chloramines, your water supply and dino's

turbo21 · Mar 27, 2013

I am kind of baffled over the situation in my tank.

Lets start by saying right now i am fighting dinos.
For 3 years in a row at the same time frame starting in begining of march. dinos have appeared in my tank and no matter what i do, they will dissapear by the end of april.
I know that starting at the end of february that our local water company starts running heavy doses of chloramine to help clean thee pipes out.
I am running a 5 stage ro/di
micron filter->carbon->catalytic carbon( brs chloramine remover)->ro membrane- di. everything was replaced in january before i had any issues
i hve double and triple checked my tds with several differnet meters and my out put is always 0
checking my p04 levels in my tank it is .04 on a hanna checker p04 from my rodi is .00

as we have seen from what many other people have tried it doesn't seem that dino's are brought on by increased p04 levels and no one seems to have an explanantion why. i hear everyone saying they are fighting them but where are they coming from?????
But right now i have heard a bunch of people in our area are fighting them, but my buddy on well water has never seen them in his tank.
is it the chloramine? doeds the brs catalytic carbon really remove the chloramine? or my theory is that the chloramine is removing gunk and who knows what else from the walls of the pipes. Can these unknown substances get through the ro/di units and still show 0 tds? I have heard of people getting p04 readings from their ro untis and still showing 0 tds so why can't the fuel for dino blooms get through as well
any thoughts? besides my buddy now offering me to sell his well water lol
bob

TheReefShack · Mar 27, 2013

turbo21 said:
I am kind of baffled over the situation in my tank.

Lets start by saying right now i am fighting dinos.
For 3 years in a row at the same time frame starting in begining of march. dinos have appeared in my tank and no matter what i do, they will dissapear by the end of april.
I know that starting at the end of february that our local water company starts running heavy doses of chloramine to help clean thee pipes out.
I am running a 5 stage ro/di
micron filter->carbon->catalytic carbon( brs chloramine remover)->ro membrane- di. everything was replaced in january before i had any issues
i hve double and triple checked my tds with several differnet meters and my out put is always 0
checking my p04 levels in my tank it is .04 on a hanna checker p04 from my rodi is .00

as we have seen from what many other people have tried it doesn't seem that dino's are brought on by increased p04 levels and no one seems to have an explanantion why. i hear everyone saying they are fighting them but where are they coming from?????
But right now i have heard a bunch of people in our area are fighting them, but my buddy on well water has never seen them in his tank.
is it the chloramine? doeds the brs catalytic carbon really remove the chloramine? or my theory is that the chloramine is removing gunk and who knows what else from the walls of the pipes. Can these unknown substances get through the ro/di units and still show 0 tds? I have heard of people getting p04 readings from their ro untis and still showing 0 tds so why can't the fuel for dino blooms get through as well
any thoughts? besides my buddy now offering me to sell his well water lol
bob

I have battled Dinos over the past few months, I have researched beyond end and have found very little. I have considered the theory you have stated above, and I think you are right but wrong. The Dinos are feeding off something in the water supply, whether that be chloramine or PO4.

I have almost 1000 gallons of water running with 4 separate systems. Each system is treated the same, the only difference is coral stock. One is for SPS, one is for Softies/LPS, and the other is my 240 gallon mixed reef. About 5 months ago I brought in a acropora shipment to stock my SPS tank. My SPS system was running smoothly for over a year, after this shipment I noticed the first signs of Dinos. My first thought was diatoms, then a couple of days later I knew better. Long strings of Dinos took over, covering the acropora faster and faster. I immediately began doing research to try and figure out how to save my livestock. Upon hours of research of peroxide dosing, black outs, I tried them all and to no avail. They demolished all my livestock and still continued to reproduce. The peroxide did have an effect on them and slow them down, as did the black out. They just kept coming back for more. After a few weeks of trying to beat the beast, I turned to clorox. Now mind you that all other system are using the same water source, same lighting, same filtration (no Dinos in any other systems)

The first break down -

I drained all water, and bleached the DT. I set the tank up with new saltwater and ran a couple of gallons of peroxide through the whole system and did a complete black out for 2 weeks+. I was praying this would work. I had a sample sent off to a lab to identify 100% it was dinoflagellates (it was). A couple of months later thinking I was in the clear and added another stock of SPS... Bad move... not long after I learned that Dinos can live in substrate for up to 100 years. The only thing that I left untouched was my deep sand bed with my 10x 2ft tall mangroves (I didn't have the heart to bust them up, I payed for it) and lost another shipment in the process.

The second break down -

I finally beat the Dinos in the end with 4 gallons of bleach, 2 gallons of peroxide, and removing all sand/rock and replaced all plumbing. I have not seen the first sign of Dinos. I started over from scratch. I am not saying you should go and pour bleach into you system, but this is what I did and it worked.

The dinoflagellates are thriving off of something in the water source, once they deplete this "nutrient" they go into a dormant phase in the substrate/rock ext. When this nutrient is available again they feed, deplete, go dormant, rinse and repeat. The one thing I have learned with dinoflagellates is if your going to hit them, hit them with everything you have and then hit them again. I hope this story wasn't to long and it helps you out, this battle is no fun what so ever.

Good luck,

TRS

WVUreefer · Mar 27, 2013

that seems like alot of work..I have just increased w/c for the time being...it keeps them in check..now I prob jinxed myself..

TheReefShack · Mar 28, 2013

There are over 1000 different species, the type I had happened to be highly toxic and very aggressive. This was an extreme case and I lost over $1500 in corals. Hope you the best!

turbo21 · Mar 28, 2013

WVUreefer said:
that seems like alot of work..I have just increased w/c for the time being...it keeps them in check..now I prob jinxed myself..

if you are keeping them in check with water changes, you are not dealing with dino's. almost every case of dino's i have heard of increases in intenisty with water changes

WVUreefer · Mar 28, 2013

ok..live up stream from you in Morgantown, WV..this brown slime happens to me every time from March to April..being that we both share the same water supply..i.e. thenMon river..for you a tributary of the Ohio...thought maybe we shared the same problem...

WVUreefer · Mar 28, 2013

just trying to suggest it might not be what PA puts in their water but maybe what WV does..

turbo21 · Mar 28, 2013

no problem just wanted to make sure you were fighting the right thing.

here is a pic i snapped last year of my dinos

but it seems like you have the same issue and at the same time frame? it is driving me nuts trying to figure it out

TheReefShack · Mar 28, 2013

That is a different species than what I battled. The kind that appeared in my system was a dark brown, yours seem to be more green. The ones I had were very lethal upon death.

TheReefShack · Mar 28, 2013

Has anyone tried peroxide dosing to help keep them at bay? 1 ml / 10 gallons. I have used up to 5x that but dose that at your own risk.

turbo21 · Mar 28, 2013

i used peroxide last year during lights out. i started the peroxide during the begining of april. so in reality they probably burned themselves out and the peroxide didnt help because they alwats disappear in april

bob

turbo21 · May 2, 2013

Well here we are in the begining of may, and guess what?? the dino's are gone.

did i do anything different? nope

in my opinion they burned up the source that had to be coming in via the water supply and making it through a 5 stage ro/di with catalytic carbon for chloramines.

i will update this thread next year when they come back again lol

bob

AZDesertRat · May 2, 2013

Catalytic carbon does not remove chloramines.
Catalytic carbon, just like any other modern high quality extruded carbon block in a low micron range removes the CHLORINE portion of chloramines. What many do not realize is the most important piece for chloramine removal is not the carbon but is good quality, fresh DI resin with good contact time to remove the AMMONIA portion of the chloramines. Carbon, catalytic or otherwise, does not remove ammonia.

Do you know if your water utility feeds phosphates at the treatment plants as a form of corrosion control protection in the water distribution system? Hobbyist grade test kits and checkers will not accurately measure phosphates in RO, RO/DI, or ultrapure waters so this could be at least some of your issue. Treated waters with low pH and low Langlier Index are often treated with a dose of phosphates to create a thin barrier inside the water distribution lines so lead and copper leaching is not an issue per EPA guidelines.

mike007 · May 2, 2013

I agree with the Phosphate explanantion. That could sure be posing a problem.

turbo21 · May 3, 2013

thanks for the info about th catalytic carbon

i am not sure if th water company doses phosphats. it would make sense because i have no measurable phosphates in the water supply as tested with hanna checker
i will try to make some phone calls and find out. but i think you are on the right path.
but some questions first
. wouldnt gfo remove these types of phosphates as well and wouldnt they cause more issues such as hair algae and other nuissance algae?
i run gfo on my tank and have no other types of nuissance algae
the dinos appear once a year for a certain time frame and then disappear on their own

AZDesertRat · May 3, 2013

I would make friends with someone from your water utility. Call and ask if they have someone on staff that is an aquarist or saltwater hobbyist, you might be surprised howm any are. When I managed water utilities and worked in the plant and lab I used to get a lot of calls from our Customer Service dept or they would give my contact info to concerned pet keepers all the time. Ask questions about their treatment methods, chemical additions, source or water blend changes during the months in question etc. Many times a utility changes its sources of water at cwertain times of the year according to demands or water quality in one reservoir or watershed area or another or they change the way they treat at certain times to account for things like tannnins in the water or snow melt and run off. Like I always have said, tap water changes, it is not constant and why we as reef hobbyists should always use a good high quality RO/DI system with good filters, membranes and the correct DI resins with correct contact time. Even then things can change if substances are weakly ionized and not attracted by DI resins etc.