Dealing with dinoflagellates

[AlanM]

I am having a struggle with dinos in my tank at the moment. It has been going on for a few of months now. I have lost a few corals and all my hermits.

 

I'm planning to use this thread to document what I have learned, what I'm doing, and post pics of progress in the hopes that others dealing with them will have ideas other than tearing down and starting over.

[molcott]

Giant meteor? Wait wrong dinos

 

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[xabo]

Just finished a battle with dino's. A 48 hr. blackout followed by dino x treatment beat it........................................for now.

[tygger]

Xabo, what do you have in your tank and did Dino X affect it? Let us know how it goes.

[Stephen]

I got dino's pretty badly last year after my tank cycled. Lights out for 72 hours and dosing of peroxide for 13 days got rid of it for me. Can't say which did it but it's gone. 

 

Days 1-3 Lights out and tank covered with thick heavy blankets. Dosed 0.5ml of peroxide per 10 gallons of water volume. It's important to know your total water volume vs how much your tank/sump can hold. You don't want to overdose. 

Days 4-6 Just actinics on normal cycle. Dosed tank with 1ml of peroxide per 10 gallons of water volume.

Days 7-9 Lights back to normal schedule. Dosed tank with 1ml of peroxide per 10 gallons of water volume.

Days 10 Lights on normal schedule. Dosed tank with 1ml of peroxide per 10 gallons of water volume.

Days 11-13 Lights normal. Dosed 0.5ml of peroxide per 10 gallons of water volume.

 

I noticed on the 5th and 6th days there was some dino trying to come back. On day 7 it was gone though and I haven't seen it since. No ill effects to anything else in the tank except maybe some red macroalgae. I've come to believe that is because I don't have sufficient lighting over my refugium though.

[madweazl]

Have you seen this on R2R? Has just about everything you could imagine on the subject. 

[Neto]

There are different strains of Dynos, on my previous setup (same tank & equipment) I had a really tough strain, if I remember correctly it was one called "Prorocentrum." I battle it for a while and tried many chemical products like Dyno X and non chemical remedies like 6 day blackouts. Unfortunately they always came back, slowly but back to dominate. I had a Dr graduate from UMD (username is "Pants") come to my house with equipment to analyze which strain it was. You should contact him and ask for his help so you know what you are dealing with. 

 

My suggestion to you is that if you can easily start over do it.. Take out every rock in the tank and boil it. 

[xabo]

Xabo, what do you have in your tank and did Dino X affect it? Let us know how it goes.

 

 

Have bout 7 pieces of SPS, 3 Tangs and a Butterfly fish with several snails..............all is well.........for now.

Edited February 17, 2018 by xabo

[AlanM]

So here is a microscope video of what I'm dealing with.  This shows other algae as well as little round dinoflagellates moving around.  In addition to the round ones I have some elongated ones that you can see in the second video

 

 

 

Here is a close up picture from the microscope.  You can see the dinos, some algae, a bubble, and some thin strands of what I guess are cyanobacteria.  My microscope had a poor depth of field when zoomed in to 900x.  It's, ironically, a Dino-Lite Edge microscope.  

 

[AlanM]

Have you seen this on R2R? Has just about everything you could imagine on the subject. 

 

Yep.  I've posted on there the last few days.  

 

On that thread they recommend the "dirty method" for dealing with them rather than the 3 day blackout/peroxide method.  Dirty is what I'm currently trying.

 

 

Just finished a battle with dino's. A 48 hr. blackout followed by dino x treatment beat it........................................for now.

 

I'll be trying blackout if dirty method doesn't work.

 

 

Giant meteor? Wait wrong dinos

 

Haha.  I considered one of those too.

 

 

There are different strains of Dynos, on my previous setup (same tank & equipment) I had a really tough strain, if I remember correctly it was one called "Prorocentrum." I battle it for a while and tried many chemical products like Dyno X and non chemical remedies like 6 day blackouts. Unfortunately they always came back, slowly but back to dominate. I had a Dr graduate from UMD (username is "Pants") come to my house with equipment to analyze which strain it was. You should contact him and ask for his help so you know what you are dealing with. 

 

My suggestion to you is that if you can easily start over do it.. Take out every rock in the tank and boil it. 

 

It may get to that point, but I'm going to try to beat them.  I'm also trying to identify them myself.  

 

 

I got dino's pretty badly last year after my tank cycled. Lights out for 72 hours and dosing of peroxide for 13 days got rid of it for me. Can't say which did it but it's gone. 

 

Days 1-3 Lights out and tank covered with thick heavy blankets. Dosed 0.5ml of peroxide per 10 gallons of water volume. It's important to know your total water volume vs how much your tank/sump can hold. You don't want to overdose. 

Days 4-6 Just actinics on normal cycle. Dosed tank with 1ml of peroxide per 10 gallons of water volume.

Days 7-9 Lights back to normal schedule. Dosed tank with 1ml of peroxide per 10 gallons of water volume.

Days 10 Lights on normal schedule. Dosed tank with 1ml of peroxide per 10 gallons of water volume.

Days 11-13 Lights normal. Dosed 0.5ml of peroxide per 10 gallons of water volume.

 

I noticed on the 5th and 6th days there was some dino trying to come back. On day 7 it was gone though and I haven't seen it since. No ill effects to anything else in the tank except maybe some red macroalgae. I've come to believe that is because I don't have sufficient lighting over my refugium though.

 

I have peroxide that I can use.  I also have UV.  I may do that in a month if my current method doesn't do the trick.

[AlanM]

So here's what I'm currently trying to do even though this seems crazy.

 

I have a vastly oversized skimmer on my 180g system with only a few corals and 10 small fish at the moment.  I'm running UV, frequently running carbon and floss, growing lots of chaeto, and running mesh socks on the drains.  I consistently measure 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate.  The only cleanup crew I had left was a bunch of astrea snails.  I do have some algae growing on the rocks, but it is a really dense maroon turf algae that I'd never seen before.  I think my huge amount of export just stripped the tank of too much nutrients.  Dinos are really good at using whatever they can get, so they were able to get a foothold where more complex stuff can't compete.  In addition I'd started with dry rock and am running bare bottom, so I think the thing just has never really been in balance.  

 

Here's what I've done so far:

 

- I refreshed my cleanup crew from John at ReefCleaners with 50 nerites, 100 small ceriths, 50 hermits, 25 larger ceriths, and live pods and live phyto.  

- I took out my filter socks

- I turned off UV

- I turned down one of my two skimmer pumps and left one on for aeration only, not doing enough air to get into the collection cup.  I'll be plumbing the air intake in to the outside to boost pH in the tank.

- I stopped doing water changes

- I vastly turned down my fuge light.  I just want to keep the chaeto alive for later, not export a lot with it.

- I'm feeding relatively heavily including RotoFeast and PhytoFeast from ReefNutrition

- I started dosing phosphate and soon nitrate (when it gets here)

 

The goal will be to get the tank back into a "healthy" amount of life in there and see if they're able to overwhelm the dinos.  I'm sure I'll grow green algae in the tank, but that's what the cleanup crew is for.  In addition, live phyto and live pods apparently will actually eat dinoflagellates where most organisms won't.

[AlanM]

I made a solution of monosodium phosphate (NaH2PO4) with a concentration so that each 1 ml I dose will raise my phosphate in my 200g volume by 0.01ppm.  

 

Last night I dosed in 10ml to raise my undetectable phosphate to 0.1ppm.  This morning I tested and found it back at 0.03 with Hanna ULR.  So my tank is definitely phosphate limited and seems to be quickly soaking it up.  I also tested at 0 nitrate this morning again, but not much I can do about that yet.  

 

This morning I dosed another 10ml to raise it to 0.1ppm again.  I'll test again tomorrow.  

 

I am gong to try to run at around 5ppm nitrate and 0.1ppm phosphate, and I'll keep dosing that amount with increasing frequency until I can eventually test that amount in the morning.

 

I have some sodium nitrate coming in the mail that will allow me to make a nitrate dosing solution.  I'll make that solution to let me dose to 5ppm in 200g with 10ml.

[overklok]

Have you thought about using a algae scrubber on the sump? Not a chaeto based scrubber, just one where you run the light on your sump and let whatever algae grows proliferate. I have my light over a piece of Starboard in my sump. I use Starboard, instead of running the light directly on the sump substrate. When the algae gets overwhelming, I remove the Starboard, scrape the algae off and return it to the sump. The sump runs an opposite light cycle and has a more powerful light (Gen3 Radion XR30w vs Gen4 Radion XR15w). The goal is to have your sump out compete the display tank for nutrients, get the dinos to grow in the sump, instead of the display.  You will be amazed at the assortment of awful algae and other slime that will grow on an unattended piece of plastic with a light over it.

Edited February 18, 2018 by overklok

[AlanM]

Have you thought about using a algae scrubber on the sump? Not a chaeto based scrubber, just one where you run the light on your sump and let whatever algae grows proliferate. I have my light over a piece of Starboard in my sump. I use Starboard, instead of running the light directly on the sump substrate. When the algae gets overwhelming, I remove the Starboard, scrape the algae off and return it to the sump. The sump runs an opposite light cycle and has a more powerful light (Gen3 Radion XR30w vs Gen4 Radion XR15w). The goal is to have your sump out compete the display tank for nutrients, get the dinos to grow in the sump, instead of the display.  You will be amazed at the assortment of awful algae and other slime that will grow on an unattended piece of plastic with a light over it.

 

Interesting idea.  I am sort of doing the same thing with the sides of the chaeto bucket.  They are foul, heh.

[AlanM]

Posting this here to keep track of my phosphate dosing math.  Dimensional analysis.

 

I want to add 0.1mg PO4 per liter which is basically the same as 0.1ppm PO4.  I have 200 gallons at 3.79 liters per gallon, so I get:

 

0.1 mg PO4/L * 3.785 L/g * 200 g = 75.7 mg PO4 needed to raise my tank amount to 0.1ppm.

 

Monosodium phosphate is NaH2PO4 and weighs 120g/mol.  PO4 weighs 95g/mol.  To make up my solution that lets me dose 75.7mg of PO4 in 10ml of solution I get:

 

(75.7mg PO4 / 10ml) * (120g NaH2PO4 / 95g PO4) * (1000ml / 1 L) * (1 g PO4 / 1000 mg PO4) = 9.56g NaH2PO4 per liter to make my solution which should add 0.1ppm when 10ml is added to 200g of volume.

[AlanM]

Here are my dosing calculations for sodium nitrate.

 

I'd like to make a solution that allows me to dose 10ml into 200 gallons to get 5ppm NO3 (or 5mg NO3 per liter).

 

5mg NO3/L * 3.785 L/gallon * 200gallon = 3.785g NO3 dosed into 200 gallons to get 5ppm.

 

Sodium nitrate weighs 85g/mol and nitrate weighs 62g/mol so to calculate the solution:

 

(3.785g NO3 / 10ml) * (8 g NaNO3 / 62g NO3) * (1000ml / 1 L) = 519 g NaNO3 per liter to make a solution which will add 5ppm to 200 gallons when 10ml is dosed.

 

That's more than a pound of sodium nitrate per liter.  Good thing it's easily soluble in water.

[gws3]

I've battled dinos twice. Two different strains via identification under a microscope. I tried a lot of different tactics... lights out, peroxide, decreasing nutrients, increasing nutrients, balancing nitrates and phosphates by dosing either NaNO3 or seachem phosphorous.

 

Alan, my suggestion would be to skip the nitrate/phosphate dosing. With dinos it did nothing. When I battled low nutrients it caused more harm than good to corals. There is a big difference in my opinion between increasing nutrients naturally via feeding more and the nitrogen cycle vs chemical dosing. I think chemical dosing is unnatural and causes issues.

 

Both times I beat dinos I ended up resorting to DinoX. It will kill your shrimp. Past day 15 of the 21 day dosing period sps will start to suffer. It will take them a few months to recover. But the dinos will be dead and a lot of nuisance algae will suffer and disappear. Your rocks will be super clean and coralline will be extremely happy not having to compete with dinos and some of the nuisance algae it kills.

Edited February 19, 2018 by gws3

[AlanM]

I've battled dinos twice. Two different strains via identification under a microscope. I tried a lot of different tactics... lights out, peroxide, decreasing nutrients, increasing nutrients, balancing nitrates and phosphates by dosing either NaNO3 or seachem phosphorous.

 

Alan, my suggestion would be to skip the nitrate/phosphate dosing. With dinos it did nothing. When I battled low nutrients it caused more harm than good to corals. There is a big difference in my opinion between increasing nutrients naturally via feeding more and the nitrogen cycle vs chemical dosing. I think chemical dosing is unnatural and causes issues.

 

Both times I beat dinos I ended up resorting to DinoX. It will kill your shrimp. Past day 15 of the 21 day dosing period sps will start to suffer. It will take them a few months to recover. But the dinos will be dead and a lot of nuisance algae will suffer and disappear. Your rocks will be super clean and coralline will be extremely happy not having to compete with dinos and some of the nuisance algae it kills.

 

Interesting.  I hadn't even considered a chemical treatment to kill the stuff.  I don't have any shrimp.  I do have lots of snails and crabs.  I assume they would be ok?  I'll look in to Dino-X.

[gws3]

Snails and crabs shouldn't be bothered by it. I try to avoid chemical solutions, and am always skeptic of bottles of snake oil. But dinos are relentless, and in my two expeirences nothing else was effective.

[AlanM]

So I am having short term progress at least. Five days of dosing phosphate and nitrate. I am dosing enough to bring phosphate to 0.1ppm and nitrate to 5ppm each morning. I tested today and just added the extra needed to hit those marks, for instance. I also added lots more snails, hermits, pods, and phyto, removed my filter socks, kept my UV on, and started skimming again after turning the white channel off on my T5 fixture for two days. Just ran actinics.

 

Today was the first day in a few of full lights, and I still see lots of algae, but no visible strings of dinos. They could come back at any time soon, of course.

 

I did buy a bottle of Dino-x with some BRS points, but will wait to use it until it looks like I am losing again.

[Denis]

So I had Dino and it was bad!! I read the entire Dino thread on reef2reef and all and all I was able to get it cleared up. Just a few questions in the case I missed it. What size is your tank and how large is your UV?

 

Steps I took to clear the Dino out.

 

I dosed enough stump remover until I had a constant nitrate reading. Po4 was always detectable in my tank so I didn’t have to worry about that.

 

I always ran carbon as some Dino can be very toxic.

 

I removed all the sand out of the tank as some Dino will leave in the sand during the time the lights are on.

 

I hooked up a large enough uv with a slow flow right to the display. Every night I would blow off the rocks to get all the Dino free floating in the water column. (hence why I asked about the size of your UV sad most people are running underrated one and or not the right flow through it)

 

But if you do have regular algae growing now, it is a good sign as the regular gha is starting to outcompete the Dino.I have shared this with people and they have also been Dino free now so if you don’t need it, hopefully it can help another fellow wamas member to be Dino free. I’m happy to help if you have any additional questions as I have encountered pretty much everything but Dino for me was so far the worst haha.

Edited February 25, 2018 by Denis

[AlanM]

I have an 180g tank with a 40W AquaUV.  

 

I'm taking some of Graham's advice the last two days, sort of.  I had measurable nitrate and phosphate finally.  I was actually up to 0.14ppm phosphate, which was progress up from 0, and I still had 0.75ppm nitrate.  

 

I removed my chaeto scrubber from the tank and have just been feeding pretty heavily and skimming as my only export.  The skimmer will take the protein out, but at the moment I'm doing nothing to export nitrate and phosphate, which should let the levels go up naturally.  They do seem to be doing that now without dosing nitrate of phosphate.  

 

I also reduced my white photo cycle.  Blues are still on for about 10 hours, but whites only come on for 5 hours in the middle of the day.

 

I haven't seen dinos in a couple of days.

 

We'll see, but so far dirty method is working a bit.  Also adding more cleanup crew seems to have helped.  Was dumb of me to neglect refreshing it.  It's one of those things where if I have money to spend on the aquarium I spend it on gear and fish rather than boring snails and pods and such. 8)

[Denis]

Makes sense! I’m glad you haven’t seen any Dino’s for the last couple days. Hopefully that method works. Just thinking about Dino makes me cringe haha.

[wangspeed]

I also had to deal with dinos twice. I hated them so much that I got an oversized UV for my current build. Pentair 50W high output version. I’m hoping that I can remove after the first year or two, but it’s nice to have it around just in case. Likely will only run it at night unless there’s a problem.

 

Blackouts and peroxide were only temp fixes my last go around. Dino X is what knocked it out permanently, but from reading around, it only works on certain species.

 

 

I kept trying to fit this beast somewhere outside the sump, and finally realized there’s no reason the bottom few inches couldn’t just sit in the sump.

 

 

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[xabo]

 

Is there some type of correlation between Dinos and LEDs? Never had them when I was running MH's.