Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[vetteguy53081]

I’m hitting myself on the head. My tank was free of chrysophytes and once I added a dry rock to the display they are now back. And attaching themselves to other rocks now. SMH

Assure you have proper, not aggressive flow preventing this substance from trying to stick to surfaces. Cleaners such as ninja star snails, cowries and pitho crabs will help prevent some of it from colonizing

 

[taricha]

A better video of what I'm dealing with. Can anyone identify and have any plan of action going forward. Ty

definitive ostreopsis. UV effective. If not, then you can escalate the UV with short blackouts and blasting stuff off surfaces.

 

[DarkReefer]

Tonight marks day 5 of the h202 method and certainly seen a marked improvement. Feel like this should be the goto method for dinos.
There's still some slight discolouration or dino build up on the sand but its quite minor especially considering the severity of it when I started.

What's the next step here ? Just daily dosing mb7 and slowly ramp up the lights ? Or water change and more h202?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Tonight marks day 5 of the h202 method and certainly seen a marked improvement. Feel like this should be the goto method for dinos.
There's still some slight discolouration or dino build up on the sand but its quite minor especially considering the severity of it when I started.

What's the next step here ? Just daily dosing mb7 and slowly ramp up the lights ? Or water change and more h202?

Day 1- 5 kills the cells - I personally go another 5 days on bacteria during the day and I do .5ml per 10 gal of peroxide at night to assure the cells are all gone and as you ramp the lights back up any stray flagellates are addressed

 

[DarkReefer]

Day 1- 5 kills the cells - I personally go another 5 days on bacteria during the day and I do .5ml per 10 gal of peroxide at night to assure the cells are all gone and as you ramp the lights back up any stray flagellates are addressed

Thanks, so I'll go about 3ml then for the next 5 days? (as I was initially dosing 6ml for the first 2 days or so before u suggested going to 4ml).

Assuming I start putting the whites etc back on and ramping it up over a week or two back to what it was also?
My AI has an acclimation mode but I'll need to change my map back to what it was originally as the map in there at the moment is very basic for blues etc. So I can probably set it for 20 days or something, let it start at around 15% or so and go from there. If I'm assuming correctly re the lights.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yes- next day or two, you can resume whites

 

[DarkReefer]

Yes- next day or two, you can resume whites

Thanks for your guidance.
I'll probably stick the skimmer back on tomorrow too.

 

[Mikuchar]

I'm personally losing the battle with the dinos. As of today all but a few frags ate all either dead or dying. Losing flesh daily

 

[saltyhog]

A better video of what I'm dealing with. Can anyone identify and have any plan of action going forward. Ty

Yes, definitely Ostreopsis. UV is best for these and usually results in very rapid improvement. The UV needs to be oversized with low flow....don't follow manufacturer's recommendations for size and flow as they don't even consider this application. I like to use a UV in the 1 watt/3 gallons of tank volume range and flow 2-3 x the tank volume. For some strange reason it seems to work much better if plumbed from the tank with a dedicated pump, not from the sump.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I'm personally losing the battle with the dinos. As of today all but a few frags ate all either dead or dying. Losing flesh daily

Dinos release low level toxins which will affect coral. Any pics of the tank under white lighting to see what you have going on?

 

[Mikuchar]

Dinos release low level toxins which will affect coral. Any pics of the tank under white lighting to see what you have going on?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Great pics and confirmed dinos. Do this as its easier than written:
Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles. Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15% IF you have light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX

 

[Mikuchar]

Great pics and confirmed dinos. Do this as its easier than written:
Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles. Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15% IF you have light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX

I've been blowing the stuff off like 3 times a day changing the filter socks 2-3 times a day also siphoning the stuff out through a filter sock into a 5 gallon bucket daily. Turned light intensity down to 40% and my t-5 lights off all together. Dosed nitrate and phosphate to get to 1.2 phosphate and nitrate to 15. Even filter floss in the baffle in sump. Have a 25 watt sterilizer going dosing pytoplankton nightly and added 4 bottles of copepods the other day from algae barn. Will try the hydrogen peroxide starting tonite. But coral are turning white as we speak. Ive delt with dinos few times in the past and I've always got rid of them I don't know why these will not go away.

 

[Mikuchar]

Great pics and confirmed dinos. Do this as its easier than written:
Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles. Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15% IF you have light dependant corals) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX

Also I thought a water change is the worst thing you can do? I did start running activated carbon

 

[vetteguy53081]

Also I thought a water change is the worst thing you can do? I did start running activated carbon

You want to siphon up front to get these cells out of the bedding and off the surfaces. The light at 40% is your issue. These are photosynthetic and feed off light. Take away the light and you take away their food source.
White best off and low level % blue is to your advantage.

 

[Denisk]

so a little back story. I have a 22 gallon sumpless nano that has been running for 2 years with live rock from Florida. It’s had it’s fair share of ugly stages but recently I’ve been having some pale sps and cloudy bacterial blooms which ultimately was due to very low/undetectable nitrates and super low phosphates. Everyone recommended dosing nitrates and phosphates since higher feedings never worked in raising anything.

fast forward about a week I started dosing nitrates and phosphates. Nitrates got raised fairly quickly and phosphates were always tough to raise. Stopped dosing the nitrates as it was about 28ppm but the phosphates were always super low around .02ppm. Corals continued to look better, frogspawn was super fat and fluffy but then boom, out of no where I got Dino’s.

glass literally turns brown after wiping it down in 30 minutes. Sand is covered and so is the rocks. I always thought Dino’s kind of came from bottoming out nitrates and phosphates but now I think it’s more from an uneven imbalance but it almost seems like finding that balance is super tricky. Not sure what to do but Uv on this system isn’t easy and can’t seem to find my microscope.

also I do notice it looks to be better/ water is more clear at night with the lights off. Any suggestions, would be greatly appreciated!

some photos

 

[vetteguy53081]

so a little back story. I have a 22 gallon sumpless nano that has been running for 2 years with live rock from Florida. It’s had it’s fair share of ugly stages but recently I’ve been having some pale sps and cloudy bacterial blooms which ultimately was due to very low/undetectable nitrates and super low phosphates. Everyone recommended dosing nitrates and phosphates since higher feedings never worked in raising anything.

fast forward about a week I started dosing nitrates and phosphates. Nitrates got raised fairly quickly and phosphates were always tough to raise. Stopped dosing the nitrates as it was about 28ppm but the phosphates were always super low around .02ppm. Corals continued to look better, frogspawn was super fat and fluffy but then boom, out of no where I got Dino’s.

glass literally turns brown after wiping it down in 30 minutes. Sand is covered and so is the rocks. I always thought Dino’s kind of came from bottoming out nitrates and phosphates but now I think it’s more from an uneven imbalance but it almost seems like finding that balance is super tricky. Not sure what to do but Uv on this system isn’t easy and can’t seem to find my microscope.

also I do notice it looks to be better/ water is more clear at night with the lights off. Any suggestions, would be greatly appreciated!

some photos

As stated above, dino flagellates are protists organisms that require light and organics to survive. They are less at night because they are lacking their food source - light. Follw plan I mentioned above. Easier than it sounds and it works, Wipe this stuff off the glass and blow loose off surfaces and siphon if you can. The more you remove id the less you have to battle

 

[DarkReefer]

Hey @vetteguy53081 ,

I've done some testing this afternoon and it appears my phosphates continue to climb quite quickly and currently sits at 0.53ppm (up 0.174 from 4 days ago).
Should I start the media reactor up again with the rowaphos to get this under control?

Perhaps I could use the online calculator to try and get this to drop to 0.10 for the moment until things stabilise and then aim to drop it back down to the 0.04ish mark slowly after it's settled down. Or will a water change help this out ?


Full testing results below;

Salinity - 1.024/1.023
Temp - 25.2 deg celcius
pH - 8
Nitrate - 30ish
Phosphate 0.530
Alk - 8.1
Calcium - 420
Mag - 1290

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hey @vetteguy53081 ,

I've done some testing this afternoon and it appears my phosphates continue to climb quite quickly and currently sits at 0.53ppm (up 0.174 from 4 days ago).
Should I start the media reactor up again with the rowaphos to get this under control?

Perhaps I could use the online calculator to try and get this to drop to 0.10 for the moment until things stabilise and then aim to drop it back down to the 0.04ish mark slowly after it's settled down. Or will a water change help this out ?


Full testing results below;

Salinity - 1.024/1.023
Temp - 25.2 deg celcius
pH - 8
Nitrate - 30ish
Phosphate 0.530
Alk - 8.1
Calcium - 420
Mag - 1290

Reactor or add a pouch of chemipure blue or even elite. Just monitor levels to assure they dont drop too quickly or to zero

 

[DarkReefer]

Reactor or add a pouch of chemipure blue or even elite. Just monitor levels to assure they dont drop too quickly or to zero

Thanks, fired up the reactor again. The calculator said 9x tablespoons but I did 6 for the moment and will monitor.