Dinos or Diatoms or something else?

[Coinee]

1 hour ago, Clown79 said:

Black outs don't kill dino, they will reappear when the lights are turned on.

They haven't appeared again for over a day and a half.

[Coinee]

I got my Hanna ULR checker for phosphate, so my params are:

 

Ammonia: 0 PPM

Nitrites: 0 PPM

Nitrates: 15 PPM

Phosphate: 0.4 PPM

 

So if my tank has nutrients, I should not really see dinos, no?    My phosphate was higher than I expected, though and my corals all look really good to go, nothing seems pissed off or angry. I am thinking about doing a 30% or so water change and seeing what happens.

 

Any ideas? 

[Tired]

Don't do a water change. Your nutrients are good, and a water change would lower them. 

 

It's entirely possible that they're going away, not because of the blackout, but because of the nutrients. 

[Clown79]

27 minutes ago, Coinee said:

I got my Hanna ULR checker for phosphate, so my params are:

 

Ammonia: 0 PPM

Nitrites: 0 PPM

Nitrates: 15 PPM

Phosphate: 0.4 PPM

 

So if my tank has nutrients, I should not really see dinos, no?    My phosphate was higher than I expected, though and my corals all look really good to go, nothing seems pissed off or angry. I am thinking about doing a 30% or so water change and seeing what happens.

 

Any ideas? 

is it 0.04 or 0.4

 

I didn't see any significant change in dino's until my phos was above 0.08

 

You should really try doing smaller waterchanges as waterchanges is a nutrient export, so the larger the waterchange, the more significant drop in nutrients.

 

During dino's, I did no waterchanges for a month amongst other procedures. You can check out my lagoon journal where i detailed all the things I did to get rid of dino's. It starts on page 7.

It's too detailed to rewrite it all so going through it might give you an idea.

[Clown79]

26 minutes ago, Tired said:

Don't do a water change. Your nutrients are good, and a water change would lower them. 

 

It's entirely possible that they're going away, not because of the blackout, but because of the nutrients. 

This.^

 

Black outs are bandaids but never a cure. 

[Coinee]

2 hours ago, Tired said:

Don't do a water change. Your nutrients are good, and a water change would lower them. 

 

It's entirely possible that they're going away, not because of the blackout, but because of the nutrients. 

I did a small water change to siphon out some of the dinos from the sand. They do seem to be dying back a fair bit. I would never expect to say this but I'm dying to see algae growing hahaha.

1 hour ago, Clown79 said:

is it 0.04 or 0.4

 

I didn't see any significant change in dino's until my phos was above 0.08

 

You should really try doing smaller waterchanges as waterchanges is a nutrient export, so the larger the waterchange, the more significant drop in nutrients.

 

During dino's, I did no waterchanges for a month amongst other procedures. You can check out my lagoon journal where i detailed all the things I did to get rid of dino's. It starts on page 7.

It's too detailed to rewrite it all so going through it might give you an idea.

 

Now, it's entirely possible that I did the test a bit imperfectly because I haven't used a Hanna checker before and the powder is a royal pain in the ass. I was expecting something better for a test kit that is a little pricey. Anyway, it is 0.40 PPM for phosphate. 

 

When I get home later, I will retest and try to do it as 100% accurately as I can.  I also increased flow a bit to see if that would help things along. 

[Tired]

If that's an accurate reading, that's really quite high. Leave it alone, though- you need the nitrates, and IIRC high phosphate just grows algae. It won't poison things. 

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Coinee said:

I did a small water change to siphon out some of the dinos from the sand. They do seem to be dying back a fair bit. I would never expect to say this but I'm dying to see algae growing hahaha.

 

Now, it's entirely possible that I did the test a bit imperfectly because I haven't used a Hanna checker before and the powder is a royal pain in the ass. I was expecting something better for a test kit that is a little pricey. Anyway, it is 0.40 PPM for phosphate. 

 

When I get home later, I will retest and try to do it as 100% accurately as I can.  I also increased flow a bit to see if that would help things along. 

What i do to make it easier with the powder:

 

I shake the packet to move the powder to one end

 

Bend the packet in half then cut

 

It creates a scoop so you can just pour the powder in easily

 

I then use a timer for 2 mins mixing(thats my units instructions) 

 

I attached a pic of the packet after its bent

[Coinee]

2 hours ago, Tired said:

If that's an accurate reading, that's really quite high. Leave it alone, though- you need the nitrates, and IIRC high phosphate just grows algae. It won't poison things. 

I redid my test and tried to do it as 100% accurate as I could

 

Nitrates: 10 PPM

Phosphates:  0.15 PPM

1 hour ago, Clown79 said:

What i do to make it easier with the powder:

 

I shake the packet to move the powder to one end

 

Bend the packet in half then cut

 

It creates a scoop so you can just pour the powder in easily

 

I then use a timer for 2 mins mixing(thats my units instructions) 

 

I attached a pic of the packet after its bent

I tried that but the power seems to be stuck to one end of the packed when I try to pour it. I tried tapping it and it just all rushes out and creates a mess. I lost one packet from this. I have to take it all out and put it on a spoon then make a funnel with a piece of paper to get it all in. It's a pretty poor way to do things and this will probably be the only product I buy from them now that I have it, it's just annoying. 

 

 

 

 

Also,  should I add any more livestock to the aquarium?  Since the dinos are pretty small and not all over rock or coral, there is no harm in getting more livestock?

[Clown79]

13 hours ago, Coinee said:

I redid my test and tried to do it as 100% accurate as I could

 

Nitrates: 10 PPM

Phosphates:  0.15 PPM

I tried that but the power seems to be stuck to one end of the packed when I try to pour it. I tried tapping it and it just all rushes out and creates a mess. I lost one packet from this. I have to take it all out and put it on a spoon then make a funnel with a piece of paper to get it all in. It's a pretty poor way to do things and this will probably be the only product I buy from them now that I have it, it's just annoying. 

 

 

 

 

Also,  should I add any more livestock to the aquarium?  Since the dinos are pretty small and not all over rock or coral, there is no harm in getting more livestock?

You have to loosen the poweder in the packet so it all moves into 1 corner before bending the packet and cutting or it will spill everywhere.

[paulsz]

i think the reason you had 0.4ppm is because of algae die-off during the 3 day blackout. Happened to me after a 3 day blackout. my phosphates shot up to >0.6ppm.

 

As you see, it dropped quite a bit in a few days. Make sure to keep it from going down to 0. People have been telling me to keep it at 0.1ppm (i too am battling amphidinium dinos). 

 

 

[TerraIncognita]

18 hours ago, Coinee said:

I got my Hanna ULR checker for phosphate, so my params are:

 

Ammonia: 0 PPM

Nitrites: 0 PPM

Nitrates: 15 PPM

Phosphate: 0.4 PPM

 

So if my tank has nutrients, I should not really see dinos, no?    My phosphate was higher than I expected, though and my corals all look really good to go, nothing seems pissed off or angry. I am thinking about doing a 30% or so water change and seeing what happens.

 

Any ideas? 

Bio Diversity.

 

What's your stock?

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, paulsz said:

i think the reason you had 0.4ppm is because of algae die-off during the 3 day blackout. Happened to me after a 3 day blackout. my phosphates shot up to >0.6ppm.

 

As you see, it dropped quite a bit in a few days. Make sure to keep it from going down to 0. People have been telling me to keep it at 0.1ppm (i too am battling amphidinium dinos). 

 

 

My phos in my tanks currently are

 

0.30

0.17

 

The only algae i get is on the glass which i scrape 2 times a week.

 

Since having phosphates, my corals are so much happier.

[paulsz]

5 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

My phos in my tanks currently are

 

0.30

0.17

 

The only algae i get is on the glass which i scrape 2 times a week.

 

Since having phosphates, my corals are so much happier.

glad to know! i always worry that my phosphates will shoot up (i dose 0.4ppm a day and it gets mostly consumed within 24 hrs) but glad to see if that keeping it at those "higher" levels can do good too

[Coinee]

3 hours ago, TerraIncognita said:

Bio Diversity.

 

What's your stock?

It is a 10 gallon tank.

 

Mostly soft corals (leathers, zoas, GSP, Xenia) but some acans and a birdsnest

A cleaner shrimp

A couple snails

I added a bottle of pods about a month ago

 

[TerraIncognita]

1 minute ago, Coinee said:

It is a 10 gallon tank.

 

Mostly soft corals (leathers, zoas, GSP, Xenia) but some acans and a birdsnest

A cleaner shrimp

A couple snails

I added a bottle of pods about a month ago

 

I had a type of Dino (I think) as well in my recent 10G. adding coral and a piece of LR with Macro Algae made it almost disappear. Waiting for another week to see if I need to do anything else.
 

if it comes back I’m gonna grab it under a microscope and see what it is exactly.

 

i added 

 

velvet branch sps

hammer lps

7 different zoas&palys

goniastrea

Something from the favidae family

lepto

GSP

 

2 clown

2 hermit

3 astera

2 nassarius

1 cleaner shrimp

 

it literally starved everything I didn’t want.

 

 I stocked all the coral same day, and the clean up crew the day before.

 

not sure if that had something to do with it or not but so far so good.

 

[Tired]

Trying to starve dinos out does not work in any way that won't also starve all your algae and corals, and quite possibly not even then. Biodiversity and nutrients available to its competitors are the proven effective method. If you actually had dinos and that got rid of them, either you had a nutrient spike or the biodiversity in the live rock was what did it. Or possibly it wasn't dinos, and the snails ate it. 

[Murphs_Reef]

22 minutes ago, Tired said:

Trying to starve dinos out does not work in any way that won't also starve all your algae and corals, and quite possibly not even then. Biodiversity and nutrients available to its competitors are the proven effective method. If you actually had dinos and that got rid of them, either you had a nutrient spike or the biodiversity in the live rock was what did it. Or possibly it wasn't dinos, and the snails ate it. 

Correct in my experience

[Clown79]

Starvation doesn't work for dino. It does the opposite.

 

Biodiversity of organisms is key and nutrients.

 

Pods are the number 1 competitor of dino. Lots of pods.

 

Dino's become an issue in sterile environments, they flourish and multiply in this environment.

 

They are always present in not only the ocean but in our tanks. Its part of the chain of aquatic life and ecosystem.

 

 

[Coinee]

23 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Starvation doesn't work for dino. It does the opposite.

 

Biodiversity of organisms is key and nutrients.

 

Pods are the number 1 competitor of dino. Lots of pods.

 

Dino's become an issue in sterile environments, they flourish and multiply in this environment.

 

They are always present in not only the ocean but in our tanks. Its part of the chain of aquatic life and ecosystem.

 

 

I think my issue was I forgot to do a water change for a long time, then they started to appear. I'm guessing since my tank is a newer tank, the uptake of nutrients probably got too fast in that period of time so dinos showed their faces. Happy to report that things are taming up well now. I still have a bit of them in the sandbed but I'm going to clean the sandbed out on Sunday a bit. I am seeing other stuff growing on the glass now that isn't gross ugly brown garbage.

 

 

I plan to start stocking the tank a bit more too and maybe get a small goby. Lesson learned for me to make sure I keep a water change log so that nutrients don't bottom out too low.

[Cflo]

It looks like dinos to me. I’ve beaten it before. Keep nutrients a little bit high, stop cleaning the glass, take as many snails out as possible, do not do water changes, keep skimming, and  get a UV sterilizer. The UV will finish them off. I had a sea hare that actually ate dinos. That thing was amazing.

[Coinee]

I cleaned out the sandbed and tidied up the tank a bit. The dinos have been pretty much beat back it seems. I'll keep an eye on my tank params and not miss maintenance any more. 

[Coinee]

Based upon today, I think I can say the dinos are gone. My sand looks great and clean and no rusty grossness anywhere!