Dinoflagellates.

[SoundUser]

Green algae in the display has almost all gone. But there are now small amounts of Dinoflagellates.
The scrubber screen is also covered in brown algae and Dinoflagellates.....

I think its before the redfield ratio is out of whack. There is almost no nitrate.

Should I start feeding more and change GFO, to try and get Nitrate:Phosphate back in balance?

Thank you

[Floyd R Turbo]

I had this problem in my tank once (when I was holding livestock for a customer with scrubber on top). Same scrubber in a sump system and no problems. Surface skimming might be part of the problem.

Also the scrubber was way oversized. Is yours? The reason for the brown growth might be related to size, lighting, flow, feeding...many possible factors.

Do the dinos 'accumulate' in a cyclic pattern that follows the scrubber cleaning cycle? That is, if you clean the scrubber, and do the dinos seem less present for the next few days, then as you get to say day 5 or 6 after cleaning, are they all over the place?

[SoundUser]

Dino is covering the green algae on the screen that has not been cleaned and completely over the other one. There isnt too much in the display. But I wanna get on top before it become a problem.

Id say my screen size was pretty close to the guide lines.
Ive just ordered some better test kits as im not convinced by my results.

[kerry]

I been fighting them lately as well, even have a touch of cyano as well, its all in the DT.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Yes if you are growing dinos then there is an issue, the larger scrubber I was using tended to grow dinos, dark slimy hair-thin strands and yes oh boy do they smell nasty. I grew them on my UAS for a couple weeks before the GHA took over.

My feeling on them is that they are a sign of not enough feeding or an oversized screen. But I will have to go a few weeks to confirm that. I just switch from a 16x6 screen lit by 4x24W T5HO to an L2 which has 4x6 screen and LEDs. It wasn't growing an over abundance of dinos before the switch, however the stink was still somewhat there (mostly yellow rubbery algae).

[SoundUser]

Ill post my params at when i get the tests. Im using an API nitrate test that says it 0, but only goes up in 5s. And a selifet phos kit that just changes to the slightest blue colour which looks less than the lowest one.

[Wopadobop]

Hanah checkers are your friend lol. Worth every penny considering you pay about 30 bucks for decent test kit anyway and they are digital .

[kerry]

Is this hanah checker ok or do you need the 200+ dollar one? http://www.marinedepot.com/Hanna_Instruments_Checker_Colorimeter_Single_Item_ Monitors_Controllers_for_Saltwater_Aquariums-Hanna_Instruments-HN1181-FITEMOID-vi.html

[MorganAtlanta]

I have the Phosphate and Alk Checkers and like them.

[kerry]

Thats good to know, I would like to stay as cost effective as I can.

[SoundUser]

OMG, this stuff sinks like death. If this takes over the tank ill be crying.

How do I kill it?

[kerry]

It does smell awful!!!!!! Mine is slowly retreating. I cut back on feeding, increased ATS flow, wipe it off the back glass where it grows on the coralline once or twice a week, and reduced the intensity of the LED fixture. I have thought about the peroxide dosing treatment but am not sure if I dare try that.

[Floyd R Turbo]

In my experience, it stays in the scrubber as long as you have surface skimming i.e. overflow in the display tank. There are many methods that are suggested to keep it under control, I know there are a few articles out there, here's a few from googling "dinoflagellates reef"

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/how-i-beat-dinoflagellates-and-the-lessons-i-learned/

Most involve raising the pH to 8.4 (especially at night - scrubber can help this) but that can be difficult to do, so at least keep your alk high enough to maintain proper pH and run your scrubber lights all night if you can.

Many solutions mention cutting back the DT lights (even a 3-day total blackout in extreme cases, but this doesn't solve the root problem), but SM told me to do the opposite and it actually worked. I think the idea is that if you provide the coral a lot of light, they will consume the nutrients and starve out the dinos. Of course you need a lot of photosynthetic corals for that to work I would think. But cutting the lights out completely will generally cause more die-off which then feeds the dinos, so I guess I hate to go against the recommendations of Randy Holmes-Farley, but it seemed to work for me, so it's up to you.

Cut feeding drastically in any case, only feed a small amount right before lights out is what I did, and every other day or every 3 days if your fish can take it.

Basically you're keeping the fish alive and letting the corals and CUC (and scrubber) drain the nutrients out of the tank and starving out the dinos.

Keep the scrubber running, if they're still wanting to grow, they'll grow there and that's where to want them - where you can control them.

If you have a place for filter floss, a sock, or a pad, put that there too to keep the dinos from recirculating in the system, or to catch them if they detach from the scrubber. I had tons of dinos in my UAS until it started growing green, but very little signs of detachment. In the top-of-tank waterfall scrubber, I had much more detachment, most of which snagged on a block of bio-balls that I had set up as a bubble-blocker. So do what you have to do to trap them.

Also I take a piece of airline tubing and siphon off the dinos out of the DT when I see them. They come back pretty quick so this is something you need to stay on top of on a daily basis. Using this method and pinching the airline hose when not sucking the dinos I was able to only empty out about 1/4-1/2 gallon in a 120g system, and I had dinos everywhere. Also get all the dinos off the top surface in low-flow areas (if you have them)

The hardest coral to keep happy was my ORA Green Birdsnest, you can drop those things on the ground and step on them and they'll survive but dinos take them out because they're 'snaggy' - they are a dino magnet.

[SoundUser]

I hope it stays on the scrubber..... If so scrubber saves the day once again. :)
The just seem to be some stringy bits in the tank that are getting stuck on things.

That second link seems very interesting.

There doesnt seem too much info about it on the internet. Does anyone know if chemiclean dose anything to it??

[kerry]

Yeah my birds nest is taking a beating, I blow it off once or twice a day and am considering moving it to the 150G. I almost did the black out thing but decided against it so I just cut back a little mainly for the cyano. I will incorporate this advice as well Floyd, thank you Sir.
I hope yours gets better sounduser!! Its driving me crazy!!! I dont really have any on my screen though is the strange thing, its holding to anything that snags it.

[wgraham]

I had it in my tank for about a month and what I did was on the weekend when I clean my screen I would go in the dt and just catch want I can with my net. I did not turn my dt lights down any, Just left them as normal and as of today I have none. Feed the fish and corals like normal and just let the scrubber take over. It will catch up and take care of your problem. I have LED's on my tank also. No filter socks or anything only have the scrubber on the tank. This tank has been setup since Jan. Also this is a LED scrubber.

[Floyd R Turbo]

wgraham, pics and a description of your scrubber setup might help. Anything that can point to a workable solution to this problem would be of great benefit to many I believe.

[Garf]

Wgraham - hi there, just a quick question. Do you EVER clean or disturb your sand bed ? Told you it was a quick question.

Kerry and Floyd. - same question predictably !!

[wgraham]

Never touch my sand bed, well I have this scrubber on a 90g tank. I have a mag 18 on the tank and I split it with the scrubber. I just remade my scrubber out of plexi and it is basically a sm100 with LED's. I have 4 stings of 8 red's and 2 blue's running in series and the four strings in parallel at about 500mA with a computer power supply control by my arduino controller. This arduino controls my dt led's my heaters and wavemaker. I'm going to change the power supply with another computer supply that can handle more voltage and current. That way I can bring the current up to 700mA. And like I said the arduino can be programmed to come down in current if need be. But right now I'm getting good results with the led's at 500mA. Only thing that has been change on the scrubber is that I put plexi around it. It was just a free fall to my sump.

[wgraham]

I'm at work as soon as I can I will take a pic of the tank and scrubber

[Floyd R Turbo]

I never touch the sandbed if at all possible in any tanks I maintain, even FO/FOWLR.

[kerry]

I do not disturb the substrate however, I do have a Yellow watchman that digs a little and a Tomato Clown that clears out around this flower pot coral when it falls back in. They both have had the same home for a very long time so its always the same substrate getting moved.

[Garf]

Thanks for your replies everyone - I am working on a theory and your answers seem to be complying, BUT Floyd are you saying you get no dino's or cyano in your display and you only get it in the scrubber? Your answer may well shoot my theory down in flames, so be gentle.

Sounduser - do you mess with your sand?

[Floyd R Turbo]

I never get cyano on the scrubber and for a while there I was getting smelly dinos on the scrubber, but that passed as the contents 'settled in' to the new tank after I moved everything. The smell subsided substantially but there was still the occasional brown slime coating on top of the yellow/caramel growth (oversized scrubber syndrome).

[wgraham]

I have a little cyano in one corner that came in from one brown star polyp rock, but I'm going to let the scrubber take care of it also.

[wgraham]

Also I have not done a water change on the tank

[Garf]

Sorry for all the questions Floyd but I am in one of them moods. Do you think the bacterial immaturity of your scrubber could have induced your dino's outbreak? By now you have probably worked out my theory!

[kerry]

My screen never gets anything but the typical algae growth. The only problem is the DT. Also this tank has been up for more then a year. This stuff is recent and happened after I put LED's on it. I would get a glimpse of this stuff before but barely noticeable and only for a day or two at most.

[Floyd R Turbo]

I think yes on the immaturity of the scrubber and I say that because in the tank I maintain, I have used the plastic canvas in other areas, like non-trapping filter screens at baffles before pumps, etc and the seem to grow dinos and brown gooey algae like nuts. So the initial dino growth on my UAS I would say is attributed to that, but once the green took over the dinos went away pretty much. There still might be a little clump or two but it nevers seems to spread anywhere.

If you have dinos, that generally means there's something wrong with the scrubber - not pulling down enough nutrients fast enough. I recently replaced the big scrubber with one of my L2s and after the first week, zero sign of dark slimy algae on the screen. We'll see how the next month goes.

[Wopadobop]

I had this issue as well. I will tell you what I did to cure it.

wait until scrubber is at max growth(you will see why in a second)

go 3 days of darkness in dt. wrap a black trash bag over the 3 sides of glass if you have to .

feed only what your fish need. were talking like 1 pinch of pellets here.

without the light the dinos and (cyanobacteria in my case) will wither and die or at least be consumed by a clean up crew and the scrubber should be able to keep up with it. (this is why i say wait till it is at max growth)

I would almost recommend this as a step for any new scrubber being placed in a gha or cyano loaded tank. Basically all that messy crap migrates and begins to grow on the scrubber.
and can be harvested out at next cleaning.

A quick question. What are your nitrates at? dinos love that stuff. I still do water changes, even with a scrubber its just good tank husbandry. 5 gallons on a 75 once a week is pretty small but I feel it's still enough to introduce some trace elements and ions .

make sure to reacclimate your corals to lights when you go back to normal light cycle.

I did this about 2 weeks ago give or take a day or two. And have not had dinos, algae, cyano return in the slightest. dt is almost sterile looking it is so clean.

[holidayz]

Valuable topic....learn a lot indeed.
Wonder how much impact will a 3 days total light out will have on corals, especially sps?

[Wopadobop]

Won't hurt them. The sun doesn't always shine in the tropics. Just very important to turn lights back on slowly so as to not over stress them.

[Floyd R Turbo]

They will usually do just fine. It you think about it, there isn't necessarily light in every part of the ocean every day. During a major storm at the right time there could be very dark conditions for days. Granted it wouldn't be total blackout, but they will recover and probably with less damage than if you let the dinos take over, look at it that way. You could always take whatever corals you have out to a QT tank and give them a little light each day.

[holidayz]

Ic, thanks Wopadobop and Floyd.
But Wopadobop, why wrap only 3 sides and not all 4? Is that a typo?

[Wopadobop]

most people have some kind of backing on there tank? i dunno i just assumed. lol

[holidayz]

Oh no, I'm abnormal ! lol~~

[Wopadobop]

That's why you have dinos! the plastic or paint from the backer drives the evil spirits away.

didn't you get that memo?

yyeeeeahhh, about those t.p.s. reports.

[holidayz]

No ah....What t.p.s. reports? What does tps stands for? Throttle position switch? lol

[SoundUser]

Thanks for your replies everyone - I am working on a theory and your answers seem to be complying, BUT Floyd are you saying you get no dino's or cyano in your display and you only get it in the scrubber? Your answer may well shoot my theory down in flames, so be gentle.

Sounduser - do you mess with your sand?

I vac the sand with every water change.

[Garf]

I vac the sand with every water change.

Cheers. My theory may actually have some merit. How about not cleaning your sandbed for a bit and see how things progress ? Now I need a volunteer or two to put a roughed up screen in there tank ( low or no light ) for a few weeks before running it on either UAS or ATS waterfall and see if anything happens differently to the norm, particularly looking out for, diatom, DINO, cyano growth.

[Wopadobop]

sure i can do that. There was actually a paper written a while back on rubber maid containers having the ability to grow bacteria rather quickly just from the carbon in the plastic. lets hear your theory. Ill go drop some roughed up plastic in the tank right now.

[Floyd R Turbo]

No ah....What t.p.s. reports? What does tps stands for? Throttle position switch? lol

I take it you haven't seen Office Space. PC load letter? What the f$&@!

[holidayz]

I take it you haven't seen Office Space. PC load letter? What the f$&@!

No I didn't. Different culture and English not my mother tonge. Can hardly get the jokes from English speaking comedy movies so rarely watch those.
Tried getting the meaning from the net....still couldn't quite get it....especially how that link with Wopadobop answer.... :(

[kerry]

I read this and figured I would post it: http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index.php/current-issue/article/116-vinegar-dosing-methodology-for-the-marine-aquarium . Not sure if the bacteria bloom he is talking about is the same color as the cyano that I have encountered. He states you can see the bacteria growth. Either way its a good read.

[Garf]

Kerry - that's just what I needed in my cyano quest, some professional opinion. I know this threads about dinos but i think the triggers are probably the same. If you click the links at the bottom of the articles there are threads which describe the biofilm issue also. Now to show that turning over the sand actually present cyano and dino's with an opportunity !! Hmmmmm.

Edit - have posted this article in Marine Fish U.K. As there's loads of threads asking for an answer to dino's and cyano.

[Wopadobop]

WOW I read that whole thread about vinegar dosing and its effects on cyano bacteria... crazy.

[kerry]

I do dose vinegar with my Kalk before I mix it in my RO/DI and I have a bit of cyano.
I also have removed a HOB filter that I was purely using for flow but kept it on for the occasional filtering when I stirred up the tank adding new rock or arranging for new coral. The reason I removed it is because it was getting algae build up on the part that overflowed into the tank. It was just very thin green hair algae that would turn brown (I guess the scrubber killed it) and fall off then the circulatory pump pushes it into the back wall that is all coralline where it attached and grows. Since I have removed this the snotty stinky algae is much less in just a day.

[Garf]

Been doing more digging and DrTim - the manufacturer of the DrTims brand posted this last year;




http://www.3reef.com/forums/images/icons/icon1.gif
I will try to not sound like a commercial for my products!
Cyano and algae grow because you have excess nutrients in your tank - organic carbon, nitrate and phosphate. Until you get rid of them the problem will just keep coming back (plus think about what happens to the dead cyano - it just gets broken down and recycled as nutrients). There are a variety of ways to get rid of at least some of these - cleaning, protein skimming and water changes but they are usually not enough. You need to add something that will out-compete thecyano and algae - this is bacteria.

If you add the right bacteria and have a little patience the bacteria will use the nutrients to grow and reproduce and they can do it much faster than the cyano(also a bacteria) and the algae. The resultant bacteria are then consumed by your corals (if you have corals) and/or exported from the system by your protein skimmer.

There is a new, excellent article about bacterial numbers (or lack thereof) in the water of a reef system versus a natural reef in this months advance aquarist online (I hope it is ok to mention them).

The long term solution is to dose the right bacteria in your system and let them take care of the organics you can remove because they are hard to get to etc and the nitrate and phosphate. It can take a little time but it works and you can stop needlessly adding antibiotics to your tank.

[Wopadobop]

when they say dosing vinegar they mean dosing VINEGAR. The little bit you use to up your kalk solution is not enough. some guys are dosing as much as 45 ml per day with a dosing pump. it basically takes the place of vodka and can be broken down to acetates with much less bio energy. its all freaky deaky dutch to me. lol

[kerry]

It takes me 3 days to dose 150ml. So yes, dosing 45ml a day is nothing I have not been doing. I add a gallon of kalk every day and each gallon has 50ml WHITE vinegar in it. Some days I add two gallons if the scrubber is soaking up the bi-carb so thats 100ml a day. Maybe I use more vinegar then others when making my kalk???? How much vinegar do you use per gallon?

[SoundUser]

Back to my problem :) Ive tested the water, My Nitrate is less than 0.25 and my Phosphate is less than 0.03
I think I just need to keep feeding the same food and wait for the dyno to burn itself out on the screen.

If you could buy marine nitrate, Id give it a crack at dosing it. Just to see if this would get the green back on the scrubber.

[Wopadobop]

It takes me 3 days to dose 150ml. So yes, dosing 45ml a day is nothing I have not been doing. I add a gallon of kalk every day and each gallon has 50ml WHITE vinegar in it. Some days I add two gallons if the scrubber is soaking up the bi-carb so thats 100ml a day. Maybe I use more vinegar then others when making my kalk???? How much vinegar do you use per gallon?

a teaspoon in 4 cups water. then add 1 teaspoon kalk and stir it into a 5 gallon top off container. its basically just using the acid in the vinegar to dissolve more of the kalk. I could definately use more. yours sounds about right actually I was just never brave enough to do that much.

[Wopadobop]

Back to my problem :) Ive tested the water, My Nitrate is less than 0.25 and my Phosphate is less than 0.03
I think I just need to keep feeding the same food and wait for the dyno to burn itself out on the screen.

If you could buy marine nitrate, Id give it a crack at dosing it. Just to see if this would get the green back on the scrubber.

you could dose iron. kent marine has an iron additive with manganese for macro algae. that might work. or you could just do a water change to get some back in the system.Feeding should give you enough nitrate and phos in equal amounts. you could always use shrimp to increase nitrates with low p04 addition. youve got options thats for sure.

[Garf]

Apparently saltwater acclimatised black mollies eat dino's, diatoms and cyano. Anyone tried this ?

[SoundUser]

Nope. But ill give you some mollies if you like. My mate cant give them away. hahaha

[kerry]

I see mine eat algae when I clean the HOB UAS inside portion because a little bits are left over but I dont see them eat cyano.

[Garf]

G.A.R.F. Wouldn't have put this on unless its true I suppose;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFCATi70Hbk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Looks like a great way to transform troublesome pests into scrubber food !!!

[kerry]

I have seen videos and heard info like this but cant get mine to eat anything but green algae.

[crashmushroom]

Kerry sorry if this is silly but im just starting on kalkwasser as you know. You are dosing a gallon a day or sometimes 2 depending on your scrubber using bi-carb. So i know kalk raises alk and ca but if your scrubber is using bi-carb (alk) and you are dosing kalk to compensate wont ca get higher in relation to alk?

[kerry]

Yes, the Ca can get higher and when that happens I don't use the vinegar. Like right now the Ca is 600 so this batch I made is without vinegar. If this does not bring it down I will then just dose with baking soda on the next batch. I have been not letting my scrubber growth get 6" past the screen lately so the bi-carb demand is not as heavy now. One gallon a day in my 40G is usually enough to keep the KH at about 8-9. I use this to calculate the baking soda amount: http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html . In my 40G is only one teaspoon per gallon to raise KH one point.

[crashmushroom]

Cool cheers for the help. What does the vinegar do?

[crashmushroom]

and am i reading that right do you mean the growth on your screen reaches 6 inches?

[Floyd R Turbo]

I think he means 6" longer than nthe screen. He posted a pic a while back of his growth hanging off the bottom of the screen

[kerry]

The vinegar makes the Ca count more because it does not precipitate out as much. Here is a pic of the growth.
http://i1164.photobucket.com/albums/q566/kerryconklin/new%20scrubber/2012-05-19_10-54-33_329.jpg

[Garf]

Trying to tie up a few things i have learned recently.

Apologies for dragging up an oldish topic but considering cyano and dinos ( in the wild ) thrive in areas where the natural balance of phos and nitrate is skewed by land run off water, is it not safe to assume that ;

A). Algae outcompetes dino and cyano for nutrients when the nutrients are roughly balanced.
B). Algae exudate feeds the bacteria which in turn restricts further the nutrient availability for cyano and dino's.
C). In the event that phos and nitrate levels in an aquarium become severely skewed, the cyano and dino's get the upper hand due to the algae being unable to grow properly which also affects the availability of bacterial sugars, which further promotes cyano etc.

I know (C) is a bit questionable but seems to tie in with what I have seen generally. Lower the levels are, the more the difference in ratios are affected.

I guess what I am saying in essence that maybe the "ratio" is a lot more important than has previously been assumed, especially when nutrient levels are low.

[SantaMonica]

where the natural balance of phos and nitrate is skewed by land run off water

Why this assumption?


Algae outcompetes dino and cyano for nutrients when the nutrients are roughly balanced.

Depends.


In the event that phos and nitrate levels in an aquarium become severely skewed

Which way?


due to the algae being unable to grow properly

Algae grows fine in almost any combination of N and P, since the algae alter their assimilation ratios.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Why this assumption?

It wasn't an assumption, he was saying if the area has skewed N and P due to runoff, not assuming that all runoff skews N and P


Algae grows fine in almost any combination of N and P, since the algae alter their assimilation ratios.

I would contend that difference algaes assimilate at different rates/ratios. One particular strain/species of algae I would not think could "change" it's uptake rate. So a mixed bed of different strains would result in an effect by which growth of one strain over another would depend on the nutrients available, however once a nutrient is limited, all growth would be limited by the lack of availability of that nutrient.

So most algae would not be able to grow very well, if at all, if the combination of N and P was either one being zero.

[Garf]

Found this just because I wasn't expecting that response from SM to be honest. You gotta read all this to show the latest thinking. Especially with regard to co2 levels. A quick skim over did the trick for me;
http://www.epa.gov/cyano_habs_symposium/monograph/Ch33.pdf


This discussion relates back to a paper by Smith (1983)that suggested low TN:TP ratios are responsible for cyanobacteria domi-nance under eutrophic conditions. This hypothesis is consistent with re-source ratio theory and was supported by observations from some temper-ate lakes with varying ratios of TN:TP. Since that time, certainobservational and experimental studies have shown that cyanobacteria be-come increasingly dominant at low TN:TP

Going by SM's recent posts relaying the fact that denitrifying bacteria do not consume phosphate, this leads to more evidence. This would imply a phosphate gradient within the sand bed. Where does cyano normally occur ? Yes, on the sandbed !!!

[Garf]

This may not only apply to this topic but others where nutrient skewed effects are noticed. The algae requiring LOWEST nutrients become dominant. Therefore algae doing the LEAST filtering become dominant.

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kmoloney/484/LectureText/ResourceRatio/ResourceRatio.htm#two

I will probably take a bit of beating over this but if this theory is correct then nitrate limited screens probably started out as high ratio screens which then became PHOSPHATE limited. This starved out the normal ratio algae and low nitrate : phos ratio algae took over the screen. This new algae could use more nitrate than phos, leading into a skewing of the filtration balance leaving more phos in the water column. This low ratio algae could also assimilate ammonia faster to supplement the nitrate limitation that it has caused. Hence the rise in phos. If anyone can prove this theory wrong I am happy to hear about it, after all it contradicts the teachings so far and I am not here to cause upset, just to help improve this technology if I can.

[SantaMonica]

I would not think could "change" it's uptake rate.

You'd be surprised. I should have saved the studies that followed the uptake rates. The ratios change based on what proteins the algae manufacture.


So most algae would not be able to grow very well, if at all, if the combination of N and P was either one being zero.

But of course they are not zero. GHA will grow pretty well when test kits measure zero, if there is a flux of nutrients from feeding.


cyanobacteria become increasingly dominant at low TN:TP

Makes sense, since they fix N.


This would imply a phosphate gradient within the sand bed. Where does cyano normally occur ? Yes, on the sandbed

Their certainly is a fluxing gradient on the bed, when external P filtering is high. However when external P filtering is low, the flux and gradient of P on the bed is reversed, as the P going back into the sand. Same with rocks.

However I think the "cyano on the sand bed" thing has been shown to just be settled food particles, which supply C directly. A powerhead takes care of this.