Still battling Dinos (Ostreopsis) Need help before my 150g SPS only tank is dead

Nathan Belz · Mar 16, 2017

Still battling Dinos (Ostreopsis) Need help before my 150g SPS only tank is dead!

I AM battling Osteopsis. I have my own microscopes and have confirmed on a previous thread that I have Ostropsis.

I have a collection of really nice large SPS colonies in a 150g tank. I have been fighting dinos for months. I need expert help as I keep loosing corals and/or tissue every day.

Tank details -
-150g, SPS only
-10.5 DKH
-420 Calcium
-1390-1410 magnesium
-trace amounts of Po4 and No3
PH - 8.15
salinity 35
Dosing alk/mag/calk with DOS (250ml of alk/calc per day)
BAREBOTTOM

What I have done:
-stopped doing water changes
-moved snails /crabs to my frag tank
-stopped all filtration but filter socks and skimmer
-Added Kalk to ATO (with a PH in ATO) to get PH up from 8.07
-added air stones to tank and large air pump
-just completed a full coarse (21 days) of DinoX @ 30ML per dose
-Did a tank blackout between day 10 through day 14 of DinoX
-2X a day I hit each coral with a turkey baster to save what I can

What I just started doing:
-ran carbon for 8 hours to clean up DINOx and whatever was in the water.
-after stopping carbon initiated another blackout this morning.
-Today at noon I started dosing H2o2 at a rate of 15 ML per day.
-I plan to do the blackout and H202 for the next two days.
Using OH balance for reefs to raise PH up to 8.4-8.5 over the next few days.

I am looking for any really good advice on what to do at this point. Any help would be appreciated. I am especially concerned about my frag tank which is by now infected I am sure. I want to kill it off in the frag tank as well, but then I don't know where to put my snails/crabs/anemones that are in there.

How can I move Inverts back to my 150 if I ever get it clean without re-infecting it?

Nathan Belz · Mar 16, 2017

Here is an image for reference. I can post a video as well if I need to.

Scubabeth · Mar 16, 2017

Nathan Belz said:
Here is an image for reference. I can post a video as well if I need to.

@Nathan Belz, several of us on this thread with Ostreopsis species dinos have been successful using a product called Vibrant: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/vibrant-liquid-aquarium-cleaner-discussion-thread.271428/

Others with Ostreopsis species have not been able to rid their tanks using Vibrant. It is a proprietary blend of bacterias, some of which lower NO3 in the tank and others which attack the dinos directly. The producer, @UWC, is often on that thread answering any questions people have. It is a safe product to use, and certainly can't hurt you to try. I recommend trying it wholeheartedly. We had a relatively minor dino bloom, the only corals at that time that showed real stress was our gorgonian which was completely smothered. It has made a full recovery. We began dosing beginning of Nov, and have not seen any dino strands in our tank since. (Full disclosure: I can still find individual cells when I pull samples from the foam guard around our Ecotech pump, but NO aggregates of cells have been found.)

Check out the link, if you haven't already, and ask any questions you may have. I KNOW what a pain these buggers are!!!

Jeremy Gibbs · Feb 27, 2018

About a month ago I moved my 250 gallon system into a new 330 gallon system (one room of my house to another). When I did so I moved the sump contents first (the day before) but I decided not to re-deploy my deep sand bed which was a 5 gallon bucket full of mud, rubble, and sand. Instead I setup the new sump with three 4x8x8 blocks of Marine Pure. I had pre-seeded them with several different bacterial additives including Microbacter 7. I moved the entire contents into the new display over the course of about 5 hours. I had no major crises during the move. I had the new system nearly filled with fresh mixed saltwater (Red Sea Coral Pro) which I made up 3 days prior to the move and had already added bacterial additives ahead of time. Immediately following the move into new water everything, fish and corals, seemed healthy and happy. The little bit of hair algae I had on the rocks seemed to be just melting away and I had high hopes for a 100% successful transition.

About a week in on the new system I started seeing a light brown film and figured it was diatoms, until about day two that is. I started to notice the tell tale signs of dinoflagellates (small bubbles and a stringy snot-like consistency). I didn't hit the panic button at first though. I just got out my old trusty H2O2 and started dosing using 1 ml per 10 gallons per day at night so I'd catch the dinos when they were in the water column. I also turned up my ozone a little bit. I checked and Nitrates were undetectable on the Red Sea test kit. Phosphates were barely detectable somewhere below .04 ppm anyway. I thought it was odd after fairly heavy feedings out of the gate that the Nitrates were that low, but it was my first experience with Marine Pure so I thought that was a good thing. By day three things were getting worse. I started seeing a brown film forming on the surface in the sump tank. I kept up the H2O2 dosing for another 3 days to absolutely no avail. During this time I was running a BRS dual reactor filled with Carbon in both canisters because I was concerned about the toxins. All the fish seemed fine but the corals were seeming to be mildly unhappy. Since the H2O2 wasn't working I decided to take some swabs of the dinos and try to ID them with the microscope. What I saw in the microscope made me hit the panic button. Positively Ostreopsis ovata.

I've never dealt with them before but I knew they were like the black plague of the reef hobby. I quickly discovered that H2O2 has no impact on Ostreopsis. I was ready to do a 3 day blackout but I wanted to be sure to hedge my bets by attacking it on multiple fronts all at the same time. It seems some of our Spanish reefing friends had good results with the "dirty method". That involves increasing microfauna biodiversity as much as possible and dosing phytoplankton and overfeeding as well, the idea being that you're creating competition for the resources the dinos are using and maybe even some predatory populations to consume them. I did some more reading on some of the research involving contributing factors to Ostreopsis blooms (red tides) in the wild and saw that keeping temperatures consistently below 77 degrees might help but that the main thing that seemed to make the greatest difference was the nitrate to phosphate ratio being above the Redfield ratio (16:1). I knew mine was WAY below that. I knew that since my animals have all been kept for years at a consistent temperature around 80 degrees that dialing the temp down might have unintended consequences so I didn't go that route. This is a very mature system, continuously running for over a decade but it occurred to me that the choice to leave off the deep sand bed bucket in the new system had probably seriously reduced my microfaunal biodiversity.

I had a plan. Here's what I did that turned it around.
- First I placed an order for 20 lbs of fresh new live rock rubble for the sump from Salty Bottom in Florida. I wanted to just collect some rubble from someone locally with a good healthy mature tank but I wasn't able to find anyone to donate to the cause.
- Second I placed an order for 20 lbs of GARG grunge from garf.org. I knew this combined with the rubble rock would bring in quite a bit of new microfauna.
- Third I stopped dosing H2O2 and turned off the ozone and started dosing live phytoplankton instead. I also added 3 more bacterial products (though in hindsight this may have been the least helpful thing I did because it helped drive Nitrates even lower).
- Fourth I started over-feeding for a couple of days and turned the skimmer off at night.
- Fifth I started dosing nitrates. For this I used Spectracide Stump Remover. I mixed 45 grams of the granules with RODI water in a half gallon jug and dosed 10 mL twice daily to bring them up very slowly. I tested nitrates and phosphates daily for about 4 days. Once I had nitrates showing 2 ppm and phosphates showing about .08 on the Red Sea test kits I knew I was well above the Redfield ratio.
- Finally I covered the display (couldn't cover the sump - it's complicated) for 3 days. I worried this wouldn't be enough but as it turns out I believe it was.

After uncovering the display on the 4th day I turned the lights back on using the acclimation setting on my Radions set to a three week ramp up from 45%. I'm now ten days out from turning the light back on and seeing no signs of re-emergence. I did start seeing a brown film on the bottom and walls of the tank yesterday, but I took dozens of samples as well as scrapings from formerly infested areas of the rock and scoured them under the microscope. This time it really is diatoms and a fairly minor bloom at that. In all the samples I looked at over the course of about 4 hours yesterday I couldn't find a single Ostreopsis. The corals are all back to full polyp extension and the SPS colonies are even starting to show better color. From what I'm reading that is probably related to my continued dosing of the Stump Remover (KNO3). Even with the dosing of KNO3 I'm still struggling to push nitrates above 2 ppm. Testament to Marine Pure I believe. Gradually increasing the nitrate dosing shooting for about 5 ppm as this seems to be the sweet spot for SPS keepers. I've gone back to running GFO and Carbon instead of double Carbon in the BRS dual reactor. I've also reinstated the ozone. I know 10 days isn't an absolute proof of cure, but I'm quite hopeful since I wasn't able to find a single Ostreopsis in any of the samples. I'm under no illusion that I eradicated them. I am positive there are still cysts in my system. I think a lot of us have dinoflagellates, cyanobacteria, and all manner of other pesky things living in our tanks. It's part of having a mature biodiverse system. Over time we collect them as we add corals, macroalgae, etc... It's only when they try to take over the system that they become a problem. I hope this helps. Don't give up. This battle can be won.

RichReef · Feb 27, 2018

Stop ozone. UV, well, well, overpowered. Siphon with water change. Blow off rocks. Repeat. Repeat. Maybe a blackout, maybe not. Wait until gone. Stop UV. Restart ozone.

Has worked for me on all bacterial problems. Side effects aren't a big deal. Pods will return.

Jeremy Gibbs · Feb 27, 2018

EDIT - something I forgot to mention but may well have been a very important piece because of the biodiversity boost was the addition of a fresh bucket of Walt Smith's Fiji Mud. I dumped the mud out of the plastic bag directly into a plastic container and put the container in the sump. I also clouded the water with it for several days leading up to and immediately following the blackout. I typically grab a small handful and cloud the tank with it about once a week but hadn't done it in a long time prior to the dino outbreak.

Jeremy Gibbs · Feb 27, 2018

RichReef said:
Stop ozone. UV, well, well, overpowered. Siphon with water change. Blow off rocks. Repeat. Repeat. Maybe a blackout, maybe not. Wait until gone. Stop UV. Restart ozone.

Has worked for me on all bacterial problems. Side effects aren't a big deal. Pods will return.

Generally I would agree with these steps for many things. However, with confirmed Ostreopsis and really most protozoan blooms, the majority of people report that water changes seem to add fuel to the fire. Interestingly the majority leave the surfaces and go into the water column at night so ozone and UV might help to knock their numbers down some, however the deleterius effect this can have on other microfaunal populations may outweigh the good it does. And blowing off the rocks had almost no impact as they reproduce so rapidly and are well anchored to the surfaces. Actually, now that I think about it, the fact that I used all freshly mixed water during my system move may have been a major contributing factor to the bloom in the first place. Ostreopsis are really resilient and very toxic. Everything I read about them indicates a many pronged approach is the only thing that works for anyone. Even just a cursory perusal of the anecdotal information out there will quickly tell you that there is not a simple approach to beating them. Many people give up the hobby because of this dinoflagellate.

saltyfilmfolks · Feb 27, 2018

Jeremy Gibbs said:
EDIT - something I forgot to mention but may well have been a very important piece because of the biodiversity boost was the addition of a fresh bucket of Walt Smith's Fiji Mud. I dumped the mud out of the plastic bag directly into a plastic container and put the container in the sump. I also clouded the water with it for several days leading up to and immediately following the blackout. I typically grab a small handful and cloud the tank with it about once a week but hadn't done it in a long time prior to the dino outbreak.

Mud.

rockskimmerflow · Feb 27, 2018

Feed heavy. Increase nitrate and phosphate well into detectable levels. Maintain stability at these readings with 2x weekly water testing for a month or so. Seed with turf algaes, microfauna, and esp munnid isopods if possible. Best of luck. Ostreopsis are very beatable. Substrate competition seems to be the fastest route to suppressing their numbers IME

ZaneTer · Feb 27, 2018

I 100% agree with this. Lights off barely has an impact for more than a day. You need to raise nutrients for competitors to thrive and beat the dinos.

Jeremy Gibbs · Feb 27, 2018

ZaneTer said:
I 100% agree with this. Lights off barely has an impact for more than a day. You need to raise nutrients for competitors to thrive and beat the dinos.

Yeah. Lights out clears the tank very nicely but it doesn't eradicate them. If you haven't made changes to the environment to make it inhospitable they will come right back. And there's probably not really a time limit on that. I added no new livestock for months prior to my outbreak. It happened because the cysts were in the system and after I moved it to the new tank the conditions became favorable for a bloom.

Velcro · Feb 27, 2018

Dose phosphate to 0.1 and nitrate to 10ppm. Buy a giant jebao pond UV and run slow flow through it (200gph).

Velcro · Feb 27, 2018

Oh, and stop everything else. No peroxide, no dino x, no vibrant, etc.

ZaneTer · Feb 27, 2018

Here is a tip:
If you can see GREEN film algae forming on your glass after a few days you are on the right track to fixing your problem.

Cbones1979 · Mar 7, 2020

Jeremy Gibbs said:
Generally I would agree with these steps for many things. However, with confirmed Ostreopsis and really most protozoan blooms, the majority of people report that water changes seem to add fuel to the fire. Interestingly the majority leave the surfaces and go into the water column at night so ozone and UV might help to knock their numbers down some, however the deleterius effect this can have on other microfaunal populations may outweigh the good it does. And blowing off the rocks had almost no impact as they reproduce so rapidly and are well anchored to the surfaces. Actually, now that I think about it, the fact that I used all freshly mixed water during my system move may have been a major contributing factor to the bloom in the first place. Ostreopsis are really resilient and very toxic. Everything I read about them indicates a many pronged approach is the only thing that works for anyone. Even just a cursory perusal of the anecdotal information out there will quickly tell you that there is not a simple approach to beating them. Many people give up the hobby because of this dinoflagellate.

Great. The thought has crossed my mind