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Unread 03/05/2016, 12:26 AM   #3226
EdenR
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tastyfish View Post
I don't think 5 days is long enough for the black out method. I chickened out at 8 or 9 days, others who have stopped short have reported the dinos have come back a few weeks or a few months later. My tank was spotless, not a single sign of any sort of algae.

I would keep getting bio-diversity in to the tank, on a daily basis, keep the pH high (8.5) and strictly use blue spectrum lights only for the next 2 weeks.
Make sure you are siphoning out the dead dinos and any areas of the sand they remain on, replacing with synthetic salt water (TMCPR or similar (no DOC's).
I'm perplexed as to why you keep insisting there is a "blackout method". There isn't one. Have you read the numerous reports of people emptying out all the water from their tanks and storing the dry rocks for months only to fill it back up with water and get dinos again? You do realize some dinos can encyst and just come back at a later time, correct? Extended blackouts are completely unnecessary and do not work lest your purpose is to kill your livestock.

All the success reports lately have come from people doing a simple 3 day blackout followed by increased feedings and phyto/pod dosing. All the reports of anyone doing 5+ day blackouts have reported death of corals. Coincidence?

UV DOES work. It's worked for numerous people on here. The bacteria that are in the water column are inconsequential because there are a lot more on the rocks, sand, walls, pumps, sump, etc. Pods we are dosing are benthic.


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Unread 03/05/2016, 02:26 AM   #3227
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blackout just drives the pods into the water column for the UV to blast them.

Unless you have the kind that buries into sand (someone had that at some point).


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Unread 03/05/2016, 03:33 AM   #3228
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Originally Posted by EdenR View Post
I'm perplexed as to why you keep insisting there is a "blackout method". There isn't one.
I glanced over it as a misplaced word, at least for ostis where I think we have proved it useless on it's own.
In some cases blackout has reduced the amounts of something, but in this thread we know better.

Know your enemy!


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Unread 03/05/2016, 03:56 AM   #3229
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The coccolithopores are on my mind these days and of course that means another experiment.

What I'm doing is siphoning the sandbed every three days to see what's in there and how fast it accumulates.
I'm on my third round today and the amounts of gunk that keeps coming out is amazing.

The coccolithopores are to small to identify in a microscope and the coccoliths are even smaller so that makes things difficult.
I don't know enough about the coccos but at some stage they are naked, making them an excellent food source in the microscopic world.

What I can tell so far is the main ingredients are around 50% dark green/brown particles and ~50% highly reflective white particles that are much smaller but still visible in my custom made siphoning tube.

I'm repeating this 10 times to see what happens.


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Unread 03/05/2016, 07:19 AM   #3230
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Fighting dinos atm with growing frustration every day.

Started with me noticing some brown stuff on the sandbed when i changed water, went away in a few days, but took longer and longer to dissapear every weekly waterchange...

With the brown stuff covering the sand and corals starting to look worse and worse i started to do a 20% 20% 20% waterchange over the weekend and vaccumed the shallow sandbed. Things looked nice for about an hour...

Did some research and found out i had a case of the dinos, tank looks nice in the morning, and by the time the lights go out sandbed is a brown slush.

Sent in a watersample to triton and it came back with this.

http://www.triton-lab.de/en/aquarium...65/pdf/online/

Si waaaaaay high, ordered new DI resisns for rodi, some Si filtermedia, Salifert Si test.

Salifert Si i get a reading of 0...
Dont know if theres any errors in the ICP-OES for Si...

Allso measured No3 at 25ish with salifert, used to have dose no3 to keep it up...

Doing Kalkwasser via the topoff now, put my UVC back on the tank, changing GFO/GAC every week, Sera marine silicate clear in the sump, skimming as wet as i can.

Corals seem to do a bit better, dinos is hard to tell but doesnt seem to getting worse thankfully...

Thanks you RC for beeing awesome and excuse my spelling/grammar misstakes.


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Unread 03/05/2016, 11:39 AM   #3231
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url didnt work so heres the results of the tests.


Attached Images
File Type: jpg 1.jpg (56.1 KB, 32 views)
File Type: jpg 2.jpg (54.4 KB, 29 views)
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Unread 03/05/2016, 12:56 PM   #3232
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too small to read. What are you indicating with the charts?


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Unread 03/05/2016, 01:02 PM   #3233
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so what do these coccolithopores look like in your tanks?

I have unusual white floating sand particles that only seem to show up when I do a water change. They're not precipitating calcium because that tends to be "fluffy". It's not sand since that sinks at these sizes. It looks like little foam pellets (1-2mm).

I don't know what these things are, but I'll try to take a microscope picture.

I don't have dinos any more, but I do have other unusual characters. The latest is a brown sponge fuzzy growth that doesn't spread by water, but looks to be encrusting.

 photo DB378788-C0A6-41EF-B7F8-790BD9131F44_zpsro0ztcm9.jpg

 photo 91798012-B56B-438A-AC76-E0D6DE2D067B_zpsbddmhbbd.jpg

and an infestation of parasitic featherdusters that encroach and damage my LPS

 photo 877BF727-3F8D-44C0-B22D-114534742130_zps7ycgzpaq.jpg


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Unread 03/05/2016, 02:01 PM   #3234
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Does anyone have ostreopsis dinos they'd be willing to ship to me (southeast us) for testing purposes?
I want to see if the beasties that have developed a taste for my dinos (ciliates mostly) will show an interest in the most common problem dinos.

My cultured 10 gal sandbed now eats up as many dinos (amphidinium and coolia) as I can provide from my main tank on a daily basis. Today I'm going to siphon all visible dinos out of the top layer of my DT sand and add it into the cultured sand. If it goes as expected, I'll transfer most of my cultured sand into the DT in a day or two.


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Unread 03/05/2016, 03:38 PM   #3235
DNA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Darizzo View Post
url didnt work so heres the results of the tests.
Darizzo seems to have deleted his post accidentally so I repost it for him.

***************
Fighting dinos atm with growing frustration every day.

Started with me noticing some brown stuff on the sandbed when i changed water, went away in a few days, but took longer and longer to dissapear every weekly waterchange...

With the brown stuff covering the sand and corals starting to look worse and worse i started to do a 20% 20% 20% waterchange over the weekend and vaccumed the shallow sandbed. Things looked nice for about an hour...

Did some research and found out i had a case of the dinos, tank looks nice in the morning, and by the time the lights go out sandbed is a brown slush.

Sent in a watersample to triton and it came back with this.

http://www.triton-lab.de/en/aquarium...65/pdf/online/

Si waaaaaay high, ordered new DI resisns for rodi, some Si filtermedia, Salifert Si test.

Salifert Si i get a reading of 0...
Dont know if theres any errors in the ICP-OES for Si...

Allso measured No3 at 25ish with salifert, used to have dose no3 to keep it up...

Doing Kalkwasser via the topoff now, put my UVC back on the tank, changing GFO/GAC every week, Sera marine silicate clear in the sump, skimming as wet as i can.

Corals seem to do a bit better, dinos is hard to tell but doesnt seem to getting worse thankfully...

Thanks you RC for beeing awesome and excuse my spelling/grammar misstakes.
***************


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Unread 03/05/2016, 03:43 PM   #3236
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Thanks for posting those charts.
I find those high Si levels interesting and I would think it should have led to a diatom bloom.

Now you need to identify your dinos.
How can dinos outcompete diatoms with parameters like that?


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Unread 03/05/2016, 03:59 PM   #3237
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karimwassef View Post
so what do these coccolithopores look like in your tanks?
I think you may be looking at marine snow. It's a cocktail that grows untill it sinks.

My experiment has only been going for a week, but the added haziness is interesting.
If it's coccos I would have a eureka moment, but it could be precipitation or bacteria.

I'm excited since the absence of at least half of the dinos seems to be causing this.


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Unread 03/05/2016, 06:56 PM   #3238
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Wow yeah, really expected high Si to mean a diatom bloom that would exclude dinos.
Wonder what the microscope will show.


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Unread 03/05/2016, 07:10 PM   #3239
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When I said pods, I meant dinos.


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Unread 03/05/2016, 07:44 PM   #3240
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Originally Posted by karimwassef View Post
When I said pods, I meant dinos.
I wondered about that.

Point on the lights out thing. Lights out is not a cure. But it is not pointless either.
First, like you say, lights out drives most dinos to the water column. (Read a thread the other day where pumps off for 30 min drove some dinos to the water column). Nothing makes mine leave the sand.

Secondly, all of the reports of dinos I've seen occurred under reef lighting, therefore -although there are species of dinos that don't need light - we are dealing with species that are light loving.
Yes, they won't automatically die in the dark, they can hunt other things, or just encyst. But darkness slows them down. Which is excellent, if our treatment strategy involves outcompeting them.


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Unread 03/05/2016, 10:14 PM   #3241
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Quote:
Originally Posted by taricha View Post
I wondered about that.

Point on the lights out thing. Lights out is not a cure. But it is not pointless either.
First, like you say, lights out drives most dinos to the water column. (Read a thread the other day where pumps off for 30 min drove some dinos to the water column). Nothing makes mine leave the sand.

Secondly, all of the reports of dinos I've seen occurred under reef lighting, therefore -although there are species of dinos that don't need light - we are dealing with species that are light loving.
Yes, they won't automatically die in the dark, they can hunt other things, or just encyst. But darkness slows them down. Which is excellent, if our treatment strategy involves outcompeting them.

I agree, they aren't pointless they are actually a very valuable tool. The only point I'm making is that extended blackouts are pointless. We know blackouts aren't the cure, dinos will come back. The strongest reason to incorporate them into the overall plan of attack is to simply kick the dinos back in order to give competition a chance. And many people have now come back with successful results in using 3 day blackouts followed by dirty and pod/phyto dosing. For those that went longer blackouts, they've reported coral deaths. By killing your livestock you are only feuling your dinos.

The enemy right now isn't just dinos themselves but misinformation and bad advice. @tastyfish seems to like contradicting good advice, i.e. Porkchop's method, karim's UV suggestions, etc with his own terroble advice about blacking out your tank for more than 8 days! That's not helpful especially when infected reefers are already desperately trying to fix their tanks.


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Unread 03/05/2016, 10:21 PM   #3242
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in terms of biofauna... just found another baby sea cucumber (I think).

I've seen some in the dark, but this one was out in full daylight.

 photo C680F149-7010-4040-9DF7-B18620415C98_zpsy3ylfgvk.jpg




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Unread 03/05/2016, 11:51 PM   #3243
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uploaded it again - video gets stuck




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Unread 03/06/2016, 01:39 AM   #3244
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Scale is difficult to judge, but I see what you mean with those particles and this is similar to what I have.


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Unread 03/06/2016, 01:55 AM   #3245
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that "sea cucumber" was probably ~5mm


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Unread 03/06/2016, 03:42 AM   #3246
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DNA View Post
I glanced over it as a misplaced word, at least for ostis where I think we have proved it useless on it's own.
In some cases blackout has reduced the amounts of something, but in this thread we know better.

Know your enemy!

Interesting comments and choice of words, I used a blackout as a key part of a multi-pronged strategy. As stated before, a short blackout only serves to get some of the dinoflagellates into the water column. A longer term one is required to do them any damage in my experience.

As I said a long time ago on this thread, you cannot defeat dinoflagellates with a single parameter change or wonder cure. (As much as anyone would like to).

You must use a multi-pronged and sustained attack to reduce their numbers, reduce the nutrients they feed on and make the environment hostile for them as you simultaneously introduce and support competition.

One theory on the high nitrates is that it is not the fact that Dinoflaggellates won't tolerate high nitrates, but that the presence of nitrates allows the tank to process phosphates much more effectively. In my experience, it's the phosphates which can really boost dino colonies.

I'm still clear of any blooms of the toxic species of dinoflagellates that covered maybe 40% of my rock work and maybe a third of the sand bed.


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Unread 03/06/2016, 04:01 AM   #3247
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I agree, they aren't pointless they are actually a very valuable tool. The only point I'm making is that extended blackouts are pointless. We know blackouts aren't the cure, dinos will come back. The strongest reason to incorporate them into the overall plan of attack is to simply kick the dinos back in order to give competition a chance. And many people have now come back with successful results in using 3 day blackouts followed by dirty and pod/phyto dosing. For those that went longer blackouts, they've reported coral deaths. By killing your livestock you are only feuling your dinos.

The enemy right now isn't just dinos themselves but misinformation and bad advice. @tastyfish seems to like contradicting good advice, i.e. Porkchop's method, karim's UV suggestions, etc with his own terroble advice about blacking out your tank for more than 8 days! That's not helpful especially when infected reefers are already desperately trying to fix their tanks.

Hmmm.. There are a number of ways to respond to that. However, I will bite my tongue as is often required on this forum more than other and repeat what I already stated ( as you perhaps didn't actually read it). My approach is based on what worked for me, in my tank. formed along with other much more experienced reefers than me who have dealt with and failed or dealt with a succeeded against dinoflagellates in multiple tanks. (I missed your qualifications if they exceed everyone else's, so apologies if that is the case).

If you had taken the time to read my posts, (more than perhaps the first line) rather than launch a personal attack, then perhaps you would understand this and also the warnings on the approach.

A blackout alone will not defeat them. I have stated this in almost every single post. It's not for everyone, there will be some casualties. It's a risk you need to weigh up vs the dinoflagellates coming back. But it worked for me and others (who by the way have amazing SPS tanks).


It's easy to dismiss what you don't understand, likewise if you cannot defend a challenge to your thinking, then I'd suggest that you don't understand it yourself.



Last edited by tastyfish; 03/06/2016 at 04:13 AM.
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Unread 03/06/2016, 10:26 AM   #3248
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tastyfish View Post
Hmmm.. There are a number of ways to respond to that. However, I will bite my tongue as is often required on this forum more than other and repeat what I already stated ( as you perhaps didn't actually read it). My approach is based on what worked for me, in my tank. formed along with other much more experienced reefers than me who have dealt with and failed or dealt with a succeeded against dinoflagellates in multiple tanks. (I missed your qualifications if they exceed everyone else's, so apologies if that is the case).

If you had taken the time to read my posts, (more than perhaps the first line) rather than launch a personal attack, then perhaps you would understand this and also the warnings on the approach.

A blackout alone will not defeat them. I have stated this in almost every single post. It's not for everyone, there will be some casualties. It's a risk you need to weigh up vs the dinoflagellates coming back. But it worked for me and others (who by the way have amazing SPS tanks).


It's easy to dismiss what you don't understand, likewise if you cannot defend a challenge to your thinking, then I'd suggest that you don't understand it yourself.
No apologies to me needed. But you should apologize to those that followed your extended blackout period and killed corals because you fail to mention it should only be tried by those running a FOWLR setup or if they really don't care about losing livestock.

As for the rest, well, I'll let all the recent results speak for themselves as to what works and what doesn't. There have been enough of them recently that one only need to look back a few pages.


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Unread 03/06/2016, 10:41 AM   #3249
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extended blackouts really aren't necessary if the point of it is to reduce the amount of dinos in the tank in order to give competing algaes a chance at taking hold which is why i like the method of 3 day blackout followed by increased feedings and dosing pods/phyto (dirty method)...i believe the dirty method, by itself, is sufficient for the majority of dino cases as seen by numerous results but it doesn't appear to work for everyone, unfortunately...but doing a 3 day blackout will simply speed the process up as well as if you add in a UV and skim heavily in conjunction with the 3 day blackout since blackouts seem to force dinos into the water column

extended blackouts, in my opinion, serve no purpose when short ones can produce the same results and put less stress on your already stressed out corals...so i agree with the opinion that more than 4 days lights out is completely unnecessary given that some dinos will encyst...purpose of the blackout isn't to get rid of them, it's to decrease their numbers and give competing algae a chance

that is my 2 cents...as you can see by my photos that i have an sps dominated tank...at 4 days my acros started to STN...that is simply a fact, not an opinion...doing more than 4 days would be lethal to most of my sps as any experienced reefer would know


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Unread 03/06/2016, 11:02 AM   #3250
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...on a more pleasant note I've been dino free for about a year now...I always said I would wait a year before attempting to sell or trade corals and I did in order to not spread the disease around...been trading and selling quite a bit recently and so far so good...before I started I borrowed another microscope and couldn't find a single dino cell...doesn't mean there aren't any there, it just means my system is at a point that it can suppress them...I get green algae on the glass and gha growing in the sump...point is this thing can be beat! find a method that works for you and follow through with it


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