Corals closing after cleaning dinos

[jacob4]

I've had a dinos outbreak in my tank, not sure what type yet, but it doesn't go into the water column at night and grows on the sand, rocks and a little on the glass.

I've been cleaning up the dinos every day to every few days, but everytime I do it my corals close and get really ticked off, my torch had a piece of what I didn't realise was dinos go into it a week or 2 ago and hasn't fully opened since. Anyone know a solution to this or if it's the dinos causing this? Also any tips to get rid of dinos would be nice. Thanks

 

[The_Paradox]

First thing to do is throw some activated carbon in the tank. A lot of dinoflagellates are toxic. From there test to see what your nitrate and phosphorus levels are. There is a fair chance one of them is bottomed out at undetectable. If so you need to correct that. Since they are going into the water at night you are lucky. A correctly sized UV unit will clear them in a day or two. You need to run it for at least 12 hours with the lights out. That means the sump also. Recently helped a friend with Ostreopsis and after a week he was whining that it was not working. He forgot to turn off his sump light…
In any case good look and get that carbon in there and cut back the light until you have a UV unit.

 

[jacob4]

First thing to do is throw some activated carbon in the tank. A lot of dinoflagellates are toxic. From there test to see what your nitrate and phosphorus levels are. There is a fair chance one of them is bottomed out at undetectable. If so you need to correct that. Since they are going into the water at night you are lucky. A correctly sized UV unit will clear them in a day or two. You need to run it for at least 12 hours with the lights out. That means the sump also. Recently helped a friend with Ostreopsis and after a week he was whining that it was not working. He forgot to turn off his sump light…
In any case good look and get that carbon in there and cut back the light until you have a UV unit.

I'll put some carbon in now, nitrate and phosphate bottomed out which is probably the reason they started and I'm in the process of raising them now. I meant to say the dinos don't go into the water column so I don't think UV would do too much.

 

[javisaman]

I had the same issue a few years ago. The only corals I was able to save were ones that I temporarily transfered to a quarantine tank. Also be careful with the UV. I managed to kill all my fish overnight when I turned on my UV (55w Lifegard) to kill my dinoflagellates.

 

[jacob4]

I had the same issue a few years ago. The only corals I was able to save were ones that I temporarily transfered to a quarantine tank. Also be careful with the UV. I managed to kill all my fish overnight when I turned on my UV (55w Lifegard) to kill my dinoflagellates.

Sorry for your loss. Do you know why the corals died? And were you able to get rid of the dinos? Thanks

 

[The_Paradox]

I'll put some carbon in now, nitrate and phosphate bottomed out which is probably the reason they started and I'm in the process of raising them now. I meant to say the dinos don't go into the water column so I don't think UV would do too much.

Test pretty often and dose as necessary. You will end up dosing a lot more than you think you will or directions for maintenance direct you to. From there you can usually just ride it out and wait for the cyano or algae to go nuts.

Sorry for your loss. Do you know why the corals died? And were you able to get rid of the dinos? Thanks

Depends on the type of Dino. Some simply smother others produce a lot of toxins such as everyone’s favorite palytoxin.

 

[jacob4]

Test pretty often and dose as necessary. You will end up dosing a lot more than you think you will or directions for maintenance direct you to. From there you can usually just ride it out and wait for the cyano or algae to go nuts.



Depends on the type of Dino. Some simply smother others produce a lot of toxins such as everyone’s favorite palytoxin.

Oh didn't realise that was possible, I don't think mine produce palytoxin because I'd be dead right now, but it's definitely possible that they're toxic because of what's happening to my corals and snails. I'll hopefully be able to get a microscope in the next few days and properly identify them

 

[The_Paradox]

Oh didn't realise that was possible, I don't think mine produce palytoxin because I'd be dead right now, but it's definitely possible that they're toxic because of what's happening to my corals and snails. I'll hopefully be able to get a microscope in the next few days and properly identify them

A ton of things in our tanks produce it and other toxins. Look hard enough and it’s probably in every tank. It’s like lightning. Use common sense.

 

[Ziggy17]

To the OP

Read this and get a cheap microscope to ID the Dino

 

[MindlessToxin]

@jacob4 Did your torch/ corals ever recover? I'm going through the exact same thing rn. Except I scrubbed the dino off my rocks, kicked up the sand and ran a diatomaceous earth filter for 2 days. Haven't seen MUCH as far as dinos since but a lot of my corals are all closed up. Even had a little of what looked like dino/ dino bubble in my torch. Trying to gets my nutes back up. My corals were doing really good before I decided to manually remove the dino.

 

[jacob4]

@jacob4 Did your torch/ corals ever recover? I'm going through the exact same thing rn. Except I scrubbed the dino off my rocks, kicked up the sand and ran a diatomaceous earth filter for 2 days. Haven't seen MUCH as far as dinos since but a lot of my corals are all closed up. Even had a little of what looked like dino/ dino bubble in my torch. Trying to gets my nutes back up. My corals were doing really good before I decided to manually remove the dino.

The torch did fully recover after about a week I think, but then bailed out a few days ago after struggling since I got dinos for a 2nd time about 1 or 2 months ago. I think the repeat dinotoxin exposure will kill corals over time, as a I have a few that are struggling since the dinos, but others that weren't affected/are new and are thriving.

I think the best thing to do is cleaning daily so the toxins that are released when cleaning won't build up as much, and running carbon as well. If u get rid of the dinos quickly it should recover.

Not 100% sure but that was what worked for me

 

[Ziggy17]

Did you ever ID what type of Dino you have? Without that, you won’t get rid of them.

 

[MindlessToxin]

Welp looks like my torch is toast. I picked it up and wiggled it around upside down in the water and the polyps just kind of "ripped out"

 

[jacob4]

Did you ever ID what type of Dino you have? Without that, you won’t get rid of them.

Nah never did. I got rid of them both times by cleaning daily and raising nutrients. It never went into the water column and blanketed the sand and rocks

 

[jacob4]

Welp looks like my torch is toast. I picked it up and wiggled it around upside down in the water and the polyps just kind of "ripped out"

Sorry to hear that man. Good luck with getting rid of the dinos

 

[Ziggy17]

Nah never did. I got rid of them both times by cleaning daily and raising nutrients. It never went into the water column and blanketed the sand and rocks

Either they weren’t dinos or you didnt get rid of them either time.

 

[jacob4]

Either they weren’t dinos or you didnt get rid of them either time.

Why weren't they dinos? Also what else would do the exact same thing as dinos?