I am battling Dinoflagellates now. I have no clue how they got into my system and I have read a ton of articles on it and everyone suggests different things to do. For most it seems to come back. Has anyone in the club had this algae and beat it?
From what I understand it feeds on nitrate,phosphates and trace minerals. A lot of people recommend not doing a water change and doing lights out for atleast 3 days. But then report it came back. Even while using a phosphate sponge/carbon/skimming.
It started as a small spot for me and this weekend I came back from the beach and it has spread. I just did a small water change on Friday. I have tried siphoning it out with no luck.
I am running about 250ml of Biopellets, I think around 2 cups of Phosban and red sea c-skim 1800 skimmer. I might just order the BRS dual gfo reactors so I can add carbon and phosphate sponge and change my fuge light and add cheato right now I only have the fern looking macro algae in the fuge.
Any input would be great and I am sure it can help out other fellow reefers.
Jeff, pics/ video would be very helpful. I battled what i thought were dinos for over half a year. some say it was/ some say it wasnt, regardless it was a pia!
lights out periods didnt do squat! but if it looks like mine though, i can elaborate more on what i think made it go away…
brown, soft, and would cover everything quick… would have to turkey baster it off almost daily… it would come loose easily…
I think this is the same stuff that made Paul threw in the towel and got out of the hobby (per-say). He was never able to get rid of the stuff. He would remove globs and globs of it and it would still come back. He’d tried everything from chemical, lights out, water change and so fourth, result were the same.
If its the same stuff that Paul got, IMHO I think the only way to eradicate it is to throw out the rocks, bleach or acid bath it and start all over again. For some reason that stuff would never goes away.
It is a brown slime looking algae. closest thing I found online was Dinoflagellates. I took a picture and video with white leds on only. to try and give best true color picture same with the video.
Nitrates look like 20ppm or less and phosphates look like 0 but its hard to tell. From what I have read online this algae will make tests read 0 because it absorbs it so much even though it is there.
It don’t look like its the same stuff that Paul had, but I can be wrong. The stuff that he had was actually brown glob snot and not really stringy like in the pic/video. I could be wrong, maybe he will jump on here later.
It does not matte like cyano but it does take a hold of a spot and will have some blobs but its mostly the stringy stuff and it attaches to everything. It blows off very easily also it does have the air bubbles in it that it forms on its own. I just lost a tiger leptastria or whatever its called that I picked up in Florida last year. It is covering some of my zoa and paly colonies. I keep blowing it off and sucking it up but just comes right back.
Did not pop up til about 2-3 weeks ago I think when I noticed it and it was just in one area. I think the blowing it helped spread it faster. I know you are not supposed to do that but I was hoping to pull it all in the sock filter and then clean the filter (failed). I mostly siphoned though.
I was thinking of trying ROWA Phos. its supposed to be a p04 and Si02 absorber and I happen to have some just sitting around I never used. Anyone here against or for this product?
As for the nitrates I have had those for as long as the tank has been up.
The video really showed it well jeff… From what i saw it looks like the stuff i had. kinda like cyano, but much thinner, and it would form airbubbles that would string it up to the surface like little crappy geysers everywhere.
I tried many things, for at least 6 months… one day it just left…
what i think may have worked…
raising and maintaining higher ph levels (mine were low 7.7 - 8.0) not bad but room to increase
raising Mg to around 1500
and removing the stuff with a small siphon, like a 1/4’’ hose… target siphon and do a small 1 -2 g w/c…
change filter socks as often as you can
run the fuge light 24/7 with whatever macro grows the fastest for ya…
def phosphate and nitrate reduction, but i showed 0’s during my outbreak.
If i can think of any other possible cures i’ll let you know…
oh yeah…big w/c’s never helped… actually seemed to make it worse verdict_in
What you can do to remove it is to get some1/4 air line and attach it to the suction side of a small power head,put the powerhead in a bucket and use it as a small vacuum and suck the stuff out of the tank into waste bucket
I have read online about the water changes actually make it worse because of the trace elements/minerals that seem to feed it. The bloom did get bigger couple days after a 5-6 gallon w/c with tropic marine pro reef.
I am not sure what my PH is, atm I do not have a test kit for it.
My filter socks run me $10-12 each which gets costly fast. I am going to try cleaning them with 3% hydrogen peroxide since I have read people have had better luck with that over bleach/vinegar. I think there was a good article on RC and someone checked with a microscope to see what got rid of the junk that builds up inside them and not just bleaches the junk.
I will try the 1/4" line for removal also. Usually I just use a 5/8" hose when I do my water changes and pull it out that way but I think smaller diameter will work better.
I always had good luck with cleaning socks in the washing machine… a little bleach, and run them on a hot/hot heavy soil cycle with extra rinse… no soap obviously… a couple tennis balls thrown in can help alot too.
this always worked best for me, the other methods always made em look clean, but they’d clog quick…
I’ve also made a “mesh sock” … cut the sock part off a standard sock, and tied on a mesh bag (kind used for charcoal and such)… it will only filter larger debris, depending on the micron size, but i would throw a wad of filter floss in the bottom… 25 cents worth, and just toss and replace the floss weekly… the mesh bag rinses easily in the sink…
but the washing machine is no joke…
As far as ph… i never realized how “off” ph test kits were until i got a meter. :TWOCENTS
I would highly recommend a meter if you plan on going the raising ph route…
and use whatever size suction hose to give you just enough power to suck it out, and keep water loss at a minumum
I had it real bad a few years ago, I had the kind that was posionus to snails and lost about four cleanup crews worth of snails before getting rid of it, I took out all the rock and scrubed it and changed all my sand, then it never came back.
I just recently switched to AI Sols led lights. I had it set for 7:45am to ramp up for 110 minutes then 8:45pm went into the lunar cycle mode. I am running 21% white, 20%blue, 45% royal blue to cut back some of the lighting but still get some to my corals.
I am still debating going lights out and trying that but I would hate to stress my clams.
