Dinoflagellates. - Page 30

Zacktosterone · 01/29/2015, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Montireef

Nop....
I have dipped acros in fresh water many times; if you respect temp and pH they will stand a short 15" dip with no issues, time enough to get rid of any kind of dinoflagellate.

I wouldn't blow them with a turkey baster unless I ran an UV sterilizer. They would spread all around, just what they need to win the battle. Much better siphoning them out of the tank.

It worked for me

bertoni · 01/29/2015, 07:04 PM

I suspect that dinoflagellates can spread whether you use a turkey baster or not. I'm skeptical about that making a noticeable difference to the spreading, especially over the long haul.

fronty · 01/29/2015, 07:58 PM

Here is what I've been dealing with:

The bubbles seem to form during the evening hours.

I know this is a bad pic. The dino/cyano/algae/??? is stringy with bubbles attached. The bubbles are at the end of the strings.

I had a lot of it hanging down from my frag rack. One member said it looked like dino, so I have been preparing for the worst. I replaced the frag rack. I just through out the old one instead of cleaning it. I then blew off the sps coral with a turkey baster. I didn't think about suctioning it. I also scrubbed some of the rocks with a toothbrush. This may have made things worse, since it probably spread it. I have the all the power heads on and will change out the filter media every day. I also started dosing 1ml of peroxide and blacked out the tank.

jonwright · 01/29/2015, 11:41 PM

I read this through - and darned if I can't find the post again - but there was a post that could have been written by me that basically said that coraline algae is nearly non-existant in my tank, I have either cyano or dino (I'm still figuring all this out) and I've never tested positive for nitrate nor phosphate and alk usage seems rather high. My snails are PO'd and not moving for a week now.

I'm running a bit of GAC and GFO in hopes of knocking down the green hair algae (which I might have mistaken for dinos). Now I have growing (slightly) red stringy snot with bubbles and I know it could be mix of dino and cyano.

This is still a relatively new tank (running for a month or so) so I'm not sure if I knocking down the PO too much too fast to allow all the beneficial bacteria to bloom.

What's really curious: keeping alk at 8 dkh is challenging. Was on my other tank as well. If I dose enough saturated kalk in my ATO to keep alk where it needs to be, CA wanders higher (it's now past 520). I'm running @.5 dkh/day with like 4 fish, a frag of SPS birdsnest and frogspawn in a 60 gal total volume system.

And I ran through .5 dkh/day alk prior to the little corals added to the tank as well.

Would dosing a bit of carbon (vodka/vinegar) help out in my particular situation? I'm still piecing all the complex bioprocesses together. Seems my alk usage is really high given what's in the tank. Which makes me suspect something is amiss process/balance wise.

I'm unsure whether to just it go and cycle and hope for the best or nip all this in the bud somehow.

The red stuff is noticeably present on the rocks I moved over from my previous system and slowly growing. I'd take them out but for the tube worms on them.

karimwassef · 01/30/2015, 12:09 AM

If your Alk usage is high without corals or coralline, then it's precipitating out as calcium sand or forming on rock or other structures.
For me, my artificial rocks were sucking part of it. Part was going to sand and part was destroying my pumps and plumbing.

You need to raise Mg and watch your pH, Alk and Ca (they go together or it's meaningless).

As far as removing nutrients, I think that's the wrong way to go if you have dinos but the right way if you have algae.

Before taking action, take a picture of the macro and micro form and identify what you have.

bertoni · 01/30/2015, 03:26 PM

0.5 dKH per day isn't very much. My soft coral tanks ran through 2-3 dKH per day due to coralline growth. Depending on how quickly the corals and the coralline is growing (even though there's very little), 0.5 dKH per day might be reasonable. I'd check inside pumps and check the heater for buildup. If you post your parameters, we might be able to help more.

jonwright · 01/30/2015, 11:57 PM

Thanks guys. Ill post in another thread. Mg hasn't been a problem which is why it's puzzling me. But if .5 isn't much ill be satisfied.

Full parm battery in the AM.

bertoni · 01/31/2015, 04:57 PM

You're welcome!

Montireef · 02/01/2015, 01:44 PM

I installed a 55 watt UV sterilizer in my 600 gal system two days ago and I am still dosing H2O2. Redox has reached 650 mV peak and now it is stable at 480 mV, skimmer working like crazy.

On the microscope I still spot some ostreopsis cells but not many. I see some stringy snots but they are whitish which means they are not loaded with ostreopsis. I stir the water strongly every evening when lights off to encourage ostreopsis planctonic stage and be processed by the sterilizer.

It seems to be working...

PorkchopExpress · 02/02/2015, 08:41 AM

Once you get that 55 watt UV sterilizer, you really don't have to continue H2O2 dosing. The UV sterilizer starts working almost immediately and within a few days you really won't see much strings left if at all. What I did when I got mine was I did a 3 day blackout, installed the sterilizer before turning the lights on, and when I turned the lights back on I really didn't see any strings at all. 2 months later and I still don't see any. I see a lot of other algae's growing as well - some red cyano, some gha, and a thin layer of some kind of clearish algae that is producing bubbles on my rocks < - I'm not sure what kind of algae this is but it doesn't disintegrate when I turkey baste it, it has a foothold on the rocks and is hard to get off even with a toothbrush but at least I'm fairly certain it isn't dino as it also doesn't go away at night. I did have a diatom bloom on the sand that went away in about 2 weeks but all this tells me the other algaes were able to grow and are now competing for my nutrients.

EDIT: I should also probably add that H2O2 never really did anything for me and that I have the flow through the UV at very low - ~300gph on a very small 34 gallon tank. YMMV but it's working for me when nothing else did. Keyword there is "working". I don't have access to a microscope so I can't say for certain.

Montireef · 02/03/2015, 11:12 AM

I am still dosing H2O2 as it seems to help and does not harm corals or fish, I am also trying to keep pH high by dosing kalk (skimmer's air inlet is connected to the outside so it never goes under 8,2). Flow through the 55W uv sterilizer is about 400 gpd.

NO3 and PO4 are close to 0,00 ppm

Everything is cleaning up but I still get some biofilm (not dinos) everywhere. I can still see some ostreopsis string, whitening up and slowly vanishing which is a good sign. I think that I am on the right way, it may take some time to fully get rid of these scoundrel critters, but tendency is what matters.

DNA · 02/03/2015, 12:11 PM

My tank has been at pH 8.4-8.5 for at least half a year.
High pH alone does not make a dent in Ostreopsis population, but it may change it's behavior.

I'd like more of you to try to add fresh live rock.
It did wonders for Montireef and led to big but temporary changes in my tank last year.
Also in the past when my corals were doing really poorly and I didn't know why, fresh live rock was an instant improvement for at least 3 months.

Relativity · 02/03/2015, 01:42 PM

I did a two day blackout combined with a four treartment one week on algae x x fuana marin followed the insctutions on there web site and the tank has been clean on dinos for months

Amphiprion · 02/03/2015, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNA

My tank has been at pH 8.4-8.5 for at least half a year.
High pH alone does not make a dent in Ostreopsis population, but it may change it's behavior.

I'd like more of you to try to add fresh live rock.
It did wonders for Montireef and led to big but temporary changes in my tank last year.
Also in the past when my corals were doing really poorly and I didn't know why, fresh live rock was an instant improvement for at least 3 months.

Give me a few more weeks and I'll be able to comment on this. It's only been roughly one week since I implemented things a bit further.

I took everything a few steps further and started over with 100% fresh aquacultured rock, skimmate added to tank. I even unplugged my skimmer. I had a brief relapse of dinos at first before doing any of the above steps on the newly setup tank, but it was incredibly light and nothing like before. Only time will tell if taking this approach works.

Montireef · 02/06/2015, 08:54 AM

Tank suffered an ostreopsis outbreak yesterday despite of the 55W UV sterilizer. I have to vacuum twice a day just to deal with it. Now I am not so sure about the UV sterilizer effectiveness and H2O2 either.

I think I'm going to try a different route: foster copepods to thrive and hopefully they will eat it all. I have switched the skimmer off, no phosguard, no GAC and lots of food and phytoplancton (nannochloropsis, isochrysis and tetraselmis)

DNA · 02/06/2015, 09:04 AM

Keep in mind that many tests can be done in a test tube first before the tank is put under stress.
Figuring out your healthy dinos division rate could be used as a measuring stick on non lethal tests.

PorkchopExpress · 02/06/2015, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Montireef

Tank suffered an ostreopsis outbreak yesterday despite of the 55W UV sterilizer. I have to vacuum twice a day just to deal with it. Now I am not so sure about the UV sterilizer effectiveness and H2O2 either.

I think I'm going to try a different route: foster copepods to thrive and hopefully they will eat it all. I have switched the skimmer off, no phosguard, no GAC and lots of food and phytoplancton (nannochloropsis, isochrysis and tetraselmis)

That really sucks to hear...

What flow are you putting through your sterilizer? Also, I was under the impression your method of pouring back in your skimmate was working?

GilliganReef · 02/06/2015, 09:41 AM

I beat DINOS by:
running a GFO reactor, Carbon reactor
every other day siphon into filter socks/replace
weekly 10% W/C, every other week 25%
3 days lights out once a month.
The thing I found to help really fight it was adding beneficial bacteria into my tank.
Started 15 day prodibio Bioclean
6 weeks prodibio reefboaster.
Been doing this for 3 months now and No DINOs.

Montireef · 02/06/2015, 11:34 AM

I noticed that almost everyone talk about "dinos" in such a general way...and almost nobody identify the kind of dino he/she is fighting with.

Porkchopexpress:
I think it worked for some time, almost a month. Eventually the weird microorganism started to starve and almost vanished, but as ostreopsis can make cysts, it succeded in coming back after the predator was gone.

GillganReef:
Running a GFO and so many W/C does not make sense to me. Lights out does nothing to ostreopsis and many dinoflagellates, but I could try Prodibio Bioclean although I seriously doubt it can make any difference. Can you elaborate it please?

cal_stir · 02/06/2015, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Montireef

Tank suffered an ostreopsis outbreak yesterday despite of the 55W UV sterilizer. I have to vacuum twice a day just to deal with it. Now I am not so sure about the UV sterilizer effectiveness and H2O2 either.

I think I'm going to try a different route: foster copepods to thrive and hopefully they will eat it all. I have switched the skimmer off, no phosguard, no GAC and lots of food and phytoplancton (nannochloropsis, isochrysis and tetraselmis)

When vacuuming are you replacing the water with fresh saltwater? I found that adding fresh always helps the dinos, I pump the vacuumed water through a 5Um sediment filter back into the system, I ended up removing most of my sandbed and that seems to be the final blow to the dinos, I can't find any now and I have or had ostreopsis, and I'm still running my UV.

IUfan · 02/06/2015, 12:12 PM

I have no idea what dinos I had. I stopped running GFO about 4 weeks ago. Whatever dinos I have are now gone, tank and SPS has never looked better.

Mangroves help keep Po4 down, and get a bit more film algae on the glass but that's not so bad.

I wish I was able to ID which Dino it was for you guys, but no microscope, and there gone now.

Montireef · 02/06/2015, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cal_stir

When vacuuming are you replacing the water with fresh saltwater? I found that adding fresh always helps the dinos, I pump the vacuumed water through a 5Um sediment filter back into the system, I ended up removing most of my sandbed and that seems to be the final blow to the dinos, I can't find any now and I have or had ostreopsis, and I'm still running my UV.

I do it in a similar way through a filter bag as well.

What kind of dino was it in your case?

PorkchopExpress · 02/06/2015, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Montireef

I noticed that almost everyone talk about "dinos" in such a general way...and almost nobody identify the kind of dino he/she is fighting with.

Porkchopexpress:
I think it worked for some time, almost a month. Eventually the weird microorganism started to starve and almost vanished, but as ostreopsis can make cysts, it succeded in coming back after the predator was gone.

GillganReef:
Running a GFO and so many W/C does not make sense to me. Lights out does nothing to ostreopsis and many dinoflagellates, but I could try Prodibio Bioclean although I seriously doubt it can make any difference. Can you elaborate it please?

during that month, did you notice any other algaes starting to take hold? i know as soon as my dinos receded, i had a diatom bloom on the sand for 2 weeks and then most of them went away except for small areas in the shaded/less flow regions of my tank where they come and go...then gha started patching up in small areas and now i have some sort of thin, clearish colored, slimy algae covering some parts of rock and producing bubbles but not really harming anything...all this could be attributed to me trying to elevate my NO3 and PO4 by buying more fish and feeding heavier plus adding amino acids because my nutrients keep reading 0

Montireef · 02/06/2015, 01:20 PM

Just coralline algae, red, violet and an ugly greenish one. My tank sits in the sun and gets lots of sunlight from 8:00 till 17:00 besides a T5+leds ATI fixture.

I have more than 20 tangs and about 300 snails (mainly turbos, tectus and trochus) grazing on every little algae that could show up. NO3 and PO4 are always undetectable despite I sometimes switch off the skimmer and have no other filtration system that the one provided by about 400 SPSs. I feed quite heavy frozen food, pellets and flakes not less than 4/5 times a day.

cal_stir · 02/06/2015, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Montireef

I do it in a similar way through a filter bag as well.

What kind of dino was it in your case?

mine was ostreopsis, I found the dinos passed through a 100uM filter sock, I believe the dinos are about 40uM.

01/29/2015, 07:04 PM	#727
bertoni RC Mod Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Mountain View, CA, USA Posts: 88,616	I suspect that dinoflagellates can spread whether you use a turkey baster or not. I'm skeptical about that making a noticeable difference to the spreading, especially over the long haul. __________________ Jonathan Bertoni

01/30/2015, 03:26 PM	#731
bertoni RC Mod Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Mountain View, CA, USA Posts: 88,616	0.5 dKH per day isn't very much. My soft coral tanks ran through 2-3 dKH per day due to coralline growth. Depending on how quickly the corals and the coralline is growing (even though there's very little), 0.5 dKH per day might be reasonable. I'd check inside pumps and check the heater for buildup. If you post your parameters, we might be able to help more. __________________ Jonathan Bertoni

01/31/2015, 04:57 PM	#733
bertoni RC Mod Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Mountain View, CA, USA Posts: 88,616	You're welcome! __________________ Jonathan Bertoni

02/02/2015, 08:41 AM	#735
PorkchopExpress Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Wrigleyville Posts: 103	Once you get that 55 watt UV sterilizer, you really don't have to continue H2O2 dosing. The UV sterilizer starts working almost immediately and within a few days you really won't see much strings left if at all. What I did when I got mine was I did a 3 day blackout, installed the sterilizer before turning the lights on, and when I turned the lights back on I really didn't see any strings at all. 2 months later and I still don't see any. I see a lot of other algae's growing as well - some red cyano, some gha, and a thin layer of some kind of clearish algae that is producing bubbles on my rocks < - I'm not sure what kind of algae this is but it doesn't disintegrate when I turkey baste it, it has a foothold on the rocks and is hard to get off even with a toothbrush but at least I'm fairly certain it isn't dino as it also doesn't go away at night. I did have a diatom bloom on the sand that went away in about 2 weeks but all this tells me the other algaes were able to grow and are now competing for my nutrients. EDIT: I should also probably add that H2O2 never really did anything for me and that I have the flow through the UV at very low - ~300gph on a very small 34 gallon tank. YMMV but it's working for me when nothing else did. Keyword there is "working". I don't have access to a microscope so I can't say for certain. Last edited by PorkchopExpress; 02/02/2015 at 08:53 AM.

01/29/2015, 07:58 PM	#728
fronty Registered Member Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 126	Here is what I've been dealing with: The bubbles seem to form during the evening hours. I know this is a bad pic. The dino/cyano/algae/??? is stringy with bubbles attached. The bubbles are at the end of the strings. I had a lot of it hanging down from my frag rack. One member said it looked like dino, so I have been preparing for the worst. I replaced the frag rack. I just through out the old one instead of cleaning it. I then blew off the sps coral with a turkey baster. I didn't think about suctioning it. I also scrubbed some of the rocks with a toothbrush. This may have made things worse, since it probably spread it. I have the all the power heads on and will change out the filter media every day. I also started dosing 1ml of peroxide and blacked out the tank.

01/29/2015, 11:41 PM	#729
jonwright Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Little Rock, AR Posts: 658	I read this through - and darned if I can't find the post again - but there was a post that could have been written by me that basically said that coraline algae is nearly non-existant in my tank, I have either cyano or dino (I'm still figuring all this out) and I've never tested positive for nitrate nor phosphate and alk usage seems rather high. My snails are PO'd and not moving for a week now. I'm running a bit of GAC and GFO in hopes of knocking down the green hair algae (which I might have mistaken for dinos). Now I have growing (slightly) red stringy snot with bubbles and I know it could be mix of dino and cyano. This is still a relatively new tank (running for a month or so) so I'm not sure if I knocking down the PO too much too fast to allow all the beneficial bacteria to bloom. What's really curious: keeping alk at 8 dkh is challenging. Was on my other tank as well. If I dose enough saturated kalk in my ATO to keep alk where it needs to be, CA wanders higher (it's now past 520). I'm running @.5 dkh/day with like 4 fish, a frag of SPS birdsnest and frogspawn in a 60 gal total volume system. And I ran through .5 dkh/day alk prior to the little corals added to the tank as well. Would dosing a bit of carbon (vodka/vinegar) help out in my particular situation? I'm still piecing all the complex bioprocesses together. Seems my alk usage is really high given what's in the tank. Which makes me suspect something is amiss process/balance wise. I'm unsure whether to just it go and cycle and hope for the best or nip all this in the bud somehow. The red stuff is noticeably present on the rocks I moved over from my previous system and slowly growing. I'd take them out but for the tube worms on them.

01/30/2015, 12:09 AM	#730
karimwassef Registered Member Join Date: May 2004 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 11,033	If your Alk usage is high without corals or coralline, then it's precipitating out as calcium sand or forming on rock or other structures. For me, my artificial rocks were sucking part of it. Part was going to sand and part was destroying my pumps and plumbing. You need to raise Mg and watch your pH, Alk and Ca (they go together or it's meaningless). As far as removing nutrients, I think that's the wrong way to go if you have dinos but the right way if you have algae. Before taking action, take a picture of the macro and micro form and identify what you have.

01/30/2015, 11:57 PM	#732
jonwright Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Little Rock, AR Posts: 658	Thanks guys. Ill post in another thread. Mg hasn't been a problem which is why it's puzzling me. But if .5 isn't much ill be satisfied. Full parm battery in the AM.

02/01/2015, 01:44 PM	#734
Montireef Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 308	I installed a 55 watt UV sterilizer in my 600 gal system two days ago and I am still dosing H2O2. Redox has reached 650 mV peak and now it is stable at 480 mV, skimmer working like crazy. On the microscope I still spot some ostreopsis cells but not many. I see some stringy snots but they are whitish which means they are not loaded with ostreopsis. I stir the water strongly every evening when lights off to encourage ostreopsis planctonic stage and be processed by the sterilizer. It seems to be working...

02/03/2015, 11:12 AM	#736
Montireef Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 308	I am still dosing H2O2 as it seems to help and does not harm corals or fish, I am also trying to keep pH high by dosing kalk (skimmer's air inlet is connected to the outside so it never goes under 8,2). Flow through the 55W uv sterilizer is about 400 gpd. NO3 and PO4 are close to 0,00 ppm Everything is cleaning up but I still get some biofilm (not dinos) everywhere. I can still see some ostreopsis string, whitening up and slowly vanishing which is a good sign. I think that I am on the right way, it may take some time to fully get rid of these scoundrel critters, but tendency is what matters.

02/03/2015, 12:11 PM	#737
DNA Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Iceland Posts: 1,516	My tank has been at pH 8.4-8.5 for at least half a year. High pH alone does not make a dent in Ostreopsis population, but it may change it's behavior. I'd like more of you to try to add fresh live rock. It did wonders for Montireef and led to big but temporary changes in my tank last year. Also in the past when my corals were doing really poorly and I didn't know why, fresh live rock was an instant improvement for at least 3 months.

02/03/2015, 01:42 PM	#738
Relativity Registered Member Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Saint Catharines Posts: 232	I did a two day blackout combined with a four treartment one week on algae x x fuana marin followed the insctutions on there web site and the tank has been clean on dinos for months

02/06/2015, 08:54 AM	#740
Montireef Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 308	Tank suffered an ostreopsis outbreak yesterday despite of the 55W UV sterilizer. I have to vacuum twice a day just to deal with it. Now I am not so sure about the UV sterilizer effectiveness and H2O2 either. I think I'm going to try a different route: foster copepods to thrive and hopefully they will eat it all. I have switched the skimmer off, no phosguard, no GAC and lots of food and phytoplancton (nannochloropsis, isochrysis and tetraselmis)

02/06/2015, 09:04 AM	#741
DNA Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Iceland Posts: 1,516	Keep in mind that many tests can be done in a test tube first before the tank is put under stress. Figuring out your healthy dinos division rate could be used as a measuring stick on non lethal tests.

02/06/2015, 09:41 AM	#743
GilliganReef Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2013 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 379	I beat DINOS by: running a GFO reactor, Carbon reactor every other day siphon into filter socks/replace weekly 10% W/C, every other week 25% 3 days lights out once a month. The thing I found to help really fight it was adding beneficial bacteria into my tank. Started 15 day prodibio Bioclean 6 weeks prodibio reefboaster. Been doing this for 3 months now and No DINOs.

02/06/2015, 11:34 AM	#744
Montireef Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 308	I noticed that almost everyone talk about "dinos" in such a general way...and almost nobody identify the kind of dino he/she is fighting with. Porkchopexpress: I think it worked for some time, almost a month. Eventually the weird microorganism started to starve and almost vanished, but as ostreopsis can make cysts, it succeded in coming back after the predator was gone. GillganReef: Running a GFO and so many W/C does not make sense to me. Lights out does nothing to ostreopsis and many dinoflagellates, but I could try Prodibio Bioclean although I seriously doubt it can make any difference. Can you elaborate it please?

02/06/2015, 12:12 PM	#746
IUfan Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 841	I have no idea what dinos I had. I stopped running GFO about 4 weeks ago. Whatever dinos I have are now gone, tank and SPS has never looked better. Mangroves help keep Po4 down, and get a bit more film algae on the glass but that's not so bad. I wish I was able to ID which Dino it was for you guys, but no microscope, and there gone now.

02/06/2015, 01:20 PM	#749
Montireef Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 308	Just coralline algae, red, violet and an ugly greenish one. My tank sits in the sun and gets lots of sunlight from 8:00 till 17:00 besides a T5+leds ATI fixture. I have more than 20 tangs and about 300 snails (mainly turbos, tectus and trochus) grazing on every little algae that could show up. NO3 and PO4 are always undetectable despite I sometimes switch off the skimmer and have no other filtration system that the one provided by about 400 SPSs. I feed quite heavy frozen food, pellets and flakes not less than 4/5 times a day.