Keys to beating dinoflagellates

[uhuru]

20 20 - you should see a rust tinted cloud around the dinos when you turn off the circulation. it's a very delicate cloud and as soon as you blow at it even a little bit it disintegrates.

At the end of the battle I did have dinos that would not blow off. It was the short thin hairs like yours and stuck to the bare bottom and the panes of the tank. Some of it stuck to the pointed branches of my birdsnest. It was the last of the dinos to go probably about week 5 or 6 of dosing zeovit is when I noticed that stuff finally dying off.

[nismo driver]

20 20 that doesnt sound like dinos your dealing with.

when i got home tonight after a normal light cycle it wasnt too bad, maybe half as bad as it was the last time i ran a full day of lighting.

if i cut all circulation i get the cloud of floating white stringy nasty stuff floating around the tank.

[20 20]

How long after I turn off the circulation should I see this cloud?

Ain't Zeovit expeeeeensive?

[uhuru]

- the stuff reproduces incredibly fast, you should be able to see growth within 5 minutes without circulation to break it up

- I know you're just being humorous but honestly I don't know where that belief comes from that zeovit is expensive, I have an 85g system I'm dosing it on and I only dose like 1 - 3 drops of the additives and not even everyday - IME, now if you have a 500g tank that's a different story but then again EVERYTHING is expensive in that range

[GoldeneyeRet]

Zoom,

I feel your pain.

Keep up the fight you will find something that works!!

Good luck

GER

[TCU Reefer]

I think I've got them under control. I haven't seen any in some time. Just an occasional air bubbles here and there on the LR. I haven't done a WC in a month and it's killing me.

Everything's going so well right now (no dinos, SPS growing and showing good color) but I hate not doing a water change. Should I hold off?

[Zoom]

Originally posted by GoldeneyeRet
Zoom,

I feel your pain.

Keep up the fight you will find something that works!!

Good luck

GER

[20 20]

Turned off all pumps, 15 minutes later still no 'cloud', rusty or white or any other color. Is this a 'definative' test to see if it's dino's? I wouldn't think so, but I figured I'd ask.

[gig]

hey guys, I got it too! It looks like snot, sometimes has bubble in it as well, also found one of my snails dead or dying last night (presumeably from the toxins it releases), so I'll need to run some carbon tonight. Here's a pic and a video

[jnarowe]

WHOA! Dude, that's nasty.

[20 20]

Well, that's the same stuff I have.

[Zoom]

I don't know my are different look here .
I got my checked out under Microscope and they are dinos.

[TCU Reefer]

Originally posted by Zoom
I don't know my are different look here .
I got my checked out under Microscope and they are dinos.

Now that's nasty.

[Mappelbaum37]

I just hada thread on this problem and I thought my tank has just finished with this craziness but from this thread it looks like i have to be cautious. I have some pics of before and after. I cut back from 8 hrs to 7 hrs of light, cut back on feeding, used a turkey baster to squeeze water at the rocks so the bacteria would go into the water column, then I would siphon it out with my python. I turned off the lights for 39 hours, yesterday (random number, just how it worked out). Hopefully I just got rid of the diagnoflettes in my tank...Wish me luck though..I need it.

before:


after:


before:


after:



Hopefully, things will stay like this for me... =)- good luck with fixing your problem.

[Zoom]

You see the little bubbles all over up above the main blob that is the way they look after all day with the MH on.

Now that's nasty.

[Zoom]

Your tank looks like it had a Diatoms Bloom , don't look like dinos to me at all but i can only look at the pictures

[uhuru]

Originally posted by gig
hey guys, I got it too! It looks like snot, sometimes has bubble in it as well, also found one of my snails dead or dying last night (presumeably from the toxins it releases), so I'll need to run some carbon tonight. Here's a pic and a video

that doesn't look like dinos to me

[gig]

what does it look like?

[Mappelbaum37]

when I got on my knees to look at the rocks from a different angle it looked like a slimy substance, some rocks with bubbles under them. When I squeezed a turkey baster it came right off the rocks.. Diatoms or dinos?

[shred5]

Dino's are a pain and are the fastest growing algae I have ever seen. They can cover every inch of a reef in hours. For some reason I live in a area where Dino's are a bane in allot of peoples tanks. It might be the high amount of iron in our tap water. I had dealt with them for several years in the past, every once in a while they would creep up bad. I have talked with most experts over the years and had them taken to labs etc. Fact is they are a different puppy than any other algae and most normal things did not work at least for me.

Zooxanthellae are a type of dinoflagellate so it is safe to assume lower nutrient levels do not work. Also they are motile and the reason they spread so fast. For most people they spread so fast they crash and they never see them again but for some people they just keep going like the energizer bunny.


I had tried all the usual things like phosphate removers, water changes, ozone, uv ,raising the alk levels adding di stage to my r.o. unit and a second di stage, added a better skimmer and I will tell you this dids not work work for me. As my nutrients got lower and lower the dinos got worse and worse but I never saw any other type of algae either.. It seems they survive in much lower nutrient water than any other algae. I was to the point where there was so little phosphate in my reef that my corals were barely growing at all. You can not treat Dino’s like regular algae. For those that they do not crash on their own this is what I did. I Raised the nutrient levels some and I also add a fuge. It seems they cannot compete against macro algae for nutrients. The other algae like cheato will keep the nutrients low but require some nutrients to grow and will out compete the dino’s for those nutrients. If you lower the nutrient levels too much macro algae will stop growing and dinos will take over. I figured this out because when I first got into the hobby skimmers were rare and we used wet dry filters but it was also common to grow large amounts of Caulerpa in our reef tanks. Only till I started using bigger skimmers and we stopped keeping caulerpa in our tanks did this stuff rear its ugly head.

When I decided to get into breeding clown fish and I had brood stock tanks that were fed heavily and I did not care about algae growing in my brood stock tanks because the algae helped remove some of the nutrients. Well guess what? I never ever saw dinos in my brood stock tanks. My brood stock were also kept with a anemone so higher light was needed and I keep them just like a reef tank. Well I put two and two together and added a fuge with algae to my reef and stopped trying to keep nutrients at the lowest possible level. I never saw dino’s again and it was allot cheaper then running tons phosphate removers, oversized skimmers, uv, ozone etc.

I still occasionally use phosphate removers and still run a good skimmer though. I still keep phospahates low just not so low Macro algae stops growing.

Dave

[Zoom]

Originally posted by shred5
Dino's are a pain and are the fastest growing algae I have ever seen. They can cover every inch of a reef in hours. For some reason I live in a area where Dino's are a bane in allot of peoples tanks. It might be the high amount of iron in our tap water. I had dealt with them for several years in the past, every once in a while they would creep up bad. I have talked with most experts over the years and had them taken to labs etc. Fact is they are a different puppy than any other algae and most normal things did not work at least for me.

Zooxanthellae are a type of dinoflagellate so it is safe to assume lower nutrient levels do not work. Also they are motile and the reason they spread so fast. For most people they spread so fast they crash and they never see them again but for some people they just keep going like the energizer bunny.


I had tried all the usual things like phosphate removers, water changes, ozone, uv ,raising the alk levels adding di stage to my r.o. unit and a second di stage, added a better skimmer and I will tell you this does not work. As my nutrients got lower and lower the dinos got worse and worse but I never saw any other type of algae either.. It seems they survive in much lower nutrient water than any other algae. I was to the point where there was so little phosphate in my reef that my corals were barely growing at all. You can not treat Dino’s like regular algae. For those that they do not crash on their own this is what I did. I Raised the nutrient levels some and I also add a fuge. It seems they cannot compete against macro algae for nutrients. The other algae like cheato will keep the nutrients low but require some nutrients to grow and will out compete the dino’s for those nutrients. If you lower the nutrient levels too much macro algae will stop growing and dinos will take over. I figured this out because when I first got into the hobby skimmers were rare and we used wet dry filters but it was also common to grow large amounts of Caulerpa in our reef tanks. Only till I started using bigger skimmers and we stopped keeping caulerpa in our tanks did this stuff rear its ugly head.

When I decided to get into breeding clown fish and I had brood stock tanks that were fed heavily and I did not care about algae growing in my brood stock tanks because the algae helped remove some of the nutrients. Well guess what? I never ever saw dinos in my brood stock tanks. My brood stock were also kept with a anemone so higher light was needed and I keep them just like a reef tank. Well I put two and two together and added a fuge with algae to my reef and stopped trying to keep nutrients at the lowest possible level. I never saw dino’s again and it was allot cheaper then running tons phosphate removers, oversized skimmers, uv, ozone etc.

I still occasionally use phosphate removers and still run a good skimmer though. I still keep phospahates low just not so low Macro algae stops growing.

Dave

I do agreed with most of the above, but I still grow dinos with my refuge full of cheato how can you explain that? Also I did not have any dinos till I introduce a refuge to my tank with some cheato how can you explain that? I don't know some thing work for some, same thing don't do anything for others.

[jnarowe]

Interesting post Dave. Thanks!

[shred5]

Originally posted by Zoom
I do agreed with most of the above, but I still grow dinos with my refuge full of cheato how can you explain that? Also I did not have any dinos till I introduce a refuge to my tank with some cheato how can you explain that? I don't know some thing work for some, same thing don't do anything for others.

Maybe your nutrients are too high.. allot of people report dino's when they first set up a tank with multiple types of algae.. It is possible you have more nutrients than your fuge can handle. Possible your fuge is not set up right and also traps detritus. I do not know anything about your fuge though. did you put live rock or a sand bed in your fuge? Possible mini cycle.

Dave

[Zoom]

Originally posted by shred5
Maybe your nutrients are too high.. allot of people report dino's when they first set up a tank with multiple types of algae.. It is possible you have more nutrients than your fuge can handle. Possible your fuge is not set up right and also traps detritus. I do not know anything about your fuge though. did you put live rock or a sand bed in your fuge? Possible mini cycle.

Dave

No mini cycle here... the fuge set up right and is part of the large sump, it is built so the Cheato tumbles constantly and is been harvested once a week, no detritus build up it is BB refuge and is been cleaned every time I do the 60 Gallons water changes, about every month.
Also no high nutrients here AP 902 Deltec skimmer with 25 MG of ozone .The tank is BB with over 100 times turn over rate.

The tank is 14 years old half of the 400 LBS Live rock was replaced 17 months a go .
I think when I got the Cheato from a some one here in RC it had some dinos in to it that was the only way i think is got in to my tank . Everything else gets quarantine here .
but thank you for the Info .
I will set up one more refuge next to the one I have so it will be total of 75 Gallons of cheato in there I let you know the outcome i try anything once let see if it will work . I will post a picture of my refuge when I get home tonight.

[shred5]

Possible you are keeping nutrients too low with the skimmer and ozone and limiting the growth of the cheato. That was my hole point of my post. There is something that promotes the growth of dino’s but it still has to compete with other types of algae for… The fact that there are so many tanks in my area with Dino’s.. Iron maybe the nutrient that causes dyno’s to grow so fast. There is so much iron in our water it is not funny. Iron is also in some two part additives.

As far as dino’s being introduced, they were probably already there. Like I said zooxanthellae are Dino’s plus if you have any live rock or fish they probably came in a long time ago. Dinoflagellates are a very common algae. Red tides are dinoflagellates. Dt’s also has dinoflagellates in I believe now. My Dino’s would not be there for 6 month and bam the hole tank would be covered with them and I would not have added anything.

Have you tested your make up water?

I know they are frustrating and I feel your pain with them. They are also poisonous and can kill fish, crabs and snails.