Spectrum and Dinoflagellate Outbreak?

[Newb73]

Both and Dino's.
And then some fade almost instantly.
Nice thing about R2r. You see constant data points. Pictures.
Some fade immediately as if they used up the food. Some linger.
One case Brandon 429 and I worked on took months and no respite. Nothing worked.
In hindsight , it had to be rotten rock. Something had to be in it.

For 5 months i removed cyano off the rocks twice a week...with a tooth brush....225g 6ft tank loaded w rocks.

Still only took 10 minutes and tank looked great.

Over the year i quit skimming, stopped doing large water changes, added ozone, added a large algae reactor, switched to 1.4% daily water changes and actually increased feedings and not a spec of algae on my rocks....i almost miss my bi weekly brushing.

I get a little on the sand bed and can completly comtrol whats even on the sand bed via feedings and how often i change filter socks.

I once did an experiment: 40g tank, no fish, no feedings, kessil A150sx2 sky blue..(which was very white to the eye) modetate flow.

With no feedings or water changes it still completely over grew in cyano until it was just one sludge of slime......

The only possible nutrient source was ato water yet the same ato water causes no issues in my 90 or 225.

 

[A. grandis]

Just had an interesting private conversation. This fellow was asking my opinion about using blue actinic lighting as the sole source. My reply - Theoretically possible, but my only experience in trying it resulted in a massive dinoflagellate outbreak within 24 hours. He reported a similar experience after changing from halides to T5s. Has anyone else seen this?

I will answer this with my own experiences with dinos.
That will depend on the T5 bulbs (being "actinic" or not") he used on the T5 combo.
One can have dinos with halides too: 65K, 10K, 20K,...
The whole thing matters for dinos, not only lights.
And it comes and goes away for good.
Grandis.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

2017 folks. The year of the dino.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Here's a quick and dirty photomicrograph I took of the stringy 'snot alga' causing the issues in my tank. Based on literature readily available to hobbyists (such as myself), this is identified as a benthic dinoflagellate.

Sorry, Dana, but I think the image shows a diatom similar to this one and a bit to this one. I was able to provoke an outbreak of similar diatoms by adding sodium silicate.

Nevertheless both microalgae use a very similar spectrum and have a brown color caused by carotenoids as antenna pigments. Both are specialized in absorbing blue light for photosynthesis.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Sorry, Dana, but I think the image shows a diatom similar to this one and a bit to this one. I was able to provoke an outbreak of similar diatoms by adding sodium silicate.

Nevertheless both microalgae use a very similar spectrum and have a brown color caused by carotenoids as antenna pigments. Both are specialized in absorbing blue light for photosynthesis.

Thanks! If adding silicate induced an outbreak, would removal by GFO limit growth? Your thoughts, please.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Thanks! If adding silicate induced an outbreak, would removal by GFO limit growth? Your thoughts, please.

As Salty said, 2017 year of the dinos.

What are your phosphates? Do you have any snails?

 

[PurduePete93]

Nothing conclusive yet, but I think I may be experiencing this right now. I lost a ballast 6 months ago that isn’t made any longer so I was running half the actinic capacity than normal with my halides. About 2 weeks ago I replaced the failed power compact actinic with an LED actinic strip and I do have some black slime growth that I’m fighting since restoring back to full actinic capacity.

So after a few days, might be getting a little better, but I’m still getting some slime on several of my corals after adding my new reef brite tech blue LED fixture.

Stuff blows off easy with a turkey baster, but comes back within a few hours.

NO3 <.05
PO4 = 0

Did a couple of water changes in past 4 days.

Sounds like consensus of this thread is to wait for tank to rebalance after the significant lighting change. Any other ideas?

 

[reeferfoxx]

So after a few days, might be getting a little better, but I’m still getting some slime on several of my corals after adding my new reef brite tech blue LED fixture.

Stuff blows off easy with a turkey baster, but comes back within a few hours.

NO3 <.05
PO4 = 0

Did a couple of water changes in past 4 days.

Sounds like consensus of this thread is to wait for tank to rebalance after the significant lighting change. Any other ideas?

If you want the tank to rebalance I would stop doing water changes. Or you can dose N and P.

 

[Dana Riddle]

As Salty said, 2017 year of the dinos.

What are your phosphates? Do you have any snails?

Phosphorous (as P, not PO4) is 0.01 which is at the detection limit of the instrument. Just added some snails yesterday - didn't need them until a few days ago. Mexican Trochus and Banded Trochus is what they were sold to me as. I also added a UV sterilizer and might try the Fenton UV/H2O2 trick (maybe.) This reaction should make an extremely high oxidizer (much higher than Cl2 or O3.)

 

[taricha]

I also added a UV sterilizer and might try the Fenton UV/H2O2 trick (maybe.) This reaction should make an extremely high oxidizer (much higher than Cl2 or O3.)

Somewhere I have a uv unit I took apart and put thin strips of titanium sheet in the chamber, to get a uv+tio2+h2o2 oxidizer super combo.
I didn't test it enough to see exactly what it did, but some bits of cyano grew in the test area, so I assume it didn't make any magical super-oxidizer.
How would you put the iron in the mix for the fenton reaction?
Also, I saw some papers that compared susceptibility of different single cells to being oxidized (h2o2) and diatoms were much more resistant than green algae, dinos, and cyano. Cyano was of course by far the most sensitive.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Somewhere I have a uv unit I took apart and put thin strips of titanium sheet in the chamber, to get a uv+tio2+h2o2 oxidizer super combo.
I didn't test it enough to see exactly what it did, but some bits of cyano grew in the test area, so I assume it didn't make any magical super-oxidizer.
How would you put the iron in the mix for the fenton reaction?
Also, I saw some papers that compared susceptibility of different single cells to being oxidized (h2o2) and diatoms were much more resistant than green algae, dinos, and cyano. Cyano was of course by far the most sensitive.

I would inject only peroxide into the UV chamber, if I decide this is worth a try. This explains it much better than I can:
https://semspub.epa.gov/work/09/81356.pdf
At this point, a chemical approach is probably not going to happen. I much prefer a biological solution but held off adding snails due to potential toxicity issues. So far, the snails are munching away - happily, it seems, - with no apparent poisoning. Of course, this could change overnight, so I'm thinking ahead for other fixes. Although I don't have a positive ID yet, I'm thinking misdiagnosis of the problem is quite possible - a brown slime could be dinoflagellates, or it could be diatoms. Glad to hear your thoughts on the oxidation potential.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Water change and snails should do the trick. No reason to over complicate it. If dinos were present, you would know. And with po4/phosphorus that low, I would avoid GFO.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Copepods eat diatoms also. Since the tank is all dry tock, it wouldnt hurt to place an order for pods.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Thanks! If adding silicate induced an outbreak, would removal by GFO limit growth? Your thoughts, please.

IMO
Yes. We've done this a few times here.
Takes longer than stripping bound Po4 apperanly.

In most cases of Dino's etc etc , feeding , gfo, carbon, sometimes an oxidizer(manual removal ) has been proven most effective. A canister or reactor with floss and Chem media has been the go to. Keeping an eye on nutrients.

 

[Lasse]

I would inject only peroxide into the UV chamber, if I decide this is worth a try. This explains it much better than I can:
https://semspub.epa.gov/work/09/81356.pdf

If you do that - be sure to use a shortbanded low preasure UV bulb (mercury or amalgan) These bulbs has to peaks 185 nm and 254 nm. If you combine this with H2O2 you will get a effective tool. 185 nm produce ozone, 254 nm destroy cells and H2O2 will form radicals.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Dana Riddle]

If you do that - be sure to use a shortbanded low preasure UV bulb (mercury or amalgan) These bulbs has to peaks 185 nm and 254 nm. If you combine this with H2O2 you will get a effective tool. 185 nm produce ozone, 254 nm destroy cells and H2O2 will form radicals.

Sincerely Lasse

I'm installed a 40 watt LifeGuard UV unit in hopes of killing any small pieces of this stuff that makes its way into the sump. Maintaining high pH. Added snail Trochus snails, so far so good.

 

[ksed]

I’ve got dinos and can’t get ride of them, so will be follow this thread closely.

 

[reeferfoxx]

I’ve got dinos and can’t get ride of them, so will be follow this thread closely.

This thread won't help you in that regard. Go here for help
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/

 

[Adamc13o3]

Just did a search and found this thread, since I have a dino outbreak. My tank is 3 years old and has been extremely stable for a while now. My lighting consists of 2 x 400W SE MH Radiums + 6 X 54W T5 + 2 reefbrite strips. I started changing all of my bulbs about 6 weeks ago. I do it gradually over a few weeks. I had a combo of T5's with either 3 or 4 blue plus, 1 actinic and either 1 or 2 coral plus. (I don't remember if the BP and CP ratio was 4 and 1 or 3 and 2). I decided that I just love the actinic bulbs a lot more then any of the other t5's since they resemble the old VHO look and started changing all of the T5's to just actinics. I now have a dino issue for a little over a week. It happened 24 hours after I added the 2nd actinic bulb which changed my lighting to 2 actinincs when I always had one and both bulbs were now brand new. They didn't go in at the same time but over the course of 2 weeks I got 2 new actinic bulbs in when prior to that I had one. I then swapped out 2 more this Wed so I now have 4 actinics and 2 BP and was planning on changing those to actinics as well. I am not too scientific at all but my only change was my blue spectrum lighting. My nutrient level, husbandry etc... are all the same. I just turned the Actinic channel off on my fixture after going through this thread. I am really hoping to for positive changes. Although, I am not sure I will get any at this point since i'm going to assume that the actinic spectrum caused the bloom and it will now continue to survive under BP light or the MH 20K spectrum. I am assuming that the other spectrums don't cause outbreaks but they can maintain them.

In addition, on another tank that I used to run an ATI Powermodule 8 bulb fixture + build my led actinic strips, I had a similar issue that I am now connecting. The BML strips are a lot stronger then the reefbrites. The stock BML strip is stronger then even the XHO output reefbrite strip. I don't have these anymore but I remember them having a decent amount of more actual led's with all of the led's being at a higher wattage. The BML strip was a mixture of blues with actinic being one of the spectrums in the mix. On that tank I didn't have a dino problem but I did however have a major algae on the glass issue. When I say major it would literally come back as I would be using my mag-float, it was unbelievable. I kept going heavy with water changes and swapping GFO. I was getting low readings but I assumed it was the algae consuming the nutrients and that my levels were really higher. I did have some algae on the rocks as well, but nothing too bad. I don't remember what specifically happened, but one week either something went wrong with my controller or an outlet and the led's weren't working. I was having a busy week and didn't get right on it. I noticed crystal clear glass that week! It was a complete change. I fixed the lighting back to filthy glass. I stoped using the BML strips since they were clearly overkill and changed to reefbrites which don't have any of the actinic spectrum, in the strips and I haven't had an issue since. It's been well over a year. I am now wondering why I never had these issues with VHO's. Not happy about my findings since I was really excited about this new idea I had of having all of the t5's be actinics going forward.


Not making any concrete statements here and I definitely don't know any of the science behind it. I am just stating what I clearly observed. I have been in this hobby since 2006. I know what testing errors are and all the other things to consider and non of them apply here.


Thanks,

Adam

 

[mcarroll]

I would at least post a photo of your bloom for confirmation.

Even better would be to check out the main dino thread linked in post #78 above which has a test you can do and it has info on using a toy microscope to get a positive ID on which kind of dino.