6 months in-DINOS... what would you do?

[rayheezy]

Hello friends, new to the saltwater side of things. I'm about 6 months in and have been diagnosed with small cell amphidium dinoflagellates. Yay! My tank currently houses:
1x Sea hare
1x coral banded shrimp
1x emerald hermit
1x fighting conch
1x sifting Sea star
2x turbo snail
~6x mini clean up hermits

1 zoa
1 kenya tree
1 Xenia
1 GSP

50g AIO custom
AQuamaxx HOB protein skimmer
Surface skimmer
Small UV light pump
2x viparspectra lights running at 0/30% blues only 6-8 hrs

0-0.25 phos
8ph
9kh
1440 mag
420 calcium
5 nitrate



Wondering what everyone's opinion on dealing with this would be. I'm not opposed to a full tank restart, but would lose all my baby coral colonies? Would have to return for store credit all livestock, sift sand to dry, dry out live rock etc.. unlike others I don't have a ton of time invested in the tank so it's not heartbreaking to restart. But after reading all the dino horror stories it seems like it would be the best option at the moment.

 

[Mark Goode]

Disgusting muck. Mine was ostreopsis, which was removed by a UV. I've no experience with amphidium though. I wish you all the best and good luck.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You sure that is dinos (slimy and snotty, often with bubbles) and not diatoms?

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Certainly looks like small amphi on the tank shot.

You have a lot of sand movers, so unless it seems like they aren't moving your sand around much, I would baste the sand off at lights out.

I would get your phosphate and nitrate up to .1 and 10ppm

Make sure you stay consistent with your feeding but maybe reduce particulate foods.

It's not proven to work really, but I would also consider dosing something like microbacter7 as some sort of insurance.

Basically do what you can to displace and upset the dinos and make conditions good for other algae to grow.

I would be concerned with low nitrogen production given the lack of fish resperation, and for dosing you nitrates up, I would try Randy's ammonia dosing, though I do not know yet how much dinos like ammonia over nitrates. I am soon to find out if dumping ammonia in might help the algae outcomete ostreipsis by getting nitrogen up via dosing .1ppm ammonium bicarbonate 3 times daily.

I would also get a green killing machine 24watt, but supposedly amphis even when agitated don't really go into the water column so UV could just be a detriment to the dinos competition instead so maybe hold off on this.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

You sure that is dinos (slimy and snotty, often with bubbles) and not diatoms?

It does look like it could be diatoms, but I kind of assumed the diagnosis they got was from someone with a scope, and that there is a real lack of nitrogen production without the fish probably making that 5 nitrate value the high end of testing margin. I wouldn't think that there would be much ammonia going through this system without resperation from fish.

But this is a good question.

 

[rayheezy]

Sorry I forgot to include that information. I currently have no fish. Lawnmower blenny didn't like coral gumbo, mysis shrimp, flake or algae, passed after a week. On week 8 I had an inch breakout that killed 2 clowns and a tomini tang, fallowed until last week when I put the lawnmower in. Have just been doing small pinches of flake for the coral banded and to keep up with nitrates.

I dose every day
2mL magnesium
2mL Fusion 2
Every other day 2.5mL Fusion 1

Again, I'm a beginner and would consider myself a 2nd grader when it comes to saltwater. I have purchased everything from the same LFS (Southwest Florida) and go in once a week to water test/discuss new topics. The identification came from someone experienced with differentiating dinos using a microscope, I looked as well and after seeing pictures of small cell amphidium it is correct.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Sorry I forgot to include that information. I currently have no fish. Lawnmower blenny didn't like coral gumbo, mysis shrimp, flake or algae, passed after a week. On week 8 I had an inch breakout that killed 2 clowns and a tomini tang, fallowed until last week when I put the lawnmower in. Have just been doing small pinches of flake for the coral banded and to keep up with nitrates.

I dose every day
2mL magnesium
2mL Fusion 2
Every other day 2.5mL Fusion 1

Again, I'm a beginner and would consider myself a 2nd grader when it comes to saltwater. I have purchased everything from the same LFS (Southwest Florida) and go in once a week to water test/discuss new topics. The identification came from someone experienced with differentiating dinos using a microscope, I looked as well and after seeing pictures of small cell amphidium it is correct.

I certainly don't mean to make it sound like you are doing anything wrong. That is a fine way to keep a tank especially through fallow. I was just more so thinking out loud as to how the lack of fish might attribute to lower N. This is all speculation on my part.

It would steer me towards ammonia dosing over nitrate dosing to get your Nitrates up a bit. This is what I would do though, and currently I am fighting dinos, so grain of salt etc.

 

[rayheezy]

No worries at all! I appreciate the input through and through! At the end of the day I'm also looking at cost vs time dealing with these at such a young age on the tank. Is ~75$ in coral worth spending the money and time fighting the dinos as opposed to draining it for a week, soaking the rock in RODI for a few days and completely restarting?