Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?
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chefjpaul
2500 Club Member
Conspiracies [emoji12]
Some interesting notes on my nutrients and Dinos and algae;
So I had a huge prorocentrum bloom in early October; detectable nitrates and no phosphates for a long time plus being very aggressive with coral feeding and amino acid supplements. I did a bunch of things, including dosing phosphates, adding uv and gradually removing sandbed (sill in progress). The first week of dosing phosphorus, the po4 wouldn’t budge, but dinos and green hair algae appears to have intensified; week 2, started getting po4 < 0.05; green hair and film algae looked to be taking over, and tank looked really ugly; week 3 and 4. Po4 is 0.1 to 0.2; nitrates 5 to 7 ppm; a few small patches of dinos are visible on the sand bed but they don’t slime up, but the interesting bit is that GHA and film algae seem to have declined as well! I expected way more GHA with po4 at 0.2 ppm, but no! Is a GHA takeover imminent ? Or did I hit close to the redfield ratio which supposedly naturally limits algae growth ? Curious to hear your thoughts and experiences
So I had a huge prorocentrum bloom in early October; detectable nitrates and no phosphates for a long time plus being very aggressive with coral feeding and amino acid supplements. I did a bunch of things, including dosing phosphates, adding uv and gradually removing sandbed (sill in progress). The first week of dosing phosphorus, the po4 wouldn’t budge, but dinos and green hair algae appears to have intensified; week 2, started getting po4 < 0.05; green hair and film algae looked to be taking over, and tank looked really ugly; week 3 and 4. Po4 is 0.1 to 0.2; nitrates 5 to 7 ppm; a few small patches of dinos are visible on the sand bed but they don’t slime up, but the interesting bit is that GHA and film algae seem to have declined as well! I expected way more GHA with po4 at 0.2 ppm, but no! Is a GHA takeover imminent ? Or did I hit close to the redfield ratio which supposedly naturally limits algae growth ? Curious to hear your thoughts and experiences
It's highly likely.
Sounds like you're on the verge of transitioning from a dino outbreak to a more controllable algae situation. I'd say keep an eye on algae and add CUC as needed. Good luck!
I agree. I think tanks that don't have visible outbreaks are due to the dinos being outcompeted by easier (subjectively easier) to control algae species.
Darn it!!! I got lazy and my N&P bottomed out and the dino is creeping back in....Two weeks ago my P = 0.1 and N=40 and now both are a big FAT ZERO.....Now i need to get back to it. I guess i could see this coming on about a week ago when i started to see a brown dusting and my hammer and bubble tip seemed very unhappy. This all came on when i increased the intensity of my Kessil....back to the drawing board.
mwilk19
Well-Known Member
I would have to agree. I've been in the hobby since the late 80's. I had never had a dino outbreak until this past year when I transitioned to an Ultra Low Nutrient System. That's when the dinos showed up. I loat quite a few corals before UV and raising my NO3 and PO4 beat them back.
It doesn't help out that we have now in the hobby transitioned over to dry rock. My first SW tanks was all LIVE rock, sand and mud and never had any issues. So much diversity is introduced with live stuff. I've now decided the threat of hitchhikers doesn't scare me as much as dinos and all my systems in the future will be live everything...
sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
My lfs I found out does take rock from customers and than bleaches it. That's my goto lfs. Have to figure out a new store for lr
Rick Krejci
Active Member
Wanted to chime in here and put my ongoing story out there.
I just started my reefer 250 a few months ago. My plan was to start with FOWLR, get everything stable with a good bioload and then transition to nems and mixed reef corals. Went through the cycle with dry reefsaver rock (with dosed ammonia) fine. Ran Chaeto with Kessil H380 early on, and Phosphates bottomed out to 0, nitrates stuck at 20. Dosed some phosphate helped bring the Nitrates down a little, but Phosphates would go to 0 very quickly. Added some fish with moderate feeding and during this time the dinos started up, phosphates still near 0. Really zero other algae in the tank, just some in the fuge walls by the Chaeto. Started reducing the H380 times to allow some nutrients to build up to help other algae out-compete the dinos.
Well, in the middle of this, late last week I had a case of Ich and decided to treat it in-tank since I just have Live Rocks. I decided on Chloroquinine Phosphate (CP) which should preserve the cycle. Bam, the dinos disappear as expected since it's an algaecide and somewhat of a micro biocide. And as expected, bam my phosphates are waaaay through the roof (3.0+ ppm!) from the Phosphates in the CP. Discontinued all Chaeto lights, in fact I moved the Chaeto out so the CP wouldn't kill it. Pretty much all algae is gone, which is a side-effect of CP. Ammonia staying at zero since I had so little algae and micro creatures to die. Fish are doing great and will continue to keep the CP in for about a month.
I'm going to be very interested on how the tank progresses from here once I use carbon to remove the CP. Will do some water changes to take the Phosphates down a bit. I'm expecting a bout with controllable algae based on my high Phosphate levels. I'll plan on re-instituting the Chaeto and H380 at that time. I have a 25 Watt UV I may put in there at that time as well for insurance purposes. I'll be anxious to see who the winners and losers will be.
Thanks to this thread, I'm not as anxious as I might be. Will update my story as it goes along since I've not seen much mention of CP with respect to Dinos, and I feel it may be an alternative to a complete break-down bleaching, since it does leave the bacteria intact. Certainly wasn't my goal, but I'll try to report what happens with my tank. Thankfully, my fish-first approach allowed me to do this without any coral impact.
I just started my reefer 250 a few months ago. My plan was to start with FOWLR, get everything stable with a good bioload and then transition to nems and mixed reef corals. Went through the cycle with dry reefsaver rock (with dosed ammonia) fine. Ran Chaeto with Kessil H380 early on, and Phosphates bottomed out to 0, nitrates stuck at 20. Dosed some phosphate helped bring the Nitrates down a little, but Phosphates would go to 0 very quickly. Added some fish with moderate feeding and during this time the dinos started up, phosphates still near 0. Really zero other algae in the tank, just some in the fuge walls by the Chaeto. Started reducing the H380 times to allow some nutrients to build up to help other algae out-compete the dinos.
Well, in the middle of this, late last week I had a case of Ich and decided to treat it in-tank since I just have Live Rocks. I decided on Chloroquinine Phosphate (CP) which should preserve the cycle. Bam, the dinos disappear as expected since it's an algaecide and somewhat of a micro biocide. And as expected, bam my phosphates are waaaay through the roof (3.0+ ppm!) from the Phosphates in the CP. Discontinued all Chaeto lights, in fact I moved the Chaeto out so the CP wouldn't kill it. Pretty much all algae is gone, which is a side-effect of CP. Ammonia staying at zero since I had so little algae and micro creatures to die. Fish are doing great and will continue to keep the CP in for about a month.
I'm going to be very interested on how the tank progresses from here once I use carbon to remove the CP. Will do some water changes to take the Phosphates down a bit. I'm expecting a bout with controllable algae based on my high Phosphate levels. I'll plan on re-instituting the Chaeto and H380 at that time. I have a 25 Watt UV I may put in there at that time as well for insurance purposes. I'll be anxious to see who the winners and losers will be.
Thanks to this thread, I'm not as anxious as I might be. Will update my story as it goes along since I've not seen much mention of CP with respect to Dinos, and I feel it may be an alternative to a complete break-down bleaching, since it does leave the bacteria intact. Certainly wasn't my goal, but I'll try to report what happens with my tank. Thankfully, my fish-first approach allowed me to do this without any coral impact.
Bob Lauson
Active Member
2nd Test: Coffee Filter Test
Find a brown patch or strings, take samples ( I pulled a mix of dinos/cyano), add tank water until you have 100mL, put in a container you can shake thoroughly
Filters: filter size can be seen by holding it up to a diffuse light and see what is visible. Far left: paper towel - too small to allow many dinos through. center left: coffee filter - just right. Center right: filter floss - too large and allows cyano through. Far right: filter pad - way too large.
All same magnification - Left: coffee filter, Center: paper towel, Right: Large Cell Amphidinium Dinos (brown cells) and debris. Paper towel is likely to block too much and let through almost no dino cells.
after pouring through the coffee filter, the water looks very clear...
but after 15 minutes even the small # of dino cells in this sample form visible brown clumps.
and microscope confirms that these brown clumps are in fact where dinos have gathered together and pulled their mucus and debris with them.
Diatoms will also pass through the coffee filter like dinos, but will not re-gather in brown clumps/strings like this.
You will still need a microscope at some point to be certain what kind of Dino you have, and plus the microscopic world of a reef tank is super-cool, but maybe this can help some people figure out if they have dinos or not.
I did this test because it was suggests I had dinos and not diatoms. So I did the coffee filter test, waited 15 minutes and saw nothing - water was clear. Therefore I concluded there were no dinos and did, in fact, have diatoms. I waited for about 45 minutes more and I had the following:
So it looks like I have dinos after all. I was skeptical of this test but it was spot on. Just had to wait a little longer.
welcome to hell! good luck!I did this test because it was suggests I had dinos and not diatoms. So I did the coffee filter test, waited 15 minutes and saw nothing - water was clear. Therefore I concluded there were no dinos and did, in fact, have diatoms. I waited for about 45 minutes more and I had the following:
So it looks like I have dinos after all. I was skeptical of this test but it was spot on. Just had to wait a little longer.
sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
Hello my name is Sfin. I've beaten Dino 30 days ago. I'll never be Dino free just keep them in balance.
Bob Lauson
Active Member
How did you beat them? Hydrogen Peroxide?Hello my name is Sfin. I've beaten Dino 30 days ago. I'll never be Dino free just keep them in balance.
sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
I had 0 po4, so I started dosing it. I Stopped running GFO and water changes for 2 months with new water. GFO is no longer being run in my tank. I did top offs with ro water. I think that there are trace elements in the salt that make the Dino go crazy. Stopped adding trace elements to the tank except for iodide, calcium and magnesium. I added a new piece of live rock and micro fauna from another tank. I blew off the rock every night right before lights out. Reduced my photo period by an hour. I also added pods back into the tank.
I did loose my two favorite ducans. They had 10 heads apiece
I did loose my two favorite ducans. They had 10 heads apiece
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