Dinoflagellates.

[undbulsu]

What bacteria will you be going with?

I can only tell you what I did. I do have a BS in Microbiology and used that knowledge to try and approach this in a natural way. A newbie to reef aquariums, however,and my first bout of Dinos.

1. I decreased my photoperiod to 5 hours a day.
Less light, less growth

2. Started running GFO, Phosguard, and Carbon, changing out Phosguard and GFO once a week
Trying to get phosphates at 0 and keep them there

3. Added a Cermedia Marine Pure 8x8x4 block to the sump
Supposed to help get a larger population of nitrate reducing bacteria

4. Aggressive wet skimming. Replaced the skimmate with fresh saltwater.
Only water changes I did
Trying to deplete any other nutrients the dinos may be living on.

5. Siphoning the dinos into a filter sock in the sump every day.
Getting rid of as much of the population as I can while exporting any other nutrients they need to grow

6. Used Coral Snow mixed with Zeobak every morning before lights came on every day.
Coral Snow is supposed to adsorb organics from the water column and Zeobak are another bacteria source.

7. Dosed Probidio biodigest (bacteria) and bioptim once every week
More bacteria to compete with the dino

8. Phytoplankton and Pods from Algaebarn.
More competition

Much of what I did is also recommended as a treatment for Cyano.

After a month, lights are back up, no dinos and only lost half of a birdsnest coral to the dinos.

We'll see.

 

[Billybatz9]

I really think you should give the dirty method more time. I know it's frustrating but according to your previous posts you've been at this method for about a week, right? Other people in this thread have said that it takes several weeks to show results.

Starting over is an individual choice, sure, but a ton of evidence presented here says that dirty method works given time and starting over can be very expensive.



Have you considered making your own?

Have no idea how to make my own. And I want to give it more time, but the dinos are getting worse with the dirty method. I never use to have stringy snot, now I do. Before, it looked like diatoms all over. Now it looks like diatoms and stringy snot. I don't think the dirty method is the way to go with my type. Really wish I had a microscope to identify my crap.

 

[Billybatz9]

Sadly I don't think that's good advice to tell someone with dinos to knowingly sell/give/trade their corals to someone else. That is exactly how I got them. I've ran a reef tank for over 10 years and never had a problem until I bought corals from someone that had them. The very next day was when I started seeing the stringy, slimy, dinos on my corals and by the end of the week my tank was fully covered in them. I even dipped the corals like I always do. I know it came from the frags because searching through my local forums I saw that the guy I bought the corals from asked for advice about how to get rid of them. I even contacted him and he said he had them before and was able to get rid of them through water changes. Clearly he was lying.

I've seen a lot of other local reefers lately getting them and it's spreading. They don't just come from nowhere. All tanks may have some form of dinos such as zooxanthelle but not all tanks have every kind like ostreopsis and amphidium.

Have you gotten rid of yours?

 

[Billybatz9]

I can only tell you what I did. I do have a BS in Microbiology and used that knowledge to try and approach this in a natural way. A newbie to reef aquariums, however,and my first bout of Dinos.

1. I decreased my photoperiod to 5 hours a day.
Less light, less growth

2. Started running GFO, Phosguard, and Carbon, changing out Phosguard and GFO once a week
Trying to get phosphates at 0 and keep them there

3. Added a Cermedia Marine Pure 8x8x4 block to the sump
Supposed to help get a larger population of nitrate reducing bacteria

4. Aggressive wet skimming. Replaced the skimmate with fresh saltwater.
Only water changes I did
Trying to deplete any other nutrients the dinos may be living on.

5. Siphoning the dinos into a filter sock in the sump every day.
Getting rid of as much of the population as I can while exporting any other nutrients they need to grow

6. Used Coral Snow mixed with Zeobak every morning before lights came on every day.
Coral Snow is supposed to adsorb organics from the water column and Zeobak are another bacteria source.

7. Dosed Probidio biodigest (bacteria) and bioptim once every week
More bacteria to compete with the dino

8. Phytoplankton and Pods from Algaebarn.
More competition

Much of what I did is also recommended as a treatment for Cyano.

After a month, lights are back up, no dinos and only lost half of a birdsnest coral to the dinos.

We'll see.

Thanks for the advice. What kind of pods did you add and how many? And how often did you dose phyto? and how much?

 

[reefcentral123]

hello. does anybody have a link to a resource for ID of the dinoflagellates? i saw a link earlier this page i will check that out but if there's any other resource please share.

what do you guys think of these bad boys? :smokin:

my dino outbreak started from after i cleaned my sump and reduced phos to 0 and nitrates very fast and then dumping shot of vodka every night. :headwalls:

now i am feed much more, adding H2O2, phyto, and will culture copepods in the hopes of more competition and hostility environemtn for this annoying organisms.

 

[undbulsu]

Thanks for the advice. What kind of pods did you add and how many? And how often did you dose phyto? and how much?

Algaebarn only sells one pod mixture. It is a mixture of tiger and tisbe pods called Poseiden's feast. And I used their phytoplankton mixture called Oceanmagik per their instructions. 5ml/10 gallons 3-4 times a week to begin. I must say I am very impressed with both of their products.

I am also very impressed with the probidio products and will continue to use both in the future, but probably not as often, but on a regular schedule.

 

[reefcentral123]

hello. does anybody have a link to a resource for ID of the dinoflagellates? i saw a link earlier this page i will check that out but if there's any other resource please share.

what do you guys think of these bad boys? :smokin:

my dino outbreak started from after i cleaned my sump and reduced phos to 0 and nitrates very fast and then dumping shot of vodka every night. :headwalls:

now i am feed much more, adding H2O2, phyto, and will culture copepods in the hopes of more competition and hostility environemtn for this annoying organisms.

also i forgot to mention if u guys think dimming the lights does anything? I have mostly blues on my hydra LED atm and like 5% white should I dim or keep the same?

 

[taricha]

hello.

what do you guys think of these bad boys?

Ostreopsis ovata I think.

 

[EdenR]

Have you gotten rid of yours?

It's been about a month so I don't know if they're completely gone but I do not see them. I only registered after seeing that advice to give/sell corals from a dino-infected tank. I simply felt that is extremely irresponsible akin to telling someone with AIDS to go ahead and have unprotected sex in hopes that their immune system will fight it off. Again, I've never had dinos before in 10 years and they exploded very shortly after introducing frags that came from a dino infested tank.

As for the method(s) I used, I did not want to use H2O2, AlgaeX, Dinoxal, raise ALK, or any extended blackouts as my corals would suffer too much. Once I realized what I had, I began doing my research which lead me to this thread. I started somewhere in the middle and read up on Montireef adding his skimmate back into the tank which worked for him but he didn't know why nor could replicate it. I read up on Porkchop's UV method so I borrowed one from a friend who has a pond. And then cal_stir had great success with his dirty method so I included that in my plan on attack. I wanted to use a multi-pronged approach that made sense - get them into the water stream through a short blackout, eradicate them with strong UV, and finish them off with competition. Basically these posts are the methods I used:

Montireef's magic skimmate: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23369930&postcount=557

PorkChopExpress UV method: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23370006#post23370006

cal_stir dirty method: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23951736#post23951736

So thank you to those 3 pioneers for helping me with my problem!

 

[iced98lx]

I can only tell you what I did. I do have a BS in Microbiology and used that knowledge to try and approach this in a natural way. A newbie to reef aquariums, however,and my first bout of Dinos.

1. I decreased my photoperiod to 5 hours a day.
Less light, less growth

2. Started running GFO, Phosguard, and Carbon, changing out Phosguard and GFO once a week
Trying to get phosphates at 0 and keep them there

3. Added a Cermedia Marine Pure 8x8x4 block to the sump
Supposed to help get a larger population of nitrate reducing bacteria

4. Aggressive wet skimming. Replaced the skimmate with fresh saltwater.
Only water changes I did
Trying to deplete any other nutrients the dinos may be living on.

5. Siphoning the dinos into a filter sock in the sump every day.
Getting rid of as much of the population as I can while exporting any other nutrients they need to grow

6. Used Coral Snow mixed with Zeobak every morning before lights came on every day.
Coral Snow is supposed to adsorb organics from the water column and Zeobak are another bacteria source.

7. Dosed Probidio biodigest (bacteria) and bioptim once every week
More bacteria to compete with the dino

8. Phytoplankton and Pods from Algaebarn.
More competition

Much of what I did is also recommended as a treatment for Cyano.

After a month, lights are back up, no dinos and only lost half of a birdsnest coral to the dinos.

We'll see.

You took a very similar approach to what I'm taking, from the additional bacteria to the marine pure block to the phyto/pod combo. I hope I have success like you did.

 

[Billybatz9]

You took a very similar approach to what I'm taking, from the additional bacteria to the marine pure block to the phyto/pod combo. I hope I have success like you did.

That marine pure block is like 50 bucks on amazon. damn

 

[iced98lx]

$55.80 and free shipping. Unsure if it's expensive to you or cheap? I have quite a bit of rock so I don't think it'll play a huge role but I do not have any rock/ruble/whatever in my sump so I guess I can give it a shot.

 

[reefcentral123]

$55.80 and free shipping. Unsure if it's expensive to you or cheap? I have quite a bit of rock so I don't think it'll play a huge role but I do not have any rock/ruble/whatever in my sump so I guess I can give it a shot.

i think it is expensive but i will buy it. because i have less than 1 lb LR/gal of water i think it'll help.

 

[dustinkimpel]

Pictures of my tank post dino:

Wow, you guys are still on this thread!!! Still fighting Dinos? Mine have never came back after the steps I took explained on Page 58. I kept my lights down very low and only on for 6 hours a day until recently so my corals all kinda shrunk a bit. But they are making a triumphant return... Instead of Dino i'm fighting my xenia.....

 

[iced98lx]

It's not cheap for 4 lbs of dry rock but if it acts like 50 and is a place for competing bacteria to live I'm willing to try it!

 

[reefcentral123]

It's not cheap for 4 lbs of dry rock but if it acts like 50 and is a place for competing bacteria to live I'm willing to try it!

do you know how many lbs of LR it equates to in terms of surface area?

 

[hogfanreefer]

do you know how many lbs of LR it equates to in terms of surface area?

As I recall they claim an 8x8x1 plate is enough surface area for a 100 gallon tank.

 

[csammis]

Have no idea how to make my own.

Have you tried searching for "DIY filter sock" here? I searched this morning and turned up this post just for starters.

 

[EvMiBo]

do you know how many lbs of LR it equates to in terms of surface area?

There's over 23,000 square feet of surface area within a single block. Depends on the LR. Not all LR is equal.

There's no LR that comes close to the porousity of the Cermedia blocks.

I think a block is equivalent to something around 50-100 lbs of good LR. Just a wild guess.

Lots of good info on cermedia's website.

As I recall they claim an 8x8x1 plate is enough surface area for a 100 gallon tank.

Depends on what you want to do.. Plates will house bacteria that consume ammonia and nitrites.

Plates can't house denitrifying bacteria. Only blocks can. Thicker = anaerobic bac in the middle = consume nitrates.

 

[iced98lx]

Depends on what you want to do.. Plates will house bacteria that consume ammonia and nitrites.

Plates can't house denitrifying bacteria. Only blocks can. Thicker = anaerobic bac in the middle = consume nitrates.

This is why I went block, though plates and balls would have been easier to fit in places.

I've dosed about 1.5x the suggested bacteria in a bottle amounts, no cloudy tank this morning (I've had cloudy water WITHOUT dosing bottles though I couldn't absolutely be certain they were bacteria blooms) No appreciable change, though clearly 1 day in I'm not expecting one.