Seems like my tank is cursed...

[justinkdenny]

Guess I have dinoflagellates again.  Identified under scope and snails are starting to die.  I got them the first time due to lack of diversity and nutrients.  Now I have lots of diversity,  lots of phosphates and nitrates,  green film algae, pods, mini feather dusters,  coralline algae, pretty much everything you need to not have dinoflagellates.   I probably should have shut this tank down along time ago.

[justinkdenny]

Why would they come back when I have elevated nutrients? 

[justinkdenny]

I also have no trouble growing bubble algae and I think I have bryopsis from a frag plug from a reputable online retailer.

[paulsz]

The same happened to me. I feel your pain. Had it about two years ago. Let the tank get dirty for a good 6-8 months. The slowed down as the algae grew. I kept my phosphates and nitrates pretty high (like .1 ppm phosphates and 10-20 ppm nitrates). And then six months later, they came back and very strong. Killed all my sps frags. I ended up shutting the tank down. 

 

Sorry to hear about your tank. Not sure why they come back. 

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

Do you know which dinoflagellate you're dealing with? In some cases, you can black out the tank (for less than a week) and then run a UV or another treatment. I haven't tried this, but apparently Dr. Tim's has some twofold program where you black out a tank and add a product that degrades waste then you add a different strain of microbes to help compete the dinoflagellates.

 

If you know for sure they are free swimming (non-benthic), UV can do something to their numbers.

 

There's a new product from Fauna Marin and it's called Dino X. It's probably some medicine targeting these guys (and maybe more).

[justinkdenny]

3 minutes ago, Diamonds x Pearls said:

Do you know which dinoflagellate you're dealing with? In some cases, you can black out the tank (for less than a week) and then run a UV or another treatment. I haven't tried this, but apparently Dr. Tim's has some twofold program where you black out a tank and add a product that degrades waste then you add a different strain of microbes to help compete the dinoflagellates.

 

If you know for sure they are free swimming (non-benthic), UV can do something to their numbers.

 

There's a new product from Fauna Marin and it's called Dino X. It's probably some medicine targeting these guys (and maybe more).

I run uv almost all the time.  I'm pretty sure I have amphidinium which dont go into water column.   The only thing is some people say they aren't very toxic but they seem to be in my case.  I also am using dr Tim's waste away and ATM colony bacteria..

[A.m.P]

Oiy, Amphi are insanely resilient, all I can guess is that something changed in your water to give them the edge.
I still have them in my system too, any time my P04 starts to dip, even a little, the rocks start gooping up again. I don't really know what to suggest, your amphi strain sounds much more toxic and far-more aggressive in growth than mine was.
I can forward you the email from a european distributor of a dinoflagellate which eats other dinos, Oxyrrhis Marina, some across the puddle have luck with it.

[mcarroll]

On 7/25/2020 at 8:19 PM, justinkdenny said:

I also am using dr Tim's waste away and ATM colony bacteria..

I would not be using these kinds of products in any tank that had dino's anytime within the scope of memory.

 

If you haven't checked in on the big dino thread at R2R, I think at this point I would.  Get some updated photos to post there so someone can verify what you really have.  If it's really ampidinium, @taricha is the user you want to reach out to.

 

He's got a thread you can read through in advance, but I'd probably still reach out to him:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/amphidinium-dinoflagellate-treatment-methods.365850/

 

Noticed in another thread that someone actually caught a waterbear eating dino's with their microscope!  (Ampidinium dino's in particular.)

 

Time to mail-order some waterbears!  LOL

[Rabb.D]

it definitely has to be you water collumn, you might need more flow and better filtration with cheato, you might need to redo you whole tank, and make sure there is no stagnant spots in the tank where dinoflagellates can develop, i think more light volume is also good.

 

could also be due to excessive levels of nutrients.

 

 

[TerraIncognita]

what happened now? op?

 

These threads always end with silence lol. I want to know.

[justinkdenny]

On 8/5/2020 at 6:54 PM, TerraIncognita said:

what happened now? op?

 

These threads always end with silence lol. I want to know.

Still battling.  Not my first rodeo so I kinda have a routine.  Only thing different this time is I have elevated phosphate and nitrate so I don't have to dose those.  I manually vacuum out the worst parts of my sand into a 5 micron sock and pour back into the tank through my innovative marine uv.  I change carbon out but toxins are still wreaking havoc on my snails.  Orange zoas still mostly closed, Acan doesn't look good, sps 2 out of 3 dying, but some of the other corals look better than ever.  Who knows on that one. Lol.   I also added a bunch of chaeto to the middle rear chamber and added a fuge light.  Hopefully this will aid in diversity.   Also adding phytofeast. 

[mcarroll]

Do you have a pic that shows how the flow in the tank is set up?

[justinkdenny]

On 8/17/2020 at 8:52 AM, mcarroll said:

Do you have a pic that shows how the flow in the tank is set up?

[justinkdenny]

On 8/17/2020 at 8:52 AM, mcarroll said:

Do you have a pic that shows how the flow in the tank is set up?

return pump blasts the front glass and the powerhead shoots across the tank to the left and bounces of the left glass.  The return has a rfg on it so that randomizes it some too.

[justinkdenny]

seem to be getting a lot of cyano now so maybe that is a step in the right direction.   Didn't have cyano the first time I got dinos.

 

[mcarroll]

On 8/16/2020 at 7:12 PM, justinkdenny said:

I also added a bunch of chaeto to the middle rear chamber and added a fuge light.

This potentially puts a lot more demand on your N and P levels, so be prepared to react if it does.  Dino's also love to host as epiphytes on it....folks on the R2R thread were using hunks of it almost like a dino trap to get amphidinium off of the substrate.

 

I'm mixed about adding it in the first place because of these facts....but now that it's in there, just keep these things in mind.  If it interferes too much (up to you to decide) with nutrients, then I'd probably shift to that trapping strategy, which ends up removing the chaeto from the system (with the dino's) into the trash.  Watch out for your corals to react to the algae too, since you have some that still appear to be in marginal shape.

 

6 minutes ago, justinkdenny said:

I have to say that from a distance nothing looks too bad.  Substrate, rocks and corals all look pretty good.

 

Can you do a closeup for a couple of the exceptions that aren't looking so hot?

 

Are the "bad" exceptions in higher-flow or lower-flow zones by any chance?  

 

Which are the corals that are looking better than ever?  Are they in relatively high- or low-flow zones?

[justinkdenny]

30 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

This potentially puts a lot more demand on your N and P levels, so be prepared to react if it does.  Dino's also love to host as epiphytes on it....folks on the R2R thread were using hunks of it almost like a dino trap to get amphidinium off of the substrate.

 

I'm mixed about adding it in the first place because of these facts....but now that it's in there, just keep these things in mind.  If it interferes too much (up to you to decide) with nutrients, then I'd probably shift to that trapping strategy, which ends up removing the chaeto from the system (with the dino's) into the trash.  Watch out for your corals to react to the algae too, since you have some that still appear to be in marginal shape.

 

I have to say that from a distance nothing looks too bad.  Substrate, rocks and corals all look pretty good.

 

Can you do a closeup for a couple of the exceptions that aren't looking so hot?

 

Are the "bad" exceptions in higher-flow or lower-flow zones by any chance?  

 

Which are the corals that are looking better than ever?  Are they in relatively high- or low-flow zones?

my nutrients have been elevated for a long time, well since I got the high to fight dinos the first time.  Phosphate runs about .25 and nitrates about 25.  Its weird that I got dinos again with those numbers.  I added charts to lower those numbers while adding more diversity to the tank.  I will keep a watch on those parameters since I definitely don't want to bottom those out.  I think my sps will appreciate the lower numbers.  

 

As for the dinos, the are mostly on the substrate on the left side of the tank which receives a decent amount of flow.  The corals in that area that are affected are my unknown orange zoas, not opening, my acans, not fluffy and happy as before.  Corals in that area that look as good or better than ever are torch,  it looks great, fireworks cloves, radioactive dragon zoas, ricordia looks great,lobophillia, also better than ever.  The left side of the tank seems unaffected and sps don't look good high in the tank which could be dinos, high nutrients, or my stupid cleaner shrimp that I have a love hate relationship with.  Lol

 

So as for flow, its a mix of corals on the same side of the tank.  Some look great while others are struggling.   Even zoas in the same area are behaving differently.  I'll try to get some pics of the ones looking bad this evening when I get home from work.

[justinkdenny]

11 hours ago, mcarroll said:

This potentially puts a lot more demand on your N and P levels, so be prepared to react if it does.  Dino's also love to host as epiphytes on it....folks on the R2R thread were using hunks of it almost like a dino trap to get amphidinium off of the substrate.

 

I'm mixed about adding it in the first place because of these facts....but now that it's in there, just keep these things in mind.  If it interferes too much (up to you to decide) with nutrients, then I'd probably shift to that trapping strategy, which ends up removing the chaeto from the system (with the dino's) into the trash.  Watch out for your corals to react to the algae too, since you have some that still appear to be in marginal shape.

 

I have to say that from a distance nothing looks too bad.  Substrate, rocks and corals all look pretty good.

 

Can you do a closeup for a couple of the exceptions that aren't looking so hot?

 

Are the "bad" exceptions in higher-flow or lower-flow zones by any chance?  

 

Which are the corals that are looking better than ever?  Are they in relatively high- or low-flow zones?

Here are the pics you requested. The zoas are usually open and thriving adding babies.  The acan usually expands 2-3 times more than they have been since dinos.

[justinkdenny]

Video of the flow @mcarroll

 

 

[Nano sapiens]

What a battle, eh?  Thumbs up for keeping at it.  What I've seen generally in many threads across many reefkeeping sites is either too low...or too high nutrients can lead to dino issues.

 

Your sand bed pics look a lot like mine did a good while back.  I had been hosting six fish in a 12g (long story, was shipped a few more than I wanted) and after a few months the snot started to grow on the sand bed and then the rocks.  At that point I was vacuuming every other day and saw some modest improvement.  The clincher was reducing the bioload by limiting the aquarium to two fish and bringing nutrients down to more typical reef tank levels of ~.02 ppm PO4, ~4 ppm NO3 (previously was .06 PO4 and 50+ NO3) while continuing to vacuum the substrate regularly for a few months.  I still might see a very light patch every once in a while (my own fault when I overfeed Reefroids or pellets), but typically my old sand bed and rocks stay clean now.

 

FWIW, I'd suggest a 'reef-typical' nutrient level, as much stability as you can manage and at least a light regular vacuuming of the sand bed to remove as many of the little buggers as possible.   Just a matter of keeping at it for a few months and I think you'll see a lot of improvement.

 

Good luck!

[mcarroll]

16 hours ago, justinkdenny said:

As for the dinos, the are mostly on the substrate on the left side of the tank which receives a decent amount of flow.

You might consider that chaeto trapping strategy I mentioned since you say they are fairly isolated and on the substrate no-less.  You'll have to read up on the R2R thread I linked earlier on amphidinium for exactly how they were doing it....mostly timing.

 

5 hours ago, justinkdenny said:

Video of the flow

Any chance you think that could be too much flow for the coral in the front-left corner?  (Same flow it's always been in, or has its flow been upgraded at any point during the battle?)

 

IMO that flow looks pretty good...nice and strong.  It was hard to tell for sure in the video, but are there any dead zones that you can tell?  Places where food or poop collect?

 

Your coralline algae looks like it's kicking a$$!

 

You are still running activated carbon, correct?

 

3 hours ago, Nano sapiens said:

The clincher was reducing the bioload by limiting the aquarium to two fish

Lower bio-loads are definitely easier to manage, and more coral friendly IMO.  👍

 

3 hours ago, Nano sapiens said:

bringing nutrients down to more typical reef tank levels of ~.02 ppm PO4, ~4 ppm NO3

@justinkdenny This was a strategy suggested for Ostreopsis.  Once the tank's ecosystem was "fixed"/nutrient levels "topped up" for a while to get everything back to growing again, nutrient levels then had to drop for the dino bloom to shut off....possibly with a temperature change at the same time.  This didn't get tested much in reality as UV nips 99% of the Ostreopsis infected tanks right in the bud.  There are lots of oddball dino's that we rarely run into though, so it's not hard to explain outliers like your tank.  Makes this worth testing if you can do it without a lot of hassle.  Think I'd test the chaeto trap first though. 👍

[justinkdenny]

9 hours ago, mcarroll said:

You might consider that chaeto trapping strategy I mentioned since you say they are fairly isolated and on the substrate no-less.  You'll have to read up on the R2R thread I linked earlier on amphidinium for exactly how they were doing it....mostly timing.

 

Any chance you think that could be too much flow for the coral in the front-left corner?  (Same flow it's always been in, or has its flow been upgraded at any point during the battle?)

 

IMO that flow looks pretty good...nice and strong.  It was hard to tell for sure in the video, but are there any dead zones that you can tell?  Places where food or poop collect?

 

Your coralline algae looks like it's kicking a$$!

 

You are still running activated carbon, correct?

 

Lower bio-loads are definitely easier to manage, and more coral friendly IMO.  👍

 

@justinkdenny This was a strategy suggested for Ostreopsis.  Once the tank's ecosystem was "fixed"/nutrient levels "topped up" for a while to get everything back to growing again, nutrient levels then had to drop for the dino bloom to shut off....possibly with a temperature change at the same time.  This didn't get tested much in reality as UV nips 99% of the Ostreopsis infected tanks right in the bud.  There are lots of oddball dino's that we rarely run into though, so it's not hard to explain outliers like your tank.  Makes this worth testing if you can do it without a lot of hassle.  Think I'd test the chaeto trap first though. 👍

THanks, Iam considering adding the chaeto directly in the tank on top of the dinos.  to answer your questions...

 

1.If your talking about the red and blue looking coral,  i cant remember the name,  in the left corner of the video, i do think it may be getting too much flow.  Still has polyp extension but flesh seems to be pushed in a little on the right side.

 

2.Only zone i might consider dead would maybe be the other side of the tank where i keep some mushrooms.  i honestly think flow there is to strong too because sometimes the mushrooms release from their plugs or rocks.

 

3. my coralline is growing good but i will say that since i got dino's,  some of it is dying.  you can tell by how it glows under heavy blues right before lights out so i dont know if thats the dinos fault or something else.

 

4.yes still running small amount of carbon and changing it weekly or biweekly.

 

5 hopefully, the chaeto will reduce nutrients to lower levels like @Nano sapiens suggests.

 

[Nano sapiens]

9 minutes ago, justinkdenny said:

 

5 hopefully, the chaeto will reduce nutrients to lower levels like @Nano sapiens suggests.

 

Yes, should help.  You can also take a look at the types of food you feed and how much.  Frozen has less concentration of nutrients than pellet or flake (especially so if rinsed first).  Feed the fish just a small amount each day (they need far less than most of us think they do, especially when fed concentrated nutrition such as pellets).  Regular vacuuming of the substrate, besides removing some of the dinos, will also help lower nutrients by removing left over (or partially decaying) food particles.

 

So lots of ways to reduce nutrients without resorting to chemical media.

[mcarroll]

3 hours ago, justinkdenny said:

1.If your talking about the red and blue looking coral,  i cant remember the name,  in the left corner of the video, i do think it may be getting too much flow.  Still has polyp extension but flesh seems to be pushed in a little on the right side.

 

2.Only zone i might consider dead would maybe be the other side of the tank where i keep some mushrooms.  i honestly think flow there is to strong too because sometimes the mushrooms release from their plugs or rocks.

I'm wondering if that pump is too much for the tank...at least when it's the pump on top of the RFG?  

 

I can't say for sure this would be better since I'm not sure of the stats on the pump your have, but take a look at the Tunze 6020:

The way it flows (apparently different, right?) might be better for a narrow setup like yours.  It still moves a lot of water for it's watts, but the flow tends to be quite gentle at the same time since it delivers 100% indirect flow.

 

 

[mcarroll]

I had one of those pointed sideways right at a giant birdsnest that had been crowded out of good flow by other corals...the pump may have been five inches to the side, tucked under an overflow box.  It was perfect for "personalized flow"....the coral grew to about the size of a basketball before it was moved out to the tank where it is.  Personalized flow no longer required, so 6020 is on the shelf for now.  But I've even used it upside down in a barebottom tank to keep detritus suspended as coral food.  The tank was a 50 Breeder.  Excellent pump....quite unique.