How do I have dinos in a macro tank?

[AdrianBryce]

??????????/

 

I am confuse

 

params as follows

 

nitrate - 0.5

ammonia - 0

phos - don't have a test

nitrite - don't have a test

 

nothing is dead/dying, tank full of macros, two fish, full CUC.

 

I have heard of using microbacter 7 to get rid of it, does that really work?

 

What about FW dipping stuff?

 

Also it is only on the macros, not the rock, corals or sand.

 

Did a 75% water change yesterday, didn't help.

[Lawnman]

Cut your lights back to 2-3 hours a day. Then every night use a turkey baster and blast your macros getting the dinos into the water and off the macros.Make sure your filter has floss.Then change out the floss evey morning. Do this for a week and you should kick it.You might want to get a phos test.I would run some phosguard as well.

[AdrianBryce]

thanks! i will give it a shot.

[bitts]

thats really weird diatoms are suppose to feed off silica. there being on the macros is very strange.

[sandcruiser]

once the silica is gone, the diatoms should die back. especially w/ macros in the tank to help out-compete with them for carbon dioxide and other nutrients.

 

make sure that the water you are using is clean RO/DI so that you aren't adding silica.

 

regardless, the diatoms will incorporate silica into their skeletons, once they don't have food (nitrate) they'll die back, and the silica will stay trapped in the skeletons in your sandbed (or you'll vac it out of a bare bottom tank).

 

time. it all takes time.

 

if you are worried about the macro in the mean time, wipe it off with your fingers in a small bucket of water, then return the macro to your tank and the water down the drain.

[AdrianBryce]

Update. I did lights out with dark sheet over the tank over labor day weekend. Three days of darkness combined with brushing off everything and changing the floss twice a day. Knocked it right out.

[Dani3d]

I doubt that was dinoflagellates. It was maybe diatom?

 

When I had dinoflagellates (ID WITH A MICROSCOPE) doing the light tric did not work and it came back. The only thing that worked for me was raising my PH to 8.4.

 

It has not been back since then.

 

Update. I did lights out with dark sheet over the tank over labor day weekend. Three days of darkness combined with brushing off everything and changing the floss twice a day. Knocked it right out.

[AdrianBryce]

well it came back today. lol. It was just on my C. mexicana. Upon inspection i noticed a massive sexual event going down. Could it have been caused by small events like that occurring daily?

[skimlessinseattle]

Three days of darkness knocking it out, followed by a quick resurgence after lights on does sound a lot like dinoflagellates. Pictures would be great, but as mentioned previously, a microscope is necessary to properly ID those guys. To play it safe, run a lot of carbon, and use some kalkwasser to get your pH up to 8.4-8.5 - this is the only effective way to kill dinos. Like Dani3d, I too had an infection that was solved with pH. I have been dino free for months. I have some really great pictures if I can find them, maybe some day I'll do a thread on it.

 

If it is just diatoms, doing the above won't hurt anything, and it will probably be great for any calcareous macro you have.

[AdrianBryce]

Do dinos have a stiff skeletal appearance or are the stringy?

[got2envy]

dinos are stringy and mucous looking..how's the flow in the tank?

lights out for too long will eventually start to effect the macros

what are you using for top off and mixed water? are you running any carbon/phosban?

[AdrianBryce]

dinos are stringy and mucous looking..how's the flow in the tank?

lights out for too long will eventually start to effect the macros

what are you using for top off and mixed water? are you running any carbon/phosban?

 

 

Hmm... Mine were stringy too. the flow is decent. MP10 on short pulse about 50%.

I went lights out for 3 days, no effects on the macros. I am using bottled distilled water for topoff and WC. Not running any chemicals. It is hard to explain, but I had them really bad, they went away after lights out and 2 a day floss changes. Then they came back on my c.mexicana, but I noticed it was going sexual and removed it. haven't seen anything since. I think my c.mexicana was going sexual in areas repeatedly over a few weeks, when i took it out, it was all going full on double rainbow style. So I 86'd it. I am not pleased with the flow with the MP10. as it is now I get superb flow on the side with the pump and not so much on the far end of the tank. If i turn it up higher i get great flow at the other end, but it gets crazy down by the pump. So I dunno. No more vortechs for me in the future.

[got2envy]

Really? I love my Vortechs

altho in my macro I have Koralias...I can see where the vortech would be a PITA.

 

I 86'd my taxifolia lol was always go Asexual and grew wayyyy to fast.

[AdrianBryce]

yeah the vortech is a pita. I might end up switching it to the other side of the tank and see how that works.

 

Got a weekend assignement.

[arash53]

I had same problem in my tank and I tried 3 days darkness method, and did not worked they came back after 2,3 days.

 

I bought a orange spotted diamond goby and my sand bed is always clean now:)

[Oceanus]

stick the Vortech on the back of the tank.

[johnmaloney]

confused..

 

did it turn out to be dinos/diatoms? one of the brown cyanos?

 

macros can fall victim to nuisance algae just like coral, even more so b/c their defense mechanism usually aren't as advanced. (Some coralline species are the exception, and shed to remove nuisance algae...)

[AdrianBryce]

stick the Vortech on the back of the tank.

 

It's a 20L. That would just blow the sand everywhere. I am trading my mp10 for a brand new RKL and sicce voyager 2. So all is well with that.

 

confused..

 

did it turn out to be dinos/diatoms? one of the brown cyanos?

 

macros can fall victim to nuisance algae just like coral, even more so b/c their defense mechanism usually aren't as advanced. (Some coralline species are the exception, and shed to remove nuisance algae...)

 

I don't think it was diatoms, those are powdery right? This was stringy. It may very well have been brown cyano, i didn't think of that. When I think about cyano, I think red or blue/green. It only occurred on the macros, and if dinos feed on silicate, then maybe it was cyano.

[MitchReef]

silicates? they even go through RO/DI units. Try some Oceans Blaen Phosphate / Silicate remover....prolly fix the problem....

[Dani3d]

if looked under the microscope they look like little rigid sort of rounded structure. There are different kinds with different shapes but they sort of look a little bit rigid.

 

They create long thrings of disgusting brown stuff in the aquarium.

 

Mine looked a bit like this under the microscope, but with a bit of harder shell look, not soft:

 

 

 

 

To raise my PH without affecting other parameters, I used Seachem OH Balance, that raise PH without affecting carbonate hardness and calcium:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Seachem-7511-AquaVit...mp;sr=1-1-fkmr0

 

 

Do dinos have a stiff skeletal appearance or are the stringy?