bottle of the stuff , started dosing the tank the recommended dosage ,,

Nitrates were kinda high so I was also dosing 3 or 4 ml of vinegar to the tank daily ,, bubbles started showing up on the scape with a bit of stringy stuff ,, I thought it was just because of the vinegar and I had dosed to much of it ,, someone asked me if I might have Dino in the tank ,,

After reading up on this ,, I figured they might be onto to something ,, I had stopped the Vinegar dosing and the Vibrant ,, did a few water changes ,, not because of the Dino's,, if that is what I had ,, just normal Bi Weekly water changes ,, I was also taking a small brush to the tank and working on the bubbles ,, btw it only showed up when the tank lights were on ,, would disappear after the lights were out in the tank ,, would be gone in the morning ,,

The problem has kinda of taken care of itself, more or less ,, do I still have a bit of bubbles on a piece or two of rock ,, yes ,, do I still get a few bubbles around my power heads ,, yes ,, not much in either place and no where even close to what I had before and no stringy stuff anywhere in the tank ,,

My question ,, should I be concerned ,, should I be doing something to the tank ,,

 

[taricha]

Good thread. Interested to read along.
The example we see the most in dino threads was finally mentioned. Chemi-clean wiping out cyano and dinos following.
I don't think vibrant -> dinos is particularly frequent. Vibrant does sometimes cause one algae to die, and another to increase (temporarily). Vibrant to cyano, frequent as well.
Disappearance of GHA followed by dinos, yes pretty commonly seen.
Here's a couple of ideas on what the connection might be...
What it's NOT is Nitrate and Phosphate. NO3 and PO4 in the water does not correlate to dinos / cyano except for dinos there is a negative correlation (low PO4, increased dino frequency)
When algaes die, they release more than just NO3 and PO4.
They release trace elements, and organic forms of nitrogen and carbon. These probably have a better correlation to growing dinos than NO3 and PO4.
Additionally, the decomposition of dying algal material requires bacterial actors, and dinos are known to have strong associations with bacteria.
Finally, Dino cells present in a system previously with a lot of other photosynthetic organisms were likely growth limited by scarce resources (trace elements, like Fe) then, a large mass of the competition is eliminated. Expect the photosynthesizers that remain to take advantage of reduced competition.

 

[eraserhead187]

Good thread. Interested to read along.
The example we see the most in dino threads was finally mentioned. Chemi-clean wiping out cyano and dinos following.
I don't think vibrant -> dinos is particularly frequent. Vibrant does sometimes cause one algae to die, and another to increase (temporarily). Vibrant to cyano, frequent as well.
Disappearance of GHA followed by dinos, yes pretty commonly seen.
Here's a couple of ideas on what the connection might be...
What it's NOT is Nitrate and Phosphate. NO3 and PO4 in the water does not correlate to dinos / cyano except for dinos there is a negative correlation (low PO4, increased dino frequency)
When algaes die, they release more than just NO3 and PO4.
They release trace elements, and organic forms of nitrogen and carbon. These probably have a better correlation to growing dinos than NO3 and PO4.
Additionally, the decomposition of dying algal material requires bacterial actors, and dinos are known to have strong associations with bacteria.
Finally, Dino cells present in a system previously with a lot of other photosynthetic organisms were likely growth limited by scarce resources (trace elements, like Fe) then, a large mass of the competition is eliminated. Expect the photosynthesizers that remain to take advantage of reduced competition.

Great response. That also would explain why dinos get worse with water changes. So would chelation get rid of dinos quickly I wonder? Even if so, maybe that would cause major problems in the tank for other life. I have no idea what the removal of metals would do to coral, fish, nems etc. It's all so complicated. I guess this is what we get trying to bottle up the largest ecosystem on the planet! Still worth it though. A lot of people seem to having luck with Flux Rx for GHA and bryopsis, but I have seen where a few of them have had dinos afterwards as well. Would fit this theory.

 

[taricha]

Another tidbit on the thought about dying algae leading to rise of dinos....
Here's a very provocative paper
Genetic Analyses... Demonstrate Rhodophyte... Prey in ...Ostreopsis

They looked at things like this in ostreopsis and took genetic material from the colored bodies and found that it was all rhodophyte - Red macroalgae. Suggesting that dying macroalgae literally was dino food.

Caveats galore: I've never seen anything like this in the hobby, and this is from a temperate area, and IMO they misinterpreted some earlier work of others as supporting their conclusions, and other research contradicts it, finding little to no evidence of recognizable tissues or cells ingested by ostreopsis.
...but theirs is the most quality data of this kind so, maybe they aren't totally wrong.

my compromise take is that we should certainly expect that some material from dying algae can be used in dino blooms, whether that's direct tissue ingestion (unlikely in the hobby), or consumption of bacteria, or uptake of complex molecules available as a result of the algae's death. (almost certainly does happen in our systems).

 

[taricha]

So would chelation get rid of dinos quickly I wonder? Even if so, maybe that would cause major problems in the tank for other life. I have no idea what the removal of metals would do to coral, fish, nems etc.

It's a good Q. I don't know the answer. I've wondered if water conditioner like Prime that claims to "detoxify heavy metals" (likely chealate temporarily) would reduce the availability of Fe etc. maybe a couple of drops of it per day could make Fe harder to come by? no idea.

 

[living_tribunal]

Very welcome, we are here to help

Not really, we use Vibrant on all tanks starting at week two during the cycle, dosing once every two weeks.

There are really three reasons why people get into trouble and cause other issues for themselves.

1. If they have a lower nutrient system and they let their nutrients bottom out, this is a no no. Vibrant is not depending on nutrient reduction to help with algae removal. We recommend keeping No3 at 5 or above and Po4 at 0.3 or above and dose nutrients as needed to keep them stable.

2. When people are dealing with algae's that harbor a lot of nutrients ( such as hair algae ) and it begins to die off, those nutrients need to be removed from the system or another algae will step in and become the main nutrient consumer of the system. Many people are relying on their refugums as nutrient removal but also are dealing with algae's such as hair, this means their refugium is not functioning as well as it should or they need to add additional nutrient removal filtrations.

3. People just go WAY too fast. They want their algae gone like yesterday ( I get it ). It is best to go low and slow and work your dosing up so you can stay on top of your nutrients and adjust them up or down as needed. Nothing good happens fast with reef tanks. Not sure if you saw the videos that Ryan at BRS put out about Vibrant but he explains this very well

With all of this said, we have literally dosed hundreds of tanks long term over the years and have never had a cyano or dino outbreak. If people follow the three things listed above, they will have great success with Vibrant.

Can you maybe explain the specifics of how vibrant combats algae?

I’m aware that the bacteria is not effective by means of nutrient reduction. Is it that the bacteria can more rapidly consume nutrients than algae effectively leaving it to starve?

 

[MarieKelvdon]

Very welcome, we are here to help

Not really, we use Vibrant on all tanks starting at week two during the cycle, dosing once every two weeks.

There are really three reasons why people get into trouble and cause other issues for themselves.

1. If they have a lower nutrient system and they let their nutrients bottom out, this is a no no. Vibrant is not depending on nutrient reduction to help with algae removal. We recommend keeping No3 at 5 or above and Po4 at 0.3 or above and dose nutrients as needed to keep them stable.

2. When people are dealing with algae's that harbor a lot of nutrients ( such as hair algae ) and it begins to die off, those nutrients need to be removed from the system or another algae will step in and become the main nutrient consumer of the system. Many people are relying on their refugums as nutrient removal but also are dealing with algae's such as hair, this means their refugium is not functioning as well as it should or they need to add additional nutrient removal filtrations.

3. People just go WAY too fast. They want their algae gone like yesterday ( I get it ). It is best to go low and slow and work your dosing up so you can stay on top of your nutrients and adjust them up or down as needed. Nothing good happens fast with reef tanks. Not sure if you saw the videos that Ryan at BRS put out about Vibrant but he explains this very well

With all of this said, we have literally dosed hundreds of tanks long term over the years and have never had a cyano or dino outbreak. If people follow the three things listed above, they will have great success with Vibrant.

Not to create too much of a zombie thread, but I started dosing vibrant to handle a chrysophytes outbreak, which I’m pretty sure is because my system is low nutrient. Vibrant totally knocked the chrysophytes out, dosing once a week for about 8 weeks. Now Dinos are starting to appear (microscope confirms it). I’m thinking this is again because of how low nutrient my system is. What would you recommend dosing to up nitrates and phosphate? I haven’t been able to get a reading on either for about 2 years.

 

[JWI]

Great response. That also would explain why dinos get worse with water changes. So would chelation get rid of dinos quickly I wonder? Even if so, maybe that would cause major problems in the tank for other life. I have no idea what the removal of metals would do to coral, fish, nems etc. It's all so complicated. I guess this is what we get trying to bottle up the largest ecosystem on the planet! Still worth it though. A lot of people seem to having luck with Flux Rx for GHA and bryopsis, but I have seen where a few of them have had dinos afterwards as well. Would fit this theory.

I've had dino outbreaks every time I used flux rx.