dino experiment

[StoneRhino]

I have a 150 gallon bare bottom reef that's 15 years old. I recently reworked the tank. The corals were so healthy and big all LPS that water flow almost went stagnant in the main display. Some hammers and frogs were the size of a basket ball. Leaving the water flow so low for as long as I did clogged the rocks up. So I took all the main rocks from the main tank 150 pounds and started a brute garbage can cooking process. I trimmed all the main corals and mounted them on acrylic rods in the main tank mounted to a huge sheet of acrylic on the bottom of the tank. It looked really good and the flow was awsome.
I did a very bad thing I added a Agra Alive 3 inch sand bed over the acrylic sheet to make the main tank look nicer while the rocks clean themselves. I must add there is over 150 pounds of live rock in the 300 gallon sump in the basement.
2 weeks after the big change came a Huge Dino Explosion. I had never seen so much slimy brown algae in my life. I never fought with Dinos in 16 years of reeling. It killed all my snails. All the corals started to close. The population was exploding and growing back as fast as I could suck it out. I was so sad to see my beautiful reef suffer from this kiss of death. I read this thread and every other page that contained the word Dinos on the Internet and learned all I could.

Water had perfect conditions as always. 8 DKH 440 Calcuim 1500 Mag 0 Nitrate 0 Phospate. Running Bio pellets.

All this time useing heavy heavy GFO. Heavy Carbon. Change every 2 days.

I tried Peroxide 1 week. 1ml per 10 gallons all the way to 4ml per ten gallons. Affected the dinos temporally on a daily basis but the dino scurge was out of this world.

I tried blackouts. 3 days. Then 4. Then 7. With peroxide. These things were affected but came back strong.

I tried 8.5 PH via Kalk drip.

Just when I was going to give up and the tank was about to die corals starting to STN. I tried a silly thing. I added 500ml of Cuprisorb. I figured something in the water changes fuels this plauge. Maybe it's trace metals in the new salt. The Cuprisorb can't hurt.

So my last stand started. Kalk to 8.5. Cuprisorb. Vaccum trough filter sock back into tank. Mild water changes. Carbon. GFO. Lights on.

Over three days the whole population crashed. Corals opened up 50% day 4.

I only see a couple of Dinos after 4 days of not vacumming the sand bed through the Sock. I very thin flat layer just starting to form the strings in the low flow corner of the sand bed. I run the Vaccum And there gone for another 4 days.

Who knows when they will be 100% gone. Maybe when I introduce my main rock into the DT in 8 months for now the tank is saved.

To recap. I belive Cuprisorb and vacuuming sand bed extensivly through a filter sock no water change with Kalk drip to be the magic combo.

[trueblackpercula]

Any updates on this

[codyreed29]

I have had this problem with my tank and damn it just sucks i just got thru buying all my fish. I have just taken my fish corals and they are packed in my ten gallon its a horrible 5h8ng im afraid im going to have to start over a new tank for this fish and inverts.

[joeyvu]

Originally Posted by t4zalews

I'm happy (not that people have dinos) that this thread is still alive.

My tank is almost completely rid of dinos finally. I did only one thing. I slowed down my turnover rate through my sump.

It sounds crazy but I went from 600gph to 200gph maybe less in my 65g tank. The dino's kept on receding and receding. This is the only thing I did. I even increased my lighting schedule. I've done a 14 day blackout before and that didnt work. No filter sock, no water changes.

Tank hasnt looked this good in years.

I am having this trouble as well. Thinking back, I believe the dinos start coming on after I add another return on my overpower pump. Now I reduce the flow back quite a bit. I can see the dinos is slowing down alot few days ago. i also took three powerhead off line ( two 6105s and one jebao pump off over one week ). RIght now the tank only powered by two MP40 run at 60%. it has been just less than one week and I don't see much dinos when light turn on, only few spot at the end of the light cycle. How long does it take for you to see the dinos completely gone after you reduce your return pump, t4zalews.

Thank you for trying it out and let us know...

Joey

[Montireef]

Originally Posted by t4zalews

I'm happy (not that people have dinos) that this thread is still alive.

My tank is almost completely rid of dinos finally. I did only one thing. I slowed down my turnover rate through my sump.

It sounds crazy but I went from 600gph to 200gph maybe less in my 65g tank. The dino's kept on receding and receding. This is the only thing I did. I even increased my lighting schedule. I've done a 14 day blackout before and that didnt work. No filter sock, no water changes.

Tank hasnt looked this good in years.

Hi Taylor!

What strain of dinos did you have? I have been battling ostreopsis sp

[Dfee]

Jesus that was a loooong thread. The third one I've read too.
Couple of questions.

I'm liking the idea of upping the nutrients to increase competetors. One person on another thread was dumping their skimmate back in. Ideas on that?

Does skimmate have salt? cause I'm losing salinity but refuse to add salt with water change. Maybe it was my ato.

Will reducing flow on sump pump by a valve hurt my pump at all?

Any good list on what dinos kill and don't kill? I'd like to safely add livestock to up nutrients but don't wanna lose anything. My clowns, yellow tang, and Kole tang have survived throughout. Starfish, snails, blue tang, and Blenny have died.

Thanks. I have only tried peroxide, lights out, and api Algaefix so far. Always comes back but this is my first time with peroxide.

Probably will think of more questions later. Don't have microscope

[Dfee]

Oh yeah!....

Will my fish eat with lights out? When I put a flashlight in there, they're all to their hiding spaces. Should I feed normally?

[bertoni]

Skimmate will have the same salinity as the tank, more or less. Skimmers export saltwater, so any volume lost there needs to be made up with saltwater, although the amount might be too small to notice. That was the case with my systems.

Any animal that grazes on the substrate or on algae might consume some dinoflagellates and have problems. I don't know what the likelihood of that is.

[Mish]

Hi all, I have read most of this thread, but excuse me if I missed this somewhere.

It appears that water changes will increase the Dino outbreak, but what about two part solutions? If they are added instead of water changes to keep parameters in check do you also see an increase in the Dinos?

[bertoni]

Two part solutions likely are safe enough to add, although they might have some trace elements that could feed dinoflagellates.

I would say that sometimes, water changes will feed a dinoflagellate bloom, but not always.

[polarcollision]

Originally Posted by Pants

So just to put this out there again, if you would like a species ID of your dino you can mail me a sample. Just PM me for an address and instructions.

If you have a microscope I might be able to give a good guess from photos you post.

If the offer is still good, I'd love to know what these are: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/33714...lds/?p=4825893

Thanks!
Deborah

[Skynyrd Fish]

I have been doing this a long time. I had massive dino's 2 years ago. I had good tank parameters. I had been doing weekly water changes of 15% as I was reviving an old tank for sps. I was running ROX carbon in a bag and GFO in a reactor. I got dino's so bad it killed my new frags. I tried black outs, siphoning and water changes. upping the Gfo. Nothing was working. It seemed to make it worse. My wife accidentally broke my protein skimmer while cleaning the cup while I was out of town. So I threw in the towel. Stopped all water changes, and skimming. Dino's gone. In less than 2 weeks. I kept the tank this way for 2 years. Continued with normal light schedule and fish feeding. I added top off water daily and may have done 5 water changes in this time period. No GFO or carbon. NO Dinos.

November 2014:
Removed remaining Mud from sump, and hooked up my new to me euro reef 180 skimmer. I started Carbon and phosguard. 6 weeks later removed changed 1/3 of gravel for Fiji pink (live). 2 weeks later another 1/3 gravel for fiji pink (live). It has been 3 weeks since I did this. I started to see Dino's 3 weeks ago. I have just finished week 5 of vodka. NO3 is still 100. Im going to buy a new test today. po4 is .65, up from .34 because of the lights off for 3 days and algae releasing it.

I am in day 5 of H2O2 dosing at 1ml per tank volume. I did a 3 day black out. reduced light yesterday and today. Things are looking great. i have to vac the fiji tonight because of the accumulation of detris from the treatment. So far this is working for me. Im going to keep my fingers crossed. BTW I will probably change the rest of the gravel and a 20 gallon water change. tonight as well.

Conclusion:
My problems seem to arise from water changes, carbon or Phosphate removal. Is it too much too soon? I am going to back off on water changes and only run small amounts of carbon and phosguard. I will also be changing my t5 bulbs for new ones this week. Blue + and Blue special. This tank has been running for 15 years. No dino's until I tried SPS 2 years ago. (IE low nutrient water).

Any thoughts?

[Relativity]

I did a two day blackout in congunction with fuana marine algae x for one week and the problem was solved

[Montireef]

Fauna Marin Algae-X did nothing for my tanks, neither did QFI Dinixal, but waste my money.

[Skynyrd Fish]

I sucked the rest of the old gravel out but did not add any new. Im back on regular lights as of today. My tank looks great and no noticeable Dino's. the sludge trapped in the old gravel behind the rock wall was gross. Today is day 9 since I started H2O2. tonight will be my last treatment. Fingers Crossed.

[JamesHolt]

got hit with the dino's a week ago, had been working on getting tank squeaky clean with perfect water, got phosphates down to nothing and everything else perfect, did a water change and WHAM, overnight I was covered in it....
Cleaned the sand good,removed fish,
Pulled all corals and scrubbed and freshwater dipped them, (all mine are small and still on plugs)
Freshwater dipped and scrubbed all my rockwork,
Scrubbed all equipment in tank,
Dosed tank with 1/8 cup h2o2, I tend to prefer the nuclear approach,
Has been two days since i did this,, all clear now,,will do a 50% water change in a few days, ,,
Looks like the freshwater dip has killed my pulsing Xenia, it really looks bad,,,
Everything else is doing ok,,,
Gonna put everything(corals/fish) back a week after that if it is still clear,,,
Got the rock/corals in one QT tank and fish in another,,,

[Pants]

Originally Posted by polarcollision

If the offer is still good, I'd love to know what these are: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/33714...lds/?p=4825893

Thanks!
Deborah

I just saw this post, sorry it took like a month to reply.

The most numerous cell you have there is the species I haven't ID'ed yet. It pops up a lot though. It tends to be much more mucousy than the other species and is often found in blobs on coral. It doesn't go away at night like the other species. If you have a nice blob of it that doesn't look (under the scope) to have other species mixed in, you could do a DNA extraction and send me the DNA. Let me know if you are interested and I'll walk you through it (it's really easy to extract DNA).

The feature you are looking for when trying to figure out if the tiny cells are dinos is a cingulum and sulcus. The cingulum is a groove around the equator of the cell. It often looks to be cinching the cell in like a tight belt. This bisects the cell into two hemispheres. Running perpendicular to that is the sulcus. Under the scope this will look like a little T on one side of the cell. You need them to be facing you just right to see the sulcus. Take a look at the videos and images I put up of Symbiodinium to see what another very similar tiny dino looks like.

You also found a single cell of Ostreopsis. It is that sesame seed shaped cell. If that is the only one you found then no worries. You also have a good number of diatoms mixed in with everything else.

[JamesHolt]

Feed everyone and dosed tank with phyto and "Fuel" when I got home...
Put rocks back in tank.............went to bed
When I got up found a few spots I missed, maybe enough to cover your hand total.
A few bits on corals, scrubbed that off and resprayed and rinsed..
Pulled those rocks back out and re-scrubbed and sprayed h2o2 on those areas.... put rocks back in tank
I would say 80% gone right now....
Nothing in sand bed, for now

revised plan is to get fish back in and leave corals in QT till nothing shows on them

[Montireef]

It doesn't work that way. If you have dinos on a rock, you have dinos everywhere. It's only that they don't thrive on those spots you think that are dino free.

Give them the chance and in a matter of a few hours you will see them everywhere (just take a sample from the sand and check it out on the microscope...)

[JamesHolt]

Originally Posted by Montireef

It doesn't work that way. If you have dinos on a rock, you have dinos everywhere. It's only that they don't thrive on those spots you think that are dino free.

Give them the chance and in a matter of a few hours you will see them everywhere (just take a sample from the sand and check it out on the microscope...)

I understand they are still everywhere, I was just pointing out the reduction in visible dinos. I dont have a microscope..
I ran the lights for 10 hours yesterday and only had a few spots flare back up.
I plan on continuing to pull and scrub/spray while dosing..
Its doing something,, I am having to change my filter socks twice a day vs weekly before the flareup..
Well I am off to bed, guess I will see what the first 5 hours of lights bring back up when I get up..

[JamesHolt]

Definite progress, only 1 or 2 small bubbly areas, a few patches in the sand are coming back now (just dark spots not bubbling), lights have been on 9 hours..
Looks like if I keep up the aggressive cleaning and dosing I can beat them..
Lesson learned so far from this,, Dont freshwater dip/rinse Green Star Polyps or Pulsing Xenia...
The GSP is just starting to open a bit, and the Xenia has really shrunk down and looks dead or hurt bad..

Keeping track of exactly what I have done,, will put it a single post when they stay gone for a week...

[JamesHolt]

Still dosing and cleaning, very little to clean up, they just show up on the sand now.. Starting to get some hair algae on the rocks now..
Some showing on the corals I pulled out..
Setting another small tank up to put them in after I re-dip them, will be dipping in saltwater-peroxide mix, then rinse, then iodine, and rinse again..
Unless they regroup I am winning, I hope

[Montireef]

Which corals are you submitting to such a torture?
Which dinoflagellate species are you fighting with?

That hair algae outbreak uses to be a good symptom that dinos are being defeated.

[JamesHolt]

Originally Posted by Montireef

Which corals are you submitting to such a torture?
Which dinoflagellate species are you fighting with?

That hair algae outbreak uses to be a good symptom that dinos are being defeated.

Zoa's,Pallys,Green Star Polyps,Various shrooms, 1 small acan, 1 small trumpet..
No idea on which species, I have no way to id them...

[Montireef]

Just a simple microscope