intense sadness

[christyf5]

Looks like I'm startin over. The dinoflagellates are finally dead but they still won. Lost my blue maxima as well. :cry: Relocated some of the zoos to another tank.

http://www3.telus.net/seamonkey68/july192004small.jpg

[EmilyB]

:cry:

We'll all help you rebuild it - you know that. I'm going to go out in the fall and I bet some Calgary reefers will donate some frags for you.

[AJ_77]

Rats, rats, rats, rats, rats. That is just dismal - so sorry to hear and see it. Need a hug? :wink:

I'll start prepping some new zoos for ya.

[christyf5]

Actually Alan, almost all of the zoos survived :biggrin: but if you've got some new ones, I can certainly take them off your hands :wink:

Christy :)

[Ken]

Hi Christy, sorry to hear news like that. You've been fighting this battle for awhile now and I thought everything was turning around there for you.You didn't lose that maxima due to dino but possibly to heat did you? Don't give up! Regards Ken

[christyf5]

I don't know about the heat, Ken. There was only a couple of days where the temperature was elevated to about 87 or so in mid June. The tank has been holding steady at about 82 for most of the summer so far. The clam didn't start to go downhill until last week when I noticed some of its mantle wasn't fully extended and was looking kind of pinched. Could have been a delayed reaction to it maybe?? I'm not sure.

Christy :)

[Aquattro]

Christy, sorry to hear about it. The clam should be fine with the heat. As you know, mine hit 89f every day for all last summer and a bunch of days this summer.
How did ou finally kill off the dinos? My tank has been sitting dark now for 2 days, and it looks like that might be working. Of course they could come back when the lights come back on! :rolleyes:

[christyf5]

Brad,

I think these bloody dinos can continue living even with the slightest amount of light so I covered the tank in blankets and towels for almost 4 full days. There was NO light getting in. By the 3rd day they were mostly dead but I just wanted to really make sure and since I didn't have any sps to worry about I figured what the heck :wink: Maybe try one day fully covered along with your 2 days of darkness. They sure are a PITA to get rid of. :rolleyes:

Christy :)

[kuatto]

Christy
Sorry to hear about your tank :frown:
I don't know much about dinos/diatoms,but isn't there a diatom filter for such a thing?Before you know it,you'll have the tank up and running,looking better than ever :biggrin:

[christyf5]

I always thought diatom filters were for suspended algae/particulates?? Maybe someone can clarify? It sure would have been nice to get rid of those dinos with a filtration unit.

[kuatto]

Found this,maybe this will help get rid of it.


http://g.msn.com/9SE/1?http://www.netpets.com/fish/reference/saltref/diatoms.html&&DI=1304&IG=678a9670872d4afe9da9e847447c7748&POS=6&CM=WPU&CE=6

[Aquattro]

Just to clarify, dinos are NOT diatoms. 2 different beasts. A diatomaceous earth based filter may help, but essentially siphoning them out, darkness and time are required to get rid of dinos.

[Delphinus]

And it's a careful balance, because zooxanthellae are, technically, also dinoflagellates. So some dinos we need, but others we can do without. Makes a "magic bullet" solution rather fleeting.

Good luck guys. I share your pain ........

[AJ_77]

Isn't this what drove Troy out of the hobby? How many of us should be concerned? (Is this a rare/random event, are there preconditions and therefore precautions, early identification, etc..?)

Just wondering how educational your experiences can be to the rest of us... :eek: Looks absolutely horrible.

[Aquattro]

Isn't this what drove Troy out of the hobby?

No, Troy buying a house put the hobby on hold. ALthough he did have dinos earlier that year. Tony had a bad bout with them last year (a couple of times). Mine started much like a bloom of diatoms, but soon turned into gooey brown snot covering everything. I lost my hammer coral that I had for a few years, and one of my older acros. Most corals do not have any polyp extension right now, so I'm sure that if I don't get rid of them soon, it's going to get worse. I turned the actinics on today, so we'll see what it looks like tonight.
Oh, it also kills all the snails. It's toxic to anything that eats them. Some people lose their fish also.

[christyf5]

Just to clarify, dinos are NOT diatoms. 2 different beasts. A diatomaceous earth based filter may help, but essentially siphoning them out, darkness and time are required to get rid of dinos.

Thanks Brad, I'm not too clear on this diatom filter thingy but I pretty much figured that the filter may keep any dinos out of the water column but certainly not clean your tank of them.

The only thing I have had luck with so far has been the complete covering of my tank with blankets and lights out for at least 2-3 days. I did this the first time I had dinoflagellates (2002) and it seemed to fix the problem. However at this time I did not have SPS corals and wasn't concerned about losing any corals (softies rebound from lack of light better than SPS it seems). Then in the fall of 2003 I had a brief bout with dinos and still haven't figured out what I did for that. This batch of dinos just wasn't interested in going away at all. I did lights out for 4 days at first, then tried just actinics for a few days, tried boosting alk, increasing skimming (mainly just adjusting knobs randomly :razz:).

Oh and of course I'm not discounting the fact that by the time I get home today the dinos may have started up again. I really wouldn't be surprised at all. They're persistent little buggers thats for sure.

Christy :)

[Delphinus]

I think a "red tide" is basically the same thing. (??)

I really wish I could point at something I did wrong or some kind of parameter that was out of whack, but, I can't really conclusively think of anything. I know that the first time was shortly after a huge sandbed disturbance, but there was no such event the second time (that I can think of). I wish I could impart more "lessons learned", sorry.. all I know is both times it finally seemed to subside after about a week of no lighting. I got lucky on the second time in that it went away without me turning my actinics off. Mind you, there was a move involved too, so maybe the second huge-sand-disturbance somehow contributed to knocking it back.

[Scavenger]

Do I see a pattern here? Christy didn't you just replace your sandbed? And Brad didn't you recently rearrange the tank. Delphinus you mention an outbreak after sandbed movement. I wonder if moving stuff around, kills off some semi-nasties and frees up food sources for Dino's. I don't know I'm just throwing out a theory here.

Also Delphinus, you are right, dino's are a form of red tide (see here http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/palynology/dinoflagellates/dinoflagellates.html ) . I do know that red tide is more prevalent near pollution sources, ie mills, sewer outflow ect.

[trilinearmipmap]

Sorry about the dinoflagellate situation.

Just wondering:

1. What conditions favour dinoflagellates?
2. Are they found everywhere and will just grow if tank conditions favour it, or will you only get them if they are introduced into your tank?

[robert]

I remember to follow similar discussion about dinoflagellates on reefcentral some time ago. There was guy claiming that using ozone-izer solved his problem in four days. Any thoughts on this?

[Bob I]

I still have that zoo frag I was growing for you. It has grown quite a bit, so maybe Deb could take it along :question: