Dinoflagellates

[shag26272]

I am very frustrated with them right now. They came about 2 weeks ago when I added 2 pieces of rock to my tank that have been curing for 6 weeks. I just started dosing a dissolved TSP of kalk in 20 ounce RO/DI to get my PH up. Should I just take everything out and cook the rock for a few weeks? Is it worth even trying to fight it? Does anyone think it will go away on its own?

 

[shag26272]

does this look like them? anyone?

 

[flamron]

yep...I'd say that is them....I'm having a bout with them as well. I would say you can try these things:

1. Raise PH up to 8.6-ish and keep it there

2. Run lights out for 3 days straight, and continue to do that until they are gone.

3. Do nothing and hope they go away.

They say not to do water changes, as it seems to fuel the dino's appetite. I just did about a 15gal last night on my 75g (about 65 gal total volume with rocks and everything), so I will let you know how that works out.

My next move is to go lights out for 3 days, actinics the fourth, and back to all lights on the fifth, running only about 4 hours a day for a few days and see if that works. It may take more than one run of lights out for this to get rid of the dino's....

Good luck man, they are nasty. Definitely turn your skimmer up to skim a little wetter during this period too.

Ron

 

[shag26272]

do you have SPS? I hate to not go without lights for that long. Will they come back after? I really feel like tearing it down and starting over then even being bothered with it.

 

[flamron]

I've only got one frag of SPS right now. I just set up a nano, so I guess I could stick it in there for a few days until my lights are back on.

I wouldn't think that three days would do too much harm. It would be similar to a hurricane over the reef (but not quite, obviously).

 

[Voltekker]

raise the magnesium level.

 

[picassoman]

dinos are the result from nutrient laden water, and are also autotrophs/detrital feeders. I would run phosban, run plenty of carbon, and DO water changes with RO water, with a TDS reading of 0. JMO, but I have gotten that to work well.

 

[MCsaxmaster]

Agreed on the nutrient export. Skim as aggressively as possible, grow macroalgae (if you have a refugium) as aggressively as possible, do water changes while sucking out as much algae/detritus from the tank as possible, go ahead and run GAC and consider running GFO. Some folks have had some success with maintaining elelvated pH as well.

 

[Lutefisk]

Dinos are a real bummer. They are beatable but the key is to go the whole 9-yards. Don't try one or two things to see if it works, do it all.

If you give it everything you've got, no holding back, you'll be clear in two weeks. Or, you can piddle around and lose livestock for months.

Here is a thread with some replies by people that beat them.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1188089

I'm knocking on wood to be sure but I've been free of that plague for about five months. Here is a summary of what I did.

By the time all was said and done I threw everything at it that I had:

Added a second oversized-skimmer set to skim wet
Added ozone (24x7)
A LOT of carbon (24x7)
Ran a full TLF reactor full of GFO (24x7)
Added kalk slurry morning and evening to raise the pH
Kept the tank in near total darkness for six days. A day after uncovering it I noticed what I thought was some dino build up and I re-covered it for another three days.

At this point things look GREAT. The sand, rockwork, and glass are beautifully clean. The SPS got pretty white but are looking good now. The fish and even the clams did just fine.

I did a lot of big water changes and it looks like I've got them licked. I haven't seen a sign of the horrible things for quite some time now.

I went to some pretty drastic measures but I had some pretty significant sps and invert losses before I figured out what the problem was. Once I went to dark, GFO, carbon, ozone, dropping my water temp, water changes etc. (See my earlier post) I didn't lose anything else.

Yes, most of the coral didn't like it very much but they were doing a lot worse with the dino's than the darkness. I was to a point where even zoo's weren't opening. Everything has colored up nicely and is growing well.

Regarding water changes - there may be more than one way to skin this cat. There may be something in the water that is a limiting factor and that once it is consumed the dino bloom may crash. There is also evidence that darkness can kick it in the nuts.

My 2-cents is that if you've got a bad dino bloom underway give it everything you've got and can beg or borrow. This is not a pest that will go away easily.

 

[reefCrawler]

If you system involve any bioballa, take them out.
Run phosphate + Carbon - agree, usually you should see result the next 2 days for my experience.

Adding more mature Live rocks.. if you can get any.
If you're running a new setup, waiting the cycle, again, put more live rocks will help.

 

[shag26272]

Im already doing all of the above, they did look better today. Hopefully this trend will continue.

 

[xJimCx]

I beat it by going 6 weeks with no water changes.

 

[sunfish11]

I recently had a bout with dino's in my 34 gal tank. The tank was set up for several months before it happened. I did very frequent (every other day 5 gal) water changes, reduced lighting schedule and split the lighting schedule so that the lights would be off for several hours in the afternoon, and increased flow. The problem was solved within a week. The split lighting schedule seemed to really be the main problem solver. It didn't give the dino's a chance to grow all day. The lights off period in the afternoon retarded growth every day until it disappeared completely. After the dinos were gone I slowly increased the lighting period and reduced the amount of time the lights shut off in the afternoon until it was back to normal.

Lisa

 

[rishma]

I recently battled dinos for a couple of months. Here is my thread chronicling the journey.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1433798

They can live in extremely low nutrient waters once established so phosphate removers and aggressive skimming alone are not necessarily a solution. Those steps are likely part of a good solution.

Lights out for 3 days multiple times (maybe 4-5 times) did not impact my SPS negatively and it significantly reduced the dinos....but they always came back. Again, not a solutions but a good tool in the interim.

What finally worked? I got a new pH meter and realized my pH stayed between 7.95 and 8.1. I am a kalk user and heavy skimmer so I could not understand what was supressing the pH. It turns out that excess CO2 in my home was suppressing the pH dramtically. I live in the south and the house is closed with AC all summer long. It cooled down one week, I opened the house and the dinos were gone in 4 days. pH is 8.4 to 8.6.

It warmed back up for a week and my house was closed gain. pH began dropping within 2 days but did not get below 8.1. Dinos didnt come back. Windows are open again due to nice weather and the pH is up againto 8.4+.

So the key fore me was pH. I have very low nutrients and TONs of water movement which I am sure didnt help.

Best of luck.

 

[rishma]

by the way, I agree your picture shows dinos.

 

[shag26272]

Thanks, that should help alot. I have tried the blackouts and they just fix it temporary. I have been dosing a Kalk slurry but I dont think it is keeping the PH high enough. I have taken my ca reactor offline and need to try some different things. I might try adding Kalk to my topoff water. What do you think about adding an airstone in the tank?

 

[rishma]

Your skimmer is likely enough to keep the tank pH at equalibrium with the ambient air. I doubt an air stone will change the pH at all.

I was unable to keep my pH consistently high with kalk top off and kalk slurry. it came back down within hours. fresh air raised the pH dramatically.

take some water outside and aerate it. compare the pH to some water aerated inside. you may find low pH due to excess Co2 in your house.

 

[shag26272]

I just switched my top off to Kalk, I have ran the lights out for the past 2 days except for about 20 minutes total. Everything looked much better tonight. Tomorrow I will leave the door and windows open.

 

[flamron]

I can't explain it, but mine just went away! I did a 10% WC last Sunday, and then did some manual removal of the worst spots with a turkey baster.

I did notice that in the mornings, it looked like they were 90% gone, but in a few hours they would increase. Over the past week and a half, they just weren't getting worse in the afternoon.

No way to explain it, but I'm glad they are gone!

 

[shag26272]

The Kalk topoff seems to be keeping the PH pretty stable. Its running at about 8.3 and above. Not much signs of the Dinos but I am leaving the lights off for 1 more day. Also turned the fuge light off because of dinos in the sump area.