dino experiment

[nynick]

Quick question for those of you that have used Ultra Algae X. I have been dosing this for little over a week now, following instructions to a tee, with no results on any algae. I am starting to suspect that I might have bought a returned bottle that someone might have tampered with or used/replaced contents.

Is it supposed to look like water and be totally odorless?

 

[JustinGr]

So you have dosed twice. Once every 2 days and dosed at the proper amount of water you have, correct? It took 6 doses for me, or 12 days. Are you also reducing the light? It will help weaken the dino.

 

[nynick]

I have dosed 5 or 6 times and yes, all directions were followed. What about the look of the liquid?

I should add that I am not 100% certain the mystery algae I have is dinos but it should be that or some type of Cyano bacteria. THe stupid growth spurts it has makes me think Dino. Not sure if there are other photosynthetic organisms that are not really algae but if there are it could be that too..... It is camel colored snot with no bubbles in it that grows in very high light areas in what looks like thick bacterial mats. It can go from 0 to 1/4 inch mat in under an hour.

...anyway, what I am really interested in is how the Ultra Algae X liquid looks and smells. What I have could as well be tap water for all I know.

 

[t4zalews]

After 10 day blackout my dino's were gone. Been running full light schedule for months with no signs of them. Moved around some rocks reaquascaping including a rock on the sand. They slowly started coming back so BE CAREFUL MOVING ROCKS IF YOU'VE HAD DINOS.

5 day blackout should do the trick as I don't have much of it.

 

[ryan1985]

Just read this entire thread. Some great info. I think it's safe to say my tank has a bad case of dino's... at first I thought it was a mini-cycle from some new dry rock that I added to my established system... after several months of it not going away, I realized this likely wasn't the case. So I instinctively tried a few things (before doing proper research)...

1. Aggressively siphoning the sandbed during my weekly water changes... it would come back within a few hours.

2. I increased my flow with better/more powerful powerheads... no success.

3. I thought it was possibly old T-5 bulb's that I had, so I used this as an excuse to upgrade to LEDS... no success.

4. Boosted the hell out of my CUC - no success, except for killing tons of cerith's.

5. Lights out for 3 days. No success.

I am strict about 10% weekly water changes and only use RO/DI water. All of my RO's filters/membrane have been replaced in the last 2 months. TDS reading 0. Nitrates are undetectable but my Phosphates seem really high... possibly due to overfeeding, which I have been a lot more careful about over the last few weeks. Thriving fuge full of Chaeto.

New plan of action:

1. Reduced feeding.

2. No water changing for the time being, but using a filter sock to siphon sandbed/dino's out manually... replacing the water back into the tank. Doing this every other day for a week or so.

3. Running filter sock through my sump, cleaning every 1-2 days.

4. Running skimmer wet, cleaning every 1-2 days.

When done with this process:

5. Lights out for 5 days with blankets over the tank, sump, and even covering my clear hoses to/from the chiller, etc. Perhaps another siphoning after this 5 days is up??

6. Dosing Ultra Algea X... I am normally apprehensive about any kind of chemical dosing but there seems to be a lot of reports of success with this product, and frankly, I am tired of dreading looking at my tank and am willing to go outside of my normal comfort zone:

 

[DNA]

Ryan1985, your story is almost identical to mine.
I'm at the end of a very long string of various methods to get rid of them.
I don't see any change after a week of AlgeaX, but I'm hoping something will happen in the long run.

If that does not do the trick some drastic measures will be taken because the dinos will have to go.

 

[ryan1985]

Ryan1985, your story is almost identical to mine.
I'm at the end of a very long string of various methods to get rid of them.
I don't see any change after a week of AlgeaX, but I'm hoping something will happen in the long run.

If that does not do the trick some drastic measures will be taken because the dinos will have to go.

hopefully the algea x ends up working for you. where did you get it from? barrierreefaquariums is the only place i found it in stock ($30 + $15 shipping = $45... yikes, hope it works!)

did you try the 5 day blackout or just 3 days? 5 seems to have a couple success stories, i would give it a shot.

here's another pic of my bloom. looks like dino's right?

 

[240gallons]

So whats the verdict? Did Hydrogen Peroxide solve your problems?

 

[DNA]

I identified my dinoflagellates to be Ostreopsis sp. for sure and I narrowed it further down to the most likely Heptagona or Ovata.
The hydrogen peroxide did not even put a dent in the dino population and neither did AlgaeX.

The 3 weeks of AlgaeX and the requirements for the treatment killed most of the corals I had left.
If you have Ostreopsis dino infestation you may want to take a look at health issues.

I had been keeping my corals growing with very high maintenance and the hobby had become a tiresome chore.
That's why I let the AlgaeX treatment run it's course. It was the last thing on a long list to try anyways.

I find it most likely that in the absence of carbon the dino toxins rose to lethal levels for my corals.
After more than a year of trying all of the known treatments my tank is empty now.

What the hobby needs is a way for reefers to identify their problem dinos since there are many different kinds.
That should be the first step and then apply the known solution to that particular species of dinoflagellates. If it exists.

 

[Mr Reefer 1690]

DNA, I feel your pain as I've also been battling dino's and nothing has worked. Multiple black outs ( 3 days, 5 days), raised PH, very aggressive gfo and carbon replacement, double dosage h2 peroxide. I too am trying algae x as a last ditch effort. I've managed to get rid of 99% of them but cannot kill the rest. I know as soon as I ramp up the lights it will be hell to pay.
So many wasted hrs and $'s lost

 

[240gallons]

The quickest and most effective way to combat dinos.....proven twice in 20 years.

1. Set up large rubbermaid container
2. Layer the bottom with NEW cycled LR and flow.
3. Cut and FW dip (3 min) a corals and transfer into rubbermaid container. Do not dip SPS.
4. Provide lighting for rubbermaid

5. Throw all contents of Display in the back yard.

6. Fill display with City water and run for a day.

7. Drain and refill with RO/DI + salt mix.

8. Add NEW cycled LR and wait a day.

9. Transfer corals from rubbermaid back to display after another FW dip 3 min.

10. Enjoy


In the end this will save you hundreds of dollars and 12 months of your life. Its drastic but Dinos are filthy creatures that will slowly kill everything in your system.

 

[nynick]

In the end what did it for me was pure luck and coincidence. Was at Home Depot and noticed they had a new stronger (65w I think...or 75) power saver florescent bulb at 5100k. Got it and changed out my old one, which was roughly half the wattage, over the fuge. Chaeto just took off like crazy and as it grew the dinos started to disappear, slowly and surely. I still have a tiny patch that is hanging on for dear life but it has stopped growing almost entirely.

 

[DNA]

240 your advice is close to what I'm doing now.
What did you do with your sps and fish?

nynick
Cheato was one of the first thing I tried.
It grew extremely slowly and I never got to harvest it.
I tried several lights ranging from 7W led to 250W halide and various photo periods.

 

[240gallons]

Just cut the sps off at the base and threw the rock out. It all did fine. Fish did fine as well. Just make sure the lr is cycled and feed light until you can get your system back up an running

 

[nynick]

240 your advice is close to what I'm doing now.
What did you do with your sps and fish?

nynick
Cheato was one of the first thing I tried.
It grew extremely slowly and I never got to harvest it.
I tried several lights ranging from 7W led to 250W halide and various photo periods.

Seems the trick to Chaeto, or at least it was for me, is 5100k and LOTS of it. Mine was sluggish too until the new bulb.

 

[DNA]

240
I have noticed the dinos on healthy corals, they slime them off but the battle is endless and some corals just can't cope.
Dinos also attach to fish and any livestock you may have.

If you didn't dip those some dinos have got transferred back.
It seem your restart did enaugh to prevent another infestastion.

 

[240gallons]

Its my nelief that dinos are always present. Rebuildimg the reef just gives your system a head start for other competing bacteria/algae. Once these are in place, dinos will be pushed back.

I also firmly believe that when tanks are treared to eradicat flatworms dinos population exponentially increase. I am no biologist but dinos and flatworms have a symbiotic relationship. When we kill the host....dinos are left behind. Its just a matter of if your system can handle it...this is just my theroy and have no real evidence to back it up, bit if you google dinos and flatworms there are scholarly articles that talk about the relationship.

 

[klipprand]

Just wanted to share with the group - followed an article from an author that got rid of dyno's and it worked for me. Did the following:

Scrubbed and siphoned rock.
3 days lights out
Started dosing 1% H202
After 3 days, large water change 25%
Lights on for 4 hours for 1 week
After one week bumped up by 2 hours
After another week bumped up by 2 hours
Etc. up to normal lighting period.
Tank is looking great!

 

[acabgd]

I already wrote this in another thread, but here it is again.

I fought dinos at the end of last year. Tried everything. Finally a combination of a 3-day blackout, aggressive GFO and carbon, FaunaMarin Ultra-Bio, as well as ATI EasyVital (http://www.atiaquaristik.com/en/easyvital) did the job. I couldn't actually believe that this helped, but it did...

 

[EddieJ]

My dinos went away when I got off the ULNS bandwagon. I stopped using the Zeovit system, raised my ALK back to the 8.6-9.3 range, let my nitrates build up a little (1-3) and the nasty bastards (I had it really bad) went away. Previously I tried the peroxide, Algae X and lights out routine.