chippwalters Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Derrick, While I'm no expert, FWIW, I heard somewhere if you can suck or blow the stuff off your LR with a turkey baster, then it's not dino. I, too, bought some dry rock from Prof (great stuff) and recently cycled my new tank and a bunch of the same stuff you describe (a pic in my tank thread) showed up. It was nasty and covered everything-- more than a normal cyano outbreak which I have seen before. Here's what I did to get rid of it: 1. I used Phosban bags (4 days on, 4 days off) in my sump along with Purigen in my reactor and a bag of Chemi-pure on my drain, along with some kH dosing in my ATO. Also, my Sump has a huge chunk of chaeto. I kept a "The Bag" filter bag wrapped around my return with the Phosban and/or Chemi-pure inside it. The algae would end up filling the bag and I changed it out weekly or more often as was needed. I got the bag and media at Aqua Dome. The reactor came from Aquatek. http://www.amazon.com/Seachem-The-Bag-Filter-Media/dp/B002X6F7AW 2. Fast waterflow through the sump with my MP10 turned up for about 30 minutes a day all the while stirring up the new sand bed where the algae laid using a chopstick. I didn't turn down the flow until the water cleared. Meanwhile, I used a turkey baster to suck and blow the stuff off the LR and corals during this cleaning phase. I also used one of those tube cleaner brushes to brush away the stuff aff of the LR. All this stuff ended up in the water column and was quickly sucked down the overflow to "The Bag." 3. Did this twice a day. 4. Added 2 turbo snails. These guys are stars! They mowed this stuff down. Also added regular other CUC, including hermits, ceriths, nassarius and a $10 sand bed crew from Aqua Dome. After a couple of weeks of this daily routine, things are well under control. One or two strands of the stuff now and then, but I don't see it much anymore. HTH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chippwalters Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 ooops. pic not in my thread...but here it is. Click on it for a close up. It's not that good a pic (taken with my iPhone) but hopefully it's clear enough for you to see if it's the same stuff as you've got. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+o0zarkawater Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 One of the easier tests for diatoms vs dinoflagellates is what I call the 'Is it killing my corals' test. The way you perform this test is you ask yourself, 'Is it killing my corals?' If the answer is yes, then it's most likely Dinos. Dinos are slimy and horrible. They cover everything with no regard. Quickly too! You can siphon them off in the morning and by the afternoon they will have completely covered your corals again. The thing I hated most about dinos vs. the brown cyano I had at one point was the way it floated. If you disturbed it when trying to siphon it would just float in the water column. Big long strings of slime all over the place that were near impossible to get them all out of the water column. When I had them in my 28 I just skimmed incredibly wet, added flow (Tunze 9015 in addition to the 2 return pumps), ran GFO. They eventually went away. You will eventually get rid of them, it just is going to take some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Interesting read. My take: give it time. As you said, it's a newborn. Throw some fish in there, quit testing stuff/making changes and let it run. I'd keep up with the WC's but other than that.... I'm a firm believer in tanks going through algae cycles. Hang in there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted May 10, 2012 Author Share Posted May 10, 2012 I put a convict tang in there, he was eating the stuff. Now hes acting really weird. Hmm. As for corals, yes, the stuff wiped out some zoas I had and its actually killing my GSP. Didnt think anything could kill GSP...Im going to pick up a small tank from petco, make it a QT for the corals. Put one of my LED lights above it and leave it be. Bare bottom and no fish so WC should be a breeze for it. Let my Dt run for a while, if the stuff doesnt start to go away in a couple weeks then going to pull all the rock and sand out and sun bleach it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Monnat Jr Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 I put a convict tang in there, he was eating the stuff. Now hes acting really weird. Hmm. As for corals, yes, the stuff wiped out some zoas I had and its actually killing my GSP. Didnt think anything could kill GSP...Im going to pick up a small tank from petco, make it a QT for the corals. Put one of my LED lights above it and leave it be. Bare bottom and no fish so WC should be a breeze for it. Let my Dt run for a while, if the stuff doesnt start to go away in a couple weeks then going to pull all the rock and sand out and sun bleach it. My old 20gal is empty if you want to borrow that and the dual T5's (and it has a mechanical filter & return pump built in). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+o0zarkawater Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 From what I remember reading I think that Dinos are actually toxic, even killing most snails. So that may be why the tang is acting a little funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted May 10, 2012 Author Share Posted May 10, 2012 Yeah, my snail population has been reduced by 80% since this stuff showed up. George, YGPM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted May 10, 2012 Author Share Posted May 10, 2012 One thing of interest. Its probably been stated on other forums. I started dosing voldka. My ph immediately went back into the high 7's. It recovered 8-10 hours later. Dosed again, ph hit high 7's again. Its been recovering since this morning. After dosing, it seems the dinos have increased about 500%. Im wondering if maybe they will just die off once they increase enough. Sounds backwards, but kind of like overpopulation. Once all "natural resources" are used up the population should die off. At the end of the day, wth are these guys eating is the magical question....No way my phosphates are that high and nitrates show zilch. I starve my fish lol so its not overfeeding and wet skim my *ss off! Just crazy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Monnat Jr Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 University of Calgary: Dinoflagellates Both heterotrophic (eat other organisms) and autotrophic (photosynthetic) dinoflagellates are known. Some are both. I guess that's why the blackout didn't work. You might have the "both" which means simultaneous blackout and no nitrates/phosphates/etc. for food. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chippwalters Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 One thing of interest. Its probably been stated on other forums. I started dosing voldka. My ph immediately went back into the high 7's. It recovered 8-10 hours later. Dosed again, ph hit high 7's again. Its been recovering since this morning. After dosing, it seems the dinos have increased about 500%. Im wondering if maybe they will just die off once they increase enough. Sounds backwards, but kind of like overpopulation. Once all "natural resources" are used up the population should die off. At the end of the day, wth are these guys eating is the magical question....No way my phosphates are that high and nitrates show zilch. I starve my fish lol so its not overfeeding and wet skim my *ss off! Just crazy... Have you tried Phosban? Your phosphates may be low because the algae is consuming it all. Mark Callahan recently showed a nasty algae overun tank which had zero phosphates and he said the reason was because the algae consumed all the phosphates. Just food for thought... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robb in Austin Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 I think you may have missed my point. Which was; don't do anything except water changes. Stock it with the fish you want and feed 'em and give the tank time to mature. My thought is you are chasing something(dinos/algae/etc) and throwing the kitchen sink at the problem and thereby confusing the cause/treatment. As I mentioned earlier, I feel that all tanks go through an algae cycle(some worse than others) and just need time to get through it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaggedfire Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Derrick, you never answered my previous post. I assume the Dino is showing in the sump, but showed a response to blackout. If this is the case as I said above, you should be able to dose V or VSV for bacteria and skim heavy while controlling the light on the sump (blackout DT) and use heavy macro levels to consume the N03 and phosphate. This would effectively starve out the Dino. If you are dosing and not seeing heavy skim, the bacteria population is too weak and seems to be lacking. (Or the Dino is rampantly consuming the nutrients) Never the less, blackout while doing this should starve it in the dt. I agree, root causeing what it is feeding on will be key. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted May 11, 2012 Author Share Posted May 11, 2012 Im running phosguard GFO from seachem 24/7. And a lot of it in a reactor. Also running GAC in a reactor. There is no dino in my sump that I can see. Its deffo photosynthetic, when lights go out, it retracts completely. Dosing voldka, I should have a heavy skim right? Well Im not getting much at all, Watery clear/white foam. I know my skimmer is working normally though. I cleaned it last night as running all this GAC has made it black inside on the neck. Im going to dose voldka for 3 more days. If nothing changes or it just gets worse, then I will stop dosing. Only thing I can think of that I did right before all this started, was dosing baking soda and kalk manually. I probably OD it a bit in the beginning. Thats when this stuff started showing up. I bypassed the kalk reactor yesterday and just running RODI ATO. Ph, seems fine now with the skimmer venturi ported to the window and my CA is higher than my test will even go so no need to dose any more kalk for now. Ive only got 3 peices of SPS and a clam that need a lot of CA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cMidd Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Okay...I'm sure this sounds really simple and such, but try to increase the flow in the problem areas (blast them-literally) continuous constant flow AT the mystery algae:). And I agree with Robb somewhat...all my tanks go through their "nasty" phase. Patience Padawan;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted May 11, 2012 Author Share Posted May 11, 2012 I have one rock about 6" infront of an MP40 at 100% and that is where the stuff started lol! I though the same thing too. I put an additional power head in the tank and it got worse. I do appreciate all your guys help on this though. This stuff is ruthless! Tanks been up for 5 months, showed typical cycle params at 1.5month. Was good to go till last 4-5 weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cMidd Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Hm. I would just stock it with the fish you want for now. Hold off on any stonys...I still think if you wait it out it'll die off:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted May 11, 2012 Author Share Posted May 11, 2012 Even my softies are doing bad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaggedfire Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Im running phosguard GFO from seachem 24/7. And a lot of it in a reactor. Also running GAC in a reactor. There is no dino in my sump that I can see. Its deffo photosynthetic, when lights go out, it retracts completely. Dosing voldka, I should have a heavy skim right? Well Im not getting much at all, Watery clear/white foam. I know my skimmer is working normally though. I cleaned it last night as running all this GAC has made it black inside on the neck. Im going to dose voldka for 3 more days. If nothing changes or it just gets worse, then I will stop dosing. Only thing I can think of that I did right before all this started, was dosing baking soda and kalk manually. I probably OD it a bit in the beginning. Thats when this stuff started showing up. I bypassed the kalk reactor yesterday and just running RODI ATO. Ph, seems fine now with the skimmer venturi ported to the window and my CA is higher than my test will even go so no need to dose any more kalk for now. Ive only got 3 peices of SPS and a clam that need a lot of CA. Ahh, interesting. Seems the nuisance is consuming whatever the carbon source is growing. I feel the blackout+dosing+wait 3days will tell you a lot. If after a few days of blackout the skimmate starts picking up, it is probably being consumed by the dino, but not guaranteed. Would still run heavy on the macro in the sump. It seems you are narrowing this down though: GFO for phos. GAC for chemical Macro for Nitrates Skim for chem/bacterial Dosing to feed bact. Elevated pH Someone stated before though about Phosphates. Even though you are running some control mechanism for it, it could still be leaching from somewhere. Do you have a TDS count on your RO/DI? Interesting note that flow increased the growth. Being that it isnt growing in your sump you should be able to starve and blackout the DT while using the sump for nutrient control/coral life support. Only other thing I can ask, was the Dosing from before baking SODA or baking POWDER?. One is not like the other. Good luck man, I dread the day I will get hit with this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaggedfire Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Even my softies are doing bad Seems to point to the toxic nature of Dino. Do you still have the tang in the tank? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaggedfire Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Can you run a test on the baking soda you used? Mix a small batch and test for phosphates. These things should be clean from the factory, but as we just saw with the Kent GAC recall, not all things are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cMidd Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 ^ very good point. I missed that - anther reason why ARC is the best. Eventually someone will know how to fix/identify the problem! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted May 12, 2012 Author Share Posted May 12, 2012 Baking soda, baked in the oven for 30 min @ 350f. I havent dosed any in a long time, was just dosing mrs wages pickling lime in a reactor plumbed between my ATO and float valve. I have since removed the reactor and just using straight RO/DI water. TDS meter on my RO/DI unit shows 000 and I changed the DI resin about 5 weeks ago. Ive only done two water changes since I got the new resin. Im filling up my WC station and going to do a 25g water change as my corals are not happy at all. It may be the dino or it may be something in the water chem. Either way doing a WC will only increase the dino or help make the corals more happy. Hoping to pick up a QT tomorrow. Going to do 12-14 day black out. I threw my chaeto away, I think it was dead. All brittle and loosing color. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted May 14, 2012 Author Share Posted May 14, 2012 Picked up QT tank. Moving all corals tonight and pulling all the rock out. Going to soak it in a vinegar and water solution for 10min then spray off with sprayer and let it sun bleach. Convict tang was munching on the stuff and now he has gone into hiding, hes probably not going to make it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted May 16, 2012 Author Share Posted May 16, 2012 Convict tang dead. Dino messed him up good and he became a slow swimmer. Found him sucked up against the MP40 wet side....All corals are out and in a friends QT tank and they are super happy again. His QT tank is his old tank before he upgraded so its well established with bacteria. My welso doubled in size putting in his tank! All the rock was pulled last night, recieved a bath in raw vinegar for a few minutes (till rock was fizzing) and then set out on my patio to sun bleach. Water and sand will be removed tonight and will be making some changes on my electronics mounting arrangement to make more room under the stand. Anyone have a 48" 3(or 2) x 250w MH HQI + T5HO fixture they would entertain trading? Lemme know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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