Dinoflagellates.

[blcktitanium]

so is this dino on my rocks or diatom... I really can't tell the difference. Also, my tank just finished cycling and I have no livestock whatsoever in my tank. However, I will be receiving my cleanup crew via mail tomorrow and I heard dino will kill the snails....

I started running the lights like 4 days ago and thats when it starting showing up it started out with very little an one or two rocks now its on multiple rocks not on the sand or glass just the rocks.

 

[karimwassef]

Has anyone had dinos on rocks only with sand in the tank?

 

[Quiet_Ivy]

Has anyone had dinos on rocks only with sand in the tank?

I have them on the glass only, with sand and rocks.
(Now that I've said that, watch them spread to everything)
hth
Ivy

 

[Quiet_Ivy]

so is this dino on my rocks or diatom... I really can't tell the difference. Also, my tank just finished cycling and I have no livestock whatsoever in my tank. However, I will be receiving my cleanup crew via mail tomorrow and I heard dino will kill the snails....

I started running the lights like 4 days ago and thats when it starting showing up it started out with very little an one or two rocks now its on multiple rocks not on the sand or glass just the rocks.

Too blurry for me to tell, but you are at exactly the right time for a diatom bloom. It's normal, if not expected, to have a big diatom bloom as the cycle ends. Unless there's something really unusual about your rocks or sand, I'd bet on diatoms.

hth
Ivy

 

[blcktitanium]

nothing unusual about the rocks and sand that I know of its figi dry rock and tropic edens life reefflakes... Thanks for the help on the id....

 

[natas]

Ahhhhhh crap. Was doing so good I thought. I was siphoning just a small dusting of them every two days or so. But yesterday I moved some rock work to create better flow throughout and BAM!! Huge Dino bloom. Looks like I'll try the small micron sock and get more pods. You guys been using algae barn, correct?

Sorry to see this Dfree. Your Dino bloom looks identical the one I have fought. Do you know what type of Dino you have?

BTW my initial bloom started when I added a Diamond Goby to my tank. Once that started I could never get rid of the dino. I ended up breaking the tank down and starting over.

 

[Dfee]

Thanks for the encouraging words. Ha! I think mine started when I added two giant pieces of dry rock in my tank. What methods did you try before you gave up?

 

[natas]

I tried the following:

Lights out multiple times - Worked until lights came back on
H2O2 dosing with lights out - No difference
Daily sandbed cleaning - worked everytime for 2 hours lol
Cuprisorb - Worked at first but maybe my imagination
No water changes
Lots of water changes - Made them worse
GFO - made them worse

I need to actually explain my situation a little. I did actually defeat the dino before taking the tank down. The way I did this was turn off skimming and stop water changes. Basically I neglected my tank for 6 months. The only thing I did was feed the fish and topoff. The unfortunate outcome was a loss of all SPS corals.

I now have a new 260G tank that is around 3 months old. I re-used my rock and put new sand in it. Cycle was short. I now appear to have the same crap on my sand bed but I am hoping its because my phosphates are high (0.1). Right now I am not going to worry about it because its not that bad. Once I get my phosphates to a good range (0.05 - 0.02) and still have the issue I will worry. Right now I am waiting on a new skimmer that is properly sized. Once I get it I will run it along with Carbon dosing.

 

[Dfee]

And no I.d. No microscope

 

[PorkchopExpress]

Dfee, those kind of look like diatoms. Do they go away at night and return the next day after a few hours of light?

 

[Dfee]

Dfee, those kind of look like diatoms. Do they go away at night and return the next day after a few hours of light?

Some do, some don't. After removing skimmer, no water changes, and more feeding, I have gha, diatoms, Dino's, and cyano.

I decided to go to a place I haven't been before in Chicago to get some pods, so trying that method now

The guy there actually mentioned a Dino Filter you can buy. I'm trying to find it on the internet now . Never heard of it before.

The picture was taken just now about 1 hour before lights come on. I also did a siphoning 24 hrs before the pic was taken.

So what's the consensus on siphoning? Leave the Dino's alone or siphon into filter sock in sump like I've been doing?

 

[Dfee]

Also my reasoning for believe that at least some of the percentage of that rusty colored crap is dinos because;

horrible coralline even though good alk mag and ca

Deaths

Photosynthetic

If I don't siphon, it will get long and stringy

Zoas look horrible as you can see

 

[natas]

Those have to be the same strain as what I have/had. Mine look identical. I bet if you don't siphon them and leave them alone to grow more they will then start to form strings that rise up and get bubbles.

Mine do disappear at night and appear in the same exact spots almost every morning

 

[cal_stir]

Dfee, I was where you are at now, I removed the sand bed to get past it, siphoned it out slowly over a week or so. I found it was futile siphoning the sand.

 

[Quiet_Ivy]

Some do, some don't. After removing skimmer, no water changes, and more feeding, I have gha, diatoms, Dino's, and cyano.

Good grief! I guess I'll have to stop whinging about my tank issues now. That's unusual actually, most of us seem to have only dinos, or dinos and cyano. Do you have the typical 0 nitrates/phosphates?

The guy there actually mentioned a Dino Filter you can buy. I'm trying to find it on the internet now . Never heard of it before.

I don't see anything on a quick google. Maybe he meant diatom filter? Any 5 or 10 micron filter sock will catch dinos. They clog up within hours though. I've tried filter floss and it doesn't seem to help much. I use it and carbon when I'm scraping the glass to hopefully keep the toxins down.

So what's the consensus on siphoning? Leave the Dino's alone or siphon into filter sock in sump like I've been doing?

Can't hurt. Didn't seem to help me much. I agree with the people above who thought that not all dinos detach from the glass, and that they leave some kind of chemical marker/cyst to return to the same places. I looked at my tank in the dark and I still see dinos. There are definitely 'bad spots' where it's much worse. I tried changing the flow, too. No results. Probably species dependent.

What does seem to help in my tank:
-adding pods
-adding bacteria (ideally from someone else's sand, rock, skimmate. do NOT recycle your tank's skimmate. I'm looking to add a bunch of good sand too)
-feeding phyto heavily
-no water changes
-reduced skimming
-carbon when disturbing dinos

hth
Ivy

 

[Billybatz9]

Ya I used algae barn but I really liked reefcleaners pods and pods+
http://www.reefcleaners.org/aquarium-store/pods

Mine look just like that and its majority on my sand bed.

 

[Dfee]

Yes, my nitrate and phos read 0. Thought I was close to winning when I saw hair algae on rocks. Maybe my gha suggests I have mainly diatoms in those rusty patches?

Found what he was talking about. It is a diatom filter. Filled with diatomaceous earth . RC thread talking about it but no mention of Dino's: POLL Diatom Filters using Diatomaceous Earth

 

[cal_stir]

Yes, my nitrate and phos read 0. Thought I was close to winning when I saw hair algae on rocks. Maybe my gha suggests I have mainly diatoms in those rusty patches?

Found what he was talking about. It is a diatom filter. Filled with diatomaceous earth . RC thread talking about it but no mention of Dino's: POLL Diatom Filters using Diatomaceous Earth

Quite possibly diatoms harboring dinos, that is what I had at the end stages of the battle.

 

[karimwassef]

Hmmmm, a diatomaceous filter running in the dark as the main filter with high in-tank flow for several days should scrub the water pretty aggressively. Has anyone tried this?

 

[PorkchopExpress]

Some do, some don't. After removing skimmer, no water changes, and more feeding, I have gha, diatoms, Dino's, and cyano.

I decided to go to a place I haven't been before in Chicago to get some pods, so trying that method now

The guy there actually mentioned a Dino Filter you can buy. I'm trying to find it on the internet now . Never heard of it before.

The picture was taken just now about 1 hour before lights come on. I also did a siphoning 24 hrs before the pic was taken.

So what's the consensus on siphoning? Leave the Dino's alone or siphon into filter sock in sump like I've been doing?

Ah ok. Reason I ask is because I have similar looking stuff on my sand but they don't go away at night. They are just as ugly during the day. Tang eats it too and no snail deaths. But they do have bubbles occasionally.

Where in Chicago are you getting pods? I've just been getting em online at various places. Would be awesome to get some local.