dinoflagellates

Willistein

Willistein

Active member
OK, so I've never really dealt with these before, so anyone that has, please chime in. I have a very light case where I'm noticing bubbles on the back wall and a few strings here and there. Nothing too bad, and everything in the tank looks great, but I don't want it to start getting out of control. Anybody know of a good thread that deals with these?

The only thing that I can think of that may have triggered them is the Alk took a bit of a dive down to 5.6 for about 4 or 5 days where I didn't dose. The pH followed, of course, down to 7.7 or so. Could that do it?

It's a 120 with a good size skimmer, I've run GFO for the last month or so (could this have actually triggered it?), water changes monthly, nitrates and phosphates very low.

Any advice?


This is kind of an older article (2006) but seems pretty good. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php
There definitely seems to be some merit to raising the pH to 8.2-8.4.
 
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How old are your bulbs? If they havn't been changed recently that could be one culprit. The best way I know to deal with them is complete darkness for 48-72 hours. Wrap the tank in black plastic and don't even peak under it.
 
The bulbs are less than 6 months and they're HQI powered radiums that should last more than a year. I may try the darkness thing. I'll probably do that before I go to higher pH. I have been running pH around 8.0 typically.
 
I'd do a lg water change now and suck them all out once it takes hold it's very difficult to get rid off I've been battling it for 2-3 months and have tried everything I've read in every thread still here not as bad but still here
 
I spent a lot of time face to face with these persistent fellows. Manual removal (turn of pumps & scrape while siphoning) is IMO the best place to start. Cutting lights IMO does nothing more that set them back a few days and stress out the tank.

If your levels are good (digital phosphate test) and nitrates are good, you are off to a good start. The strain I had did not like high PH. Consider a soda lime reactor as a possible way to raise your PH, especially if your sump is in the basement. When I run mine as the only air inlet for the skimmer I hit 8.4 ph occasionally going to 8.45. See TMZs thread on soda lime for a cheap way to buy the chemical.

Also if you have white egg crate or fresh frag plugs consider getting those out. For me, that is what started the issue in the first place.

Go forth and conquer!
 
So, I've been raising the pH slowly with calc. hydroxide added to the sump. We'll see where it goes. I don't have any white egg crate - I've heard it can be bad news.

I'll probably do some manual removal tonight.
 
Diggin up old thread...but, I need to get rid of these. I never had a huge infestation, but they are annoying and seem to be affecting coral growth rate. I'm going to try topping off with kalkwater. Right now I have an MJ1200 pumping from a bucket of fresh water for my topoff. Will the pump survive if I make this topoff water kalkwater?
 
Probably not for long, and unless it's running really short intervals, it'll probably add kalk way too quickly and stress the tank (you want a slow drip, more or less, unless you have a super big system that can take the hit). I used to have a reactor that had a powerhead inside it for stirring and the powerhead would die every few months. Even if you clean it obsessively, the kalk seems to just weaken the plastic and eventually the impeller just crumbles apart.

IME the best way to add kalk is with a peristaltic pump on a timer, set to run several times a day. Barring that, the old fashioned gallon milk jug with a pinhole in the bottom set over the sump, or an airline with a loose knot set as a siphon.

If you really want to use your current setup then the best solution would probably be to put a reactor between the topoff tank and the sump, so the pump is pushing FW into the reactor and kalk is going from there to the sump. This way, at least the pump isn't exposed to kalk.
 
Good advice, thanks. I do have a couple 12V peristaltic pumps that I should just hook up. Need a good timer...
Pascal I have been reading about soda lime reactors. I probably will do that as a backup plan if I can't get pH up with kalk.
 
Yeah, 2-part dosing hasn't been real consistent. I have some wacky numbers (if I can trust them). Last week Calcium was 500+ and Alk was low: 7.8 or something. I started dosing Alk a little more heavily. pH seems to be creeping up to 8.1 or sometimes 8.2. I think I'm heading in the right direction. I also did a 20% water change and vacuumed as much of the aragonite off the bottom as I could. We'll see...
 
Dan, no need to unbalance your two-part dosing - just use the RC calculator to figure out how much baking soda you need to add, and take it slow of course.

I think once you get your alk safely boosted you will see a quick improvement. :) whenever I got funky algae I had low alk. also had a lot more success using kalk than I did with two-part alone... fwiw.
 
So I started adding kalk slurry to get the pH up and it really seems to want to return to about 8.0 over night. I had it up to 8.6-8.7 last night. I will test Alk and Ca again tonight - I don't want them getting too high while I try to raise pH. I also started dosing hydrogen peroxide per others' suggestions here on RC.

This whole thing is annoying - it is very slowly attacking my SPS tips.
 
So wait, a kalk slurry?

Can you explain exactly what/how you're adding?

Generally when using kalk you want to dose the (water-clear) limewater, NOT any of the actual powder or a paste/slurry made with the powder.
 
yeah, I need to be able to add more than evaporation can account for. Once my pH and Alk are where I want them, I'll go back to dosing saturated kalkwater. I'm using some ESV stuff that I've had for a while. I think it's pretty pure stuff. What's the issue doing it this way? The only thing I've ever read is that there are impurities that settle out. Is this really an issue? Are there more impurities than in salt mix or food or Baking Soda, Calcium Chloride that we all dose?
 
to explain, I'm mixing a teaspoon of kalk into about two cups of water and adding it slowly while stirring into my sump over about 20 minutes. This is advocated by Randy Holmes Farley.
 
You could also try hydrogen peroxide. 1ml per 10 gallons. It will make your zoa's and palys close up for about 5-10 min. but they will re-open. I did this when I redid my 90.

Justin Credible
Topic: Hydrogen Peroxide, The New Reefing Tool
Every now and then a new tool is available to the reef hobby. A new tool available to us now is hydrogen peroxide. It can be used as an anti-parasite dip, algae killer, and coral saver. Learn how you can use it to save coral colonies otherwise doomed to death, get rid of Bryopsis and bubble algae, kill zoanthid nudibranchs, and more. The future is now, the future is hydrogen peroxide!

You can google it and read up on it. It worked for me. JME
 
So, henry you used hydrogen peroxide effectively on dinos? I actually did start dosing it on Monday night, we'll see how it goes. I did some major scraping and cleaning last night.
 
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