Please help, I'm at my wits end!

[MediaOne]

Okay, hang in there this will be a long one.

I will begin by explaining my problem. I have what I believe to be Dinoflagellates. I have had them for a while now. It is the brown covering with the little trails with bubbles on them. They cover everything in my tank, from the sand to the rock to the macroalgae I am TRYING to grow in my refugium.

All of my appropriate levels are zero, ph is 8.3, phosphate is 0... yada yada it's all fine. I had big mats of the stuff on my sand for the longest time (a few weeks). Anyway, I just recently got my RO filter from Kent and thought that I could do some large water changes with the pure water, syphoning the Cyano off the sand and the rocks and stuff. And so I did, the sand looked fine, everything was looking clean.

Now I am getting a "bloom" as they are called, in my water. There is a little patch coming back on the sand in the main tank, and of course its well on its way back in the 24/7 lit refugium. I read an article on reefs.org by doing a search and I meet almost every characteristic of Cyano.

Now here is the kicker. The cloud goes away if I leave the lights ON for like 12 hours. As time passes the water gets clear. When I turn the lights off at night and then back on again in the morning, there is a bloom again (Cloud). Around and around we go. This has happened for 2 days now. Apparently one remedy of cyano is to turn your lights off for a long period of time, but it is making it worse in my tank.

Can the fact that the refugium is lit 24/7 be keeping a bloom going over night? I tried turning all the lights of the system off and it didn't help.

How in gods name can I get rid of this stuff. I have a Turboflotor that does a great job skimming, and I don't overfeed or anything like that. Total water changed from the system (which is about 150 gallons with refugium) has been about 30 gallons in the past 3 days. I understand the importance of keeping nutrients low, and maximizing nutrient output from the system, but I can't even get my damn Macro to grow without it getting smothered.

Apprently carbon can help... the bag I have in there is not releasing phosphates, but it's not helping either. I have been running filter floss and removing it every couple of days to keep nutrient export at its max.

PLEASE help. Thank You

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[Mac1]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

Can the fact that the refugium is 24/7 be keeping a bloom going over night? I tried turning all the lights of the system off and it didn't help.

Absolutely. I'd try leaving the lights off for 2-3 days, and make sure the tank isn't receiving any ambient light. Throw a blanket over it if you have to. Just be careful and re-acclimate the tank back to it's regular lighting regime a little bit.

- Mac

 

[Marcosreef]

I'm also going through something similar. I can understand the despair. Hang in there! If this was easy, more people would be doing it! I hope everything works out for you. (It will!) Cheers

 

[MediaOne]

Thanks for the support guys, I will probably never leave this hobby, I just can't take Cyano any longer. Maybe turning all the lights off will work... 2-3 days eh....

The only thing I am worried about is that it is when I turn the lights out that the bloom comes back! So what do I do with that fact in mind?

I just thought of something. I remembered reading that Cyano is extremely opportunistic. Do you think that while all of the biological process are not functioning at night in the main tank, it uses the light from the other tank to keep going??

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[Bodine]

The "bubbles" sound like dinoflagellates.
I get a little bloom every now and then and it usually goes away as fast as it appears. I siphon it up every other day or so.
Good nutrient export and powewful skimming seems to help.

Hang in there and dont give up

 

[Anonymous]

When my tank was newer I had a couple dinoflagellate episodes. The first eventually went away on its own (of course I was limiting nutrients as always). The second time I kept the lights off for the better part of a day, and that was that. Hasn't come back since.

 

[Anemone]

I'm a little confused

You mention both dinoflagelletes and cyano. Which seems to be the problem?

If it's cyano increasing water flow may help, and some folks have reported adding an airstone to the tank knocks cyano back (have no idea why this would work - increased oxygen? increased circulation? dunno, but it only seems to work if the airstone is in the same tank as the cyano (ie, not an associated tank like a refugium)).

Also, fighting conches and queen conches are reported to be good consumers of cyano, and are becoming more and more prevalent in the hobby.

HTH,

Kevin

 

[MediaOne]

The reason I mentioned both Cyano and Dinoflagellates is because I have both. I would have mentioned my diatom bloom as well but I didn't want to further confuse the issue, it was the dino's that I wanted to learn about.

I have found some very valuable information in Reef Aquarium Vol. 1 (Delbeek & Sprung). What I have is definitly Dinoflagellates, however the other algaes are showing themselves as well, apparently a common occurence is to have all of these at once. Dinoflagellates can be distinguished from the other algaes in that it characteristically covers both living and nonliving areas of the aquarium, whereas Cyano *usually* tends to stay on the sand and liverock. Also, Dinoflagellates have little bubbles on the hairs that extend from it, they are trapped inside and sometimes rise up and away from it.

HOW TO MEND THE ISSUE: According to their research (and this matches other sources I have found on the net), the best methods (that have also proven themselves to work) are to completely block light to the aquarium for one to two days. The *most effective* method is to raise the pH to around 8.4-8.5 during the day and 8.2 at night. The use of a digital probe makes this task a little easier. They recommend creating this bump in pH using Calcium hydroxide (Kalwasser), I believe they say this as it also provides calcium for the other forms of algae that can help outcompete the cyano and dino's.

Anyway, I thought I would share this with everyone because I had trouble finding the core problem and was especially stumped by the occurence of all these algaes at once. Now I know what is up and atleast know where to start.

Thanks for all your input,
Jeff O'Neill

 

[Anonymous]

Any updates to your battle with dinos?
I am battling them now. Have been at it for a couple of months, and it's driving me nuts.
I am doing weekly water changes (RO water), skimming well, and running carbon. My tank was fine for a couple of years.
Then I waited too long to replace the membrane on my RO unit. I got a hari algae bloom and dinos.
I can bet the hair algae, I just need to know how to beat the dinos.
Please help, the friggin' dinos keep attaching to my corals and burning into the flesh on them. Here's a pic of my M. capricornis that has been taking a beating. The dinos lodge underneath when I change water. The capricornis is now bleaching. I gotta get rid of these dinos!

 

[fishpoo]

i know what you're going thru because i had dinoflaggellates for over a year. i did every suggestion. Raise alk, lower salinity, raise ph, lights off for three days. i even did a week schedule of light increases. Two days no light, third day two hrs, forth three hrs. nothing worked. The brown slime would be gone but a few hrs after lights on it's back.
i don't know if my persistence paid off and it disappeared because of it, or maybe my DSB finally matured. OR it may have been this idea. i put a two additional powerheads and it blew the sand all around. after a week of this i took them out. that was the end of my dinoflaggellate problem. whether it was the powerheads, or matured DSB i can't be sure, but they never came back. one year of suffering with it finally gone.

 

[Anonymous]

anyone else with remedies for dinoflagellates? i need to get rid of this mess ASAP.
important facts to note:
tank established Oct 1998.
55 gal with ~100 # of LR
all water params are good (NH4, N03, NO2, PO4 = 0)
skimmer = CPR BakPak 2
use Kent HiS 35 gpd RO unit
water changes = 5 gal weekly
running HOT magnum with carbon now, and during water changes I blast the dinos with a turkey baster or with a PH.
have just had dinos since Dec 2001.
pH = 8.4 during day and ~7.9 at night
alk = 7 - 8 dKH
Ca = ~400ppm
temp = 81 degrees F
SG = 1.024
tank inhabitants are just 4 smallish fish + corals

Please help!

 

[SPC]

Moe, I have never had these so I don't know what to tell you. I do hacve a couple of questions however:

1. What type of subtrate do you have?
2. pH = 8.4 during day and ~7.9 at night , why so much swing here?
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

I have a crushed coral substrate. Same junk I started using way back in 1998. I use so much LR because I only have a 2" substrate of CC.
But my nitrites and nitrates have been undectable once my cycle was over.

I don't know why there's so much pH swing. I use my new Pin Point monitor to get the readings. My lights (4 bulbs of 110 watt VHO) come on at 09:30 and go off at 23:30.
The day reading was at ~ 19:00 after the lights were on for ~10 hours, and the night reading was from 08:00 after the lights were off about 8 hours.

 

[SPC]

Moe, my guess would be that the CC is what is causing both the algae problem and the PH swing. I feel that your tank has probably been up just long enough for the organics in your CC to have built up to a problem level. Do you ever vacuum the CC? Remember that nitrates may not show up on a test kit if there is enough algae to lock them up.
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Nah, Steve I never vacuum the CC. I thought doing so was counter productive? I thought the crap builds up in the substrate and the micro-organisms (m/os) take care of it. I was under the impression that vacuuming the substrate removed the beneficial m/os. Am I wrong?

 

[Bobzarry]

I was thinking the same thing as SPC. when I started my tank I had a bad Dino problem with a CC substrate. I switched to a DSB and within a week it was all gone. CC is notorious for trapping organics and becoming a nutrient bank. Now my only filtration is my rocks, sand bed, and light skimming. Never had a recurrence of dino's, hair or cyano.


Bob

 

[Anonymous]

I'll give the CC a vacuum this weekend. Thanks for the advice.

There must be a cure for dinos out there. My buddy has dinos in his tank too. He's got a regular DSB. He's been battling them a while like I have.
We are going nuts trying to figure out the problem and solution.

 

[Anonymous]

Okay folks, I need help.

How do I get rid of dinoflagellates once established?!

let's not focus on the substrate... i had no dinos for 2 years.
then i let my RO membrane go too long.

so now i have them. how do i get rif of them?

 

[danmhippo]

Moe, let's just focus on keep up with the maintenance. This happens to all of us at one point or another, but "eventually", eventually it will go away......

 

[Anonymous]

dan, two months maintainance with zero results?
this sucks!
i'm losing corals. i cannot go another two months...

what are the drawbacks to using red slime remover?