Dinoflagellates.

[tastyfish]

Anyone care to explain to me why UV would be beneficial also what are the side effects?

UV-B light at the right intensity and exposure will reduce the mobility and reproduction in *some* species of dinoflagellate, but not all.

The biggest side effect is that it does a very good job of killing pods, rotifiers, bacteria and phytoplankton which you really want to help rather than hinder.

 

[joti26]

I have been fighting dino's for a very long time as well. I have been able to get it contain it to just the sand bed and it also doesn't seem to be affecting my sand sifting star fish. At this point, I have tried the dirty method with very little success, I'm running a 36w UV with low flow rate, change filter socks every other day.

I have noticed coralline growth on the back of the tank again and other green algae grown on my return lines. At this point, I am thinking about removing my star fish, and sucking out all of the sand. I don't want to go bare bottom, so I was thinking about slowing adding in a crushed coral type base back into the tank. Has anyone ever tried this? Will the dino's attach to crushed coral base like they do to sand? I'm sure the answer is yes if they can and do attach to corals and rocks.

The only other thing I can think about doing is getting another dragon goby. Other than the constant sand storm he created, the tank was free of dino's. I don't have any corals in the tank (just some zoo's and a small hammer coral). The zoo's are doing outstanding and aren't being affected by the dino's.

This is the weirdest stuff I have ever had to deal with in the hobby (15+ years).

 

[joti26]

I honestly don't think removing the sand bed will help much as they will grow on glass, discovered loads in the bottom of my sump today and nothing but glass on the bottom although not the brown snotty stuff just the dusty bits seems like they will just adapt to whatever they can. Also discovered that although I thought the filter I was using was collecting the stringy stuff it still let some through so ordered 10 micron socks today. So no wonder I wasn't getting rid of as much as I thought some was still escaping!

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[bertoni]

A UV unit might be able to kill single-celled organisms up to a fairly large size, but the ones we use won't harm a fully-grown copepod, etc, or even a juvenile one. I agree that they will kill bacteria in the water column and phytoplankton, though.

 

[karimwassef]

UV will kill organisms in the water column.

Most bacteria and pods and benthic = not in the water column. They live in rocks/sand/etc...

Dinos leave the hard surfaces and live in the water column when it's dark. They become particularly susceptible to death by UV if the flow is slow enough.

I run a multi-day dark period with UV and heavy wet skimming and carbon. The dark made them take to the water column, the UV killed them, the wet skimming removed their dead tissue and the carbon removed any toxins.

The survivors were eaten by the pods who came out in the dark to feed.

 

[34cygni]

Still working on the idea of how to scale up the effectiveness of adding micro life to a tank sized infestation.
My skimmer "green tea" just isn't a large enough amount to disrupt the dinos sandbed home.

An upside-down glass vessel like an old fishbowl would contain the phyto and microfauna to a small area and give them time to settle to the sand. If it doesn't work, you can increase the amount of phyto tea in the bowl and/or the time you leave the bowl in place with future trials to see if the green phyto holobiont can establish a beachhead in the sand.

I think I could culture a large mass of live sand with lots of micro critters, then remove top layer of my dino sand and replace with my fresh sand.

Been done before?

Not to my knowledge.

I don't want to go bare bottom, so I was thinking about slowing adding in a crushed coral type base back into the tank. Has anyone ever tried this?

As you suspected, dinos can infest tanks with coarse substrates, too.

But be of good cheer: in what is arguably the definitive description of the dirty method, cal_stir said he removed and later successfully replaced his sand bed.

Anyone care to explain to me why UV would be beneficial also what are the side effects?

Slow-flow UV is fundamental to the clean method.

 

[reefcentral123]

A UV unit might be able to kill single-celled organisms up to a fairly large size, but the ones we use won't harm a fully-grown copepod, etc, or even a juvenile one. I agree that they will kill bacteria in the water column and phytoplankton, though.

Do you know what types of free floating bacteria are in our tanks? I'm thinkign surely the bacterial population won't be affected as bad as dinos since bacteria can presumably multiply much faster than the much larger protists?

 

[taricha]

An upside-down glass vessel like an old fishbowl would contain the phyto and microfauna to a small area and give them time to settle to the sand. If it doesn't work, you can increase the amount of phyto tea in the bowl and/or the time you leave the bowl in place with future trials to see if the green phyto holobiont can establish a beachhead in the sand.

Hah! Great idea. I'll see what I can do.

 

[bertoni]

I don't know how much a UV unit affects the bacterial population, but I'd expect it to be fairly effective if it's sized properly. Our tanks don't appear to depend much on bacteria in the water column, so the topic hasn't been studied all that much, as far as I know.

 

[karimwassef]

I don't know how much a UV unit affects the bacterial population, but I'd expect it to be fairly effective if it's sized properly. Our tanks don't appear to depend much on bacteria in the water column, so the topic hasn't been studied all that much, as far as I know.

Agreed. The bacteria we tend to focus on is on the surfaces of media (rocks, sand, plastic, pellets), or in the mucus of fish and coral.

Some of this naturally dissolves into the water column, but it's not a substantial % of impactful population. If it were, our skimmers would likely remove them as efficiently as the UV would kill them.

 

[rallibon]

Still getting some every day on soft corals and lost my Duncan and Cat's paw but everything else still coping. It's interesting how it seems to change though, had none on sand for a few days but now less on glass. Then last two days more on sand again. . Very persistent on some soft corals and not others also interesting, two zoas next to each other and one gets it the other one doesn't. Looking forward to getting where you are, nearly there though and definitely nowhere near as bad as some!

Joti26 - Interestingly my gorgonians were absolutely covered with dinos (but survived) while my Euphyllia, Torch and Duncan were unaffected

I have been fighting dino's for a very long time as well. I have been able to get it contain it to just the sand bed and it also doesn't seem to be affecting my sand sifting star fish.
I have noticed coralline growth on the back of the tank again and other green algae grown on my return lines. At this point, I am thinking about removing my star fish, and sucking out all of the sand. I don't want to go bare bottom, so I was thinking about slowing adding in a crushed coral type base back into the tank. Has anyone ever tried this? Will the dino's attach to crushed coral base like they do to sand? I'm sure the answer is yes if they can and do attach to corals and rocks.

The only other thing I can think about doing is getting another dragon goby. Other than the constant sand storm he created, the tank was free of dino's. I don't have any corals in the tank (just some zoo's and a small hammer coral). The zoo's are doing outstanding and aren't being affected by the dino's.

This is the weirdest stuff I have ever had to deal with in the hobby (15+ years).

dragon174 - my sand sifters were unaffected too but I did some research and realized they are fairly voracious predators in the sand bed so may be contributing to the conditions allowing the dinos to thrive. I would agree on the stars but not the sand. My bare-bottom frag tank was as badly affected as my DT so I do not believe the existence or not of a sand bed to be a factor. I have a sand-sifting sleeper goby (Valenciennaea strigata) who survived albeit the areas of sand he could feed from were curtailed by the dinos. I did not see him scooping up dino-affected sand. Like you my zoas were OK

I honestly don't think removing the sand bed will help much as they will grow on glass, discovered loads in the bottom of my sump today and nothing but glass on the bottom although not the brown snotty stuff just the dusty bits seems like they will just adapt to whatever they can. Also discovered that although I thought the filter I was using was collecting the stringy stuff it still let some through so ordered 10 micron socks today. So no wonder I wasn't getting rid of as much as I thought some was still escaping!

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As above I agree on sand bed. I also forgot to add in my earlier post I used 10 micron socks when I siphoned out dinos from my frag tank. This thread indicated that most dinos were 30-40 microns so would therefore be captured.

Excellent post rallibon!
I've tried most of what you have but not all at once.
Let's hope your current status will not decline.

DNA, as the illustrious founder of this thread, I would be intrigued which element you have not tried...

On a general note, I do not profess to be any sort of expert compared to some on this thread but my overall recommendation is to do things slowly and observe. If things are improving you will not see it from day to day but you will from week to week. Take a photo of one piece of rock or area of sand and compare that exact place at the same time in the lighting cycle a week later and so on. One thing I noticed when things started to improve were more beneficial (i.e. algae-eating) asterina starfish on the glass. I saw none of them when dinos were at their peak. They could have been being consumed by the sand-sifters or it might just have been there was no algae for them to eat while the dinos were outcompeting. Who knows? So my advice (1) Don't give up but try different things as advised on this thread (2) Do things slowly (3) Do not expect quick results but observe minute incremental signs of change.

I hope this does not come across as a smug "I've conquered this" as I certainly have not but I fully understand the vicissitudes others are experiencing!

 

[PorkchopExpress]

Pretty nice. I am currently at 80% dinos gone..same method as you described, only difference is that i added bio spira and mb7 instead of the stuff you used. I do notice that the dinos cleared all my coraline algae off the tank glass..do they eat coraline?

good to hear! did you go 3 day or longer blackout?

as for coralline, i've noticed the same correlation in the past when i've had blooms however i don't necessarily think they eat coralline as opposed to them creating an environment where coralline can't grow...when i've had dinos, they tend to do messed up things to your alk and throw your parameters all over the place...i think coralline likes stability as coralline is a nice indication of a healthy tank

this is my tank today...i think i'm about 10+ months dino free...notice the coralline in the back glass?

 

[PorkchopExpress]

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!

hi Eden, good to hear those methods worked for you! but the UV method isn't mine, it actually started out as a suggestion from brandon429 to use a pond sterilizer in our reef tanks over a year ago...i think i was just maybe the first or second to actually try it out but definitely can't take credit for it

and also i do agree with you on your first point...i think it's fairly safe to assume your dino was introduced...there are many ULNS tanks out there without this problem and it takes just 1 dino cell introduced in that environment to create havoc...however, that 1 dino cell can definitely come from anything - fish, live rock, coral, etc. as they definitely are everywhere so at some point in our hobby where we're trading corals and buying fish from others, i think it's also fairly safe to assume everyone has a very high chance of getting it at some point and many probably already have it but have conditions that aren't favorable for them to bloom

 

[karimwassef]

Maybe a survey here:

Who has used UV and been successful?
Who has used UV and not been successful?

I'm UV + success

 

[reefcentral123]

Maybe a survey here:

Who has used UV and been successful?
Who has used UV and not been successful?

I'm UV + success

how many watts is your UV?

i just bought a 9W for my 75 and ill push 120 gph thru it

 

[PorkchopExpress]

both...i first used UV when i had an AIO 34 gallon tank, removed half the sand, 3 day blackout, and UV

i then moved, upgraded to a 70g with new 2" sandbed, same rocks, fish, and corals and got another bloom...UV alone didn't stop that from happening even with a brand new bulb...i had to do 3 day blackout, UV, and dirty...haven't seen dinos since

it's absolutely possible they evolved or i got a new strain of dinos not as susceptible to UV the second time around or the sandbed was a huge contributing factor

 

[karimwassef]

Ok. So you're UV ... Success dependent on strain
?

 

[reefcentral123]

both...i first used UV when i had an AIO 34 gallon tank, removed half the sand, 3 day blackout, and UV

i then moved, upgraded to a 70g with new 2" sandbed, same rocks, fish, and corals and got another bloom...UV alone didn't stop that from happening even with a brand new bulb...i had to do 3 day blackout, UV, and dirty...haven't seen dinos since

it's absolutely possible they evolved or i got a new strain of dinos not as susceptible to UV the second time around or the sandbed was a huge contributing factor

i doubt unicellular eukaryotes can evolve to not get killed by UV light of that intensity let alone so fast, I think it might have been the sandbed

UV should be coming today im anxious to start this blackout...

 

[PorkchopExpress]

i honestly have no idea why it didn't work the second time and there were too many variables that changed for me to make any accurate assumption...it was a brand new, much bigger tank, new sandbed, new corals, new fish, new lights, new equipment, etc. the only things that remained from the old tank were live rock, encrusted corals, and a few fish

the UV never really went offline either so the second bloom happened as the UV was still online...the bulb could have gone out, that's certainly a possibility that allowed the dino to bloom but even after i changed it for a brand new Philips one, the dinos didn't go away and were not affected in the slightest

as mentioned several times now, what definitely worked for me was the 3 day blackout + UV, and dirty + pods/phyto...the 3 day blackout not only made the dinos recede but i honestly couldn't find any at all after uncovering on the 3rd day...and the dirty method plus pods/phyto has eliminated any trace of them...i was able to borrow a microscope and cannot find any

 

[karimwassef]

Was your UV on a large enough loop so it was treating enough new water continuously?

Any reactor can be efficient or inefficient based on flow, placement, etc...