Cuprisorb for dinoflagellets??

[Balletomane]

I've been battling dinos for about six months. We had a major ice storm back in early December. I had to evacuate all that wasn't glued down. The dinos were knocked down with five days w/o lights, but came back. I siphon weekly and try to do as little change of water as I can, having read that that water changes can add fuel to the fire

I spoke with one of the elder statesmen at the LFS yesterday and his recommendation was Cuprisorb. The store only had a mega container and I was not pressured to buy that quantity. My question is whether this product can be helpful for dinos. I've never dosed copper. I don't think heavy metals are an issue (never dosed, I buy my SW from the LFS).

Is this a valid recommendation? Any experiences would be appreciated. I'm awfully close to shutting down and bailing....Ugh!

 

[billsreef]

Sounds like an odd recommendation. As for water changes adding fuel to the fire, only if your replacement water is high in nutrients, which it shouldn't be if your using RO/DI for your fresh water source.

 

[bertoni]

I'm not sure what CupriSorb would do, either. Did he explain what it was going to do?

CupriSorb wouldn't hurt, so the worse case is wasted money.

 

[HighlandReefer]

Salt mixes are high in heavy metals. High heavy metal levels from rain run off cause increased growth (blooms) of micro-organisms near land. The CurpriSorb removes heavy metals. That's the logic I see for using this product to try and control dinoflagellates. You want to decrease the dissolved and suspended organics in your water column to help make this work. Whether or not you can kill the dino's by limiting the heavy metals they need in a reef tank is debatable. Studies on heavy metal levels in reef tanks show quite a range in heavy metals, so it may help in your case, especially if your tank is high in them.

 

[bertoni]

Interesting. I'll have to look at what metals encourage dinoflagellates.

 

[HighlandReefer]

Iron appears to be #1 and perhaps copper #2.

Research has shown that the dinos uptake heavy metals to produce their toxins, like other microbes.

HEAVY METALS CONTAMINATION IN TWO BIOLUMINESCENT BAYS
OF PUERTO RICO
Yadira Soto Viruet and Fernando Gilbes Santaella
Department of Geology, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, PR

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...64DwAQ&usg=AFQjCNFvusYWse2G9Djpc26ml8QkZjDOPw

Dino's can tolerate higher levels of heavy metals than some other organisms, the blooms that appear in the oceans throughout the world do seem to correspond with higher levels of run-off contaminates from shore.

 

[Balletomane]

First, let me thank the most awesome folks for responding. I could only ask for Boomer and Randy to complete the chem orgasm. Maybe Disc1 as well. As is, I'm sure I won't sleep tonight.

I wish I could confidently scoop the garbage out w/o feeling that I've left all manner of dino young'uns behind. Truth be told, the stuff seems to be slowing down. But I thought the same after the days w/o power. I'll gladly put up any one who can rid me of the dinos. Bear in mind we wake up seriously early to feed cats and a Husky.

 

[bertoni]

I didn't know that CupriSorb would remove iron, but that might in theory help with photosynthetic pests, although I'm not sure what the iron source would be.

 

[Balletomane]

If I were topping off with our well water I would say with total confidence that the sourece of any metals, heavy or otherwise, was our well. But I buy R/O water from commercial sources that are <0.10 TDS. Our R/O system is pretty good, but yields TDS values of 0.25 and above, so I don't use it in the tank..only dog/cat/human consumption.

 

[HighlandReefer]

You may want to try Fauna Marin Ultra Algea X. It seems it's working for quite a few hobbyists for dinos from what I've read in forums.

 

[Balletomane]

I didn't think to ask for it when I was at the LFS. I've seen a few references to it here. I don't think I can get back to the store until the weekend. They do have an email system. I'll put a message out to them to see if they carry it.

 

[rog2961]

The biggest difference I saw in fighting Dinos was blowing off rocks with powerhead, and catch everything with a filter sock. I think alot of people skip this step.

 

[Crna]

I tried to find ultra algae x, but it looked online like it had been discontinued. Is it still available??

 

[Kieth71]

The only place i can find it is a fish store in washington state called barrier reef aquariums. I am not sure why but they are the only ones to have it HTH-Kieth

 

[HighlandReefer]

I tried to find ultra algae x, but it looked online like it had been discontinued. Is it still available??

Apparently, They can't keep this stuff on the shelves, it sells as quick as they get it. BRS sells it, but are waiting for it to arrive back in stock.

 

[Crna]

Sorry, didn't mean to high jack the thread! Thanks guys! I've had a Dino battle going for a little over a month, and as expected, it's getting frustrating. I'll keep an eye out for it!

 

[Balletomane]

My LFS doesn't carry Ultra Algae X and they don't have experience with it. They have strongly latched onto Seachem and their products. One of the reps suggested Cuprisorb for dinos and tried it with success on at least four occasions in tanks they maintain in professional offices. No mechanism of action is known. They are relying solely on the results to date.

So yes, I'm taking the plunge. I hope it ain't snake oil. I also have a bag of Phosgard in the sump. The #1 guy says that there shouldn't be any interaction problems. He says I should start to see results in about a month. Fingers are crossed!

 

[tmz]

The biggest difference I saw in fighting Dinos was blowing off rocks with powerhead, and catch everything with a filter sock. I think alot of people skip this step.

I've had success eradicating them from my friends tank by carefully sucking them out with a turkey baster every few days for a week or two, a tedious but worthwhile step and raising pH.

This article by Randy H Farley is informative and may be of interest :

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php This is from it:

"...In one study that supports the general idea that some marine dinoflagellates may respond negatively to pH increases, Japanese scientists were investigating the effects of dumping steel-making slag into the ocean.[SIZE=-1]¹[/SIZE] The slag apparently contains substantial amounts of nutrients, and can drive the growth of organisms such as diatoms. In fact, in their studies the slag increased the growth of the diatom Skeletonema costatum considerably. The growth of the dinoflagellate Alexandrium tamarense, however, was reduced by the slag's addition and the researchers attributed this effect to the increased pH that came along with the slag. .."

Steel slag contains mostly CaO,caclium oxide and siilcate with some iron and other elements. It's ph increaes to 10 to 12 when it reacts with water. So, given the added iron, I'm not sure reducing iron has much to do with reducing dinoflagellates generally given the context of the noted study . Perhaps increased diatom growth offers competition for an unidentified limiting element or as the researchers suggested the elevated pH is the key variable with some types of dinos.

http://www.slg.jp/e/slag/character.html

FWIW,In my tank any dinos that sneak in with a coral or piece of rock disappear in a day or two ;incidentally, iron is chronically low;NO3 and Phosphate are also low and pH runs 8.15 to 8.35.

 

[dkeller_nc]

One thing you mentioned was purchasing RO from commercial sources. Whether or not this is suitable for your tank isn't a given - lots of commercial water purification outfits don't necessarily produce water that's highly pure, just pure enough for domestic/industrial uses.

But you noted that you have an RO system fed from a well (presumably whole-house). If that's the case, all you need is a DI unit to hook to the faucet, and you'll get water that you can have confidence in.

API, for example, makes a convenient standalone DI resin unit that comes with a faucet adapter and is only $40. If you wanted to assemble it yourself, you could probably buy the housing, plumbing parts and resin from BRS for about the same money, but be able to refill the cartridge yourself when exhausted.

 

[deeznutz1]

I had a killer case of dines on the rocks, glass and when I turn off the power heads it would start to form in the water column. Along with that I had cyano on my sand bed in thick mats.

I was running Bio pellets for a year before hand an I took it off line for a month before I used the my method in the following.

Again, I did all the research and have the same understanding with dines as you appear to have. This is what I did since I was going to do a system restart anyways.

I used all of the methods to reduce dino all at once and was very aggressive since I didn't give a f&% anymore lol.

Started with dosing redslime remover for the cyano. Removed all of my sand bed(sugar grain) blower off rocks.
Lights off.
Shut off skimmer.
24 hours later, performed 80g worth of water changes within 2 days (200g system)
Dosed peroixde
A week later, bingo! dinos and cyano beat. No lose of sps, loss of colour though. Which bounced back a few weeks later.

This method worked for me, but I didn't care if i nuked the tank anyways as it was a disaster anyways. I backed up all my Sps before I did it though.

Good luck as this was the nasties pest I've ever dealt with in 9 years of the hobby.

HTH

-dan