Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?
- Thread starter mcarroll
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lesbrers
Community Member
Hi,
Been following this thread for awhile. Haven't been able to read all 89 pages so apologies if this has been mentioned before.
I first had a dinoflagellate outbreak in March after my NO3 and PO4 hit zero. I tried blackouts, dino-x, and vibrant all with limited success. Shortly after, I got ich and moved all my fish to quarantine. The tank lay fallow for 76 days and it was at this point that I started dosing NO3 (spectracide) to keep the nutrients up and the dino just slowly just vanished without doing anything else. When I re-introduced my fish last month, I stopped NO3 dosing as I thought that all the fish waste being produced would be fine in keeping up nutrient levels. However when I checked I found I was at 0 NO3 and 0 PO4, and the dinos came back with a vengeance. They are now all over the sand and rocks. I have since restarted dosing No3 and have gotten my level up to around 5. PO4 still looks close to zero but its hard to tell with the salifert kit. I've picked up some Brightwell Neophos as well as a Hanna ultra low range phosphorus checker as well so I can fine tune adding PO4 back into the system. Is there a specific NO3/PO4 number I should be looking for? Also I just picked up a kid's microscope to try and ID my dinos. Any ideas?
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Sorry for the shaky cam quality, hard to do on a cell phone.
Thanks,
John
Been following this thread for awhile. Haven't been able to read all 89 pages so apologies if this has been mentioned before.
I first had a dinoflagellate outbreak in March after my NO3 and PO4 hit zero. I tried blackouts, dino-x, and vibrant all with limited success. Shortly after, I got ich and moved all my fish to quarantine. The tank lay fallow for 76 days and it was at this point that I started dosing NO3 (spectracide) to keep the nutrients up and the dino just slowly just vanished without doing anything else. When I re-introduced my fish last month, I stopped NO3 dosing as I thought that all the fish waste being produced would be fine in keeping up nutrient levels. However when I checked I found I was at 0 NO3 and 0 PO4, and the dinos came back with a vengeance. They are now all over the sand and rocks. I have since restarted dosing No3 and have gotten my level up to around 5. PO4 still looks close to zero but its hard to tell with the salifert kit. I've picked up some Brightwell Neophos as well as a Hanna ultra low range phosphorus checker as well so I can fine tune adding PO4 back into the system. Is there a specific NO3/PO4 number I should be looking for? Also I just picked up a kid's microscope to try and ID my dinos. Any ideas?
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Sorry for the shaky cam quality, hard to do on a cell phone.
Thanks,
John
My clean up crew is definitely lacking as my tank has always ran pretty clean . Doesn’t seem like anything eats this stuff up except pods so I ordered a double dose of those . Getting nitrates back up has done pretty well in cutting it down . I dosed some dr Tim’s on Monday once I got the tank to register some phosphates .
I’ll give the 3 day black out a go and keep the lights over my fuge lit for duration. It has been dieting back like a said . At one point it was real bad . I’m just glad to identify what the heck it even is .
I’ll give the 3 day black out a go and keep the lights over my fuge lit for duration. It has been dieting back like a said . At one point it was real bad . I’m just glad to identify what the heck it even is .
Update:
After a few days of trying to sneak up to 0.1 phosphate and having no progress, I really started really ramping up the dose and finally got some progress. First 40ml of the seachem phosphorus, then 60ml, and then 80ml per day, but I finally got the phosphates to start ramping up. So I broke 0.1 PPM phosphate 4 days ago, and now I'm at about 0.25 PPM and I have a good understanding of how dosages impact the tank so I'm going to slowly bring that down to about 0.1 PPM over the next 2-3 days. Based on the math on the bottle, the tank is consuming roughly ~0.5 PPM of phosphates per day! I haven't had to dose nitrates at all, those seem to be staying pretty steady at 5 PPM.
And the result is for the first time in about 2 months I saw some clear progress with less dino growth. In the past by the mid-afternoon the entire tank was covered in dinos, the corals, the hair algae, the powerheads. Both yesterday and today I'd say that dino growth is down by about 75%. There is still a lot more than nothing, but in the past there would be dino strands forming on the hair algae and on lots of living corals, and those seem to be mostly gone. The dinos now are mostly growing the strands on the dead coral, back glass and on my plastic frag rack.
Red cyano and maybe some type of green cyano is starting to grow pretty heavily on the sandbed, now covering about 20% I'd say. The unknown green hair algae that is covering all the rocks, be it derbesia or some type of bryopsis, is growing as well as ever. Corals are still very pale but last night I saw better polyp extension on some of my acros than I've seen in quite a while.
So what is the plan from this point? Maintain 0.1 PPM phosphates, 5 PPM nitrates and wait until there is no daily dino growth at all (what an amazing day that would be!)? Or should I try a blackout or something now that they are starting to weaken?
After a few days of trying to sneak up to 0.1 phosphate and having no progress, I really started really ramping up the dose and finally got some progress. First 40ml of the seachem phosphorus, then 60ml, and then 80ml per day, but I finally got the phosphates to start ramping up. So I broke 0.1 PPM phosphate 4 days ago, and now I'm at about 0.25 PPM and I have a good understanding of how dosages impact the tank so I'm going to slowly bring that down to about 0.1 PPM over the next 2-3 days. Based on the math on the bottle, the tank is consuming roughly ~0.5 PPM of phosphates per day! I haven't had to dose nitrates at all, those seem to be staying pretty steady at 5 PPM.
And the result is for the first time in about 2 months I saw some clear progress with less dino growth. In the past by the mid-afternoon the entire tank was covered in dinos, the corals, the hair algae, the powerheads. Both yesterday and today I'd say that dino growth is down by about 75%. There is still a lot more than nothing, but in the past there would be dino strands forming on the hair algae and on lots of living corals, and those seem to be mostly gone. The dinos now are mostly growing the strands on the dead coral, back glass and on my plastic frag rack.
Red cyano and maybe some type of green cyano is starting to grow pretty heavily on the sandbed, now covering about 20% I'd say. The unknown green hair algae that is covering all the rocks, be it derbesia or some type of bryopsis, is growing as well as ever. Corals are still very pale but last night I saw better polyp extension on some of my acros than I've seen in quite a while.
So what is the plan from this point? Maintain 0.1 PPM phosphates, 5 PPM nitrates and wait until there is no daily dino growth at all (what an amazing day that would be!)? Or should I try a blackout or something now that they are starting to weaken?
Here is my thread with great info on how to beat Chrysophytes. I will say, when you beat them you better be ready for cyano and dinos. Something else will need to fill the void. I'd almost rather have chrysophytes back then to have gotten rid of them and be fighting dinos.
https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/324861/
OP
OP
mcarroll
10K Club member
What are you doing for nutrient export besides a skimmer and live rock?
≥ 5-10 ppm NO3
≥ 0.10 ppm PO4
OP
OP
mcarroll
10K Club member
Good do hear you're seeing progress!
You'll want a real CUC for the aftermath, if not for the chrysophytes themselves. Don't wait. It might be a good idea to add just a few the first time you add in case there are still toxins brewing.
You'll need extra emphasis on keeping the tank's nutrient inputs (and chemistry) STABLE from here on as much as possible.
OP
OP
mcarroll
10K Club member
Keep up the work you're doing now and keep patience. Those might be the two main things.
But read through that post as well.
If you've ID'd your type of dino, then I'd also look through the search(s) that apply to yours to see what others have done:
lesbrers
Community Member
What are you doing for nutrient export besides a skimmer and live rock?
≥ 5-10 ppm NO3
≥ 0.10 ppm PO4
Right now just live rock with a marine pure block in the sump and skimmer. Had been using prodibio (I guess some form of carbon dosing) but have stopped all of that.
lesbrers
Community Member
So looking at some old posts and referencing algae id, I think I have amphidinium. Any specific strategies for this species? Previous posts seem to indicate UV is not beneficial. I saw covering up spots with chaeto may help. Other than that just keep plugging along with getting the NO3 and PO4 balanced?
So after a 1 day black out . I popped the lights on to check progress. POD EXPLOSION. Chrysophites gone. Ill keep them off for another day or two just to make sure they are gone. Nitrates up to 3 ppm . P04 at .06 ppm.
Now to get these corals Growing again. It’s always something.
Now to get these corals Growing again. It’s always something.
mstockmaster
Active Member
So I think I'm now in the same boat. I've always had very low nutrients. Recently got an icp test from ATI and they showed zero phosphates. I performed the h2o2 test and no bubbles so I'm pretty sure it's dinos. Not sure what my first course of action is. What is the first step I should take to try treating this? It's not a crazy outbreak like others have seen, but it is growing on some of my sps and it's not happy about it.
So methods discussed that still seem to be viable that don't involve nuking the tank are as follows.
1. Lights out for 3 days
2. Increase phosphates through dosing
Anything else? And should I try these in this order?
So methods discussed that still seem to be viable that don't involve nuking the tank are as follows.
1. Lights out for 3 days
2. Increase phosphates through dosing
Anything else? And should I try these in this order?
lesbrers
Community Member
Lights out didn't do much for me. What are your nitrates? I got dinos when my nitrates and phosphates hit zero. You may have to dose both. I'm currently dosing to > 5-10 ppm NO3 and > 0.1 ppm PO4 as @mcarroll suggested. Also just siphoning out all the dino on the sand into a filter sock with some filter fleece in it and then putting the water back into the tank. Hope someone can tell me this is the right direction.
mstockmaster
Active Member
Nitrates at 5, po4 still at zero. I'll pick up some flourish when the lfs opens tomorrow.
mstockmaster
Active Member
My pc rainbow acro seems to have bleached out totally last night. It was always pale but it seems like the dinos did it in.
Great thread, lots of good information! I just took a sample from my Biocube 32 will brown algae-like growth on sandbank and rock, which I cannot get rid of with H202. Here is the image, I am thinking this is Gymnodidium spp.. They are highly motile with light microscopy and measure about 20 microns x 30 microns. Can anybody confirm this genus and have any luck getting rid of them? I may start the metronidazole treatment and add sock filters, but I would need the 1 microns type to skim these out right?
What are the opinions on adding live rock at this point? I think my biodiversity is minimal at the moment because of the H202 and the dinoxal, I'm thinking of adding some live rock tomorrow but doesnt the dino or cyno eradicate anything "live" on the rock like pods, worms or bacteria?
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