Dino ID

Aussiemarine · Jul 14, 2020

Hey guys
I am struggling to positively ID this as Dino - I have never had it in a tank before. I have always had the standard diatom then cyano outbreaks before the coraline takes hold.

The tank has been set up for two months but most of the rock was taken from my 2 year established tank - but the sand is new and so is about 40kgs of the dry reef rock.

It seems to have really taken hold in the last week or so. I tested phosphates at 0 so I’m going to remove the phosguard that I had in the tank to initially get rid of excess phosphates and silicates from the setup. I will try and increase feeding to get phosphate to maybe 0.1-0.2.

Also my chaeto seems to have stunted its growth and I have an algae turf scrubber in the works just waiting on the plastic mesh to arrive.

Other than that can anyone offer a positive ID and some suggestions that would be great!

SMSREEF · Jul 14, 2020

It doesn’t really look like Dino’s to me.

You probably should get a microscope and take some pics of the cells to get the right ID.

To me, from pics it looks like it could be chrysophyte but I would not be sure till I saw microscope pic.
Are they really easy to suction out?

When you suction out, how fast do they grow back?
Do they stay in place day and night?
Everything is treated a little different so positive ID with scope will be your best bet.

Aussiemarine · Jul 14, 2020

SMSREEF said:
It doesn’t really look like Dino’s to me.

You probably should get a microscope and take some pics of the cells to get the right ID.

To me, from pics it looks like it could be chrysophyte but I would not be sure till I saw microscope pic.
Are they really easy to suction out?

When you suction out, how fast do they grow back?
Do they stay in place day and night?
Everything is treated a little different so positive ID with scope will be your best bet.

Thanks! I don’t have a microscope but will look at getting one to get some photos for a positive ID.

I haven’t tried to suck any out yet but I am doing a water change this weekend so I will see if I can manually remove some.

I just did a quick google search on chrysophyte and I’m almost certain that’s what it is

So let’s assume it is, what treatments would you be recommending? also what are they feeding on? Silicates or photosynthesis or both?
Is manual removal the best option - a UV Steriliser as well?

SMSREEF · Jul 14, 2020

UV did not work for me.

Mine were a kind from low nitrate and phosphate. I started dosing both to keep levels NO3 5-10 and PO4 0.05 to 0.1

They should suction out Really easy. I just got a hose and suctioned into a filter sock daily, and changing sock daily.

Just doing this for a while may help other better algae that CUC will eat take hold.

if it doesn’t, in a few weeks you may want to try antibiotic/chemical route. I ended up needing to on my tank because it was only getting worse, even with daily suctioning.

I removed all the chrysophyte I could from rocks, suctioned out and rinsed affected sand, Took skimmer offline, Take carbon out, dosed fluconazole, 3 days later a dose of vibrant. Seems to be working because it’s not growing back. Still keeping NO3 5-10 and PO4 0.05 to 0.1 And suctioning out what’s left into sock and replacing sock daily.

I have heard A few horror stories from people using vibrant or fluconazole, So I would do this as last resort. I think most of the issue is not cleaning the tank well beforehand and the microbes dying and releasing toxins.

SMSREEF · Jul 14, 2020

Just for reference these are the kind that I was dealing with

Aussiemarine · Jul 15, 2020

Thanks mate I have started my remediation plan. It only just occurred to me that this all started to get out of control when I changed my lighting schedule on the orpheks about 2 weeks ago so tomorrow I’m going to play around with the schedule and reduce the whites as I think they are on 100% which is not ideal. I thought it looked way to white for my liking as I got the channels confused (thinking channel 4 was white and 2 was UV)
Anyway long story short I’ll get that fixed up.

As a start though.... I went through and blew off as much as I could off the rocks and scrubbed some of the back wall (what I could reach with a toothbrush.... tank when murky as hell and had to change the filter socks twice plus ran the skimmer super wet so I got a cup full. Tanks cleared up nice as the lights went out so I am going to do a 200ltr water change on Saturday (~20%) and scrub the rest off.

Then I’m going to scrub it every few days to stop it settling in. My coraline algae is growing insane at the moment which is good so I am hoping I can maintain this long enough for the rocks to get covered in coraline so this stuff stays the hell away.

Anything I have missed so far or should be doing on top of this??

SMSREEF · Jul 15, 2020

Aussiemarine said:
Thanks mate I have started my remediation plan. It only just occurred to me that this all started to get out of control when I changed my lighting schedule on the orpheks about 2 weeks ago so tomorrow I’m going to play around with the schedule and reduce the whites as I think they are on 100% which is not ideal. I thought it looked way to white for my liking as I got the channels confused (thinking channel 4 was white and 2 was UV)
Anyway long story short I’ll get that fixed up.

As a start though.... I went through and blew off as much as I could off the rocks and scrubbed some of the back wall (what I could reach with a toothbrush.... tank when murky as hell and had to change the filter socks twice plus ran the skimmer super wet so I got a cup full. Tanks cleared up nice as the lights went out so I am going to do a 200ltr water change on Saturday (~20%) and scrub the rest off.

Then I’m going to scrub it every few days to stop it settling in. My coraline algae is growing insane at the moment which is good so I am hoping I can maintain this long enough for the rocks to get covered in coraline so this stuff stays the hell away.

Anything I have missed so far or should be doing on top of this??

That sounds like a fantastic start. If you have coralline growing, it does not seem to attach to that in my tank. But it sure loves the bare dead rock.

Just make sure PO4 and NO3 don’t drop to zero.

Wishing you good luck in the battle!

dwest · Jul 15, 2020

I believe that encouraging coralline and green algae is your best bet. I would not go the chemical route for sure. Be very patient. Good luck.

Aussiemarine · Jul 16, 2020

Thanks guys for the help.

The tank today after doing a big scrub yesterday you can see the back wall needs some attention but I did what I could with the toothbrush!

Hopefully after Saturday it will look a lot cleaner

Also the change to the lighting has made a big difference, much more purple blue looking then white so I am definitely happy with that outcome. I’ll check the PAR on the weekend and see how different it is but I still have plenty of ramp up ability in the kessils if needed.

SMSREEF · Jul 16, 2020

Tank looks amazing!

Aussiemarine · Jul 16, 2020

Thanks heaps mate!

Decided I’d go suit up again and finish the back wall and scrub some more of the rocks. Looks much better now with the back wall all clean. Will post some photos later.

Cause the tank so deep had to make a last minute DIY scrubber stick