Dinoflagellates or chrysophyte problem.

[angelndskys14]

Our tank:
100 gallon live rock/live sand reef tank.
7 fish.
3 shrimp.
2 starfish.
30ish snails.
25ish hermit crabs.
A multitude of stomatella.
15ish corals.

Equipment:
2 wavemaker-controlled powerheads
Strong return pump (at work, exact specs at home)
Protein skimmer
40 gallon sump with 3 sections baffled off (refugium in center)
PO4 reactor

All chemical specs are fine. Nitrates are at zero, obviously nitrites and ammonia are also at zero. Alk is higher, calcium is high, and the only problem is a slightly low pH of 8.0 which I'll be buffering up tonight.

I'm assuming it's dinoflagellates as it looks exactly like this (not my tank):

However, I read this article , which under the heading "Dinoflagellates in the Aquarium: "Snotty" Dinoflagellates and Fish Parasites" says that it probably isn't, in fact, dinoflagellates and is more likely chrysophytes.

In any case, has anyone else had this particular problem? It's bloomed all over my substrate, liverock, and is even seeming to "attack" my hammer coral (it's not brown jelly, I've dealt with that before).

Thus far, my plan is to remove my snails to a quarantine tank, as I've heard dino affect them more than the other creatures in the tank. I did a 24 hour blackout last night, and it seems to have slowed it down. But my coral provider said that just slows their metabolism and to keep the lights on regularly, otherwise efforts to kill it will work less effectively. He told me to raise my pH to 8.4-8.5 and keep my Alk high.

Any other suggestions? I've also heard to avoid doing water changes as to starve it of nutrients. Good idea/bad idea?

Anyone ever successfully eliminate this stuff? Did you have any casualties in the tank?

Thanks!

 

[jedheuer]

I had the same thing happen. I beat it in about three weeks by not doing water changes, cutting back on feedings a little bit, and using mechanical filtration and blasting the slime off of my rocks and sand. This last step helped the most I think. I kept my lights the same.

 

[Mister Scopas]

i think don't think holding off on water changes would be helpful. i had the problem once and after a week or two of siphoning every day without any effect, i gave up on siphoning and used kalkwasser. it promptly took care of the problem.

 

[mat167]

If it is dinoflagellates, holding off the water changes might help. I'm sure if it's known why thsi is, but the water changes seem to fuel it's growth.

A pH of 8.0 isn't that bad, as long as it's stable. What are you using to buffer your tank? If your Ca and Alk are high you might not see a large change in pH.

Mechanical filtration helps a bit, and reducing your feeding might help. Ensure you have adequate flow to make sure no detritus settles.

 

[Shawnbeaulieu]

Im dealing with this exact same thing. I suck the stuff up and afew days later it starts to come back. im going to try increasing flow and cutting back on photo period. and try larger water changes when sucking this stuff up and stiring it up of the sand bed. mine isnt on the rocks at all just the sand. any one else have any thoughts?

 

[jedheuer]

Mine was also mostly on the sand. My sand was quite dirty so I used a turkey baster to turn it over and release the detritus. I did this everyday. This helped quite a bit and phosphates are running lower in my tank now. I definitely recommend not doing water changes. The replenishment of trace elements fuels this undesirable growth.

 

[Anemonebuff]

Getting some fauna in the sandbed will help as well. If you are going to do water changes make sure the TDS meter reads 0! If not you will only fuel the problem.