Losing battle with low ph, Dinoflagellates. extreme measures needed

[reefinmike]

The basic question of this post is: are there any preventative measures to stop dinoflagellates from spreading to a system when transferring corals from an infested aquarium? I am about to lose all of my corals as well as my mind trying to get a grasp on these problems. I have to take action tonight or I will lose everything.

My next post in this thread will detail my struggle with dino and baffling PH issues.

[reefinmike]

Back in February I set up a new 90 gallon to revitalize my interest in the hobby. Many years ago I had a very nice, involved SPS and clam reef. My more recent tanks have been rather simple. flourescent lighting, no skimmer, no sump. I did this one up right with a 55g sump and fuge, skimmer, kessil lighting, the works. I used all the rock from my previous setups being careful to not transfer any aiptasia by bleaching the infested rocks, picking off as many as I could see and then monitoring for any new ones in a qt for a month. Despite all these efforts, a few tiny anenomes showed up in my display. I also learned the vermetid snails I had were a real pest and killing them with pliers was a losing battle. These pests were annoying but the tank was doing wonderful for two months, corals growing like crazy as well as coralline. Around late april, corals stopped growing and began declining. PH was the issue and I narrowed the issue down to too much CO2 in the air. I ended up running a fresh air intake through my attic to the skimmer which resolved the issue within 36 hours. I do not know why my PH suddenly became an issue. The only thing that changed was that the AC started running more. This rapid change in PH caused a minor ich outbreak in the tank. My fish weren't properly quarantined but showed no signs of disease in the 3 months my tank was doing OK. The ich "went away" within a couple days. Knowing there would likely always be ich in my system as well as the never ending vermetid and aiptasia problem I decided to take drastic measures and do things right for a healthy, stress free aquarium.

Two weeks ago I removed all the fish and started hypo treatment in another tank. All corals and inverts were moved to a 40 breeder filled with water from the tank. Since there were no fish in the tank, I did not expect any PH issues. Within 24hrs things were looking bad, water was cloudy and I attributed it to a mini cycle, gave it some time and daily water changes. day 3 or 4 dinoflagellates came with a vengance. Everything covered in snot and corals all "spilling their guts out" even the sps corals. everything acted as if it were being attacked by other corals. I added carbon to no avail. PH was a constant issue sticking between 7.8-7.9 despite proper alk. I put an air pump outside and ran an airstone in the 95% sealed off tank. This did not help. I eventually blocked all holes with saran wrap and managed to get PH up to a maximum of 8.0 dipping down to 7.8 at night. all corals have been looking terrible for nearly ten days. Most of them lost color and even hardy corals like zoos never opened up. a few days ago weather was nice enough that opening windows seemed to fix the PH for a day. things started looking OK and getting color back. PH dropped again, Dino was everywhere and corals looked like death again. The most baffling thing of all is the fact that my little 10 gallon reef with no outside air, minimal water movement and a damsel has a perfect 8.3 PH.

When I moved everything to QT 15 days ago I bleached the rock and sand then let it purge some of the nasty dead stuff by running in fresh water for 5 days. approximately 8 days ago I filled the tank, added the rock, sand and a piece of filter media from my 10 gallon to get it started. I added a bit of mysis to the tank each day to get some ammonia in there and kick start the cycle. 4 days ago I kicked on the skimmer. the first two days it pulled out some awful smelling gunk but seemed to settle down. Each day I have been adding shrimp. The water has since cleared up nicely, a tester hermit crab has been doing well for a few days and the glass is covered in pods. PH seems to remain stable and the tank is starting the diatom phase of its cycle now.

I must move the coral over tonight to have any chance of saving $600 in coral. I'm not sure if it is the dino or the constantly changing PH causing the issues but everything will die soon. I feel it has it's best chance in the newly set up tank with a stable PH and proper filtration... even if it is not well established and fully cycled.

Does anyone have any suggestions to minimize risk of transfering the dino? I feel it is as bad as it is because of the low PH. The low PH is baffling and seems to not be a constant in all the aquariums in my house. I am at my wits ends. I want to give up and quit but I have put so much time, effort and money into this new system.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. sorry if some of this is repetitive, or poorly worded. I can barely keep my eyes open after a long hot day working outside.

[NO3]

Call the people at Boyd Enterprises that make CHEMICLEAN

855-655-2100

Ask the receptionist to put you in touch with a Saltwater Technical person.

You may have to leave a voicemail with that technical person...bit they WILL call you back.

I called them once and talked to a Staff-Chemist and the dude was GREAT. Didn't talk over my head, was patient with my questions......just be prepared to ask your questions and NOT go into a 10min life-story. Get to your point.

5-star customer service experience

[reefinmike]

Does chemiclean work for dinoflagellates? I know it is made specifically for cyano bit i have had luck with it many years ago eliminating what i thought was diatoms. Could have been a mild case of dino. I actually keep that stuff on hand so i may give it a try if i have another outbreak. My only hesitation is that it causes the skimmer to go nuts and i must use my skimmer to keep the ph up. Apparently the air in my home is toxic and causes ph to drop to 7.8... except in the room across the hall where my 10g rocks a solid 8.3 with no outside air.

I guess i could just let the skimmer go nuts and let it dump back into the sump...

[NO3]

Idk.....call them Monday. They are great answering your questions

[sfdan]

The type of dip that is most effective at killing Dinos is a freshwater dip. But a lot of corals do not tolerate those well, so I don't really recommend it.

If you have Dinos in one tank and want to transfer living things to another tank, you are really going to have a tough time not taking any Dinos with them. If you have a type that forms cysts, the cysts basically wont be killed by anything. The dinos can also hitchhike *inside* your corals. And eventually you'll buy a coral from the store or get a frag from somebody else who has Dinos and they'll be back.

So basically, your best bet is to not worry about doing some crazy dip to get rid of the Dinos. Make a tank environment that discourages the dinos from blooming. The modern thinking on this is to target Nitrates at 10 and Phosphates at around 0.10. Dinos thrive and crowd out all competitors at super low nutrient levels. At higher nutrient levels they lose their advantage. Also your corals are probably not dying from physical contact with the Dinos, but the super low nutrient levels the Dinos cause. Test your Nitrate and Phosphate levels every day right after your lights turn off, and if either of the levels is too low you need to dose nitrates and/or phosphates to get the levels up. Search the forums for dosing nitrates to see the many available options. Seachem Flourish Phosphorous is very common for dosing phosphates. I'm not saying you should ignore your pH issue, that might be an indication of other potential issues, but the Dinos are not being caused by your pH being higher or lower. Keep your nutrient levels up for a few weeks and the Dinos will go away.

Also you want a stable system that has all sorts of biodiversity in it to also help crowd out the Dinos. Doing all of these tank resets is very counterproductive to this goal. Corals (and fish) also really like stability.

For certain types of Dinos, there is one proven piece of equipment which helps and that is a UV sterilizer. Blow the dinos into the water column at night and then let the UV sterilizer kill them (and ensure you are running carbon).

[reefinmike]

Thank you very much for the helpful reply sdfan. Sure enough you were right about them being impossible to “dip” for. I was desperate and very close to losing every coral so i moved them to my 8 day old display the night of this thread. I sloshed the corals around the best i could in several stages but sure enough the next day the dino showed its face. I knew this was probably going to happen but i felt that i would stand the bedt chance beating this in my display with proper filtration, easy to swap out mechanical filtration and a stable 8.3 PH. It’s been a dew days and the dino isnt overtaking nearly as aggressively. It evenly spreads itself in a thin layer and the turbo snails seem to be keeping up with it. The corals are doing significantly better. I am swapping out the filter media a couple times a day and I am installing a UV as you recommended. I have a PH module and probe on its way for my apex and i may start dosing kalk if i can find a relatively cheap way to safely dose with redundancy. The nitrate and phosphate dosing is an interesting concept. I see how it could help other algae starve out the dino but i think i will try your other suggestions first.

The dino seems to be staying off most of my coral with the exception of a favia brain. It seems to develop a layer of coral slime and dino several times a day and is spilling it’s guts out of every pore as if it were under chemical attack from another coral. I’ve read that certain strains if dino can be toxic to snails but can it be toxic to coral??

[oscarreef]

I’m battling Dino’s and it’s day 2 and I haven’t seen them come back. I’ll try to make this quick and painless because typing a long essay is hard on my phone so don’t be afraid to ask questions. I did a 3 day black out of the tank while dosing h2o2 (hydrogen peroxide) 1ml per 10 gallons once a day during the black out. Also stop doing water changes you actually want a dirty tank as stated in the above post Dino’s like clean water and feed of nutrients from the water changes. I don’t plan on doing water changes till I see corals unhappy because of dirty water. I will slowly do small water changes to make sure Dino’s don’t come back if they do I will do another approach of using Dino x never used it but worth a try. I also hear pods are good to fight Dino’s I’m not sure how but it’s a rumor in the internet. Btw once I was done with the 3 day black out my tank was covered in pods I don’t know why but it was.


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[oldhead]

I don't see a ph of 7.8-7.9 being a problem. The last time I tested my ph (about a month ago) it was 8. I'd say you have other issues contributing to to problems.

[reefinmike]

Well, it's day 5 since moving the corals and they look a hundred times better. The Dino did make it's way into the new tank but it doesnt seem to be gaining a foothold like it did in the QT tank I set up. by the end of the light cycle my montipora spongides and a tabling acro will have a couple tiny specs of dino on their tips and maybe a few square inches of rock in front of return flow. but my favia brain is still acting like it is being attacked by another coral, spilling guts out of every pore, creating a slime layer that dino grows on... or maybe it's sloughing off the dino. either way it seems to not be doing any better despite the problem being 99% gone elsewhere in the tank.

oscarreef- it's funny you note the pods. before I moved the corals over I noticed pods establishing themselves on the glass. they have since exploded in numbers with 30-50 per square inch of glass and starting yesterday the water column is filled with them! there are so many on the surface that they had to start swimming around. I noticed the water got a bit cloudy yesterday morning but seems to have cleared up for the most part 24 hours later.

I'm picking up a UV today so I will see how much that helps. Changing the filter floss twice a day and blowing around what little dino settles on the rocks seems to really help as well. The floss clogs up quickly and is filled with that dino rust color.