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Dinoflagellate - NOW WHAT!

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billyr98

Well I was hoping this algae would go away, but its still there and not going away..
I picked up a silicate test today, but that tested out at Zero.
I can test my phosphates, but i know those salifert test kits aren't perfect for that..

Here are Pictures:

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Please help me, this is tough to watch, my corals are healthy.. but this is on the verge of taking over..
 
P

pnoyreefer

I hope ZOOM can chime in here... I was following a thread in Rc about beatin this algae...Wish you luck Billy this will be a tough one ...
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
What's supposed to cause them, Billy? Did it start on your new rock or your old rock? Where did you get your new rock from? Does scrubbing the rock help? Is this something that high mag would help?
 
B

billyr98

something i think high PH can help..

i never got new rock.. same rock from my 210g..

and it can be scrubbed, just not a 100% off.. and its a lot of work in this tank to scrub.. i would do it, but would like to stop it from coming back too..
 
C

Carlo

Oh, I feel your pain Billy. These are one of the toughest things to deal with. Makes a cynao attack look like child's play.

Cyanobacteria, Dinoflagellates, and Diatoms all show up for the same reason which is an abundance of food sources and lack of apex predators. Since most tanks can't support the type of apex predators needed, you have to hit them where it hurts; their food source. All these various algae take up phosphates and nitrates with some other stuff, such as silicates with Diatoms, and use light to process it in to fuel. Water Quality and Lighting are the things you can control. Lighting only masks the problem because once the lights are back to normal, you still have the nutrients needed for them to thrive. So, with that said, your biggest factor is the hardest to control; water quality.

Here are several steps you can take that will work:

Use a siphon hose to remove as much of it as you can by hand. Try to do this daily if possible. Try to limit the amount of water taken from the tank as you want to add the least amount of "new" water as possible (see below).

Use more carbon then normal to remove the toxins they give off and the humic substances that might promote growth in the dinos. Change your carbon frequently.

Bump up your ORP levels if using ozone to the 450 mV range (don't go higher).

Reduce the nutrients in the water including nitrates and especially phosphates. I'd try running an overly aggressive amount of GFO. I wouldn't be worried about bottoming out your phosphate levels as the dinos (and their toxins) are worse to the tank then zero phosphates (if you can even attain zero). Once the dinos are gone you can reduce the GFO and you'll have phosphates again in no time just from the food you add. Change the GFO every couple of days.

Skim wet if possible to remove as much of the nutrients in the water as possible.

Stop ALL WATER CHANGES until you rid the tank of Dinos. Water changes are probably the worst thing you can do. Work strictly with the water in the tank/system to reduce levels. Adding new salt adds the limiting factors back in the tank. This happens to be one of Julian Sprungs's recommendations BTW, (this and pH).

Increasing pH seems to be the best way to knock out Dinos. A high pH in the 8.5/8.6 range works wonders. The Dinos just don't like this pH level while the rest of the tank will handle it fine. Of course it would probably be wise to ramp up to this level no more then 0.2 per day until you get to 8.5/8.6. Many people go higher then this range but I think this is the safe upper limit that doesn't seem to notably bother anything else except the dinos. pH in the 8.5/8.6 range will also help the skimmer work better too.

You can also use a shorter photoperiod to help get the dinos under control but this only "masks" the problem. But if you shorten the photoperiod and have less dinos in the tank you also have less toxins too. So it's something to consider. If you do this at least keep you normal lights on for 4 hours per day. I'm not sure I'd do this myself unless things continue to get worse. I'd work the other methods first.

Silica is normally associated more with Diatom problems then anything else. Although some types of dinos have been known to be limited by reducing silica. If you run aggressive GFO it will remove the silica once the phosphates are gone from the water. So the GFO is a "two for one" but the GFO doesn't do much with silica until all phosphate is gone from the water.

Just a note on silica test kits. I can tell you that the salifert one can read 0 while the Red Sea silica test kit can be between 0.25 or 0.50 which is a substantial difference. I've tested a few different kits and have settled on the Red Sea for silica testing in a cheap test kit format. It's the closest cheap kit to the readings I get with a Hach kit.

If I think of anything else I'll let you know, but theses are the main things I can remember off the top of my head. Biggest things, no water changes and high pH being the key.

Carlo
 
C

Carlo

Something else.

Get yourself a really good method to measure phosphates.

Low Range Test Kits:
Hach
Merck
LaMotte

Low Range Colorimeter:
Hach colorimeter
LaMotte

Can also use a cheaper colorimeter like a Hannah but it's not going to be as accurate as the other tools mentioned above. Close but not as good. The Hannah meter is a good all around meter for general use (cheaper per use) but when you have a serious problem it's better to use a highly accurate titration test or expensive meter.

Carlo
 
B

Boomer

Billy

You may have Dino's then again it may be Diatoms which at times can mimic cyano in appearance. Take some out and rub them between your fingers and see if feels gritty, if so Diatoms. Usually it is stated that a brownish slime like algae that is loaded with gas bubbles are Dino's but this is not always the case.

Even if one has zero, measured, PO4 or Silica, even NO3- you can still get them, although they will be more limited. Many of these can feed off of organic phosphate and convert it extracellular or remove PO4 or Si as soon as it enters the system. But the key is sill water quality.

If you are using ozone you can jack it up and hope it helps but tests have shown that using ozone does not do anything and is part of a old Thiel opinion. WC also do not seem to help, so it also is a waste of time due to their rate of growth at times.

Whether they are diatoms or Dino's does make only a slight difference in treatment. It is basically high pH, as stated, that limits their CO2 that is the most effective for Dino's but this does not always work ether but is a good start, along with at temps to use GFO's. Same use of GFO for diatoms, as GFO's will remove both Si and PO4. Try no to use to much GFO and check your alk when using it in excess of recommended usage.

Trying to control them with GFO, lighting, siphoning, GAC and high pH if Dino's and trying to keep the water quality in check is about all you can do. The one thing you must do is that if they start to die off is to get that dead material out of the tank.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
So would you shut down the Ca reactor (and associated CO2) while you were trying to get these under control (since it will be hard to get the PH up high enough while you're running the CO2)?
 
C

Carlo

Phyl, I think that would just be a gut call for Billy to make. He probably won't be able to get all the calcium/alkalinity additions he needs from just Kalk. He should be able to get to 8.5/8.6ish pretty easily with just kalk but then he'll need to back off and only use it to sustain that pH. Then it's a matter of if he wants to turn the Calcium reactor down or just turn it off and manually dose for a while so he doesn't need to mess up the settings on the reactor which might have taken quite a while to get dialed in. Gut call for him to make.

Very good point Boomer on them maybe not being Dinos. This trips up a lot of people (myself included) because they can all look so similar (cyano, diatoms, dinos) in pictures. It's more of a texture/feel as you said.

The diatoms respond well to limiting silica if that can be done. Water changes are bad for these guys also because the new salt water will contain freshly supplied silica.

The dinoflagellates will usually be golden brown string like substances with trapped bubbles of O2 produced through photosyntheses. They build into usually slimy sort of goop that resembles snot in texture. yuck

I took a look through Sprung's book "Algae, A Problem Solver Guide" to see if there was anything not mentioned and the only thing I saw was a mentions of boosting alkalinity with buffers. I'd think this is relative and if you're already high I wouldn't push it further but if you're in the 7/8 dKH range them maybe a little higher. Anyway, just thought I'd mention it.

I don't doubt at all what Boomer said about the jacked up Ozone. I'm not sure it really helps that much at all either but 450 mV isn't going to hurt and some say it helps so...

Definitely agree with Boomer on removing them ESPECIALLY if they start to die out. Frankly just try and get as much out of the tank as possible while limiting new water additions.

Carlo

PS He's something I've done before that I "think" helped. I had made up salt water. I stuck an extra reactor I had in it running GFO. I tried to remove all phosphates and silica from the water so that I could use it for topoff purposes after siphoning stuff out of the tank. This helps reduce nutrient additions when you need to top off after siphoning.
 
B

billyr98

ok my dKH is 11 already... my ph is like 8.1 and trying to raise it with kalk...
since dosing kalk last night, it looks like some feel off the rocks.. i will get that out later..

i don't use ozone..

i will hook up my orp probe from the last group buy and get my number though...

thanks so far guys... this stinks!
 
C

Carlo

I wouldn't worry about hooking up the probe just for this purpose. If you aren't running ozone it's not important.

I think I mentioned it already but wanted to make sure to drive the point home. Use more carbon (any type bitum, lignite). :) You want to make sure you get all the toxins out from the dinos as they die. This is VERY IMPORTANT. Also why you want to manually get out as much as possible so they don't die off.

Think flat worm exit and what happens when the flatworms die. Similar type thing only not as bad with dinos IMHO, but still toxic.

You're right it does stink real bad! It's one of the more problematic things to deal with.

Carlo

PS If you feed heavy maybe cut back a bit for a week to help reduce the nutrients some. Don't go crazy with this as things still need to eat but it may help some.
 
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