Can't get rid of Dino

I

idan555

New member
Not sure why but I can't get ride of the Dino in my tank.:deadhorse1:
It has been about a month ( kinda got it under control) but it clean my snails and few frags corals.
I dont do water change (just add RODI), also tried DinoX, no luck.
I feed minimum as I can, already tried 2 times blackout for 3 days. It's come back right after.
My RODI is brand new 6 stage from BRS, the display read 0 TDS, and to confirm I took chlorine paper test, 0 also.
I running in the last week GFO+Carbon, and I turn on my algae scrubber.
I got super strong flow in my tank also, and reduce the lights as possible without hurt the LFS.
 
Search google for "Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether". The most up to date research on battling Dinos is in there. Read as much of that as you can.

I don't want to rehash all the information there, but basically what you are doing is all wrong so that is why you aren't getting any results. When battling Dinos you want to raise nutrient levels, not lower them. Dinos thrive at low nutrients levels and will outcompete everything. Raise up those nutrient levels and less bothersome microalgaes will help outcompete the dinos.

There are some other very important things you'll need to know, but all the info is on the page I talk about above.
 
sfdan said:
Search google for "Dinoflagellates "“ Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether". The most up to date research on battling Dinos is in there. Read as much of that as you can.

I don't want to rehash all the information there, but basically what you are doing is all wrong so that is why you aren't getting any results. When battling Dinos you want to raise nutrient levels, not lower them. Dinos thrive at low nutrients levels and will outcompete everything. Raise up those nutrient levels and less bothersome microalgaes will help outcompete the dinos.

There are some other very important things you'll need to know, but all the info is on the page I talk about above.
Click to expand...
thank you for the help

according for what he is saying I should have a little high parameters, no carbon, GFO, scrubber and so.
this is surprising because I got tip and read other Dino question that been told cause of high nutrients it's keep growing. if what he said is true so why people keep running carbon,scrubber etc.? I'm not sure I understood his methods.

for excample if he's right all the tip here are wrong:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2680712
 
Sadly most people don't know what they are talking about when battling dinos, and there is a lot of advice out there that is just plain wrong. The page I linked to has the most cutting edge and correct information about battling dinoflagellates on the internet.

And look, some people have had success with lowering nutrient levels. There are theories about certain dinos in certain states, why lowering nutrient levels works. And eventually when you "beat" dinos, you slowly wean your tank from the elevated nutrient levels to "normal" (but non-zero) nutrient levels and can stay dino-free.
However, if you don't have the right kind of dinos or they aren't in the right kind of state (blooming vs not blooming), then lowering nutrient levels won't work and in fact will really help the dinos. You have lowered your nutrient levels and your dinos are still going strong, which is very good evidence that your dinos are not in a state where lowering nutrient levels is helpful to you.

Therefore, raise the nutrient levels to the recommended values. Also identify your Dinos. For certain types of dinos you basically must install a UV sterilizer because it will help you immensely. For other types the UV sterilizer will do very little. It depends.

Also you absolutely want to be running carbon, and keep it fresh, as it will absorb up the toxins from dying dinos.

GFO is really bad because it lowers phosphate levels, you almost certainly want to increase phosphate levels. It may or may not also increase iron levels (probably not a lot, but maybe some), and there is some evidence that iron helps certain types of dinos.

You can run the scrubber once the dinos stop blooming, but if the dinos are still blooming the scrubber is just lowering your nutrient levels meaning you need to dose more. You also want to turn your skimmer off for the same reason.
 
sfdan said:
Sadly most people don't know what they are talking about when battling dinos, and there is a lot of advice out there that is just plain wrong. The page I linked to has the most cutting edge and correct information about battling dinoflagellates on the internet.

And look, some people have had success with lowering nutrient levels. There are theories about certain dinos in certain states, why lowering nutrient levels works. And eventually when you "beat" dinos, you slowly wean your tank from the elevated nutrient levels to "normal" (but non-zero) nutrient levels and can stay dino-free.
However, if you don't have the right kind of dinos or they aren't in the right kind of state (blooming vs not blooming), then lowering nutrient levels won't work and in fact will really help the dinos. You have lowered your nutrient levels and your dinos are still going strong, which is very good evidence that your dinos are not in a state where lowering nutrient levels is helpful to you.

Therefore, raise the nutrient levels to the recommended values. Also identify your Dinos. For certain types of dinos you basically must install a UV sterilizer because it will help you immensely. For other types the UV sterilizer will do very little. It depends.

Also you absolutely want to be running carbon, and keep it fresh, as it will absorb up the toxins from dying dinos.

GFO is really bad because it lowers phosphate levels, you almost certainly want to increase phosphate levels. It may or may not also increase iron levels (probably not a lot, but maybe some), and there is some evidence that iron helps certain types of dinos.

You can run the scrubber once the dinos stop blooming, but if the dinos are still blooming the scrubber is just lowering your nutrient levels meaning you need to dose more. You also want to turn your skimmer off for the same reason.
Click to expand...

Ok, now I'm understanding it better.
I'll turn the scrubber off,skimmer and will remove GFO. My numbers are 0, so I'll need to increase tham asap.
What are a good numbers for running and keeping mix tank health? (No sps).
How should I increase the numbers? Buffers?
Also no water changes?
Should I scrub the rocks and vacuum to clean any extra Dino? (Inclube the rocks in the sump?)
I know these are a lot of questions, I appreciate the help!
 
Phosphates to at least > 0.1 ppm
Nitrates to 5-10 ppm

There are a variety of ways to dose each one. I use Seachem Phosphorus for dosing phosphate, and reagent grade sodium nitrate for nitrate. There are options for both that you can read about by searching around.

This is not going to be a problem where you do one thing and they go away. You're going to have to learn a lot of stuff, be disciplined about maintaining levels over the long term and then you'll slowly start to see progress.

You also really want to buy a microscope (or borrow one) and identify what kind of Dino you have, it will be very helpful in beating them.
 
sfdan said:
Phosphates to at least > 0.1 ppm
Nitrates to 5-10 ppm

There are a variety of ways to dose each one. I use Seachem Phosphorus for dosing phosphate, and reagent grade sodium nitrate for nitrate. There are options for both that you can read about by searching around.

This is not going to be a problem where you do one thing and they go away. You're going to have to learn a lot of stuff, be disciplined about maintaining levels over the long term and then you'll slowly start to see progress.

You also really want to buy a microscope (or borrow one) and identify what kind of Dino you have, it will be very helpful in beating them.
Click to expand...

I borrowed microscop today, and tonight I'll post the pictures.
Should I just take the algea on Petra plate without water?
 
Been there! I did tons of research, and found that, because there are different types of dinos, treatments vary - a lot. I tried several things, without much success. Finally, I tried running my UV sterilizer and that seemed to reduce it. I think it would have eventually eliminated it, but I decided to break down the tank. I had several other issues that needed addressing, so I'm tackling them all with the breakdown/restart.

Good luck!
 
sfdan said:
Use a syringe and suck up some of the dinos, put them on a microscope slide and you'll see them. They are very obvious. This is the most helpful guide, but if you post pictures I'll confirm.
Click to expand...

Ok, here are the pictures from the microscope.
also an 12 sec video maybe it'll help also:
https://ibb.co/d4MaTz
https://ibb.co/exDpoz
https://ibb.co/nd1ygK
https://ibb.co/cJmg1K
https://ibb.co/fjWEMK
https://ibb.co/inmQTz

video:
https://streamable.com/0fioq
https://streamable.com/0fioq
 
I tried slowing down the video and zooming in and I just can't tell. Can you get pictures or preferably video with a slightly higher microscopic zoom?
 
It would actually be easier to tell if there weren't so many (or it were zoomed in more), but the stable video is quite helpful and I'll venture a guess with 90% confidence they are Ostreopsis.

First of all they are clearly big because I think this is a fairly low magnification and I can still see them pretty clearly. Ostreopsis are big. Second, the movement looks very Ostreopsis-y. Instead of darting around, Ostreopsis look like they are a tetherball circling around an imaginary pole, and I zoomed in on the motion of some specific dinos in your video and that is what I saw. But there is a lot going on in the video, so I could have been mistaken.

I'd study the motion of Ostreopsis on this website, then look at the motion of a much less dense culture and see if the motion looks the same. The other dinos moves completely differently, so if the motion looks similar then it is a sure match.

If they are Ostreopsis, this is bad news in that Ostreopsis are the most toxic dino and are known to do the most damage, and form cysts so they are almost impossible to fully eradicate. The good news is they go into the water column at night and thus can be very effectively controlled with a UV sterilizer. How big is your tank?
 
sfdan said:
It would actually be easier to tell if there weren't so many (or it were zoomed in more), but the stable video is quite helpful and I'll venture a guess with 90% confidence they are Ostreopsis.

First of all they are clearly big because I think this is a fairly low magnification and I can still see them pretty clearly. Ostreopsis are big. Second, the movement looks very Ostreopsis-y. Instead of darting around, Ostreopsis look like they are a tetherball circling around an imaginary pole, and I zoomed in on the motion of some specific dinos in your video and that is what I saw. But there is a lot going on in the video, so I could have been mistaken.

I'd study the motion of Ostreopsis on this website, then look at the motion of a much less dense culture and see if the motion looks the same. The other dinos moves completely differently, so if the motion looks similar then it is a sure match.

If they are Ostreopsis, this is bad news in that Ostreopsis are the most toxic dino and are known to do the most damage, and form cysts so they are almost impossible to fully eradicate. The good news is they go into the water column at night and thus can be very effectively controlled with a UV sterilizer. How big is your tank?
Click to expand...

Here is a new video with less algae:
the zoom is not great but this is the only microscope I could get
https://streamable.com/ypc2v
 
Yup that is 100% Ostreopsis. Actually a pretty instructive video showing their distinct motion.

Raise nutrient levels to 0.1 ppm phosphates, 5-10 ppm nitrates. Very important to hit at least 0.1 phosphates. Run fresh carbon and change it weekly.

For a 75 gallon aquarium, run around ~300 gph through a >= ~30 watt UV sterilizer, 24/7. You can either run the UV from display-->display, or sump-->display. If you are doing sump-->display, make sure your return flow patterns are good and your return pump isn't just pumping water right back to your overflow.

They'll hopefully be gone within a few weeks, but your tank is going to have to take some time to recover its microflora and microfauna that the Ostreopsis have likely very negatively impacted.

If you want to help with their removal, siphon out as many as you can at the end of the day, and then a couple hours after the lights go off, hit your rocks with a turkey baster and help the dinos get into the water column where your UV sterilizer will kill them.
 
sfdan said:
Yup that is 100% Ostreopsis. Actually a pretty instructive video showing their distinct motion.

Raise nutrient levels to 0.1 ppm phosphates, 5-10 ppm nitrates. Very important to hit at least 0.1 phosphates. Run fresh carbon and change it weekly.

For a 75 gallon aquarium, run around ~300 gph through a >= ~30 watt UV sterilizer, 24/7. You can either run the UV from display-->display, or sump-->display. If you are doing sump-->display, make sure your return flow patterns are good and your return pump isn't just pumping water right back to your overflow.

They'll hopefully be gone within a few weeks, but your tank is going to have to take some time to recover its microflora and microfauna that the Ostreopsis have likely very negatively impacted.

If you want to help with their removal, siphon out as many as you can at the end of the day, and then a couple hours after the lights go off, hit your rocks with a turkey baster and help the dinos get into the water column where your UV sterilizer will kill them.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for you help! you answers are very detail!
I'll do everything you said above and also will buy the 2 items you mention earlier.

Do you think I should turn-off my scrubber and remove the GFO (this is the first time I run GFO base on what I read wrong in the web)?
also should I turn off my skimmer?
 
GFO is the opposite of what you want to do. Remove it ASAP.

I'd also shut off the skimmer, but I think that is more of a personal choice. Certainly run it dry if you keep running it. You want nutrient levels to increase, so pulling any nutrients out of the water is not helping your battle.
 
sfdan said:
GFO is the opposite of what you want to do. Remove it ASAP.

I'd also shut off the skimmer, but I think that is more of a personal choice. Certainly run it dry if you keep running it. You want nutrient levels to increase, so pulling any nutrients out of the water is not helping your battle.
Click to expand...
Done!
tomorrow I wil clean the send and will blast the rocks.
also I will clean all the rock at my sump to clean all the algae.
until I will get the product I will feed more to increase the parameters
 
It sounds like you guys have it figured out. Chapeau!

Potassium nitrate, sold as stump remover at hardware stores, is an easy, safe source of nitrate. Extra fish food might be enough to get your phosphate up.
 
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