Dino - Time to go to war

[Beardo]

How do you guys get just the algae under the scope? Mine is wrapped around sand grain. And that's the other reason I can't get an ID. If I try to remove it from a grain of sand it gets somewhere stuck under my nail or something. I can't get this crap under the scope. I tried several times, then I am looking at nothing. ;Facepalm

I just suck some up with a pipette.

 

[jd371]

Does it make a huge difference if I slightly under dose? Say, instead of dosing for 50gl I dose for 45gl. Will that work? Or does it have to be extremely accurate?

I researched but never used Dino-X when my tank had them. But, if you decide to use it I would play it safe and dose slightly less. This would be my last resort though, in reading most of the time it didn't work or caused some damage to the tank with very few successes.

If you are able to itentify them, it would really help since how you fight them depends on the species. I always heard this but didn't realize how true it was until I recently broke down and got a scope.

UV is effective with species that enter the water column at night, but won't do much for those that don't such as some of the amphidinium species. I personally was doubtful about UV until I upsized and saw success. With your unit you will need pretty slow flow for it to be effective. It may be undersized but I think it works better how you are using it in your display than when my first unit was in my sump. Also, the blackout will keep them in the water column (assuming the type enters the water column) so should have better contact with the UV.

As far as Dino-X, I don't believe it is that effective on Ostreopsis and similar species (from what I read as I never tested on those), but worked for me on amphidinium. I would only use it on something I seen success on. I believe urchins and some inverts are most at risk when using it. Dosing does need to be precise. Directions say 5ml/26gals dosed every 2 days but you can go to 6ml/26 gallons. It would be better to slightly underestimate your volume instead of overestimate. Like you said in the other post dose for 45 gallons instead of 50. I hear you on keeping the family happy, my wife is most concerned about the tuxedo urchins and the serpent star, go figure. I will let you know if I have any casualties.

I wish you luck in your battle. I've been dealing with them since January of 2015 so I know how much they suck.

That's what I think was the key in getting rid of them in my tank. Since it was a temporary hook up of the UV, I had the canister filter pull water directly from a high flow area of the DT and drain into the filter sock after the UV. The UV ran on a timer to operate at night. I debated blacking out the tank and keeping the UV running 24 hrs to speed up the process. But, I decided not to because the corals were taking a hit from the dino's and I didn't want to stress them further with a 3 day blackout. Took about 2 weeks to rid my tank of dino's doing it this way.

 

[IvanW]

I sent an email yesterday to Gregg Mendez at that algeaid website,together with the pics this was his response

Hi Ivan,

Those are either Gambierdiscus or Prorocentrum. I can’t quite make out the edges of the cells well enough to tell. If Prorocentrum it is from the toxic side of that genus ( they are all symmetrical). Toxic Prorocentrum produce diarrhetic shellfish poisoning toxins. Gambierdiscus is also toxic. It produces ciguetera toxin. It is a much more dangerous toxin. Gambierdiscus is closely related to the Ostreopsis pictured on my website. In the wild these toxins typically only affect human health when the toxins have been concentrated in the tissues of fish and shellfish that have been feeding on the algae (or feeding on fish who are feeding on the algae). In home aquaria, blooms can get so concentrated that efforts to kill the algae can occasionally release dangerous amounts of toxins. Care should be taken when attempting to eradicate these algae. Physical removal of algae prior to any attempts to kill the algae in the tank can help cut down on the number of algae dying and releasing toxin in the tank.

Like so many of the toxic dinoflagellates, these are benthic species adapted for living in sand. They will, however, rise out of the sand and into the water column at night. This will make them vulnerable to solutions such as filtration and UV/Ozone if the treatments occur at night. It should be noted, however, that these treatments are also likely to kill any natural predators that are helping control the algae population. They form cysts, that can survive desiccation and many chemical treatments, allowing them to seemingly rise from the dead just when you think you have eradicated them. While the cysts are highly resistant to chemicals, the vegetative cells are not. In fact a sudden salinity change like a freshwater or half strength saltwater dip will lyse/kill the cells in seconds. This is why a quarantine protocol for everything that goes into your tank should include a dip (among other reasons). They also form mucous that can protect them from grazers and some chemical treatments. This is why you often find them in blobs and strings rising from the sand.

The good news is that in my experience both of these species tend to be among the dinoflagellates that are easier to eradicate than others. The bad news is that my attempts in the past to survey people experiencing dino blooms hasn’t turned up any consistent successful treatments. My suspicion is that the commonly prescribed cures you find online don’t have any impact on long term success (though many are quite effective are temporarily reducing the amount of algae). My suspicion is that long term success in controlling the population of these species is about controlling nutrient levels and harboring populations of natural predators of the algae. Without too much time on the microscope I can typically find benthic dinoflagellates such as these in most marine aquaria, even those that have never experienced a dino bloom. Your aquarium is a delicately balanced ecosystem.

Physical removal of the algae to protect your aquarium inhabitants will give your aquarium time to develop a population of predatory microorganisms. You might be able to speed this process along by adding substrate from healthy aquaria.

Let me know if you have any questions, and feel free to share my words with wet web or any online forum you participate in.

-Gregg

 

[rockstarta78]

rockstrata78 I hope you don't think we are hijacking your thread, I feel that this is such a prolific problem that the more info that is put out there the better.

Absolutely not. I am trying to get rid of this think. The more you guys discuss the better.

 

[rockstarta78]

Did a 50% water change on Sunday (Oct 1st) - siphoned out as much dino as possible, scrubbed and removed 80% GHA.
Dosed MB7,
Restarted Carbon reactor
Started UV Sterilizer
Dosed 50ml of H2O2 (1ml/gl)

I've been dosing 50ml h2o2 everyday since 09/30. Everything looks ok so far. I don't think the 3 day black out was much help. Continue UV, Carbon and h2o2 dosing for now.

One interesting thing to note, I see my snails are being lot more active. Though they are all located in one particular corner of the tank. But I am seeing more snails then I have seen in last few months.

 

[Beardo]

Did a 50% water change on Sunday (Oct 1st) - siphoned out as much dino as possible, scrubbed and removed 80% GHA.
Dosed MB7,
Restarted Carbon reactor
Started UV Sterilizer
Dosed 50ml of H2O2 (1ml/gl)

I've been dosing 50ml h2o2 everyday since 09/30. Everything looks ok so far. I don't think the 3 day black out was much help. Continue UV, Carbon and h2o2 dosing for now.

One interesting thing to note, I see my snails are being lot more active. Though they are all located in one particular corner of the tank. But I am seeing more snails then I have seen in last few months.

Typical dose of peroxide I've seen used is 1ml/10gal. 1ml/gal is stronger than anything I have tried or seen others use. My max was 3ml/10gal twice a day.

 

[rockstarta78]

Typical dose of peroxide I've seen used is 1ml/10gal. 1ml/gal is stronger than anything I have tried or seen others use. My max was 3ml/10gal twice a day.

I know it's waaaaaay stronger than what most people dose. But this is the last effort to kill all dino before I decide to breakdown the tank. As I mentioned, this is war now.

 

[rockstarta78]

I've been dosing 1ml/gl h2o2 for last few days. Have not notice any difference in the tank, including the dino. It's not even phased. UV Filter is running 24/7.

HOWEVER, nothing was added to the tank besides h2o2, BUT the skimmer went NUTS yesterday. It overflowed, there were foam all over the sump, I mean it was a mess. When I got home from work, I saw nothing but clear water in the skimmer cup. I am still confused what could have triggered this. The only additional dosage that I added was MB7 the previous night. I find this little odd that MB7 would cause this. Anyone has any idea?

 

[brandon429]

post a full tank shot real quick to remind me what you have

we can gauge peroxide maximums off a full tank shot better than any other helper

 

[rockstarta78]

I will do that when I get home tonight. In all honesty nothing has changed from the looks of it. There are some GHA with DINO and the sand is covered in dino.

 

[rockstarta78]

I am still trying to understand why the skimmer was overflowing. That was very odd.

 

[brandon429]

I saw that explained on old Randy threads though I don’t recall the posters who said it, chemically accurate claim though regarding the foam:

Peroxides first sponge/sink when dosed is organic matter

That’s it’s chemical attractant in the water, the first really good chemical reaction with the oxidizer is in complex with organic compounds

The skimmer picks up that product and the reaction is relatively short lived since our whole tank is organics and organic slicks.

The fts is to gauge the nontarget life. From that we can calculate a safe war dosing of peroxide. If you’re needing to leg up on them, then I’d have to recommend a full tank siphoning first, as usual. Complete siphon cleaning big time

When clean, we should blackout again for three days, uv running, with the war dose of peroxide, better than safe zone 1:10

In the reefcentral peroxide thread called pest algae problem challenge, we routinely had feedback on levels up to and past four mils per ten gallons. In sps tanks, a war dose
We hit the tank in the mega cleaned, darkened the right way with taping, full uv, with a peroxide war dose. If that doesn’t work, do mccarrolls nutrient approach

I see the potential for this particular thread to be about the direct physical assault of ostreopsis option, to differentiate from the mixed approach threads

 

[rockstarta78]

Thank you for that. I will take couple of pictures tonight and post it here. Hopefully you can get a better understanding. As for siphon, I siphoned the sand pretty thoroughly last weekend. If suggested, I can do another water change and siphon the sand again. My plan was to siphon the sand anyway (no water change) and just feed the output water back in the sump and catch the algae with a net or something similar. But if a big water change is better, I can do that as well. I have decided not to spend a dime on this tank until I get this algae issue under control. @mcarroll idea of nutrient control is the best solution IMHO. But I have not been able to keep up with that after one or two weeks. If the UV does not work in 2-3 weeks .........I really have no idea what I am going to do at that point. I love this hobby and don't necessarily want to give it up, but I can't keep coral ..........I don't know.

 

[rockstarta78]

One thing just dawned on me. I have this duncan coral which had long tentacles. Ever since I started having algae issue and trying to fix it, the tentacles became shorter. Almost like an over sized zoa. I don't know if that has anything to do with the tentacle size, but that was interesting.

 

[brandon429]

those rascals are finicky! I was just chatting the other day w a friend at nr.com and we discussed that green star polyps/briareum and duncans are two corals we don't judge the system by

they both can close up for no reason in perfectly good tanks, and in most settings they flourish. The peroxide is a little bit zapping, though so well studied in threads now the collateral losses almost never occur w decent planning. For it to slightly stress a Duncan makes sense, they're mighty tough and should survive off good catchup spot feedings.

If you wing up nutrient boosting anyway as an alternate or side-by-side option here, use high quality spot feeding to get at the boosted numbers. in my opinion its not about raw dosing of N and P, its about the balance of the extra meat and vitamins in the system and as that builds, the N and P rise accordingly.

 

[rockstarta78]

Ok so I'll ignore that stupid duncan. It's growing so I'll stop stressing. As asked here are the current pictures of my tank that I just took. Let me know if you need any expansions.

 

[rockstarta78]

My tank is 40g breeder. I currently have:

Pair of Ocellaris Clownfish
1 Purple Firefish
1 Royal Gramma
1 yellow watchman

I think I have room to increase my bioload. I was planning on adding 1 yellow coris and 1 mccosker's flasher wrasse. Since it's a 40g I know I don't have the room for a tang, which would really help with the algae. Now I am debating if I should risk it and add a purple tang with 2 wrasses and increase the bio load.

 

[Dodgersfan]

My tank is 40g breeder. I currently have:

Pair of Ocellaris Clownfish
1 Purple Firefish
1 Royal Gramma
1 yellow watchman

I think I have room to increase my bioload. I was planning on adding 1 yellow coris and 1 mccosker's flasher wrasse. Since it's a 40g I know I don't have the room for a tang, which would really help with the algae. Now I am debating if I should risk it and add a purple tang with 2 wrasses and increase the bio load.

You could always do a temporary tang... work it out with your LFS before hand to buy a small tang from them and sell it back to them in a month or so once algae is under control? Or what about a lawnmower blenny?

 

[rockstarta78]

You could always do a temporary tang... work it out with your LFS before hand to buy a small tang from them and sell it back to them in a month or so once algae is under control? Or what about a lawnmower blenny?

I had a lawnmower blenny then it went carpet surfing. But the blenny doesn't eat GHA if it's mixed with dino. Or mine was probably too picky.

 

[brandon429]

the fact your invasion is not on the rocks really means something to me

that's an easier battle than most have. if it was my tank based on pics, Id go bare bottom and just work with rocks and animals until this is fixed. then you can add a clean bed back.

Those pics show a much more workable setup than most invasions we see, to the point Id be doubting that's even dinos

regarding max war doses, 3 mls per 10 gallons a few times a week without being under full on lighting is ok based on the life the pics show. with stronger doses, don't hit them with strong lighting for sure, its oxidizer overload/free radical overload which is why running it with a blackout is nicely timed.

Im not even sure Id be dosing peroxide to this setup, that type of sandbed only invasion we take care of lots of times in just our sand rinse thead using no chems, still working up ideas on this particular setup