Dinoflagellates ... *sigh*....?

G

glocklt4

Premium Member
I seem to have a pretty bad dino infestation. It seems I fell trap like lots of others unaware of the existence of dinos, thinking that I just had an algae problem.

This all started for me immediately after changing over from PC lights to LEDs. I had a single 48" PC with half actinic, half 10k, and I moved to a single Current Orbit Marine LED plus 3 Trulumen's as well (2 50/50 actinic/12k, 1 full 12k). I tried not to add too many more watts of light (or so I thought), but I guess that I did since it's hard to compare watt to watt. Not realizing the amount of additional light that those put out, I think I had them turned all the way up from the get go. Well, apparently that was enough light to bleach my mushrooms (hairy as well as some blue/green) in a matter of days if I remember right. My Kena Trees were doing amazing before but have withered away to about half the size probably due to the additional light as well. I don't have any other corals. The hairy mushrooms have just taken over the tank for the most part. Oh yeah - I guess you could say I have an anemone, or maybe hundreds. I have had aiptasia for a long time and hit it with Aiptasia-X here or there. I had just a few prior to this "algae" showing up, but now I guess the water quality has gone down enough that they have spread.

It's worth noting that apparently my salinity has been high for quite a while. I hadn't calibrated my spectrometer in a long time and it was reading 0.005 low I found out. That has been corrected as of a week ago.

Here are my params as of last night after 50% water change (using mostly Hagen master kit):

Salinity 1.025
ph 8.1
Nitrite .1 mg/L
Nitrate 5mg/L
Phosphate .25 (was .50 last week)
Calcium 440
KH 8

My 72g bow has been setup for probably 7-8 years (have lost track). I have cut lights back heavily already thinking it was algae. Now I am considering hydrogen peroxide dosing plus complete blackout for 3 days.

I just got some new fish last week after the LFS told me it was just carpet algae and that a tang will eat away at it (*sigh*). So now I have a clown, Sailfin tang, bluehead wrasse and a very nice regal tang. I most certainly do NOT want to hurt these guys, but I really don't care much about the coral. The hairy mushrooms are a pest pretty much, and I can get a kenya tree start up again.

Is this 100% dino or is it really another type of algae?

I just added some additional LR from a friend who tore down his tank, and the dino are all over it 2 weeks later. I am considering pulling as much rock out as possible dipping it in fresh water. I read here or somewhere else that freshwater kills dino within a few seconds. If I lose some mushrooms doing this, I don't care. This might help significantly with the dino on the rocks, but clearly I have a lot on the glass itself too. I keep trying to scrape it off, but it comes back again very quickly. I did that 50% water change last night before reading that apparently you want to avoid water changes while having an outbreak, so i'm done with water changes for a bit.

The main thing I do not want to do is end up causing my tank to cycle again (don't want to harm fish at all).

I'm also considering adding a UV sterilizer if that would help get some dino out of the water column (and I can get a huge amount out by dipping the rock in fresh water).

Lastly, I added a GFO yesterday to help bring down Phosphates since they were a bit high.

Pics:

dino1.jpg
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dino2.jpg
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dino3.jpg
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Dinoflagellates looks like mucous with bubbles. It's disgusting looking. This looks like algae to me, quite different.

You can drop PO4 levels with Phosphate Rx overnight. That's all I use and what I always recommend. You need to pull out as much of that stuff manually, one-pinch at a time like my Green Hair Algae video explains.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xilqKzoOgBE[/video]

If you dip your rocks in freshwater, you will assuredly create a cycle. All the bacteria on and in the rock will die off. The fish may not help eat this stuff, but new hungry snails and hermit crabs will work on what you've left in the tank after manual clean up.
 
Thanks for the reply, Marc. I will try and get some better pictures tonight to post. When I was looking over it well last night, there did seem to be quite a few bubbles. These pictures are from last weekend before I started doing as much clean up as I could.
 
I see bubbles but that looks very hairy rather than very slimy. Dinos look like goo, like snot.
 
@Marc wrote:
I see bubbles but that looks very hairy rather than very slimy. Dinos look like goo said:
Here are some more pictures. The first one is why I think i have dino. Those bubbles are at the top of a strand like the pics I've seen where people say someone definitely has dino.

dino11.jpg
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(Clown says - "No Photos!". This looks like mostly algae, but some bubbles on strands too, maybe dino)
dino12.jpg
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(Mostly algae, but some bubbles on strands)
dino17.jpg
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(this all looks like algae to me - no bubbles)
dino18.jpg
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(Mix of dino and algae?)
dino19.jpg
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dino26.jpg
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PO4 at .5 .25 is not a LITTLE high, thats way high. It should be under 0.04 I have tried phosphate rx , I think it only works on very high levels like yours, for me at 0.02 it does nothing but cloud the water, I guess their claim to reduce it by half only works if the levels are high. I tried it when my levels were 0.04 and it did not affect my readings the next day.

You need to get that PO4 down first.
 
@rckrzy1 wrote:
PO4 at .5 .25 is not a LITTLE high said:
I'm using a Hagen test kit, and it's either 0.0, 0.25, or 0.50mg/L. There was a tint of blue in the test, so it's > 0 but I'm not sure it is really 0.25mg/L - hard to tell. Just to be sure we're talking apples-apples, is your 0.04 mg/L or some other scale? I was saying "little high" based on the scale in the test, with 5.0 being high. Admittedly, I guess that is VERY high but not "Off the charts" since 5.0mg/L is still on the test chart :). If you're talking mg/L too, what tester are you using for that level of precision?

https://ca-en.hagen.com/File/7d52d485-e82c-4f67-baa2-ad7f632bc741

I started GFO on Sunday and today I have my lights off but tank not covered. Planning to leave lights off for a couple days and see what happens and continue to test water nightly (though I missed last night after getting home very late).

I am trying to locate some Phosphate RX after Marc's video. Seems like good stuff.

If I can get the algae under control (because I do think there is some in there regardless), then maybe it would be easier to identify how much dino (if any) that I have and can take care of that afterwards. Or maybe if I do have dino as well, it will subside as PO4 drops.
Click to expand...
 
I have only found red sea test kits and hanna to be accurate in PO4 reading, I compare both and they are very very close.

FYI 0.04 PPM is 0.04 mg/l Make no difference. I'm not familiar with your brand of test kit but it needs to be accurate to within .02 steps .
 
I use Salifert to measure Phosphate - and I sell Phosphate Rx if you can't get it elsewhere. I can bring it to the meeting if you are coming Thursday. Based on these new pictures, I'm in agreement with you that you have dinos.

I would turn off the pumps and scrape everything off that you can. Either use a credit card to pull that crap up to the surface to scoop it into a bowl one card's worth at a time, or scrape it down into a pile and siphon out as much as possible. Any plumbing, pumps, magnets that can be cleaned should be removed and soaked in vinegar and cleaned completely. Get rid of the bulk of it. Then you'll be ahead of the game.

I use 3% peroxide (same as for cuts) to remove dinos from the tank. So get rid of the majority, then treat the tank 8 days in a row. (1ml per 10g of liquid water volume). Feel free to siphon out any as often as you like - I use small diameter tubing to avoid wasting a lot of water during each session.
 
Btw, if you see the water turning cloudy from Phosphate Rx, there was PO4 present. When little PO4 exists, there's not much that can be converted into a flocculant.
 
@Marc wrote:
I use Salifert to measure Phosphate - and I sell Phosphate Rx if you can't get it elsewhere. I can bring it to the meeting if you are coming Thursday. Based on these new pictures said:
Thanks, Marc. I was able to get some Phosphate Rx ordered. I called a few stores and none of them carried it. I have a very busy week with the wife out of town, so I'm not sure I can make the meet Thursday (side note, I can't seem to find a Feb schedule for this Thurs indicating when/where). I do have the GFO going as of Sunday, so hopefully that starts making some progress while I'm waiting on the Phosphate RX to arrive.

I'll get the peroxide started tonight and see how much more I can scrape off. I ordered a 200micron filter sock yesterday too so that I can avoid having to do a water change while siphoning. I ordered a carbon filter pad to put in the sump as well to try and help clean up anything else that I can.
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What is that growing all over your tank ? Xenia ? I know that stuff grows like weeds in high phosphate tank.
 
@rckrzy1 wrote:
What is that growing all over your tank ? Xenia ? I know that stuff grows like weeds in high phosphate tank. said:
Hairy mushrooms. Have had a lot of them for a long time. I haven't really test phosphates for a long time, so perhaps they have been elevated for a long time, then adding the new LED lights has caused algae and everything else to go crazy eating it all.
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Good news. PO4 is already down to 0 (or undetectable on my Hagen test). Nitrate is 5. Salinity 1.024-1.025. So I canceled my order of Phosphate Rx for now.

I used a flash light in the tank and the bubbles at the tips of the dino strands i posted pictures of were not visible. Didn't get a chance to scrape out existing stuff tonight but will do that tomorrow night. I went ahead and started dosing H2O2 regardless. 7ml for my roughly 70 gallons of water between tank and sump. Going to leave lights off again tomorrow and probably Thursday too just to see what that does. Friday will go with only 4hrs and start increasing from there.
 
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