Dinoflagellates

[Shooter7]

I have, what I am fairly confident are, dinoflagellates going in various rocks in my tank. I believe I have probably been overfeeding a tad and am taking steps to alleviate that. My last nitrate test had crept up on me a little bit, but i'm still under 10 on that. Water flow has been mentioned to me, but some of these are growing right out where the main flow coming out of my Seios is. Along with that, I don't see any collecting of detritus anywhere on the sandbed around the rocks. Fish poo tends to get blown around and exported as far as I can tell. I have been chatting about this with Mr. Calfo a little and along with seeing if I can do anything about any flow issues, he has suggested heavy skimming (which I'm already doing), tapering back on feeding (already doing that as well), and trying to significantly bump up my pH to around 8.6 steadily.

So, with regards to this I have finally gotten my hands on some wages pickling lime and using the kent dripper that fade has graciously let me borrow for awhile. However, even with putting in a decent dose of the b-ionic stuff, I can't really get my pH up over 8.3 (using the probe on my AC jr now to monitor this). And keeping it there even with dripping isn't happening. So, any ideas on a good way to boost my pH up there where he's suggesting so I can try and keep it there with the kalk drip?

Secondly, any other experiences with this stuff? It's not real bad right now and only on a few rocks (just the ones I got from you Kurt...hmmm ). I will probably try to do a water change soon. Using RO/DI with new filters in Jan and new DI resin about a week or so ago. I have chaeto in the fuge, it still has plenty of room in there but it is a pretty big bundle though. If you wadded it up it would probably be the size of a basketball. Not sure if I should trim that back or not? Any other thoughts/input appreciated. thanks

 

[MayoBoy]

Have you tried a dark tank for 24 or 48 hours? I hear that's supposed to help.

 

[trottman]

what are they and how to avoid?


... are these the things that make up red tides?

 

[chadscamaro]

water changes, water changes and more water changes !
I know john "fade32" has been down that road and might have some better info for you,but seems like massive water changes helps from what people say !

 

[Fade]

You can't keep your ph that high . I ran lots of carbon skim heavy and do lots of water changes and run phosban. They say to get your kh up around 16 also but all that seems to do is kill all your inverts and then you run into a whole new problem.

 

[Shooter7]

As far as the pH goes, I'm just going from what Calfo said to do, along with some others in the discussion forum from some of the threads I've read. My pH right now with the lights on is 8.41.

Did the completely dark tank thing for about 36 hours, complete with towels and such to really block out the light. Fish were NOT happy. Didn't do it with a high pH though. Didn't seem to do a thing to them.

Was hesitant about the water changes because some of the people claimed that the folks who were suffering from them were because they were getting silicates even in their DI water. Sometimes seemed to be confirmed by people who had acute worsening of these things after doing water changes, so wasn't sure about that one. I will most likely do a water change soon.

And for Trottie there, here's a pic from my tank. This is the worst that they are right now in a few places on the rocks. Have been like this for maybe a week or a little more. Don't seem to be worsening in any big hurry at the moment.

 

[chadscamaro]

If silicates could be the problem,get a test kit and see if you have any ?

 

[TWINPEAKS]

looks alot like bubble algae.

 

[Shooter7]

nah, bubble algae is hard green stuff. This stuff is tan snot-like stuff. The pics I've seen of it are usually in the more advanced stage and those bubbles are on much longer strands of the gunk. Whatever is fueling it must be fairly low because it is growing extremely slowly. Unfortunately, it's not receding right now.

Chad, was just mentioning the silicate thing in the source water from what I've seen in other threads. I'm not overly concerned about mine since I've been using the same water for over a year and a half on my various tanks and have never had these things pop up before. I just need to get the time to get a good water change in the works.