I'm Not Sure it Gets Any More Scary Than This

[ReeferNoob77]

Thought the red stuff with the bubbles was cyano? My red stuff looks like yours just move of it. I just started vibrant to get rid of mine (crosses fingers). I did a 3 day lights out and it all came right back, I also did peroxide from the brown bottle was dosing 1/2 cup in my 300 g just to keep it at bay. I will post a pic of my disaster later.

 

[Eienna]

Yea, Eienna my heart would not have made it through that experience. How did you maintain oxygen levels...hope your skimmer had a line to outside air.

No, it didn't, so I put the power head up high so they would take in both air and water. Turned off the light, return pump and skimmer both to avoid adding heat and because I wasn't 100℅ sure that the pesticide wouldn't get into my sump.

Hoped it would work like a nicely agitated shipping bag. Apparently it did fine...no illnesses or fatalities. I checked for signs of residue before I turned the return pump back on.

I'll tell you, though....Being as attached to my fish as I am, I was terrified I'd come home to them all dead.

 

[Salty1962]

Hey Salty1962, I didn't know you were from Charlotte either!

Yep, I'm a Tar Heel!

 

[ReeferNoob77]

here are a couple of shots of my disaster the red stuff along with some hair and some green turf algae. I jut dosed second 30mil of vibrant.

 

[Salty1962]

Thanks again Renee, well.... I agree with you that they are the beast to feared or maybe respected and acted upon quickly. I thought they would go away at the start, but after a week I knew what I needed to do based upon their proliferation and affect on my corals.

A close up of the frag rack approximately 8 hours after these frags were manually cleaned of all Dinos



Thanks for being a friend... one of these days we need to meet for coffee
Sounds good to me, LMK my friend!

Thank you ahiggins, you bring up a great point that I have been thinking about.... ah, but to what extent do I reduce intensity. I plan on uncovering on Sunday at approximately 4:00 p and will take photos (as I could not find any on R2R on what corals look like after Dino's and a 3 day blackout) and perform a water, GFO and carbon change. I was considering just going with low level actinic Sunday evening, then Monday let my lighting program run as normal albeit at lower percentage... maybe 15% lower across the entire program for the day. Re-acclimate with a 3% increase daily over the next week to normal lighting levels. Any thoughts?

 

[erinmegan85]

I've done two blackouts on my tank and they still came back I know people who have better luck though, so hopefully you're one of them. I'm trying Vibrant now, but after two doses it doesn't seem to be touching it.

 

[Birddog]

Thought the red stuff with the bubbles was cyano? My red stuff looks like yours just move of it. I just started vibrant to get rid of mine (crosses fingers). I did a 3 day lights out and it all came right back, I also did peroxide from the brown bottle was dosing 1/2 cup in my 300 g just to keep it at bay. I will post a pic of my disaster later.

Hmm... I've had cyano many times before, and I will say this is nothing like cyano. I will say in the 8+ years I've been reefing that cyano from time to time is pretty common, yes it's red and yes there are some bubbles. My biotype of Dino's really isn't red although it looks a little red in the photos, and please note that the photo I showed was just of my frag rack shortly after it was spotless from my manual cleaning. My display is/was much more effected, but I have not posted any photos to show how much more of it I have where manual cleaning is not possible. It definitely looks more like a brown algae that during the photoperiod forms long strands/chains of cells with bubbles that sway in my current. It is a rapid grower (and yes cyano can be rapid, but not like this stuff) another tell tale sign is rapid die off of snails as they are highly sensitive to the toxins produced with some types of Dino's. Another tell tale sign is you PM several of the many experts here on R2R (thank god for R2R) with multiple photos.... and when they respond back "OMG yes!", then they're likely Dino's. I have tried Vibrant for my Dino's, but under my circumstances I could not gain control. I have had a conversation with Jeff from Vibrant (and by the way he's an awesome individual who has a very valid product) and he has commented on my situation. I have done my own trial with Vibrant and indeed it is quite effective in certain applications, but with my Dino's I was not getting what I needed likely because there are so many different biotypes of Dinoflagellates and other variables from one reef tank to another.

 

[Birddog]

Good luck Erin! I know Vibrant has worked on Dino's for some individuals and I think you need to give it a fair trial of at least 14 days. In my experience I believe we can live with and manage populations of many different types of algae and other pests... my experience with Dino's is quite different and I wonder if a blackout doesn't work for me what I will do... it's gonna be a heck of a fight!

I've done two blackouts on my tank and they still came back I know people who have better luck though, so hopefully you're one of them. I'm trying Vibrant now, but after two doses it doesn't seem to be touching it.

 

[Birddog]

here are a couple of shots of my disaster the red stuff along with some hair and some green turf algae. I jut dosed second 30mil of vibrant.

I agree with you and your photos, it very much appears you have hair, cyano and possibly a few aiptasia. I think Vibrant is going to help your situation relative to the algae and cyano.

 

[sowellj]

I am battling them as well and just came off of a 4 day blackout. It was somewhat effective, but they are still there. I am trying a multi prong approach. Dosing vibrant, hydrogen preoxide, reduced photo period, manual removal, and addition of bacteria like mb7. My second dose of vibrant will be tomorrow. When I look at my water under a scope, I do not see near the number of dinos that I did at first, so that is a bit of a silver lining I suppose.

 

[Birddog]

I am battling them as well and just came off of a 4 day blackout. It was somewhat effective, but they are still there. I am trying a multi prong approach. Dosing vibrant, hydrogen preoxide, reduced photo period, manual removal, and addition of bacteria like mb7. My second dose of vibrant will be tomorrow. When I look at my water under a scope, I do not see near the number of dinos that I did at first, so that is a bit of a silver lining I suppose.

Curious, if I may ask what level are your nutrients... NO3 and phos?

 

[sowellj]

I have been intentionally raising them. They were at 0 each. I dosed nitrate and started feeding very heavily. Nitrate is now around 5 to 10 ppm, phosphate is not detected. However, Dinos were present prior to this. Some people seem to have luck dirtying up there water a bit.

 

[Bob Escher]

Good luck Bird dog. I've never had them myself and hope I don't
I see you have two RADION xr15's on the tank what size is your tank? Thinking about getting one for my 45 gal which is 24 by 21 by 19 inches deep would they work
Thankd

 

[Birddog]

I have been intentionally raising them. They were at 0 each. I dosed nitrate and started feeding very heavily. Nitrate is now around 5 to 10 ppm, phosphate is not detected. However, Dinos were present prior to this. Some people seem to have luck dirtying up there water a bit.

My nitrate has been steady for months between 6-8 ppm, and phos at .06. Corals were very happy with these levels (mixed reef with an emphasis on SPS). I feel I was feeding at a moderate level in my eyes... fish 1x per day (what they could eat in about 2 minutes) and SPS corals every other day with a mixture of reef chili, oyster and phyto feast. I definitely feel nutrients have contributed and as well as possibly greater organic matter in the water column... but just an educated guess.

 

[domination2580]

Ok, I had dinos in my tank as well, I tried vibrant first, it took about a month for it to take effect. But during that time, dinos grew very fast to where it was in mats, and then after the 4th dose it all disapeared...

 

[Birddog]

Good luck Bird dog. I've never had them myself and hope I don't
I see you have two RADION xr15's on the tank what size is your tank? Thinking about getting one for my 45 gal which is 24 by 21 by 19 inches deep would they work
Thankd

Good morning Bob and thank you! Actually Bob they're two XR 30's Gen 3, looking at the photo in my initial post you're right they look like they're the 15's. My tank is 65G with a 24G sump that all together holds 55G of water. Dimensionally it's 36"x 21" x 21". I started out with one XR 30, but had to purchase a second as it was not enough light for what I wanted to accomplish. After adding the second XR 30 my tank exploded with growth and color. There are a number of threads on here that discuss the abilities / inabilities of Radions to grow SPS, but in two years since I started this build I have no complaints and actually have had some pretty rapid growth. My oldest frags about 1.5 years old have gone from 1/2 inch frags to 6" colonies (RR Aussie Gold, Hawkins Echinata to name a couple).

Dependent upon what you want to accomplish Bob I believe you likely will want at least an XR 30 over the top of your reef especially if you want some SPS.

 

[Birddog]

Ok, I had dinos in my tank as well, I tried vibrant first, it took about a month for it to take effect. But during that time, dinos grew very fast to where it was in mats, and then after the 4th dose it all disapeared...

Thanks Dominator ! My last dose of Vibrant was the day before the blackout and I was on my 8th dose (albeit my last couple of doses were every other day). I talked with Jeff at Vibrant (again, cool guy who is very kind) and sent him some photos... I was already of the mindset of doing a blackout and in his return PM to me his thoughts were the same (blackout). I'm not done with Vibrant, just feel my situation is requiring just a few more steps to gain control.

 

[USMC4Life]

Good luck.

 

[Birddog]

At 72 hours I uncovered the tank, performed a 20% water change, changed GFO and carbon, and dosed peroxide at 1 ml per 10 gallons of water. I ramped, over the course of 1 hour, my actinic lights from 0-20% and will allow them to run at 20% for the next several hours. It appears all fish and coral are fine although a couple SPS are very light / white in color especially my PC Rainbow and Reef Ready Grape Juice. Although there is still a "mat" of what I hope are inactive / dead Dino's, only the next couple of days will tell the story. With my lights running at low levels for nearly 2 hours now I am happy to say I see no bubbles emanating from the "brown mat".... oh boy, fingers crossed. I plan of dosing peroxide for several weeks and will continue with Vibrant.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

Vibrant.