Dinoflagellates.

Just an update.

Did my first water change at 10% (10 gallons). Cleaned up tons of dead dinos and cyano. Most of the dead dinos that were attached to frags easily came off (unlikely when alive). I am not 100% in the clear, but before I started I had bubbles everywhere and now I can't see a single one.

Skimmer has been off just over a week. Still dosing phyto as I have started culturing my own. Added lot of copepods.

Nitrates are a bit high at around 10-15ppm. Phospates are around 0.006 (hanna ULR at 2 x 3.066 / 1000) which seems way too low. I could have an imbalance which I will worry about once I get back to my normal routine.

Most likely have a ton of detritus built up in the sump and some parts of the tank which could be causing the raise in Nitrates or I am phosphate limited.

Tons of bubble algae still but I'll worry about that later.

One interesting observation is I lost most of my snails accept for one huge trochus and I have en explosion of stomatellas. I can see hundred + little ones all over my tank which were there while I had dinos.
 
fftfk said:
Alright - just picked up an emperor aquatics 40 watt uv.
View attachment 324860
To deal with the Dino's (and anything else they potentially help with)
View attachment 324861
View attachment 324862
I have a feeling that most people who haven't had luck with UV underpowered their UV relative to the size of their tank. My tank is 140 gallons. I'll report back in a couple of days as to how it's going!
Click to expand...

My advice is go to algaebarn.com ASAP and get their P&P package. Phyto and Pods.

As soon as I added both, the next day I saw a difference in my dynos. I also used Chemclean to kill off cyano as Dino's and Cyano can be symbiotic.
 
Those big trochus might be tectus, which are nocturnal snails. Stomatellas are also nocturnal.
This explains they don't perish, as dinoflagellates detach from rocks and substrate in the night and therefore the nocturnal critters only eat mucilage which is not toxic.
 
Montireef said:
Those big trochus might be tectus, which are nocturnal snails. Stomatellas are also nocturnal.
This explains they don't perish, as dinoflagellates detach from rocks and substrate in the night and therefore the nocturnal critters only eat mucilage which is not toxic.
Click to expand...

What I had looks like brown very short turf algae. Lots of it had bubbles at the end primarily in clusters. Especailly on frags and on the rocks. (I am bare bottom). The bottom of my tank was mostly cyano with some dinos.

The front was mostly the brown film, but not much bubbles. I am guess that was due to current. Mind you my return was the only source of current I had going for a while and my return hits the front glass really well.

Anyhow, the stomatellas and what I thought was a trochus were all over the brown film where there were no bubbles.

Edit: looked at pics of tectus snail, that's what I have. Was sold as a banded trochus or something like that. Been my best snail. Turbos are all dead, nassarius, astreas too. (No nerites or ceriths)
 
Checked my phosphates again with my Hanna ULR and it said 0 twice. I figure I am phosphate limited at this point. Retested Nitrates are at 12-15ppm.


I only have three small fish in my 90gallon. Two Perculas and a Damsel.
 
what helped me with a combo of Dinos and cyno (never did figure out the allocation between the two).

added UV at slow rate:
noticed immediate improvement in my LPS (elegance and disk)...much better extension, hunger (supplemental feeding) and color.

added more flow:
now have two RW20s, 2x RW8s, 1x RW15...8's are at full speed sinewave--one positioned at one end of DT and pointed to blow across the back of the DT, the other at one end aimed toward front. the 15 is in the lower middle aimed toward the front--mid-speed, the 20's are upper opposite ends aimed at the opposite front corners--3 or 4 speed.

this marginally improved the cyno

Added Chemclean:
turned off UV and added per directions. it did the job perfectly. cyno gone in two days and no signs of return

Skimmer:
changed from on 24/7 to 8hr (night only) everyday but also dialed back the amount of skim it would take out (trying the dirty method as noted earlier in this thread). interestingly i still don't have significant growth of algae on the DT....

us of bleach:
when i noticed dyno on the DT walls i used a long handled acrylic scrubber that was soaking in bleach to remove. before use, i ensure the bleach is drained (i.e. not dripping) but i DO NOT rinse in water. i then use the scrubber to scrub the area with the dino--i only move the scrubber in one direction so i press hard to ensure i can get all the dino in one pass. i've only had to do this a few times and only 1x or 2x in any one spot and dino is gone.

i haven't noticed any more cyno and only yesterday i noticed one very small dino, which i took out but it was sooooo small (maybe 0.25in long).

its been two weeks since the above changes (finished the chemclean process) and things look good. hope this helps!
 
It's been a week and my Live Rock / sand experiment seems to be a failure and dinos are doing great.
I would not write this method off since the rock I received should have been sold as dead or sterile.

What next?
 
DNA said:
It's been a week and my Live Rock / sand experiment seems to be a failure and dinos are doing great.
I would not write this method off since the rock I received should have been sold as dead or sterile.

What next?
Click to expand...

Have you started rebuilding your microfauna yet?
 
karimwassef said:
Have you used low flow high power UV?
Click to expand...

The main difference between a skimmer and a UV unit is that the skimmer removes them while the UV leaves them dead in the water for the skimmer to pick up later so a good skimmer seems to be the better choice.

I ran a small 9W pond UV for months some years ago without any positive effect.
To buy a 80W UV for a test does not appeal to me since they are expensive.
 
DNA said:
The live rock was intended to be a knock out in that division.

The pets shops here don't have anything else useful for microfauna and they are not interested in special orders.
Click to expand...

Ah gotcha. Hard to get something shipped from an online outfit?
 
Adrnalnrsh said:
Ah gotcha. Hard to get something shipped from an online outfit?
Click to expand...

The bureaucrats are warlords and they have orders.
They want you to fail and pay fees for the destruction of your illegal imports.

For instance I can import Nori for human consumption, but for animals I need to start a company and get all sorts of permits and certificates.
 
Any EU country your mean.
My UK supplier bailed out permanently because customs stopped a shipment coming my way.

This was years ago, but recently I filed a complaint.
Just now I found out that the requirements have been revised and they are much clearer now.

I need file for an import permit.
The exporter needs to provide a less than 10 days old health certificate from a vet and a certificate of origin is required.
Customs will take samples and do tests, inspections or quarantine as they please at my expense.

Can you just take orders and send the other EU countries living animals without any bureaucracy?
 
DNA said:
The main difference between a skimmer and a UV unit is that the skimmer removes them while the UV leaves them dead in the water for the skimmer to pick up later so a good skimmer seems to be the better choice.

I ran a small 9W pond UV for months some years ago without any positive effect.
To buy a 80W UV for a test does not appeal to me since they are expensive.
Click to expand...

I disagree and so do many of the others who have tried it. I have a massive 12 foot skimmer with dual recirculating penductors running off a dolphin 6000 pump. It's a massive beast that can run on a pool. I had dinos on the tank it was on until I installed a slow flow UV. In a day, I saw results.
 
Agree with Karimwassef here. A 'good' skimmer alone will do virtually nothing against a dino monoculture. A 'good' skimmer run with UV will work if the UV is run at low flow.

If you're unwilling to do slow flow UV, you need to balance your microfauna (it's either one or the other). I'm convinced that phyto and pods will cure dino outbreaks. I'm in the process of getting cultures going though.
 
EvMiBo said:
Agree with Karimwassef here. A 'good' skimmer alone will do virtually nothing against a dino monoculture. A 'good' skimmer run with UV will work if the UV is run at low flow.

If you're unwilling to do slow flow UV, you need to balance your microfauna (it's either one or the other). I'm convinced that phyto and pods will cure dino outbreaks. I'm in the process of getting cultures going though.
Click to expand...

You can do both. I enhanced my fauna and ran UV.
 
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