I started to experience an outbreak of dinoflagellates a few weeks ago. The dinos started to worsen so I started looking in to what they consume to grow/multiply. In that thread, @taricha lead me to the @Beuchat Dinoflagellates Disruptive Treatment Article. There was a post by @Naturalreef in the discussion thread on how Tropic Marin Plus-NP cleared a dino outbreak in four days. Since I has some Plus-NP on hand I decided to give it a try, and my results have been much the same. My dinos are not completely gone yet, but they were significantly reduced after just a few days of dosing the Plus-NP. My tank has ~31 gallons and I have been dosing one pump (~1ml) per day after lights out (not sure if the lights out makes any difference, that's just what I decided to do). I'm probably going to increase the dose to two pumps a day at some point to see if that completely clears the dinos. I have been dosing it for nine days so far. Since starting the dosing my NO3 has remained at 0.0 ppm (Hanna HR) and PO4 at ~0.10 ppm (Hanna LR).
What is in the Plus-NP that seems to have "balanced out" the tank so quickly, in relative terms to combating dinos?
When I started dosing the Plus-NP I also reduced my light period from 16hrs to 12hrs (more on that below), syphoned off the dinos and installed filter floss (normally I just run coarse mesh). The floss I have been changing every day or so.
The outbreak was triggered by significant change in tank parameters due to a change in lighting. My Reef Brite XHOs started failing and I replaced them with Quanta Meso Blue Pros. My fixture is the two LED bars and two T5's. The Quantas sit about 1" lower than the XHOs did due to the mounting. I'm not sure what the PAR was when I removed the XHOs (didn't think to measure it at the time with my Seneye), but when installed them I had ~ 130 PAR on the sand at peak lighting. When I measured with the Quantas, I now have ~180 PAR or so on the sand. I also ramped the XHOs, the Quantas have no ramp. I left my light period the same (16hrs) and controlled by having only one Quata on at the times I was ramping with the XHOs. The corals did not react negatively to the change, so I did not make any changes to lighting period at the time. (@telegraham)
One day after I installed the Quantas I measured my Alkalinity at 6.2 dKH (Hanna) prior to a water change. Normally it's around 7-8 dKH. Since I was doing a water change with IO at 11dKH, I didn't think too much of it. During this time, I also noticed the water was a bit hazy. At the time I was not sure why, but now I'm assuming it was a bacterial bloom? After a couple of days of being hazy I installed some ROX 0.8. The water is now clear. Not sure if it was the carbon, or it just cleared on its own.
Four days after the water change, I measured:
Alkalinity = 4.4dKH! To confirm I checked with an API test kit and it measured four drops.
Ca = 410 ppm (Salifert), normal ~420 - 430ppm
NO3 = 0.0 ppm (Hanna HR), normal ~5 ppm
PO4 = 0.17 ppm (Hanna LR), normal ~0.3 ppm
The following day I sent out a sample to Fauna Marin, and they measured:
Alkalinity = 5.2 dKH (I measured 4.9 dKH with Hanna)
Ca = 374 ppm
NO3 = 0.18 ppm
Total Phosphate = 0.13 ppm, Ortho Phosphate = 0.11 ppm (I measured PO4 = 0.11 with Hanna)
To summarize, the light change appears to have:
Increased two-part consumption from 13ml/day (0.6 dKH/day) to 35ml/day (1.6 dKH/day)
Consumed 0.2ppm of PO4.
Prior to the dinos I was dealing with cyano. This tank was started five years ago with dry rock, but since that time I have also added packages from IPSF and Tampa Bay Saltwater.
What is in the Plus-NP that seems to have "balanced out" the tank so quickly, in relative terms to combating dinos?
When I started dosing the Plus-NP I also reduced my light period from 16hrs to 12hrs (more on that below), syphoned off the dinos and installed filter floss (normally I just run coarse mesh). The floss I have been changing every day or so.
The outbreak was triggered by significant change in tank parameters due to a change in lighting. My Reef Brite XHOs started failing and I replaced them with Quanta Meso Blue Pros. My fixture is the two LED bars and two T5's. The Quantas sit about 1" lower than the XHOs did due to the mounting. I'm not sure what the PAR was when I removed the XHOs (didn't think to measure it at the time with my Seneye), but when installed them I had ~ 130 PAR on the sand at peak lighting. When I measured with the Quantas, I now have ~180 PAR or so on the sand. I also ramped the XHOs, the Quantas have no ramp. I left my light period the same (16hrs) and controlled by having only one Quata on at the times I was ramping with the XHOs. The corals did not react negatively to the change, so I did not make any changes to lighting period at the time. (@telegraham)
One day after I installed the Quantas I measured my Alkalinity at 6.2 dKH (Hanna) prior to a water change. Normally it's around 7-8 dKH. Since I was doing a water change with IO at 11dKH, I didn't think too much of it. During this time, I also noticed the water was a bit hazy. At the time I was not sure why, but now I'm assuming it was a bacterial bloom? After a couple of days of being hazy I installed some ROX 0.8. The water is now clear. Not sure if it was the carbon, or it just cleared on its own.
Four days after the water change, I measured:
Alkalinity = 4.4dKH! To confirm I checked with an API test kit and it measured four drops.
Ca = 410 ppm (Salifert), normal ~420 - 430ppm
NO3 = 0.0 ppm (Hanna HR), normal ~5 ppm
PO4 = 0.17 ppm (Hanna LR), normal ~0.3 ppm
The following day I sent out a sample to Fauna Marin, and they measured:
Alkalinity = 5.2 dKH (I measured 4.9 dKH with Hanna)
Ca = 374 ppm
NO3 = 0.18 ppm
Total Phosphate = 0.13 ppm, Ortho Phosphate = 0.11 ppm (I measured PO4 = 0.11 with Hanna)
To summarize, the light change appears to have:
Increased two-part consumption from 13ml/day (0.6 dKH/day) to 35ml/day (1.6 dKH/day)
Consumed 0.2ppm of PO4.
Prior to the dinos I was dealing with cyano. This tank was started five years ago with dry rock, but since that time I have also added packages from IPSF and Tampa Bay Saltwater.
