What the heck is this

[Terry Mattson]

Ok I’m going to start the peroxide dosing. Probably do the black out this week. I ordered a bottle of vibrant. Will this help any?

I have used vibrant and it works well. Just do not overdose. Works slowly but it does help control algea. It is bacteria the eats it.

 

[rkpetersen]

My approach with ostreopsis dinos in one tank was very successful, eliminating them completely in 2 weeks.
First, get phosphate and nitrate to the proper range as described above.
Second, get some Red X by Fauna Marin. It's safe and works. Dino X, from the same company, also works but is reported to be less safe for corals (although in many cases this may be due to people not following directions precisely.)
Third, start adding small doses of live microalgae on a regular basis. (I prefer this to diatoms.)
Finally, and this is the big one, begin daily siphoning of dinos through a 1 micron filter bag. Siphon until you've removed most visible dinos, then return the filtered water to the system. Even after doing this just the first time, you will see corals perk up as all those nasty dinos and their toxins are manually removed. 1 micron filter bags can be found online.

 

[Juice780]

I’m not sure how to get phosphate and nitrate under control because every time I check it’s zero. I’m sure algae is consuming it all. I know people say feed more but I have all my fish in quarantine because of an ick outbrea. I feed my corals reef rounds. Should I feed more of that.

 

[saltyhog]

Again, post your pictures on the dino thread in the Nuisance algae forum and tag taricha. That will help with more specific recommendations.

To raise PO4 I used Sea Chem Flourish phosphate additive. For NO3 I bought a 1lb bag of pharmaceutical grade sodium nitrate. I used 1 tbs in 200 cc of RO/DI water and started out dosing 10 cc and checked nitrate daily (rinse, lather, repeat). My tank is 72x24 so adjust initial dosing based on your tank size.

PM me if there are any questions on that and I can send you a link to the sodium nitrate source(at work now and don't have the link on my phone).

 

[saltyhog]

Ok bought a cheap microscope. Hope these are good enough to identify

@taricha Can you ID from these pictures?

 

[taricha]

Looks like prorocentrum - best I can tell.

 

[vetteguy53081]

What should be my plan of attack?

Many Many Many people ask me how I won the battle. I ran blues at5% and turned the remaining lights off for 5 days. I dosed Peroxide at 1ml per 10gals at night and added liquid Microbacter 7 at night. I also ceased feeding coral food during this time. I also loosened dino with a turkey baster towards sump overflow.
I lost NO coral at all, in fact zoa and others seemed happier after treatment.
Vibrant is useless for dino.

 

[Juice780]

Well that sucks since I ordered a bottle of vibrant. Does dr tims waste away and refresh work.

 

[Juice780]

I read something about using bacteria to beat dinos with a blackout. Can anyone explain this method.

 

[Juice780]

Update I spoke with a local guy who I trust pretty good that used to run a store here. he is thinking silicates is causing my issue. For now he suggested using phosguard and dosing peroxide but only doing 2/3rd the normal amount. So far it seems to not getting worse after siphoning. I tested my para meter today.
salinity-1.25
temp-78
ph-8.4
nitrate-0
phosphate-0
calcium-420
dkh-8
mag-1360

i can never get a reading on nitrate and phosphat. I’m using cheap api test. Maybe that’s the reason. I’m not sure what to do about that because I don’t know what the real reading is.

 

[Idoc]

Well that sucks since I ordered a bottle of vibrant. Does dr tims waste away and refresh work.

Search for the Elegant Corals dino/cyano treatment method. I used this and it helped resolve my small cell amphidinium dinos after about a year of struggling with keeping nutrients high (which did help), dosing silicates, adding different bacteria species, adding pods, etc... After that treatment, I ended up with ostreopsis dinos taking hold for some reason, but those were easily wiped out with a UV sterilizer...tank finally looks great!

You need to follow the Elegant Corals treatment exactly as written...it uses Dr. Tim's Waste Away as part of the protocol. It is a 7 day process and sometimes needs to be run a second time as well. It really cleaned out my tank!

 

[Idoc]

Update I spoke with a local guy who I trust pretty good that used to run a store here. he is thinking silicates is causing my issue. For now he suggested using phosguard and dosing peroxide but only doing 2/3rd the normal amount. So far it seems to not getting worse after siphoning. I tested my para meter today.
salinity-1.25
temp-78
ph-8.4
nitrate-0
phosphate-0
calcium-420
dkh-8
mag-1360

i can never get a reading on nitrate and phosphat. I’m using cheap api test. Maybe that’s the reason. I’m not sure what to do about that because I don’t know what the real reading is.

If your local guy thinks it is caused by silicates, then he is suspecting diatoms....your scope pics are not diatoms, they are definitely dinos. Dosing silicates actually help to create a diatom bloom which helps to outcompete the dinos. Running phosguard at this point to reduce phosphates and silicates seems counter-productive in my opinion. Your zero nitrates and phosphates are your biggest issue causing this dino infestation. You need to dose nitrates to around 5-10ppm and phosphates to around 0.05-0.1ppm in order to get some other algaes, etc... to start outcompeting the dinos.