Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Derek Clifford]

I need to put sand back into the display tank that had been slowly removed due to syphoning out Dinos.
Is live sand recommended in terms of added biodiversity to keep Dinos under control? Or would it be a minimal addition meaning that non-live sand would work too.

 

[sfin52]

Are you done with the Dino outbreak? If you are the more biodiversity the better. I would add live sand.

 

[sfin52]

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.

What is No3 and po4 numbers ?

 

[rtparty]

Got some pictures and videos of what I'm dealing with currently.

 

[Bob Lauson]

What is No3 and po4 numbers ?

My nitrates are at 2 ppm and my phosphates are zero.

 

[Derek Clifford]

Are you done with the Dino outbreak? If you are the more biodiversity the better. I would add live sand.

I wouldn't say done, but well in control. I am still increasing the dose of PO4. At 4ml per day now and still near 0 measurement.

 

[sfin52]

@Bob Lauson its time to dirty up that tank and add phosphate. Seachem makes a good one. Dosing phosphates gives a good result to measure and make adjustments. It's a lot better than over feeding. If you are carbon dosing i.e. Vodka. Stop any phosphate remover like gfo as well. We need to get those phosphate up. If you are not running activated carbon I would start. This helps keep the Dino toxins down.

@Derek Clifford how many times a day are you dosing. Keep upping it slowly till you get a reading or you can dose twice a day to see if that helps. Keep it up Once you get some readings you can start adding more diversity to your tank. Watch that po4 number.

 

[techhnyne]

ok need some more advice
I am picking up a 260gallon and i was planning on upgrading from my 125g but i am in the middle of a dino battle.
I was thinking should i still go along with the upgrade? and while i do the upgrade i can remove the live rock and brush them off and do a peroxide dip on everything and all the water i can transfer from my 126 to the 260 running the water through a 100 micron and also a UV sterilizer before entering the new tank? I deally i would like to start the 260 fresh with a new cycle but i do not have the extra funds to do so, i would need new sand, second sump and all this other stuff just to set it up and run it.
I dont mind starting new if that means no dinos

what do you guys recommend?

 

[Beardo]

ok need some more advice
I am picking up a 260gallon and i was planning on upgrading from my 125g but i am in the middle of a dino battle.
I was thinking should i still go along with the upgrade? and while i do the upgrade i can remove the live rock and brush them off and do a peroxide dip on everything and all the water i can transfer from my 126 to the 260 running the water through a 100 micron and also a UV sterilizer before entering the new tank? I deally i would like to start the 260 fresh with a new cycle but i do not have the extra funds to do so, i would need new sand, second sump and all this other stuff just to set it up and run it.
I dont mind starting new if that means no dinos

what do you guys recommend?

If I was upgrading again from a tank that has dinos, I would start completely fresh.
The reason I say this is i upgraded almost 2 years ago from a 240 that had dinos to a 270. Started with fresh equipment, rocks etc. Dipped (separately in peroxide, revive and lugols) all my corals and QTed. Only thing that wasn't dipped was my clam. I still ended up with dinos in the new tank.
If I was doing it now, knowing what I know, I would start with fresh live rock again and only keep my fish which would be fresh water dipped. I would allow the tank time to mature and not get so hung up on a little algae.

I am afraid the way you are suggesting is just setting yourself up for future battles but in a bigger volume of water.

 

[sfin52]

I would switch everything thing over. You can't keep Dino's out of the tank. They are part of the environment. I wouldn't kill off the rocks either. By adding more sand and live rock you will add a ton of micro diversity to the tank. Watch the nitrates and photons don't let them hit zero again. It's all about diversity. You can't keep them out of the tank.

Don't use dry rock or sand. Use live rock and sand. Keep up the fight

 

[techhnyne]

If I was upgrading again from a tank that has dinos, I would start completely fresh.
The reason I say this is i upgraded almost 2 years ago from a 240 that had dinos to a 270. Started with fresh equipment, rocks etc. Dipped (separately in peroxide, revive and lugols) all my corals and QTed. Only thing that wasn't dipped was my clam. I still ended up with dinos in the new tank.
If I was doing it now, knowing what I know, I would start with fresh live rock again and only keep my fish which would be fresh water dipped. I would allow the tank time to mature and not get so hung up on a little algae.

I am afraid the way you are suggesting is just setting yourself up for future battles but in a bigger volume of water.

Yea you are right. So just a quick fresh water dip is ok for fish to be transfered?

 

[Beardo]

Yea you are right. So just a quick fresh water dip is ok for fish to be transfered?

Freshwater dip should kill any dinos on the slime coat. If I was transferring from a tank with a known dino outbreak I would follow the dip by putting them in a QT tank for a couple day just in case any dinos are in their digestive track then another quick dip when putting in new tank.

I do agree with @sfin52 that you can't completely prevent them from eventually being introduced, but I wouldn't knowingly add them to another tank that is just being set up. I would want to give the tank the best shot at maturing and building biodiversity so they can be out competed if/when they do inadvertently get introduced. Just my opinion though.

 

[sfin52]

Knowing what I know now I would not scrap all my gear on an upgrade because of fear of Dino. I wouldn't be scared to add all to my new tank. Most people who do a reset end up with Dino. Fixing the underlying problems is a must. An ultra low nutrient system seems to be the key.

 

[rtparty]

Knowing what I know now I would not scrap all my gear on an upgrade because of fear of Dino. I wouldn't be scared to add all to my new tank. Most people who do a reset end up with Dino. Fixing the underlying problems is a must. An ultra low nutrient system seems to be the key.

I agree with this. Been in the hobby almost 12 years and this is the first time I've ever had dinos take hold like they have. I believe every tank out there has dinos in it to some degree. It's just a matter of them getting the right conditions to bloom on us. If the work in this thread can catch on, dinos won't be near the worry they are now. I remember starting out in 2006 and being told if you get dinos, the tank is toast. Only choice was to start over all new. Hopefully, people won't have to go that route any longer.

 

[Denisk]

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.

Hopefully things are getting better. I had to ask did you run a skimmer at the time?

 

[Denisk]

Recently I found out I had Dino’s in my reefer 350. I thought I was feeding a lot and was surprised to see that my phosphate was undetectable and that nitrate was .5. I was running a skimmer and a refugium and during the start of the tank the refugium grew great then it eventually stopped growing. I’m assuming it was partially due to the undetectable po3 and po4 and the oversized skimmer.

So last week I also had cyano outbreak and decided to dose chemiclean. At the time I turned off my skimmer and took down my refugium. During the few days of chemiclean, it completely got rid of the cyano and the Dino went partially away too. I thought to myself it was probably bc the nutrients went back up and outcompeted the Dino. I then recently turned my skimmer on and tried to run it really dry and boom... what do you know, it’s back.

So my question to everyone is if I should just take the skimmer offline again and continue to feed once like I have been doing or should I feed a lot more and leave it on? I feel like taking it offline and feeding a lot is a bad idea.

Thanks to everyone with any suggestions.

 

[techhnyne]

My system was low nitrients. 0no3 and 0po4

Anyway i al coming to the end of my 72 hour black out. I am going to be brushing the rocks where i last saw dinos and siphoning into a filter sock. Then putting a UV system in place. I have been h202 dosing past 3 days and will continue for another 4 days


Any other ideas?

 

[rtparty]

Recently I found out I had Dino’s in my reefer 350. I thought I was feeding a lot and was surprised to see that my phosphate was undetectable and that nitrate was .5. I was running a skimmer and a refugium and during the start of the tank the refugium grew great then it eventually stopped growing. I’m assuming it was partially due to the undetectable po3 and po4 and the oversized skimmer.

So last week I also had cyano outbreak and decided to dose chemiclean. At the time I turned off my skimmer and took down my refugium. During the few days of chemiclean, it completely got rid of the cyano and the Dino went partially away too. I thought to myself it was probably bc the nutrients went back up and outcompeted the Dino. I then recently turned my skimmer on and tried to run it really dry and boom... what do you know, it’s back.

So my question to everyone is if I should just take the skimmer offline again and continue to feed once like I have been doing or should I feed a lot more and leave it on? I feel like taking it offline and feeding a lot is a bad idea.

Thanks to everyone with any suggestions.

You need to start dosing nitrate and phosphate. Over feeding to raise nutrients is not the best way to go since it's not controlled at all. Plus, you only want to raise N and P not all nutrients like over feeding will do.

For nitrate, use Spectracide Stump Remover. For phosphate, use Seachem Phosphorus.

 

[sfin52]

@techhnyne Keeping you No3 and po4 up. Black out and h202 are just bandaids. The uv will help certain types of dino.

@Denisk if you having 0 po4 you need to dose it. Seachem has a good. No3 is 0 than you will need to dose that as well. Leave the skimmer on. Put stop any phosphate remover like vodka and gfo. I wouldn't over feed to raise the numbers takes to long and may cause more issues. Skimmers don't remove Dino in beneficial ways. Also stop water changes the salt seams to have trace minerals that incourge growth.

 

[Denisk]

You need to start dosing nitrate and phosphate. Over feeding to raise nutrients is not the best way to go since it's not controlled at all. Plus, you only want to raise N and P not all nutrients like over feeding will do.

For nitrate, use Spectracide Stump Remover. For phosphate, use Seachem Phosphorus.

That’s what I thought overfeeding would do hence why I felt it wasn’t the right option. The only thing about dosing nitrate and phosphate is that will I at any point stop dosing or will I just have to do for the course of the Reef?