Dinoflagellates Disaster

[BiocubeBlakey]

I have been battling dinoflaggelates in my tank for the last 4 months. I've done everything from blacking out the tank to syphoning to raising the ph to chemi pure elite and so on and so on. The stuff will disappear for a few days to a week and then one day reappear with a vengeance. I love my fish and corals but it is taking over so profusely that the setup is an eyesore and I don't think it's even fair to my fish. Should i just sell the fish and coral and get rid of all of the rock and crushed coral and start over??? I kept the tank successfully for 2 years without ever having an algae problem and the dinoflagellates don't seem to be going anywhere.

 

Setup:

24 Gallon JBJ Nanocube

150w Sunpod Metal Halide with 20k bulb

Stealth Heater set at 68

Maxijet 1200 Circulation Pump

Media Baskets filter basket with filter floss (changed every 3 days) and chemipure elite packet

Two Koralia 1 pumps in tank for water movement.

 

Specs: pH 8.2

Amonia 0

Nitrates 0

 

Using part A and B for calcium and alkalinity needs.

S.G. 1.024

 

Any help would be much appreciated. Otherwise, I'm going to start all over. On that note, are there any 24ish gallon tank owners that are having ongoing success and could share your setup info with me. I refuse to give up on my tank but this stuff is ruthless.

[bbyatv]

See this topic:

 

http://www.wamas.org/forums/topic/45630-hair-algaetell-me-all-you-know-about-it-how-do-i-kill-it/

 

Good Luck,

Bruce

[Origami]

You've read this article, I presume? What about lowering phosphates through aggressive use of GFO (as mentioned in the article)? Toward the end, Holmes-Farley makes specific suggestions, including elevating pH using limewater, reducing nutrients - especially nitrates and phosphates, reducing your photoperiod, use of lots of carbon (to remove toxins), and manual removal (siphoning).

[treesprite]

When I had them in my old nano all I did was leave the lights off for 3 days straight. Never saw dinos again (I don't know how they got in the tank to begin with, because the params were excellent).

[surf&turf]

I would start by removing as much of the crushed coral as you can. It can trap detritus and add to your nutrients problem.

 

 

[rocko918]

I would start by removing as much of the crushed coral as you can. It can trap detritus and add to your nutrients problem.

 

I would not do this at all. Removing the sandbed is not the solution. imho.

 

 

Are you using RO/DI water, well water or something else for you top off and water changes? How does your water movement look? How old is the light? Your heater is set at 68??? what is the temp of the tank? How are you testing the water? Your doing for calcium and alkalinity, but what are your levels. Do you need to be dosing? what is your fish and coral load.

[F&Fmgr]

I would not do this at all. Removing the sandbed is not the solution. imho. It most likely is NOT the solution, but it very well could be a detritus trap and most likely IS a problem. unless he is siphoning dirt out of the gravel bed, whcih is probably taking the microfauna out of the bed as well.

 

Are you using RO/DI water, well water or something else for you top off and water changes? How does your water movement look? How old is the light? Your heater is set at 68??? what is the temp of the tank? How are you testing the water? Your doing for calcium and alkalinity, but what are your levels. Do you need to be dosing? what is your fish and coral load.

 

+1

[firecrackerbob]

First let me say that there are a lot of ways to run a tank, and the key to success is to find what works best for you (and that the way others do it is not nessisarily wrong). With that said, IMHO, I would have to agree with surf/turf and disagree with rocko. I had nuisance algae problems for years until I removed my sand bed. I have been bare bottom for about a year now and my tank is getting close to being 100% problem free. I fought it for a long time because I frankly dont like the way bare bottom looks, but I would rather have a algae free tank than a tank with sand and dinos... but thats just me.

so my steps where as follows: removed sand bed, installed a very large refugium with cheto, began siphoning detritus off the bare bottom daily, increased skimming, added GFO, began replacing my carbon regularly once my PH began dipping below 8, stopped dosing trace suplements(except alk, ca, and mg of course- I was dosing Fe and trace), replaced lights(mine were very old), increased water movement, increased Mg levels, began blowing off rockwork with a powerhead every other day or so, reduced photoperiod to 8hrs, do a 3day off cycle every other month or so(doing another one now actually).

I also stopped feeding my tank completely ( I only have a chromis and a dottyback in ~120 total gallons) and let the fish forrage for their food. this is probably not practical for everyone, but I would cut back feeding as much as you possibly can.

also as rocko mentioned, RODI is a must if you arent using it already.

 

best of luck- ive been there too! and made it through. I almost got out bc of dinos, but im more excited than I have been in a long time about the hobby- keep at it!

[F&Fmgr]

lets not turn this into a BB vs DSB conversation. I think what Frank was getting at is that crushed coral is generally really good at 1 thing, trapping dirt. a properly agitated sandbed whether deep or shallow with the right grain size will be very conducive to the proliferation of microfauna. PLus< generally speaking, smaller grain sand tends to have more surface area for bacteria which means better decomp of the waste in the tank( or sandbed).

[surf&turf]

^^^^^^^^+1^^^^^^^^^^

 

Thats what I was meaning, crushed coral is kind of old school. JM2C

[rocko918]

i think there are a few more things that need to be answered and taken care of before drastically removing something.

 

 

what works for you may not work for other. In the end you need to figure out what works in your tank. a small tank is harder to take care of. What ever you do take it slow.

[Chad]

Dinoflagellates are a PITA.

 

I had the problem about a year ago that lasted about 6 months. In my case, persistance was the only thing that kept it knocked down. I would do a 72 hour lights out combined with GFO, carbon, increased KH (~12), increased pH (8.4+) and twice daily manual removal (especially during the lights out). Things would get better (almost immediately after doing the lights out most of the time), and then return between a week and several weeks later. At the first sign of it being anywhere but in extremely localized areas (always seemed to be at the tips of my gorgs no matter what I did), I would do the treatment again.

 

The last few months I haven't seen it at the tips of my gorgs anymore, but I would restart the treatment tonight if I noticed it.

 

IMO, with most of these things persistance and followthrough with a course of action that has some success is the only way to go.

 

Edit: I agree with Rocko, something that works in one tank will not necessarily work in another and he asked some good questions that need to be addressed to recommend a solution for you.

[BiocubeBlakey]

I have two koralia 1's and a maxijet 1200 so I think the flow is pretty decent. As far as dosing, I just dose 2 part and pH Up 8.3. As far as livestock goes, I just have 2 small ocellaris clowns and a small 6 line wrasse. I blacked out the tank for 3 days but it didn't really do much. I've been using RO/DI since the beginning. Funny that you mention the crushed coral. Before upgrading to this tank, I had a 14 gallon biocube for a year with sand instead of crushed and I never encountered any dinos. That was before I had my RO/DI unit too.

[zygote2k]

I'd say that since it's a 24g tank, break it down and start it over. Remove the rock and give it a thorough scrub and rinse, replace the crushed coral with Seaflor, and do a nearly 100% w/c. This would be the simplest, most direct way of dealing with this issue.

If this was a larger tank, a different approach might work, but since it's so small, it's easy to start over.

I'm also willing to bet that this tank runs warm- 3 powerheads, return pump, heater, 150w mh.

Edited November 7, 2011 by zygote2k

[Chad]

Can you post some pictures?

 

Dinos came in on something you added to the tank, the crushed coral might be contributing to the problem (by adding nutrients), but is not the cause (unless the dinos were on the CC when you added it). Were you manually removing the dinoflagellates during treatment? IME, it gets everywhere, but isn't difficult to remove by siphoning and a little manual agitation (I used a turkey baster).

[BiocubeBlakey]

I will post some pictures this evening. The tank runs surprisingly cool at a constant 77 degrees. It is an open top with a sunpod suspended above it. I'm also lucky enough to have free utilities so the ambient temperature in my apartment is always around 65. That might help as well. I was manually removing during treatment and have actually seen some improvement after actively working to raise the pH. I just realized that my test kits are about 3 years overdue for a replacement so I ordered the full kit, but as of right now I am just determining water quality by the health and behavior of corals and fish. They seem super happy and the dinos seem to only rear their heads after 5 hours of lights.