Mild, but Annoying Dinoflagellates. Help?

[Dugless]

I've been wrestling with a minor case of what I believe are dinoflagellates. This rust colored dusting covers the sand and pumps in minutes after stirring and wiping. If looking closely at the sand it has a very short stringy appearance, but from a few feet away it looks like typical diatoms.

I have tried 3 days with no lights and it appeared to work (in fact the tank looked amazing), but 2 weeks later the issue returns. Phosphates are at .02-.05 and Nitrates are below 2-3ppm. There isn't any other nuisance algae outbreak.

Coral and Fish health has not suffered. More than anything, this has been an aesthetic irritant to me and I'm looking for any suggestions. Thanks.

 

[Fragman4]

Some people have success with changing salts. The dino could be feeding off one of your salts trace elements. Since all salts have different trace elements you might have success changing it up.

 

[Jettareefer]

I have a thread about hydrogen peroxide it work amazingly.
1 ml per 10 gallons
I will provide you a link in abit if you have any questions let me know.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2459263

 

[Relativity]

I did a two day black out in conjuntion with a week treatment of algae x by funa marin and that worked

 

[CoralNerd]

Grab your self a fighting conch or two...you will be amazed how much work they do. I won't have a reef with out them.

 

[rovster]

I have a similar situation. I call it my brown snot algae. It ranges from a light to medium brown color and looks real snotty. It also has bubbles that form in it. My parameters are also very similar to yours. I also think it's a mild form of Dino as it doesn't spread a whole lot and is more of a eyesore than anything else. From a distance you can't even see a lot of it. I don't want to go crazy with lights out or hydrogen peroxide and just yet since my tank is less than a year old. It blows super easily off the rocks. Tagging along with interest since I'm in a similar situation

 

[Eastone]

I had a similar problem. Generally when I think of dinoflagellates the advice is to raise magnesium with kent tech-M as there's something in there that kills them, or raise the pH to 8,5 as this kills them, however in low nutrient tanks as many of us keep, the relative lack of nitrate (less than 2-3ppm) results in nitrate limitation and causes a prevalence of ammonium which is the environment in which this 'species' of dinoflagellates seem to thrive. I dose a small amount of nitrate every 2 days now (about 1.5ppm in my tank, I believe I run at about 5-10 but I don't test nutrients) and they cleared up within a week or so.

http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/2/159.full

 

[sahin]

I had a similar problem. Generally when I think of dinoflagellates the advice is to raise magnesium with kent tech-M as there's something in there that kills them, or raise the pH to 8,5 as this kills them, however in low nutrient tanks as many of us keep, the relative lack of nitrate (less than 2-3ppm) results in nitrate limitation and causes a prevalence of ammonium which is the environment in which this 'species' of dinoflagellates seem to thrive. I dose a small amount of nitrate every 2 days now (about 1.5ppm in my tank, I believe I run at about 5-10 but I don't test nutrients) and they cleared up within a week or so.

http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/2/159.full

This is VERY interesting and I think there is validity about it. I suffered from Dinos a few years ago and I recall my nitrates and phosphate being non existant. I also recall a post made by member Afernandez stating that when the brown snotty stuff appears he backs off on the nutrient removal in order to allow some nutrients to build up so that the brown stuff will disappear.

Makes sense. Will bear this in mind for any future issues.

 

[Dugless]

Eastone, what is your source for dosing Nitrate?

 

[swk]

Peroxide worked for me in a young tank without any issues. Would use it again in a heartbeat

 

[Dugless]

Concerning the peroxide method, are there any other risks aside from removing shrimp?

 

[Eastone]

I use potassium nitrate from Easy Life, they do freshwater planted ferts

 

[sahin]

I use potassium nitrate from Easy Life, they do freshwater planted ferts

Roughly how much does a bottle cost?

 

[swk]

Concerning the peroxide method, are there any other risks aside from removing shrimp?

Both my cleaner shrimp were fine. As were pods, mysis. Etc

 

[Eastone]

Roughly how much does a bottle cost?

about £5 from Aquatic Design Centre on portland street, or about the same online

 

[Jettareefer]

I dosed peroxide for months with no ill effects to anything in the tank.

 

[rovster]

Just to update, as my tank goes closer to ULNS brown snot increasing slightly. It's not running rampant but there are small patches everywhere. Started dosing NO3 this week. Nitrates undetectable and since starting NO3 dosing phos has bottomed out at 3ppb, lowest it's ever registered in my tank, despite my GFO being due for a change. I am dosing Prodibio if that means anything.....

 

[Eastone]

Phosphate is consumed in a 16:1 ratio of nitrate to phosphate as a generally observed rule, increasing the amount of nitrates can cause a big drop of po4 so I'd keep an eye for pale corals if it continues.

What you may notice now is the dino increases somewhat, then a small amount of diatoms and then the dino will recede. The sudden change of the N ratio seems to have an effect of what algae is dominant, in my tank I saw a faster growth of halimedia as well as hard brown algae and some black cyano when I started dosing nitrates before I saw a change in the dino infestation.

I'm a firm believer that if you're running a bacterial system with carbon dosing you shouldn't need a PO4 remover, just dosing nitrate is enough to lower it significantly where necessary.

 

[rovster]

Phosphate is consumed in a 16:1 ratio of nitrate to phosphate as a generally observed rule, increasing the amount of nitrates can cause a big drop of po4 so I'd keep an eye for pale corals if it continues.

What you may notice now is the dino increases somewhat, then a small amount of diatoms and then the dino will recede. The sudden change of the N ratio seems to have an effect of what algae is dominant, in my tank I saw a faster growth of halimedia as well as hard brown algae and some black cyano when I started dosing nitrates before I saw a change in the dino infestation.

I'm a firm believer that if you're running a bacterial system with carbon dosing you shouldn't need a PO4 remover, just dosing nitrate is enough to lower it significantly where necessary.

My plan was to eventually wean off the GFO. Its due for a change but I'm going to let it ride for a while with the hopes of taking it offline eventually. I had started backing off of it when starting Prodibio because of the warnings but it was premature and my phos climbed to the highest it had ever been. I had brought it down with the GFO to what it had always been but in the past I could not get it below 0.03-0.04 (not that I want to) but my tank always registered 0 nitrates. I find it pretty amazing that since starting the nitrate dosing the phos dropped significantly despite running "spent" GFO.

 

[Eastone]

Yeah, I think the bacteria are able to process the additional phosphate despite the GFO being spent, it'll be interesting to see if the same that happened to me happens in your tank