Dinoflagellates help needed

[arminkropp]

Hello,

I battleing Dino right now. I have a 50gal tank with a couple of soft corals. I'm running phosguard for the last week and had my lights off since this past Wednesday. my pH is low right now(8.0 at night and 8.2day). Trying to keep it up with Kent superbuffer and Kalk.

Would you have any other pointers as how to get rid of this?

Thank-you
Sincerely,
Armin Kropp

 

[tinyreef]

try direct siphoning of the dinos.

the chemical filtration show less effect if used solely in that fashion imo.

 

[Mihai]

Welcome!

Dino are usually associated with new setups or with silica in the water. Both are easy to fix: if the setup is new (say less than 2-3 months) just wait it out, they'll go away. If it's not, make sure you use a good RO with DI for water top-off.

Mihai

 

[dodo99]

Do you have a protein skimmer? How often do you do water changes?

Running carbon in a trickel filter may help out.

Make sure all your sponges/filter media are cleaned often, every few days & try to siphon most of it out if ou can.

How many fish in your tank? How often do you feed them?

I've had dinofl. a few times. IME, it usually lasted less than a couple of weeks.

HTH

 

[Anonymous]

Increase water flow, and as suggested, siphon out as much of the snot as you can.

You mentioned that you're using buffer & Kalk.

What are your Calcium and Alkalinity levels? I don't think it has anything to do with Dino but you can get a serious imbalance if you add a lot of buffer while dosing limewater (Kalk). Don't try to manage your PH using buffer, it's never a good idea. Test ALK and Calcium and only use the buffer if your ALK is low.

 

[arminkropp]

I run GAC and phosguard in my canister(canister is cleaned with water changes,every 2 weeks)
the tank is 6 months old
Water changes every 2 weeks, 5Gal
lighting is VHO, bulbs 3 months
Have a remora skimmer, getting about 1/3 cup a day
have 5 fish and feed every other day
I use RO water
Cal is at 420 and KH is at 170mg/l
I used Kent ph buffer to bring up the KH cause the LFS said to raise it to 150-180 cause they thought it was diatoms and said low KH can cause it.

 

[Anonymous]

IMO your Ca and ALK are perfect so please continue what you're doing It's working.

I was just concerned because for some reason there have been a lot of tank crashes this year directly related to attempting to maintain high PH by adding massive amounts or buffer. I'm glad you haven't fallen into that number-chasing trap.

How sure are you that it's Dinoflaggilates and not Cyanobacter?

Can you describt your waterflow? All pumps, powerfilter, powerheads, etc.

I think the previous posters are correct in that your tank is new and experiencing some growing pains. I just want to be sure.

 

[arminkropp]

Im pretty sure its Dino cause its a very brown scum with air bubbles in the ends of the "hairs". I've had cyano and its nothing like that.

As far a pumps
Fluval 304 Canister, 2x Maxijet 1200's in each corner of the tank aiming at each other. Another Maxijet 1200 on my skimmer.

I'm also not so sure if flow will help my problem cause I have it on the deflectors of my powerheads aswell.


http://www.mts.net/~kroppa/Diatompic.jpg
if you look above the tang you see some of the "snot" on the LR
its on the substrate also. I'm pretty sure its also not diatoms as it has air bubbles on it when the scum builds up enough.

I'm also worried that in a week I'm on holidays, so I would like to have this under control before I get on the plane. I'm prepared that that may not be the case though.

Thank you for the help this far
Armin

 

[Anonymous]

In my case, syphoning alone wasn't working.

I ended up syphoning out all the infected sand, syphoned what I could from all other places, did lots of frequent water changes. Stomatella snails helped a bunch also.

 

[Anonymous]

Boy, I am far, far from an expert here, but all of those pictures look like cyano to me. It comes in many different colors and has several growth paterns. If the remedies that you are trying are aimed at reducing Dinoflagets, try adjusting fire to aim at cyanobacters and see if you see any improvement.

Of course the bottom line of all microalgae and cyano fights is to remove the nutrients they grow on and to disrupt favorable growth conditions in your tank, but it sounds like you already know that. Good luck!

 

[Anonymous]

From that picture, it appears to be dino's (but sometimes it's hard to tell with a photograph)

First off, the mere presence of bubbles does not mean it is Dino's or snot algae----cyanobacteria can trap bubbles temporarily that are trying to exit the sandbed or are produced by the cyanobacteria on it's own. As a result, some bubbles can be present with it too. Luckily, most of the time, it IS cyanobacteria. Dino's are usually caused by two things.....Bleaching of corals due to extreme temperatures or a major swing in tank chemistry. But they also require one more thing....nutrients.

Even if you have non-toxic Dino's, they are still dangerous and precautions must be taken. They have the ability to take up a lot of oxygen. Your fish can "drown" due to the lack of dissoved oxygen not to mention the pH impact.

Most of the treatments for cyano's applies to Dino's. However, Dino's require a little more. The pH must be bumped up (8.4 to 8.5) which can be accomplished by dripping Kalk faster than normal. This means your alkalinity is going to be raised higher than normal too. Sometimes you even need to leave the lights off for a couple of days. Make sure you siphon as many out as you can because they reproduce via fission.

Here are a couple of links

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/t_crail.html
http://bellnetweb.brc.tamus.edu/dinoflag.htm

 

[Mihai]

Really, what do you use for water changes/top off? You say RO. Do you make it? Does the LFS make it? Walmart. If you can afford use a silica test (maybe the LFS). It may be cheaper to buy a DI unit and put it after your RO. If I recall correctly silica goes through the RO (it's small?).

Dino's love silica. In fact they need it. Starve them and you win.

M.

 

[Anonymous]

Dino's love silica. In fact they need it. Starve them and you win.

M.

I've never heard this. I know Diatoms require Silicate but I have not heard that Dinoflaggilates require Silica. I'm quite skeptical, do you have any articles or reference to convince me?

 

[Anonymous]

I've seen a correlation between low pH and dinos. In the past, I defeated them by running a pH of 8.4, syphoning out the dinos, water changes and running carbon and phosphate remover.

Hope this helps,
-Lee

 

[Anonymous]

Here is an optional resource. Hope this is informative.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/bluegralgae.htm

 

[Anonymous]

Mine was definately dinos. Cyanobacter doesn't look like someone sneezed in your tank, dinos do. Another sure way to tell the difference between dinos and cyano, dinos float and then stick to everything.

 

[Mihai]

Dino's love silica. In fact they need it. Starve them and you win.

M.

I've never heard this. I know Diatoms require Silicate but I have not heard that Dinoflaggilates require Silica. I'm quite skeptical, do you have any articles or reference to convince me?

I didn't mean "silica" in particular, but rather things that contain silicium, most likely in the form of silicates. It was similar to the statement "SPS require calcium and alkalinity". Sorry for the confusion.

Mihai