Dinoflagellats Possible teardown and restart???

[Zeither18]

To start I have a 220g display a 50g sump and a 30g remote fuge. (fuge has only been running for 7 days now)
Ammonia & nitrite is 0
Po4 is 0 per API
Nitrate is 0 per API
1.026
And calcium 450
Dkh 12
Ph is 8.1
Tank has been up and running for 4 mo. Now and am using gac and gfo in reactors
And am using an aquac esv180 skimmer and coralife powerheads 1 2900gph and 2 1300gph
Which I would like to upgrade but lack of cash sux.

I have been fighting dinoflagellates for about a month now. Brown gooey slimy that covers the sand,rocks,and the powerheads. I have lost almost all my snails which at least became new homes for the hermit crabs. Which I notice today that one of my nerite snails had legs lol. I only have 3 fish (2 false perc and a coral beauty )I started out trying h2o2 dosing and it seemed to help a bit and then just started coming back, I tried lights out for 3 days and as soon as lights came back on they came back and alsothursday night I took all of the rock out and soaked it in tank water and scrubbed it with a tooth brush and rinsed it in another tub of tank water I siphoned as much out of the sand as possible. It just kind of clumped into the sand and was very difficult to get out. It just kind if rolled into the sanded. And netted as much free floating crap out of the water as possible It's was just to much to get it all. And now here it is Sunday and BAM right back to a brown dusting on the powerhead and sandbed.

This crap is so overwhelming and I don't have the time or cash to do a waterchanges everyday and change gfo and carbon every other and do so for months or any length of time like that. Beings that this is so new would I just be better off to break it down,change my sand which I want different sand anyways, cook the rock and start back at square one(diatoms and FHA are so much nicer than this crap or just wait it out and keep hoping that it will go away on its own. I do plan on upgrading my skimmer to a detect external or a bashsea which a re rated to 3 to 4 times my tank size. And u have to go external for fit many reasons. I only have about 24 inches under tank and the skimmers I'm looking at are about 32" to 33" tall. I don't know what else to do! Aaarrrggggghhhh!!!!

 

[robert]

I was in a similar situation with a new frag system a few weeks back. I had dino and cyano and just couldn't get the tank to settle in. It looked like crap and nothing was doing well at all.
I believe my issues started with phosphate levels that were disproportionately high compared to my nitrate levels. Yes - I know they both read 0, but obviously they were not.

I had tried chemi-clean with limited and temporary releif. The system just went back to the same state.

On my last try before I was going to do a tear-down and restart I tried something radically different. I deliberately spiked my nitrates to 10 using a liquid fertilizer from a hydroponics store - then added the chemiclean. It worked like a charm. - My tank is up - I waited a week stuffed it full of frags, fish snails and stuffs growing nicely. I could explain why I think it works and provide cites to some published studies in lake management if your interested.

No BS.

 

[Zeither18]

That may be worth a try. I tried chemi-clean also but it was like it just fueled it. What was the fertizer suff I tried Couldn't I just over feed to raise nitrates or is that part of the process u think worked. I have heard or read of so many different ways people have rid this crap and they all seem different with a struggle. When I first noticed mine I had lost a fish and my nitrates spiked to 30 give or take ppm from 10 or so. I did a waterchange but slightly larger then normal. I usually do 15g a week and this that time I did 30g and them I thought diatoms at first then turned to this mess

 

[Zeither18]

Oh and by the way I do use ro/di water for anyone that want to know

 

[wysiwyg]

is your fuge planted? if it is what type of macro algae do you run? if it isnt get some chaeto and a light when your tank goes off for the day run your fuge light till your main display goes back on. i run my dt lights 9hrs and my fuge 15hrs took care of all my algae problems cyano problems and it should work for yours also

 

[robert]

If you feed to raise nitrates you have to go through the ammonia cycle, which in new system that is lightly loaded may not yet have sufficient handling capacity or a sufficient number of consumers.. Cyano at least can out compete most macroalgae by fixing its own nitrogen (out of dissolved gases in the water and certain strains of cyano can use ammonia directly. I have less knowledge about dino - but being early colonizers I wouldn't be surprised if they too can exploit the nitrate deficiency in new tanks in a similar manner.

The stuff I used was cal-mag plus from a company named Botanicare. Its a liquid fertilizer 2-0-0. It contains calcium nitrate, magnesium nitrate and a very little chelated iron. Its listed on the government metals website (Calif, Oregon and Washington) - so it was easy to check for unwanted metal contamination. Its clean. I have a 90 gallon system - I dosed 5ml - waited - tested then dosed a little more - I ended up adding 15 mls total. A quart was $12. They also sold sodium nitrate which I think would have worked just as well - I don't think it matters much as long as its clean.

I think my problems started with BRS dry rock leaching phosphate - after that I just couldn't get back in line. The dino/cyano just kept short-circuiting the nitrate build up which should have kick-started the normal algae development.

At any rate - before you tear it down you might as well give it a try - if you do let me know - I'd be curious as to how it works out.

 

[incloud design]

If you feed to raise nitrates you have to go through the ammonia cycle, which in new system that is lightly loaded may not yet have sufficient handling capacity or a sufficient number of consumers.. Cyano at least can out compete most macroalgae by fixing its own nitrogen (out of dissolved gases in the water and certain strains of cyano can use ammonia directly. I have less knowledge about dino - but being early colonizers I wouldn't be surprised if they too can exploit the nitrate deficiency in new tanks in a similar manner.

The stuff I used was cal-mag plus from a company named Botanicare. Its a liquid fertilizer 2-0-0. It contains calcium nitrate, magnesium nitrate and a very little chelated iron. Its listed on the government metals website (Calif, Oregon and Washington) - so it was easy to check for unwanted metal contamination. Its clean. I have a 90 gallon system - I dosed 5ml - waited - tested then dosed a little more - I ended up adding 15 mls total. A quart was $12. They also sold sodium nitrate which I think would have worked just as well - I don't think it matters much as long as its clean.

I think my problems started with BRS dry rock leaching phosphate - after that I just couldn't get back in line. The dino/cyano just kept short-circuiting the nitrate build up which should have kick-started the normal algae development.

At any rate - before you tear it down you might as well give it a try - if you do let me know - I'd be curious as to how it works out.

I just added Cal-Mag Plus to my Amazon cart but wanted to research a bit more before ordering. So finding this post has me curious about how it will help my goal. I'm basically just trying to get my 300gal system to be a stable 5ppm nitrate. I've been using Spectracide and seeing improvements but it seems to take a lot of it to detect and I worry about adding too much potassium. I'm thinking this Cal-Mag could help with nitrates and if I reduce my kalk dose to compensate for calcium it would be a beneficial choice. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on my theory. Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

 

[John3]

I think what helped when I had dinos Is dosing h2o2 AND I stopped water changes. Keep at, u will win and come out better off.

 

[saltyhog]

Take a look at the first page of this thread and follow the directions there. Identifying which species of dino you have is important.

Stop running GFO! Undetectable PO4 and NO3 are the biggest risk factors in getting dinos. Remove manually as much as you can. Dose NO3 (this is what I use. https://www.amazon.com/Sodium-Nitra...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8BMNRJDXGAS9CW474TPB) and use SeaChem Flourish for PO4 dosing.

I aimed at nitrate of 5-10, and PO4 of 0.10.

Do run GAC especially if the dinos are dying out because they are very toxic then.

You can win but it's a battle!

 

[roberthu526]

Fluconazle works like magic. Give it a try and you will be shocked. But for your tank size you maybe looking at a hundred dollars worth of dosage. A cheaper alternative is dose agriculture nitrate like calcium or sodium nitrate. It takes a little longer but it will work. And stop using GFO or chemiclean. Nitrate and phosphate ratio needs to be in balance to keep algae at bay. Bacteria will get things right.

 

[markster33139]

I have also had success treating dinos by raising nitrates and phosphates, I later developed some hair algae but that was a lot easier to deal with

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

Take a look at the first page of this thread and follow the directions there. Identifying which species of dino you have is important.

Stop running GFO! Undetectable PO4 and NO3 are the biggest risk factors in getting dinos. Remove manually as much as you can. Dose NO3 (this is what I use. https://www.amazon.com/Sodium-Nitra...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8BMNRJDXGAS9CW474TPB) and use SeaChem Flourish for PO4 dosing.

I aimed at nitrate of 5-10, and PO4 of 0.10.

Do run GAC especially if the dinos are dying out because they are very toxic then.

You can win but it's a battle!

I don’t have Dino’s thank god but I have to know how you dose the NO3?

 

[incloud design]

I added Spectracide by the teaspoon to my 300 gallon system for a few days and I now have N03 of .5-.10 ppm. Now I'm going to test over the following days and monitor nitrates. Now that I have nitrates my ATS has started to grow a little GHA also.

 

[saltyhog]

I don’t have Dino’s thank god but I have to know how you dose the NO3?

I added 1 tbs of the reagent grade sodium nitrate to 200 cc of RO/DI and started out with 2cc daily in my approximately 160 gallon system. Then tested, adjusted, repeat ad nauseum.

 

[saltyhog]

I have also had success treating dinos by raising nitrates and phosphates, I later developed some hair algae but that was a lot easier to deal with

Man, at one point I was praying for hair algae!

 

[JMetaxas]

Zero Po4 and Nitrate is not good and will cause Dino's.

You need to increase those. There are lots of threads on this. Stop the GFO and start dosing Sodium or Potassium Nitrate.