DNA
New member
Read my comments from January if you like to learn about going low with alkalinity.
Most of my SPS are dead and the ones remaining are in suspended animation.
Dinoflagellates.
- Thread starter DNA
- Start date
Read my comments from January if you like to learn about going low with alkalinity.
Most of my SPS are dead and the ones remaining are in suspended animation.
taricha said:
I'm sure most hobbyists think I'm arrogant as hell for putting that up, but...
Ultimately, my hope is that the sponge loop, along with the general propensity of sponges to consume labile DOC released by algae and the bacterioplankton that grow fat and happy on it, can stabilize a hobby system in a state where its microbiome is coral-dominant, and that when combined with a general effort to maintain sand bed biodiversity at the micro level across the entire system, this will keep dinos at bay even when N and P are zeroed out. Stable oligotrophy, like a real reef!
I was thinking that judicious use of GFO could keep P under control without stripping it out of the system, but I'm still quietly freaking out over DNA's observation...
taricha said:
There's a category of anaerobic bacteria simply called "iron reducing bacteria" that require Fe+++ for their terminal electron receptor, meaning they process organic molecules by stripping off an electron to break a chemical bond and deposit the electron on an iron atom, changing its ionization state from Fe+++ to Fe++, and the electrons do work along the way to power the bacteria's metabolism. They're players. It even crossed my mind that the increased photosynthesis you saw in the B12 test could have been the dinos trying to obtain iron by releasing photosynthate to drive iron reducing bacteria, but it seems like they should've done better than they did if they were able to get hold of both B12 and iron, and in any case I had no idea if there was a source of iron in the sand.
taricha said:
The irony of iron is that the reason it's in short supply and primary producers have tricks up their sleeves to get hold of it and to make use of different forms of it is that most of the Fe in NSW gets locked up by chelation, which involves iron reacting with organic molecules made by the primary producers themselves. D'oh! But for chelation, in oxygenated seawater iron would be about as readily available as manganese, IIRC.
taricha said:
I was trying to point you in that direction, but given that HNLC popped when I was looking into B12 limitation, I should've known you'd already made the connection.
taricha said:
Shame you don't have your phyto tea or live sand on hand... I wonder if OTC B12 or even just plain cellulose would tip the battle against dinos.
The silica is unexpected -- since you mentioned not looking for diatoms, I'm guessing it was the Sundown Naturals that triggered the dino collapse... Did you use the NatureMade on the first run?
taricha said:
If you can't upgrade your sump, do you have the option of adding a display fuge? Display fuges are cool.
taricha said:
Cyano was the dominant marine primary producer for more than a billion years before the first true algae evolved, meaning it pretty much ran the oceans. Cyanobacteria were dinoflagellates before dinoflagellates were dinoflagellates, and cyano will be dinoflagellates again when dinoflagellates are acritarchs. Cyano abides.
If you were to add a cryptic zone to the typical Display -> Algae Fuge / ATS -> Display. Where would you put it sequentially?
I still have my live sand, that I've pitched dinos into occasionally. What did you have in mind?
yes, nature made on first run. Sundown naturals on the 2nd.
you got me. I lol'd.
taricha said:
In terms of trying to dino-proof a system by pushing its microbiome towards coral dominance, the purpose of sponges is to serve as a sink for algal DOC and to filter algae-friendly bacterioplankton out of the water, so that suggests they should be downstream of the algae. And since sponges poop coral chow, that suggests they should be upstream of the corals. So it looks to me like it should be:
display tank ---> macro/ATS ---> cryptic biofilter ---> display tank
But that Tank of the Month implements a cryptic sump with an unusual split flow, and there are hobby blogs and threads describing systems with intriguing sump layouts and Calfo-style RDSBs and cryptic fuges and whatever else that might work just as well. I'm sure there are reefers out there who've been capturing the benefits of the sponge loop for years without ever having heard of it because they're good hobbyists and good observers and they go with what makes their livestock happy.
So let a thousand flowers bloom -- I have no wish to be the arbiter of how to correctly set up a cryptic biofilter. This is the closest I've come to speaking to that point...
34cygni said:
...and in retrospect, I regret describing this as the "ideal setup". It might be my dreamquarium, no doubt in part because I've got a thirdhand 75 G acrylic hex standing empty, but it's only one possible implementation of the idea. Chalk it up to enthusiasm after discovering the sponge loop in the literature.
Sponges don't like microbubbles, BTW, and generally speaking, they do like Si. About 75% of sponge species have siliceous skeletons that don't readily dissolve and recycle if they die -- sponges can potentially live for centuries, perhaps thousands of years. Diatoms normally outcompete sponges for Si in the wild, but a "sponge scrubber" may give sponges enough of an unfair advantage to compete effectively. It would be interesting to try a cryptic biofilter in a system with a persistent diatom problem and see if the sponges can turn the tide.
taricha said:
Seeding toxic algae blooms with algicidal bacteria is an accepted biological control measure, so I'm back to thinking about green algae disliking dinos and wondering if an algae-dominant tank is a source of dinocidal bacteria that can be cultivated with cellulose... The simplest approach would be to take water and sand samples and dose NatureMade B12 heavily in hopes that the cellulose in the pills will trigger visible bacteria blooms that could be tested against ostis (...stearic acid turns out to be rather interesting -- have you looked into fatty acids at all? -- but it appears to be consumed in the synthesis of bacteria cell walls, so while I'm concerned that some unwanted, non-cellulolytic bacteria will come along and eat it, maybe it's a good thing to have in the mix). Note that you may have to oxygenate if you get a bacteria bloom, as bacterial respiration will draw down dissolved oxygen and might crash the culture.
Another approach would be to dose your live sand tank with OTC B12 every day for a week, and every day take a sample of sand and put it in a beaker with osti-infested sand. A shift from the healthy live sand being taken over by ostis to live sand killing ostis might indicate the presence of dinocidal bacteria -- or it might indicate that your ciliates are all pumped up on B12 and ready for a fight. You might be able to tell the difference by looking for an increase in the ciliate population, as presumably the smaller the bump in ciliate numbers, the more dinos fell to bacteria, instead.
But maybe I'm fixated on green algae for no good reason. If the silica in Sundown Naturals B12 really did trigger the growth of diatoms, it's pretty impressive that they managed to rise up and defeat the ostis without any outside help. Dinos eat diatoms, and diatoms are presumably not okay with this, so they're probably friends with dinocidal bacteria, too. Maybe that's where to look for help -- after all, diatoms evolved after dinos, meaning they had to beat dinos so they could take their place in the sun. In the end, green algae lost that fight.
taricha said:
You're very kind to say so.
karimwassef
Active member
I like the idea of finding biological allies. I think that's at the heart of what we're doing already.
Understanding what makes them allies and then experimentally proving how and why they behave is the tricky part.
Understanding what makes them allies and then experimentally proving how and why they behave is the tricky part.
africangrey
Active member
Runing zeovit from day 1 with the thought that ULNS would help curd the unwanted algae and beautiful garden of SPS, After getting rid of the algae infestation a month ago, with 3 dose of Coral snow but immediately followed that was something I can't id + really bad case of dino. I have completely stop the dosing of zeostart and sponge power 2 days ago as I feel that the dino were prqbably consuming that to grow even faster. I am still maintaining the zeo reactor at 100gal/hr rate, add combination of 4mL of coral snow and 4 drops of zeobak after dark.
What should I do now, take zeovit reactor (vibe) off line since the mule released may even fuel the dino more? what do you guys think, I've read that zeozym + biomat might help, if so I should administer with zeobak and coral snow, please help!!!!! Really want to get rid of this ugliness.
[/QUOTE]
What should I do now, take zeovit reactor (vibe) off line since the mule released may even fuel the dino more? what do you guys think, I've read that zeozym + biomat might help, if so I should administer with zeobak and coral snow, please help!!!!! Really want to get rid of this ugliness.
[/QUOTE]
karimwassef
Active member
Oh wow. How old is the setup? If it's new, I'd just drain and start over with new live rock and sand.
africangrey
Active member
Took a sample of water with the slimy stuff, and took a video for everyone to enjoy, I can now confirm that they are indeed dino, the question now is how to kill these little buggers. I subsequently diluted the sample with half of RO/DI and the pests are gone, but I can't just dump my rocks with various frags of SPS for water bath can I ?
karimwassef
Active member
If it's early enough in this tank's life, I'd start over. You need new life.
Get new live rock and sand and start over with a normal bacteria and algae cycle. Be happy when you see the diatom bloom and the hair algae... Then slowly tune it down to normal.
Your images show the worst case I've ever seen.
Get new live rock and sand and start over with a normal bacteria and algae cycle. Be happy when you see the diatom bloom and the hair algae... Then slowly tune it down to normal.
Your images show the worst case I've ever seen.
africangrey
Active member
Its about 3 months old, and started with dead rock, should I go bare bottom.
Can you kindly suggest live rock source I like something porus, thanks.
Can you kindly suggest live rock source I like something porus, thanks.
karimwassef
Active member
Your local fish store should have some? If not, you can try live aquaria.
Bare bottom would be the easiest to keep under control IMO.
Bare bottom would be the easiest to keep under control IMO.
DNA
New member
Looks like you started a very low, bio diversity tank.
Just dead rock and a few corals, right?
I'm asking because this could be a valuable lesson for all.
africangrey
Active member
Right the rocks were as dead as they can be, they were devoured with no life of any kind, but most of retailer like BRS are selling these instead of premium live rocks that we used to get 10 years ago.
So I should started tearing the tank apart then seeded with live rocks at this point right?
So I should started tearing the tank apart then seeded with live rocks at this point right?
karimwassef
Active member
I would. I would also clean the tank and run it with fresh water and vinegar to scrub the plumbing too.
DNA
New member
.
There is a red thread going through here, with several leads, that points strongly at lack of bio diversity as a cause for outbreaks.
I have mentioned it several times that my tanks health improves by adding to it, but I have a large tank, poor access and sky high livestock prices.
I don't know if it's the norm, but American tanks seem to start off with loads of large corals in matter of weeks and look years old from very early on.
That brown dusting on the sand that most new tank owners are told to be diatoms, could be dinos, but soon the livestock brought in changes the conditions towards a coral friendly one and hopefully they begin to thrive and maintain the situation.
Those with small tanks and access to good live rock, sand, corals, plankton should go all in to get their tank on par with the ocean.
I have always been conservative on corals and wanting to start with small frags to lessen the impact on natural reefs.
That could be the worst thing to do if you are failing to recreate the natural environment properly in the process.
We have not heard from Montireef for years, but he had a coral farm and good traffic of livestock going through I presume.
Africangray is the lates example of the opposite with a really bad infestation.
It's not something that someone else will do for you. If you have dinos, you need to act and these leads are the best ones available.
There is a red thread going through here, with several leads, that points strongly at lack of bio diversity as a cause for outbreaks.
I have mentioned it several times that my tanks health improves by adding to it, but I have a large tank, poor access and sky high livestock prices.
I don't know if it's the norm, but American tanks seem to start off with loads of large corals in matter of weeks and look years old from very early on.
That brown dusting on the sand that most new tank owners are told to be diatoms, could be dinos, but soon the livestock brought in changes the conditions towards a coral friendly one and hopefully they begin to thrive and maintain the situation.
Those with small tanks and access to good live rock, sand, corals, plankton should go all in to get their tank on par with the ocean.
I have always been conservative on corals and wanting to start with small frags to lessen the impact on natural reefs.
That could be the worst thing to do if you are failing to recreate the natural environment properly in the process.
We have not heard from Montireef for years, but he had a coral farm and good traffic of livestock going through I presume.
Africangray is the lates example of the opposite with a really bad infestation.
It's not something that someone else will do for you. If you have dinos, you need to act and these leads are the best ones available.
Africangrey,
You could totally start over. Many would. But there's at least a small possibility you'll be fighting dinos after the reboot.
I'm a little strange, but I'd try to beat them. Your reports have already been very educational (dead/dry everything+Zeo = scary), we'd all learn something if you went from the worst ostreopsis dino tank infestation the thread has seen to a healthy system.
(Caution: you have a lot of ostis, which should be assumed to be very toxic. Eyes, skin, lungs all should be protected.)
Here are the biggest issues (IMO) that need to be addressed in the system, and below that I'll lay out exactly what I would do in your system.
Concerns
Here's exactly what I would do in your shoes:
1. Siphon out all the dinos you can: Replace water as needed with plain Instant Ocean salt mix (not reef crystals). Do it thoroughly, maybe it'll be the only time you have to do this.
2. Take a strip or two of filter floss or dense mesh netting or anything else with a lot of surface area and attach it right in the flow in front of a powerhead and under good lighting. It'll be an Osti magnet. Pull it out daily (or 2 or 3 times a day if you want) and rinse the brown dusting out under tap water, and replace the filter.
3. Get a UV (make that 2 UV's - 2nd one for later) slow flow is better. Hook up one UV so that the output of the UV dumps right at the skimmer intake. Run skimmer wet. Doesn't have to be fancy. petsmart carries a brand that should do the trick.
4. Run activated carbon, and replace every day for the first week.
5. Stop Zeo system, Coral snow, any other carbon dosing etc. Pull out GFO if any.
6. Set up an algae sump/fuge from scratch (if you have one already - nuke it with bleach/peroxide/whatever). Make certain that all water from the display that goes to the fuge goes through your slow flow UV + skimmer first before getting to the algae growing area.
7. Put up an Algae Turf Scrubber (ATS). See threads on the setups, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If you don't have the stuff to make it exactly to the recommended specifications, fine. Add flow and blast the fuge with several 100W LEDs at 2700k (warm white) for 18hr/day and then you can improve it to get it closer to recommended, but start the algae growth ASAP.
8. Get algae to throw in the fuge: Macroalgae of any kind, great, microalgae too. If you can get chaeto or caulerpa, or anything else green and fast growing, great. Buy locally, beg local reefers etc. Order if necessary. More is better.
9. Test N & P - don't let either get to undetectably low. Add the plainest least complex thing like NaNO3 or KNO3 and similar for P, or if not available - mysis frozen table shrimp etc. - as necessary to get measurable amounts of both. Avoid fancy fish foods that have all manner of vitamins and micronutrient enrichments. Personally, I'd aim for 5-10ppm NO3, .05-.10 PO4. Yes, I know that P level inhibits stony coral growth, but I guarantee you won't see any stony coral growth until dinos are gone anyway.
...all that should be done on day 1 if possible
10. Try to acquire pods that you can dump in the tank on day 4.
11. Day 4: After 3 days (post-siphon) of using the filter floss dino magnet you should have significantly fewer dinos. Do a 3 day blackout in the tank. Run the fuge lights still at 18 or 20hrs/day. If your UV/wet skimmer are not doing their job, then algae and ATS in the fuge will get covered in dinos (bad).
12. At the start of the blackout, add pods to the display tank. If there's lots of pods in the algae fuge, you can suck or scrape some out and dump in as well. don't take algae from fuge and put it in the Display. It'll just die in darkness, and if you put it back in the fuge it'll bring dinos with it.
13. Make sure you are (carefully) cleaning the skimmer every day or two. Keep it running efficiently.
...To be continued (Post Blackout finishing touches)
You could totally start over. Many would. But there's at least a small possibility you'll be fighting dinos after the reboot.
I'm a little strange, but I'd try to beat them. Your reports have already been very educational (dead/dry everything+Zeo = scary), we'd all learn something if you went from the worst ostreopsis dino tank infestation the thread has seen to a healthy system.
(Caution: you have a lot of ostis, which should be assumed to be very toxic. Eyes, skin, lungs all should be protected.)
Here are the biggest issues (IMO) that need to be addressed in the system, and below that I'll lay out exactly what I would do in your system.
Concerns
- Huge number of ostreopsis dinos
- Lots of toxins produced by the dinos, and more locked up in the dino cells
- Lots of nutrients (macro and micro) present in the mass of dino cells
- Lack of biodiversity to compete for nutrients
- Lack of diversity of predators of dinos
- Likely cyanobacteria co-infection (hard to tell with lighting, but color looks like dino+cyano on sandbed) microscope sample from very top of sand to confirm
- Zeo system fueling bacteria and indirectly dinos
Here's exactly what I would do in your shoes:
1. Siphon out all the dinos you can: Replace water as needed with plain Instant Ocean salt mix (not reef crystals). Do it thoroughly, maybe it'll be the only time you have to do this.
2. Take a strip or two of filter floss or dense mesh netting or anything else with a lot of surface area and attach it right in the flow in front of a powerhead and under good lighting. It'll be an Osti magnet. Pull it out daily (or 2 or 3 times a day if you want) and rinse the brown dusting out under tap water, and replace the filter.
3. Get a UV (make that 2 UV's - 2nd one for later) slow flow is better. Hook up one UV so that the output of the UV dumps right at the skimmer intake. Run skimmer wet. Doesn't have to be fancy. petsmart carries a brand that should do the trick.
4. Run activated carbon, and replace every day for the first week.
5. Stop Zeo system, Coral snow, any other carbon dosing etc. Pull out GFO if any.
6. Set up an algae sump/fuge from scratch (if you have one already - nuke it with bleach/peroxide/whatever). Make certain that all water from the display that goes to the fuge goes through your slow flow UV + skimmer first before getting to the algae growing area.
7. Put up an Algae Turf Scrubber (ATS). See threads on the setups, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If you don't have the stuff to make it exactly to the recommended specifications, fine. Add flow and blast the fuge with several 100W LEDs at 2700k (warm white) for 18hr/day and then you can improve it to get it closer to recommended, but start the algae growth ASAP.
8. Get algae to throw in the fuge: Macroalgae of any kind, great, microalgae too. If you can get chaeto or caulerpa, or anything else green and fast growing, great. Buy locally, beg local reefers etc. Order if necessary. More is better.
9. Test N & P - don't let either get to undetectably low. Add the plainest least complex thing like NaNO3 or KNO3 and similar for P, or if not available - mysis frozen table shrimp etc. - as necessary to get measurable amounts of both. Avoid fancy fish foods that have all manner of vitamins and micronutrient enrichments. Personally, I'd aim for 5-10ppm NO3, .05-.10 PO4. Yes, I know that P level inhibits stony coral growth, but I guarantee you won't see any stony coral growth until dinos are gone anyway.
...all that should be done on day 1 if possible
10. Try to acquire pods that you can dump in the tank on day 4.
11. Day 4: After 3 days (post-siphon) of using the filter floss dino magnet you should have significantly fewer dinos. Do a 3 day blackout in the tank. Run the fuge lights still at 18 or 20hrs/day. If your UV/wet skimmer are not doing their job, then algae and ATS in the fuge will get covered in dinos (bad).
12. At the start of the blackout, add pods to the display tank. If there's lots of pods in the algae fuge, you can suck or scrape some out and dump in as well. don't take algae from fuge and put it in the Display. It'll just die in darkness, and if you put it back in the fuge it'll bring dinos with it.
13. Make sure you are (carefully) cleaning the skimmer every day or two. Keep it running efficiently.
...To be continued (Post Blackout finishing touches)
africangrey
Active member
Thanks for the detailed instruction on how to combat the beautiful ostreopsis dino, can I just add huge # of microfauna at this point to seed the rock and sand hoping that they will out compete the available micro nutrient in the water column?
Biodiversity is the key I heard you, but is it too late to establish microfauna at given situation, without doing the drastic UV, black out and hydrogen peroxide route.
If that doesn't work might as well transfer all the sps frags that I just acquired then suck out all the saltwater, dump fresh RO/DI to kill all the dinos then start all over with fresh live rock straight from Fiji if possible.
Biodiversity is the key I heard you, but is it too late to establish microfauna at given situation, without doing the drastic UV, black out and hydrogen peroxide route.
If that doesn't work might as well transfer all the sps frags that I just acquired then suck out all the saltwater, dump fresh RO/DI to kill all the dinos then start all over with fresh live rock straight from Fiji if possible.
africangrey
Active member
there is also a thread about molybdenum being too high in most of dino infested tank. is there a truth to it, I have been using Aquavitro salt from the beginning and the level is 0.01meg/L inline with what is found in the ocean.
The thread is found here, but I think most of you have read this already. Still want to hear what daniloronchi have learn from his Triton analysis.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2533634&page=4
The thread is found here, but I think most of you have read this already. Still want to hear what daniloronchi have learn from his Triton analysis.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2533634&page=4
.
9. Test N & P - don't let either get to undetectably low. Add the plainest least complex thing like NaNO3 or KNO3 and similar for P, or if not available - mysis frozen table shrimp etc. - as necessary to get measurable amounts of both. Avoid fancy fish foods that have all manner of vitamins and micronutrient enrichments. Personally, I'd aim for 5-10ppm NO3, .05-.10 PO4. Yes, I know that P level inhibits stony coral growth, but I guarantee you won't see any stony coral growth until dinos are gone anyway.
...all that should be done on day 1 if possible
Taricha, actually after implementing dyno scrubber, uv and daily small phyto doses, stony growth is really good. Still a ton of dynos, but tank looks very healthy.
