Possible Dinos (w/pics)

[Steve973]

I had dinoflagellate issues before, and seemed to beat them with DinoX. Then, something similar came back a few months later. However, this stuff doesn't seem to develop as many bubbles, and it doesn't seem to have as snotty of a texture, nor does it make "ribbons" or "streamers" like the last time. It is a little less brown (and more pink, but not dark red like cyano). This also doesn't seem to respond as well to leaving the lights off as much as the previous outbreak was. Perhaps it is more brown/tan when the lights are at a full cycle, and maybe it's more pink/red after a blackout. I guess it could be a combination of dinos and cyano, but I'm at a bit of a loss. Oh, it also doesn't respond to Chemiclean, either. Salifert does not detect any nitrates, and Hanna doesn't detect any phospahtes. Any thoughts?

 

Full tank:

 

Algae 1:

 

Algae 2:

[brandon429]

I found this id technique he invented resourceful

http://reef2reef.com/threads/helpful-method-for-identifying-dinoflagellates.216508/

 

 

if it was in my tank id force clean/remove it 100% a few times before chems. I never evaluate forced removals one off, many comply after a few rounds and its a med free attempt.

harmless export worst case scenario. At least the id filter part would be helpful

[gulfsurfer101]

That was a helpful little article there. Is it possible your not detecting a reading because the bloom is feeding off nutrients in your water giving you a false reading. I'm pretty sure that silicates are the main culprit responsible for dino's. I know I have plenty of silicates in my well water. The thing that drives people mad is all the water changes people do and not realize they are only feeding the fire by adding more silicates back into the tank and I have been guilty of doing so. I beat them out of my 75g by undercutting my feeding to only twice weekly and preforming absolutely zero water changes. I ran a ton of phosguard in a reactor. After a couple of months they cleared up.

[Elizabeth94]

That stuff looks thick. I think there definitely needs to be some manual removal of that. Clean it out as well as you can.

 

Im not sure what you are running that mp10 on, but you should probably increase the flow or add a temporary powerhead behind the rocks or just aimed that the sanded. I agree with the above posts as well.

[Steve973]

You will notice that the third picture still has some of the stuff on it, and that rock is directly in front of the mp10. This stuff is definitely weird compared to the dinos that I have battled before. That stuff responded and behaved as expected: thick and snotty, bubbles, streams of it growing into the water column, advancing/receding based on light or treatments, and color. This stuff is behaving quite differently. Little or no bubbles, hardly any streams in the water column, texture not as snotty, seems unaffected by differences in light, and the color is more pink than how brown it was last time. I am going to try the test that was mentioned above and see what happens.

[Mariaface]

Looks kinda cyanobacteria-like to me, actually. I had a similar color break out in spots when I had a sandbed and disturbed it too much or too irregularly.

 

Have you tried compensating with bacteria, like Microbakter7 or something? Kat mentioned mixing it with equal parts coral snow (?) and letting it sit for a bit, then dosing it to the tank. It's somewhere in her thread...

[Steve973]

I've been using zeobak, coral snow, and zeostart3 starting this week. Nothing seems to be able to touch this crap. The reef2reef thread posted above is AWESOME and I will try to do the test mentioned there tonight.

[brandon429]

I really thought it was an innovative catch, THIS is why web forums rule, quick info!! poster sonnus from there is helpful aquarist this was a nice gem for everyone to evaluate, stick it in an article for merit if we can replicate outcomes across forums.

[Pinner Reef]

Here is my thread on fighting another form of Dinos. I lost the fight tho so maybe it's useless lol.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/359533-unarmored-dinoflagellates/page-2

 

 

That was a helpful little article there. Is it possible your not detecting a reading because the bloom is feeding off nutrients in your water giving you a false reading. I'm pretty sure that silicates are the main culprit responsible for dino's. I know I have plenty of silicates in my well water. The thing that drives people mad is all the water changes people do and not realize they are only feeding the fire by adding more silicates back into the tank and I have been guilty of doing so. I beat them out of my 75g by undercutting my feeding to only twice weekly and preforming absolutely zero water changes. I ran a ton of phosguard in a reactor. After a couple of months they cleared up.

 

 

I was working in the opposite direction in terms of the silicates after reading the following:

 

http://www.academia.edu/5110369/Macronutrients_requirements_of_the_dinoflagellate_Protoceratium_reticulatum

 

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/3/m003p083

[gulfsurfer101]

Here is my thread on fighting another form of Dinos. I lost the fight tho so maybe it's useless lol.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/359533-unarmored-dinoflagellates/page-2

 

 

 

 

 

I was working in the opposite direction in terms of the silicates after reading the following:

 

http://www.academia.edu/5110369/Macronutrients_requirements_of_the_dinoflagellate_Protoceratium_reticulatum

 

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/3/m003p083

I'm very busy working a graveyard turnaround right now! Perhaps you can summarize that article and we can both work together to understand where your tank failed to combat the dino's. My method was simple strip the water of what's feeding the dino's. Stay on course and do nothing to add more silicates to the water column. They eventually receded.

[Pinner Reef]

I hear you on the horrible shift. The article states basically that dino blooms (red tides) in the ocean occurred in areas deficient in Silica. It was theorized that diatoms, being much simpler organisms, should have been able to out compete the dinos for nutrients but could not do so for the lack of Silica.

 

Here's the final write up on my failed tank. Also kinda lengthy read... sorry.

 

When I last updated I was working at trying to kill my dinoflagellate outbreak with Silica dosing. Sadly, I saw no improvement for the 5 weeks that I was able to test the theory. I was keeping the Silica level between 1 and 2ppm. This proved really difficult as it was taken up by something in the aquarium rather quickly. I found it was chewing through about 25% of the silica every 1-2 days. This is actually lower than what I was expecting from research but still seemed like a ton of additive.

Once a week I would pull a sample of glass scrapings and examine them under the microscope. I did find more diatoms towards the end of the five weeks however it didn't seem like there were enough to be able to out-compete the dinos. Perhaps a longer more heavier dosage was necessary because whist I was aiming for 1-2ppm the level of silica can be as high as 180ppm.

In early June all the remaining corals were still holding on. Then my Blenny died and shit got real bad real fast. I can't say how long he was in there but his body was beginning to flake apart when I pull the lil guy out. I dosed a crapload of bacteria but the Dinos took care of the ammonia spike in no time flat. A couple days later and I couldn't see the back wall thru the front. Apparently the Dinos reached a toxicity level enough to overcome my sixline and he too perished. I caught this within a day but by then it was too late. All the corals were already starting to slough off skin. And so it went with all the rest of the coral.

I did decide to leave the tank running and just dump a metric shit ton of Silica in there for the week... I went with ten times the normal dosage. It pushed the silica level up to about 14ppm. This dropped down to half that level in the week and there were a lot more diatoms. Again this was not enough to say that I was beating out the Dinos. After that week I took the tank down, it was just to heart wrenching to stare at the Ramen noodle broth that was once my aquarium and I was going on vacation at the end of the month.

Ultimately I proved that diatoms can reproduce in a Dino infested aquarium. The added silica did nothing positive or negative to the Dinos. And that you would need LOTS of Silica to get them going.

[Steve973]

That seems to be what the product called Nualgi Aquarium does -- boost silicates to feed a beneficial type of diatoms to out-compete nuisance algae. I don't know how well that will work with dinoflagellates, since they seem to be able to out-compete anything. However (and even though I haven't had the chance to perform the test yet) I am thinking that it isn't dinoflagellates after all, since it doesn't seem to respond or quite look like dinoflagellates. I'll keep updating this thread with anything that I discover. It is possible that I will also try the Nualgi product if my current methods don't start to work soon.

By the way: http://nualgiaquarium.com/silica-in-your-aquarium/

[Pinner Reef]

That seems to be what the product called Nualgi Aquarium does -- boost silicates to feed a beneficial type of diatoms to out-compete nuisance algae. I don't know how well that will work with dinoflagellates, since they seem to be able to out-compete anything. However (and even though I haven't had the chance to perform the test yet) I am thinking that it isn't dinoflagellates after all, since it doesn't seem to respond or quite look like dinoflagellates. I'll keep updating this thread with anything that I discover. It is possible that I will also try the Nualgi product if my current methods don't start to work soon.

By the way: http://nualgiaquarium.com/silica-in-your-aquarium/

There are several different types. If you have a microscope you can check them out here.

 

http://www.algaeid.com/identification/

[gulfsurfer101]

I wouldn't go dumping silicates in my tank. I also added a turf scrubber to help with microalgae exportation. This may have helped outcompete any diatomes or dino's. I didn't do a single water change for over four months. The tank got ugly then it just started to look really good. Starve them out rather than outcompete seemed to work the best.

[Pinner Reef]

Yeah, probably should have gone that route. lol I didn't do any waterchanges and fed like next to nothing. By the time I had started dosing the silica the tank was nearly dead already. It was just a tank full of sludge and the two fish, a couple of corals that were hardcore. Thought we might be able to find an alternative.

[gulfsurfer101]

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm on a well so the water here is very hard and high in silicates. Ro membranes are a joke with only 3-4 months of life with almost a 90% rejection rate. That's a lot of wasted water. Normally I wouldn't care but after a 2,500 pump replacement and labor bill last year for well maintenance I stopped running an ro system. I haven't tried this but I have hard that uv filtration seems to work against them. Might be worth looking into to.

[sangheili]

Hydrogen Peroxide. Look it up as a solution. Works wonders...

[Steve973]

Hydrogen Peroxide. Look it up as a solution. Works wonders...

There are many ways that people fight dinoflagellates. While some methods work for some people and on some species, others don't have the same luck. I've tried most of the methods!

[Steve973]

I took some better pics and posted them in another thread because I don't know how many people might still look here, but this is the link: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/367982-bacterial-film-id-needed-please/

[Tamberav]

Doesn't really look like dino to me. Looks like some sort of bacterial bloom with some cyano in it. Do you dose any sort of carbon (vodka, biopellets, ect)?

[Steve973]

Do you dose any sort of carbon (vodka, biopellets, ect)?

I don't dose any carbon at all. I have often dosed dr. Tim's waste away and ecobalance during water changes.

And I think your diagnosis sounds like exactly what it is. Sometimes it's more red, and other times it is more gray or light beige. It makes sense.

[Tamberav]

If it was me, I would probably stop dosing bacterial additives since it may be a bacterial bloom.

 

Since the tank looks young and there isn't much coral to worry about. I would probably siphon/clean it out and remoce some of the rock pile to get better flow since large piles of rock trap debris. Siphon the sand bed throughly since it looks like crushed coral? And do a large water change in case all the debris cleaning may muck up the water.

 

Keep an eye on ammonia/fish since changes can screw with things.

 

Good news is you can be more aggressive since you don't have a tank full of acro's and sensitive animals. It may take some trial and error to find how to cure this crap.

[Steve973]

I have had my tank running for close to a year and a half. A while back, dinoflagellates hitchhiked in on something and wreaked havoc. I decided to scrap everything and start over with new dry reef-saver rock and new crushed coral. I quarantined stuff while I was performing the transition, and then I moved stuff back over. Yep, I re-introduced dinos! So then I battled them for quite some time, and finally conquered them with DinoX, hydrogen peroxide, a UV sterilizer, and blackout periods. It was a multi-pronged approach that paid off. I was letting my tank stabilize for a while, and then this film began to show up. I thought it might have been dinos returning. Whether it's better or worse, this stuff never responded the same way. I also don't think I'd use crushed coral again, because it's one hell of a detritus trap. Who knows? I might re-scape my tank and use some coarse-grain reef sand instead to help with maintenance. I wonder how little rock is really feasible for a 20G nano with 2 ocillaris clowns. I have a canister filter, so I could run some ceramic media, I guess, if it becomes necessary.

[Tamberav]

You don't need much rock. Most people just add whatever looks best to them and leave it at that. My 20g has two medium sized pieces with a maroon clown, peacock mantis, and 10ish NPS corals.