Cyanobacteria or Dinoflagelettes?

[tekknoschtev]

I posted this in a local forum before it was reccomended that I post here to get a more accurate identification. Oddly enough it fits the description of Dinoflagelettes as noted in many different posts elsewhere online - looks ok in the morning but like hell swallowed the tank by mid afternoon, gathers are the water surface later in the evening, traps air bubbles (though I've had cyano do the same thing), and chokes out corals. Cyanobacteria, from my prior research, acts similarly, but I've never had it grow on corals, just the sand bed.

I'm not necessarily looking for advice in treating it, but if you have any tips, that'd be greatly appreciated. Currently we have removed all of the corals to prevent them from being smothered and they are in a 40gal frag/prop tank and looking much better than they did in the current tank. The fish and anemone remain in the 150 as catching them and cramming them into a smaller tank, or transporting them to somewhere as a temp housing seems like it would be more stressful.

I have included pictures to help in differentiating between Cyano and Dinos. The color is accurate which leads me also to believe that it is indeed Dinos, as I havent seen cyanobacteria in color forms such as this. That's not to say it isnt possible, but I'm looking for an ID so I can follow up with appropriate treatment.

http://workshopwebs.com/pictures/fish/150/05October/101105/anemone.jpg
Saddleback clown with Sebae Anemone. The rock did NOT have any of this stuff on it the previous day, however, yesterday afternoon it just suddenly appeared.

http://workshopwebs.com/pictures/fish/150/05October/101105/gsp.JPG
In case it isnt evident, there is a small colony/patch of green star polyps underneath this crap. We've been using a turkey baster to suck the stuff off of them so they didnt get smothered. Again, appeared within a matter of hours.

http://workshopwebs.com/pictures/fish/150/05October/101105/zoas.jpg
For the past week or so, the zoanthids would be covered in a light dusting of this brown stuff as well; not opening fully. We assumed the problem was flow as we previously had relatively low flow in the tank.

For what its worth, this tank itself has been up and running only about 2.5 months, however, it was an upgrade from our 40gal system which had been running for quite some time.

Tank Parameters:
- 150gal 72x18x26 glass aquarium
- 130lbs live rock
- 100lbs live sand
- 2x 400W 10K XM, 2x 95W VHO .03 Actinic
- 55gal sump/fuge
- Kent Marine Nautilus EX 24 modded
- Feeding: about 1 tbsp ever MWF. Target feeding of sun corals MW with mysis.
- Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate: 0
- pH: 8.4.
- Flow consists now of a Seio 2600, two Maxi Jet 900s, a JBJ 1800 and a Mag 9.5 for return from the sump.

If anyone can help differentiate between cyanobacteria and Dinoflagelettes I can follow up with appropriate actions. I've read conflicting information about each, but have effectively treated Cyano before and I'm confident in our ability to beat this as well.

Thank you very much,

Steve

[ONEMANBAND]

I am no expert but it looks like cyano to me with hair algae coming back when the cyano disappears. I would try Chemi-clean. If you go that route make sure to take your skimmer offline while treating the tank or it will foam like mad.

[rshimek]

Hi Steve,

The image shows a microalgal growth that is probably a mix of dinoflagellates and diatoms. Such growths also contain cyanobacteria, but as minor component. This type of outbreak is characteristic of new tanks, generally, around 6 to 7 months old, that have inadequate biological filtration as well as nutrient export problems.

These algal outbreaks are, as with cyanobacterial outbreaks, symptomatic. In other words, they are not the problem but, rather, are indicative of the problem which too much dissolved nutrient in the system. Treating these algae or cyanobacteria with chemicals is worse than useless, by killing the algae without attacking the root cause of their appearance in the first place, you simply boost the nutrient level in the system, while destroying large portions of whatever biological filter you have.

To address the problems, you need to reduce the nutrient levels in the in the system significantly. For a plan of attack see the sticky thread, near the top of the forum listings titled, "Red slime algae...."

Yes - I know they are not red slime algae. But the same solution will work in both cases. :D

[graveyardworm]

There is a good chance that it is dinos, but I wouldnt rule out diatoms associated with tank cycle, I think the only way to make positive ID may be under microscope, I have a similar stuff in my tank just not as bad as what you have. Air bubbles form during the day and go away at night, There is also a film on the surface of my water which I attribute to it. If it is dinos they can be very difficult to get rid of. I've heard that ozonation helps. Chemicals may work but I'm not a big fan and I wouldnt use until other more natural methods have been tried, or atleast researched thoroughly. Check you make up water to insure your not adding excess nutrients. Also adding a refugium with good macro if you have the room may help remove what your algae is feeding on.

( Sorry to tread on your response Ron, apparently we were working at the same time.)

[tekknoschtev]

Cool, that's on par with what I was looking for. I guess I mis-spoke when I said "treat" the problem. By "treat" I meant to fight the underlying problem. I was told in the local forum that we were likely over feeding, so we cut it in half for the time being. We've started skimming a little wetter, and are cleaning the rocks off now in buckets of salt water.

Being a mix of all of that... crap... explains the discrepencies in IDing. I'm aware of the nutrient problem and we will follow up accordingly. No chemical treatments in this tank (we did Maracyn in our 40 to treat cyano, and it "worked" but the tank took a while to look the same again). The maracyn was used to get the cyano gone while we fixed the problem (which at the time was low flow it seemed). All in told, the tank is 2.5 months old, but the system before was running for well over 6, which would put it in your range of common occurences - thats pretty interesting.

Thank you very much. We'll follow up accordingly and get this gone! I'm glad someone encouraged me to post here.

[rshimek]

Hi,

I have microscopically examined a lot of samples of these films; I used to encourage folks to send them to me. The relative abundances of dinos/diatoms/bacteria varies a lot, but all three are generally present. It takes agressive - and long term acction to treat the problem. The good news is that once it goes away, it almost never reappears in tanks.

[ltouchette]

Originally posted by rshimek
Hi Steve,

The image shows a microalgal growth that is probably a mix of dinoflagellates and diatoms. Such growths also contain cyanobacteria, but as minor component. This type of outbreak is characteristic of new tanks, generally, around 6 to 7 months old, that have inadequate biological filtration as well as nutrient export problems.


Hey Ron,

When you say "that have inadequate biological filtration" do you mean inadequate overall or inadequate because the biological filter hasn't been extablished yet? I have about 120 lbs of well cured live rock in my 65g display tank that was in a friends 220 tank for 2 years, it was taken directly from his tank to mine in less than 8 hours and kept wet for the trip. My tank is 5-6mnths old so I'm hoping that I do have or at least will have adequate biological filtration. I'm also useing macro algea in my sump which is growing like crazy, I've already harvested some out once. My return pump sends about 650gph back to the tank through 2 return nozzles and I also have a seio in there which is pushing 650gph around. I always have some microbubbles in my tank so I can see that there is water movement everywhere.

I should have "adequate" biological filtration eventaully right? I hope... My amonia always tests 0ppm.

A couple weeks ago I started growing algea in my tank which looks identical to tekknoschtev's, in fact the long picture of his tank, with the green algea inside the glass, is exactly what mine looked like. I was overfeeding, i learned, and have cut back, the glass no longer coats with that algea and the growth of the other brownish algea has slowed but it hasnt stopped.

There's alot of good advice in the forums about this and I think I can successfully combat it.

Thanks,
LT

[tekknoschtev]

Wow, what a coincidence. Thanks to the positive ID in this forum and the extensive reading, this is what were at:

http://workshopwebs.com/pictures/fish/150/05October/102205/fish.jpg

http://workshopwebs.com/pictures/fish/150/05October/102205/semifulltank.jpg

http://workshopwebs.com/pictures/fish/150/05October/102205/rockysebae.jpg

So thanks everyone.

[graveyardworm]

Tank looks great!

[tsquad]

Wow what a turnaround! Awesome!

[Moloch_0]

What solution worked for you?

[tekknoschtev]

We cut the lights for 24 hours, and then every day there after we ramped it up an hour, and now its been running at 4 hours a day for the last week. We're going to start putting it up to an eventual 8-10 hours in the end, but slowly and monitor how things go. If the stuff comes back at all, the light gets cut an hour.

We also started using filter floss between the baffles of the sump, and blew the rocks off daily (sucking this stuff out was a pain, this was easy). The filter floss got changed daily, or sometimes multiple times per day depending on how gunked up it got.

Feeding effectively got cut in half.

And we also increased the flow. Those pictures were days after we added the SEIO 2600. We had a total of about 750gph flow in powerheads, plus the Mag 9.5 for return. This was too low of flow in the tank, but the SEIO 2600 kicked that up a bit, and now things are getting back to normal.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Congratulations on succesfully eradicating the mess from your system. Dilligence pays off!

[ostrow]

You didn't do water changes in the interim? You solved that just with lighting, blowing/capturing the stuff, and reducing feeding?

[ostrow]

Gonna try this. Using filter bags on the overflow drains, hopefully will catch most. A tad worried it might clog the overflows or drain lines but hopefully not. Lights are off until 5pm tomorrow.

I don' t see any corals in your tank. Not sure how this will work. I think I may have to increase lighting to 2hrs after day one.

Got an IPSF Mix n Match so hopefully that'll help bio filtration along. Not clear why it would be off but it can't hurt.

[tekknoschtev]

No, we didnt do waterchanges, as they seemed to only fuel this outbreak. Oddly enough, all information I could find pertaining to dinoflagellets said the same - the trace elements in the new water fuel it. So we went without water changes.

We placed filter floss between the baffles of our sump, after the skimmer but before the return compartment, so if fo whatever reason it got tooooo clogged, the water would just fall over the baffle instead of through it.

No corals in the tank because this stuff was smothering them. We have a 40gal frag grow-out tank, seperate from this system, and put every coral that we could in there. Not enough room though, so some got moved to the fuge where this stuff, ironically, wasnt growing, or at least as fast. For what its worth, some corals did get overlooked and were subject to the full black out on day one, and then only an hour on day two, and so on. Ran at 4 hours for about 5 days, then bumped to 8-9 hours which is where we were in the beginning. The corals that remained in the tank survived and are actually spreading pretty well. Everything is in fact, now that this isnt choking things out.

Good luck!

[ostrow]

Yeah, you know, I've been doing more water changes of late and I am seeing it getting worse. But I'd missed that advice in my reading.

My corals have nowhere to go...

Whoa Nellie! Ok. So, let's just ignore everything the expert here says? Well, not everything, but the water change part.....

Ron, what are your thoughts here???

[tekknoschtev]

Also, as an indication, the anemone stayed in the tank as well - and the anemone is far more sensitive to changes than say my zoanthids. It was quite unhappy about the no light situation, but now is better than ever.

We actually did one giant water change (~50gal) to try and deal with it when we thought it was merely cyanobacteria. When treating cyanobacteria alone, water changes helped imensely, but 24 hours after the water change, this stuff was covering everything accept the fish and the anemone. The glass, rocks, corals, PVC, sand, etc was all covered. At night, it would accumulate at the surface, and look like strands of snot hanging down in the water.

Oh, and on top of everything else, we increased the flow 3 fold. So that seemed to help a little too :p

[ostrow]

I can't figure out what to do about my fuge. Did lights out for 24, but can't decide how to light now... the 1hr a day increase seems risky for the chaeto and (new) gracilaria I have in there.

[tekknoschtev]

I guess in the case of this stuff - you have to take some chances. Our chaeto survived, and actually grew explosively after the lighting was back on track.

[ostrow]

So you did same regimen in the fuge?!?

[tekknoschtev]

Actually, we had the fuge unlit for a period of 3 days. Then right back to normal.

[ostrow]

Hunh. Now there's a risk. I'll sleep on that! HOw big's your fuge?

[tekknoschtev]

~30gallons. Its sectioned off in a 55gal tank we used for the fuge.

[ostrow]

Mine's 75 gal. Sure looked better after 24. Had 1/2 lights on for 2 hrs. May go with that again and see.

Main still has some of that red stringy stuff in parts of the sand but it looks much better. Lights were 2hrs today. May leave it at that tomorrow.

[ostrow]

Update: my fuge looks 100% better. Slowly going to bring the lights back up. On 4 hrs or so today.

Display same: still some of that stringy stuff in the sand. Worried it will explode out of control but perhaps with the fuge more or less cleared, if the macros start growing fast that will keep things in check.

I'm going to expand my carbon "reactor" length to enable a larger quantity of carbon to run. It's just a tube of pvc capped with holes at one end and threads at the other to connect to a Mag 3.5, and foam at either end to prevent the carbon from escaping.

[Shamrock]

I have been battling my tank with this problem for several weeks, I tried this and after just a couple of days it has cleared up. This process really does work.

[ostrow]

Display is still completely clear.

Not only that, but running a large amount of carbon has caused the nasty red/brown turfy crap that was covering my rock, that killed 2 lawnmower blennies, several emerald crabs, and 2 sea hares, that my longspine urchin did not touch, to die off. What was once impossible to scrape off the rock is now brushing off with a light touch. Skimmer is sucking out tons of stuff as this dies off. Rock getting multicolored coralline growth once again.

Halides back to a regimen of noon to 6pm. Will extend slowly up to another two hours or so perhaps.

Fuge has been more difficult. I think I ramped up the lighting too fast but I was worried about my chaeto. But the red fuzz is starting to show again. I'll give it another day and then may do another 24 lights off attempt. I'm still not happy with the fuge but it'll get there.

If only my work vs my first case of ich in 2.5 yrs were this successful. But I am finding the uproar about the miracle of hyposalinity to be nothing more than a myth and may punt to copper. But that is another thread (2, in fact).

Whatever this was, cyano, dinos, diatoms, or some other nuisance algae/bacteria, or, most likely, some unfortunate combination, is finally gone! Thank you tekknoschtev!

[tekknoschtev]

I personally do not believe that the carbon could be the direct cause of the outbreak + the death of all of those ideams. From what I've read, dinoflagellets are poisonous to creatures that eat it. We lost nearly all of our snails and a few hermits. Fortunately felix (our LMB) was unaffected, but that's because he's a meat eater, and snuffs the algae crap :p

Glad to hear things are getting back on track.

[ostrow]

Originally posted by tekknoschtev
I personally do not believe that the carbon could be the direct cause of the outbreak + the death of all of those ideams.

I did the lights-out, that is what wiped out the problem stuff. I think the massive carbon helped also to wipe out that turf algae stuff, AND to keep the water clean during the die-off.

The LMB death was from eating the poisonous stuff. The LMB most definitely ate that turf stuff, and I witnessed the munching. I witnessed the vomiting. And I witnessed the gagging, gasping, death over a period of 24 hrs after. I assume the other animals followed a same course but I only witnessed it in the LMB. I suspect highly that an Atl Blue Tang also kicked as it died within 2 days after I saw it gorging itself for a good 10min on a particularly heavy patch of the stuff.

BUT: I did the 24hrs (36 in fact) lights-out, followed by 1hr addl lights on every day after. Held at 4hrs for a week. Holding at 6hrs for a week. Then will go to 7 or 8 hrs and leave it there.

I think carbon is a good idea. It was after I doubled the amount that I noticed the turf die-off but I attribute it to the lights. Fortuitous timing though as the additional carbon was needed.

[mkawayoshi]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tekknoschtev
[B]No, we didnt do waterchanges, as they seemed to only fuel this outbreak. Oddly enough, all information I could find pertaining to dinoflagellets said the same - the trace elements in the new water fuel it. So we went without water changes.



I am also intereted on Dr. Ron's thought on not doing water changes for Dino? I have been fighting Dino for a couple months and water changes is one of many things are I am trying to get it under control. Slowly, but surely, it's getting better but should I cut down on the water changes? I do about 2-4 a week at 5-10% per change.

A few other things I have done to help fight it:
Bought and RO/DI unit. My TDS reading is 1.
Sectioned off about part of my sump with a refugium with live rock and chaeto. I am using a 5100K PC light similiar to one of Melevs Reef.
Manually get the stuff out of the tank.
Reduced feedings.
Temporarily reduced lighting.

[ostrow]

My last update here. Display lights back on all the way, and all seems well. Got a small patch of yuck in the fuge still by the chaeto and one other mystery macro are growing well now, so I'm not worried at all. I consider this a closed story success!

[scooterbundy]

Been reading the posts and I am experiencing the same thing in my reef-------Up and running for about 4 months now and was doing great, then all of a sudden BOOM!!! I come home one day and brown algae everywhere (basically this stuff just comes right off the rock with a little force of a sponge or something). All my levels are fine 0 everything actually calcuim a little high at 550. Started doing water changes, but now after reading messages on the board don't know if that was a good thing. Overfeeding is not a problem as most Tangs/Angles are picking off the reef. Corals are being covered up and the only thing I can relate to the problem is Lighting and maybe doing too much water changes. If the silicates are entering the tank that could be feeding the problem too? I have been going at 6-8 hrs lighting then increased to 10 and thats where the problem seemed to start, also with increased lighting the temp actually went up too (80-81 degrees). I don't know if that caused or helped cause the outbreak, but my tank looked just like the post with the picture of his tank brown covering rock, sand, glass. I would stir up stand and get it out, just that quick it would be back in hrs. Anyhow I appreciate all the posts on the topic and right now I will cut off lighting for a couple days and see how that goes. Oh yeah also my protein skimmer has been running like crazy (I have to empty it so it doesn't overflow at night). Would this be considered typical of the problem, pulling lots of proteins out? Thanks Mike

[mkawayoshi]

I think the skimming is good as I have read you want to export the nutrients. Skimming is one of the ways to do it.

Be sure you are using RO/DI water. I was using TAP, then store RO water, and I finally bought and RO/DI filter a few months ago.

Cutting off the lights will help but in my experience, it comes back a couple days after I turn them on. It is also advised to change your bulbs every six months or so.

[ostrow]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6336798#post6336798 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mkawayoshi
Cutting off the lights will help but in my experience, it comes back a couple days after I turn them on. It is also advised to change your bulbs every six months or so.

True enough on the bulbs.

As for it coming back, read through this now longish thread. Your problem may be in how you are turning them back on....

[mkawayoshi]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6337332#post6337332 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ostrow
True enough on the bulbs.

Your problem may be in how you are turning them back on....

When you say how you are turning them back on, are you suggesting I do the four hours a day for a week..and then bump them up maybe an hour a week until I get the number of hours I want or something to that effect?

[ostrow]

No. Go back and read through. 24-48 hrs off. Then on for 1hr, adding 1hr a day. Hold at 4hrs a week, then add an hr a day to wherever you want to end up. If bubbles reappear, lights off 24hrs, then back to where you were (but not more than 4hrs).

[reefD]

patience...it will burn out if you are keeping proper husbandry...feed less....try a fast twice a week it will be beneficial.

[tekknoschtev]

David, that works if you have FOWLR tank, or a tank with no inverts who will suffer from it. In my case, there were a multitude of reasons for the dinos taking hold and then exploding in growth. Yes, after fixing them we did notice a marked improvement, however, if the corals were still in there we'd have lost every single one of them...

Its like using chemicals to treat cyano bacteria. I dont believe in using them to treat the problelm but to get an upperhand on the problem while you fix the husbandry skills that works. (By the way, not going to get into that argument here, its been done before).

If I had tried, as you stated, to improve my husbandry skills while maintaining the tank as-is, you;d have seen someone very upset with the help given online because I;d have lost nearly $1,200 worth of corals. But putting a bit more effort into it, fixing my husbandry skills, I lost a $5 stalk of xenia. I think my method works out better because in the end, the husbandry skills were improved, I learned from my mistake, and didnt lose too much doing it (Oh and about $30 worth of snails I lost as well).

[cmc5dc]

rshemik,

I can't seem to find the thread you referred to below. Can anyone direct me to the reading?

"To address the problems, you need to reduce the nutrient levels in the in the system significantly. For a plan of attack see the sticky thread, near the top of the forum listings titled, "Red slime algae...."

Carl

[graveyardworm]

Dr. Ron is gone, and I cant say if he may still be watching and possibly responding or not, but I think I found the thread your looking for. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=687314&highlight=red+slime+algae

[cmc5dc]

David,

I read that but that didn't contain the lights off instructions. Do you have that?

[graveyardworm]

Sorry I cant really speak for Dr Ron, but I dont believe he would've recommended cutting back your lights otherwise it would probably be explained in his article. Depriving the algae of light is temporary at best, the root of the problem needs to be addressed which is most likely excess nutrients. The answers for riding your tank of excess nutrints are explained in the article.

[tekknoschtev]

In case you havent read the entire thread (which off the cuff it appears as such) the light method was NOT discussed in his article, it was found through other sources where people have encountered the same thing (dinoflagellets) and removing the source of light is the only way to begin treating the problem because once it has started, its too late to save the corals by means of normal "better husbandry skills". Yes, to fully treat the problem, proper nutrient levels need to be assessed and fixed - which was documented in the thread. I'm really trying not to be an @$$ here, but honestly this was covered in the thread and a few posts above.

The article written by Dr Ron was for treating cyanobacteria. What I had was NOT cyanobacteria, or at least not exclusively cyanobacteria. Trust me, I researched my options concerning the light removal, because it wasnt an immediate good option, but it worked, and it got rid of the dinoflagellets long enough for me to fix the problem in our husbandry skills and issues that we were encountering, and all we lost were a few snails (because the dinoflagellets are poisonous in great quantities to algae eaters) and a colony of xenia. Things are back to normal now.

This thread was not created to be a redundant 'red slime' thread, but rather, differntiating between the two, and treating the dinoflagellets. The reason Dr Ron didnt mention the light cutting was that his article was for cyano, not dinoflagellets. The nutritent fixing applies to both though.

And to the other poster - I apologize, I do not have links available for the light cutting ideas, however, I can say that I found it through searching RC (yes, I know how much of a PITA that can be without paying them), google, and a few other forums. It was a commonly accepted way for getting the upperhand on dinoflagellets, and if that is what you have, I'd highly reccomend using the light regiment to your advantage. If you have no corals, or algae eating inverts, then go about the normal red slime treatment with increasing flow, and lowering nutrients, but thats a choice only you can make based on a decision you come about after researching the problem.

I apologize to those who are offended by this message. Graveyardworm, have you ever had an outbreak of dinoflagellets?

[Mackie]

In case any followers of this tread are interested, I have a success story re dinos at:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=731943

It describes my battle with dinos and my successful conclusion after a period of photo deprivation.

:beer:

[tfp]

bump for tekknoschtev and the others that have done the blackout method...do you have an algae status? any signs of it returning, what is your current lighting period, how much carbon, rowa, etc. are you using (if any), how much/many water changes are you doing? how are your corals and overall system health?

i too am dealing with this stuff :(

thanks,
tim

[tekknoschtev]

Its been however long since we first licked the problem and no sign of it returning. We're doing monthly 20% water changes and the photoperiod is as follows:

Fuge: 21:00-10:00
Actinic: 9:00-22:00
Halides: 10:00-21:00

We havent been running any carbon, phosphate remover, etc. The corals are doing extremely well, and if it wasnt for grape caulerpa and aiptasia, the system would be perfect. We're dealing with both of those now.

[tfp]

sweet! :)

[ostrow]

I change maybe 15% a month, 20 if you include skimmer cups, I guess.
I run carbon 24/7, and purigen though I suspect the latter is a waste. Purigen in a Phosban reactor (also a waste).

I have fuge lights on from 9pm to 10am
VHOs on 11am-9pm (actinics on for half that, 50/50s on other half)
MH on 12-7

Fuge has some cyano but that doesn't count IMO. Display is fine!

[mkawayoshi]

For me, it took about 2 months of having the lights on for only 2 hours a day. Now my tank looks like it used to. I have feather dusters again, my snails and hermits are much more active. I don't have corals currently so I have not bumped my lighting time any higher but the lights out method was the only thing that worked for to get rid of the dino. It almost drove me out of the hobby because I spent a good half year fighting it. If you have corals, you can't afford to use the lights out method as extremely as me but it was the only thing that worked.

[tfp]

well, its been a few months and this algae continues to haunt me! :( i just can't seem to get rid of it. i know of a few others in our reef club that can't get rid of it either.

i've done a couple more tank blackouts and chemi clean treatments and it would continue to appear within 2-5 days. i tried dosing vodka for awhile but some of my corals started to bleach so i stopped. tried a few diff. brands of carbon and it just laughed at me :p added 4 small fighting conchs and they cant keep up.

nitrates are between 2-5ppm (salifert) and phos around .010 (salifert). silicates are undetectable (salifert) and i always measure 0-1 TDS on my RODI. i'm using UV, 750ml of rowa, 3 cups of carbon and ozone stays at 390-400mv. water is extremely clear.

this scourge is capable of growing in ambient room light and i'm running a 3.5hr max MH photoperiod. have enuf flow that the ssb gets kicked around some but that won't stop it.

so i'm resorting to a little deeper sandbed of 3" vs 1.5" and plan to reaquascape and change out most of my arag. man-made rock for real LR to aid in the nitrification process. something is fueling this stuff and i can't find the source.

i don't have enuf room to run a fuge. and if the deeper sandbed and additional LR don't help within 6-9months...

i'm considering a zeovit or prodibio route.

[Unarce]

deleted

[mkawayoshi]

I know going a couple months without lights is probably out of the question for you since you have corals. It's the only thing that worked for me. I tried so many things and lights out the only thing that worked after six months or so of battling dino.

[tekknoschtev]

I don't understand what the issue is then. We only did lights out for a week, I dont think month(s) would be necessary to treat this. Really the lights werent to "treat" the problem, but rather to get it under control while the problem was treated with other methods.

My first thing to suggest would be to stop the chem-clean. I've dealt with cyano chemically before, but its important to note that dinoflagellets is not cyanobacteria, and in fact, despite being similar, is treated a little differently.

When you say you do a tank blackout - describe that. We actually wrapped ours with a black blanket in order to make sure as little light entered the tank as possible. But again, this was only to treat the symptoms not the problem. After the week of blackout - if we exposed it back to a complete photoperiod, the stuff would have come back because a week isnt enough time to remove the nutrients from the system.

I recieved a PM this afternoon from someone else encountering the problem, and I feel as though a rundown of everything we did is in order - though what I did I dont claim to work in anyone elses situation, though the half a dozen people who have used my method so far have made mention to me that it worked perfectly.

- we did the blackout to treat the symptoms and help keep the dinoflagellets from smothering the few corals that remained in the system.
- we then began the process of reducing the amount of nutrients in the system. This included skimming wetter than normal, as well as the addition of more macro algaes to the fuge. Water changes though seemed to make the problem worse, so instead of doing water changes, we put filter floss between the baffles of the sump and began blowing the rocks off with a turkey baster. The floss would capture the particles as they flowed through the baffles of the sump and be mechanically removed.
- we did use carbon, though I dont know if it did anything. Generally we always use carbon but change every other week, during the battle we changed it every day.
- We dramatically upped the flow in the tank which brought it up to the 20x turnover mark that you should be shooting for minimum.
- We also severly cut down out feeding regiment which, having used the new method for such a long period of time leads me to question what in the heck we actually were thinking feeding that much...

As stated earlier, the outbreak is symptomatic of an underlying problem, just like cyano, and if treating chemically does the trick, you still have to alter your habbits with the tank or you likely will have another outbreak.

Disclaimer: My methods worked for me. I guarantee nothing :p I also do not want to come off as harsh, because that is not like me, and definately not my intent. I know that this battle can be won through dilligence without chemicals, and thats how I feel it should be done. Using chemicals is a personal choice that we've made before to treat symptoms in other tanks, however, for the 150, the only "chemical" we use is Joes Juice for treating aiptasia, and we really have never regretted doing that method.

As for the zeo or probidio, I dont know if either of those will fix the problem, however, if you are looking to "start over" I would say they ight be worth looking into. Hopefully you can find what's fueling it, but my reccomendation is to stop the chem-clean treatments as they can affect other things too.

[tfp]

let me apologize in advance for this long post...

mkawayoshi, yep...a couple months w/o light would be like starting over :(

tekknoschtev, your post doesn't come off harsh to me one bit...we all want a solution to this stuff! whats scares me is that you also had a fuge at the time the scourge took over. i hope adding chaeto does something to starve it out. what other macros are you using?

all 3 tank blackouts included covering the entire tank (sides and top) with dark blankets/sheets/sleeping bags for 30hrs. i mean absolutely NO light was able to get in. my family hated that process bc the tank looked like a huge coffin!! :D perhaps that wasn't long enough and i should shoot for a 48hrs next?

after 5-7 days (slowly ramped up lighting in 30min increments), a light dusting would start to reappear on the sb. at that point i backed off the lighting, but it didn't matter bc this stuff grows in ambient room lighting.

so i resorted to the chemiclean process when the stuff really built up. each chemi-clean treatment did work to loosen/breakup the heavier growths but after a few days, the dusting reappeared. and once the dusting was there...i felt defeated.

during the last 7 months i've been rotating 100micron filter socks 2-3times a week. been changing out 3 cups of carbon weekly. i skim wet with a pair of euro 8-2's and keep ozone at 390-400mv. i can't get much more flow as the sand gets kicked around already at times. i don't have a heavy fish load. the water is crystal clear. the sps corals are colorful and encrusting.

so now i'm trying to use a somewhat more natural attack of a deeper (3") sb and macros. i'll be adding some kind of sandbed critters too...anyone got some recommendations?

regarding the zeo/prodibio route...practically every system i've seen is spotless of algae :) (except coralline) but the zeo costs too much for me based on 300g of water.

[tekknoschtev]

wow, all of that and you still have it... I'm pretty much at a loss. Yes, we had, well still have, a fuge with about a 6-8" DSB. At the time we didnt have much for macros other than the grape caulerpa that we didnt want in the display and a few small wads of chaetomorpha in the fuge. Since then we've pretty much gotten rid of the grape caulerpa and added halimeda to the fuge. I dont think that had any impact on the dinoflagellets but it might be something worth checking.

I guess I'm at a complete and total loss given everything you have (UV, ozone, phosphate removers, skimmers, carbon, etc.). That really has me baffled because I know we didnt jump through those hoops and solved it. I dont have much left to offer other than my wishes of good luck and hopes that it gets taken care of. Hopefully adding some sand and sand critters will help.

[ostrow]

I can't find in the post where you said what phosphate remover you are using? I stopped using phosban and I can also say that the nasty microalgae problems I had are disappearing. I switched from that stuff to carbon when I did the lights-out regimen. Perhaps that's something to look into?

[Jecco]

I have just read through this entire post and thought I would chime my 3 cents in. I have just fought the Dino's for an entire year. I tried every possible solution. No sooner I would see an improvement, it would come back full force. Nitrate and Phos. were undetectable on the Sailfert test kit. I was running Allgone, Chemi-clean, carbon, phosban, skimming wet, black-out, and dripping Kalk like a mad man. Nothing worked. I realized that my sandbed was probably holding all the nutrients but was afraid to disturb it to much, because everything in the tank was alive except for the snails. The last advice was to raise Ph to at least 8.4 during the day and not letting it drop below 8.2 at night. Do you know what kind of task that was. I too got the same advice about not changeing the water because the new water would just add more stuff to fuel the Dino's. Then the miracle happened, and I say that lightly. Becuase I was dosing so much Kalk to keep the pH up the Ca precip stated building up on all my pumps. I had a pump explode. Corals started dying within 12 hours. I didn't notice that the pump exploded until I saw the corals suffering. So, I took everything out of the tank. I scrubbed and washed all my rock, snails, crabs in freshwater. I put them in a rubber maid tub with fresh SW and 2 power heads in the garage with the lid on. I soaked all my pumps in vinegar. I put all my fish in another tub with a skimmer and fresh SW. I vacuumed all my sand from my tank. I filled the tank up with tab water and about 1/2 a cup of chlorox and let the tank run for 48 hours. I then drained and filed again with tap water and dechlorinator for another 48 hours. I then drained and filled with Fresh SW made from RO/DI and Bio-spira. Put new sand in and ran it with lights on about 24 hours. Then I started putting the rocks back in after washing and scrubbing them again with freshwater. Next came the animals. Now they are extremely happy and the tank looks great with no Dino's. I know there are people out there that have really had succes with these fixes for the Dino problem. I believe I tried everyone of them. It's hard to believe that something so small, and simple can cause this amount of fustration. Once you've had Dino's you will do anything not to get them again. It's also kind of hard to find info on the problem. And like this post there's so many different remedies. Some work for some while other do nothing at all. However, I do think the key is nutrient exportation.

[theyeg2]

First let me say that I have not read the entire thread. When I had a similar problem a few months ago, I was asked how old my lights were, my TDS reading on RO water and about my clean-up crew. A dozen additional red legged hermit crabs in my 75 gallon tank made an immediate impact on my problems (after upgrading my RO/DI system and replaced my VHO lighting with new tubes). Just a few thoughts to consider if not mentioned previously.

[tfp]

ostrow, i'm using Rowa in a deltec 509 fluid reactor with slow flow. phos and silicates didn't even register on salifert kits.

i've been rotating 3 cups of kent reef carbon every 3-4 days w/o results :(

jecco, i'm sorry to hear about your restart...but often its a blessing in disguise!

theyeg2, MH's are almost 1year old but i only run them 2-3hrs/day. i change the vhos (6hrs/day) every 8months and the T5s yearly.

i'm currently blacking out the tank for at least 60hrs. then will do a 20% water change and am going to try a product called AZ NO3 to lower my nitrates from the current 5-10ppm. after the blackout, will slowly ramp lighting up in .5hr increments every other day.

[theyeg2]

Good luck with your changes. I will be following the string.

[ostrow]

IMO/IME the iron-based phosphate removers cause more problems than they solve. Other ways and better ways to kick phosphates (continuous kalk drip for one)...

[traumaninja]

I have fought this same problem for 6 months and have tried everything!! I just read this post and I am going to try and turn my lights out for 24hrs. I have corals and am really nervous but I am at the end of my rope with this problem. My tank looks exactly like the pics posted. I have taken tons of advice from several fish shops and tried several remedies so I hope this works. Thanks for all who have posted your sucess stories it gives me a little more piece of mind. I dont have anywhere to put my corals so I am going to have to John Wayne it!!

[ostrow]

Your corals can go 4 days easily with no light. Think of it as hurricane season, a big storm coming through.

[traumaninja]

My lights have been off for over 36 hours and the brown stuff is still sitting on the rock and covering the gravel!! I have a few questions.
1. Keep the lights off??
2. I have a tunze should I use it to blow the brown stuff into the "air" and let the skimmer get it?
3. Leave it be?
4. I need to do a water change its been two weeks now, I have heard doing a water change could pollute my tank worse. I just bought a new RO/DI unit and my water has no trace of Phosphate in my tank. My tds reads 0 from my machine(RoDI)
5.WAit to do water change in a few days? I am on pins and needles!! Also my water looks kinda yellow! What the heck?

Someone help

[ostrow]

It should scrape off easily. Might try a filter sock to catch it off the overflow.

Why do you "need" to do a water change every 2 weeks? Just asking, don't want to open a can of worms here. I'd just top off as needed or better, get a kalk drip going for topoff.

[traumaninja]

I water change once a week!! My calcium is around 320 I ordered a calcium suppliment because I didnt want to mess with kalwasser. Other than that I have always done once a week water changes. Sometimes twice a week. Thats why I dont understand how I have this alge and bacteria.