Declaring WAR on my Aquarium

[Psyire]

I'm officially at WAR with my tank.

I lost my Mandarin today. He was fat, healthy, and there was not a mark on him.

A battle of 3 Fronts...

First Front:

I've had a 'brown algae' outbreak since around the time I put in my Bluethroat trigger. I thought it was due to overfeeding so I reduced my feeding by a lot. I've actually reduced it so much that my corals that rely a lot of food are dying. The 'algae' problem seemed to get better but now it's back stronger than ever. It's covering only my sand and glass. However it has attacked and killed almost all my SPS corals. It will start by covering the white (new growth) areas on the coral, and then slowly choke it out, a millimeter at a time, until the coral dies.

I've recently (yesterday) learned that this is not an Algae at all, but Dinoflagellates. (after many hours of research)

So now I'm forming a battle plan. Which involves a whole lot more than I bargained for.

- Ordering a Silicate test kit tomorrow, to test my RO water and my Tank water. (to see if I have a Silicate problem)

- Going on a strict Rowaphos & Carbon changing schedule. Currently I run 2 Phosban Reactors containing these materials, but I'll be changing them 4x as much from now on.

- Up my skimming from 1 gallon a day to 2 gallons a day.

- Raise my pH to 8.4 for a week. (my pH is typically low, which could be part of the problem)

- Double my water change routine and start using a turkey baster to blow them off the sand. (once I get the silicate test kit to test my RO water)

- Reducing my light period will be a last ditch effort, as I believe this is only a short term fix.

I'm fairly confident I will beat this back... we are higher evolutionary chain right?

I believe the Mandarin died due to high toxin ingestion. If pods were eating these dino's, then I suspect he could have been poisoned by them. Naturally these toxins would accumulate in my Mandarin as he ate more pods. (he was fat) Or perhaps he was sucking in Dyno's when he sucked in pods.. I'm not sure, but it sounds plausible.

2nd Front:

Aptasia is overrunning my tank. It's getting very bad and they are starting to choke out corals. I've placed 4 Berhia Nudi's in my Main display and in my 'fuge, but I fear this was not enough and even though they are probably still in there somewhere.. it will take months and months to do anything to this aptasia population. My next step is 1/2 dozen Peppermint shrimp, hopefully this will work because a Copperband isn't really feasible as my large Sailfin tang hates them.

3rd Front:

There is a hairy crab of a decent size living in my tank that my Peacock Mantis want's to eat... so I must catch him before he does any serious damage to my other inhabitants. (He dosen't seem aggressive and dosen't have red eyes, but I still don't trust him)

Tomorrow morning will kick off Operation Clean Sweep. Wish me luck.

(If you have any suggestions or helpful tips, please post 'em. If any of you follow my tank bulid thread on RC, you'll notice I posted this there too. The more help I can get, the better)

[Ruth]

You go Craig - I have heard that Dino's are a real PITA and I think that a lot of people end up tearing their tank apart so I really hope you get the bugger.
I will pm you with another suggestions regarding the butterfly. I have a couple of bullet type skimmers that I am not using if you want to borrow one to skim even more you are welcome to them.

[reeferaddict]

Wow! That's quite the regiment! Just one thing...

I'm sure this didn't happen overnight - so when it comes to chemical paramaters I hope you don't attempt to change it overnight, especially with SPS - even though I know how much urgency I feel myself when things aren't right....

[i have crabs]

sounds like a good plan to me the only thing i might also do is suck out the sand since the manderin is gone,but that depends on how you feel about people looking at your bare bottom.

[albert_dao]

Personally, I like the look of my bare bottom. It's what I get the most comments on when girls are over to see my... tank.

[Delphinus]

Dinoflagellates are perhaps the most nightmarish thing that can happen to your tank. In essence, it's a "red tide". Unfortunately it can be deadly to inhabitants who happen to ingest it, usually snails will drop dead. And it is worse than any cyano bloom because you can remove every last visible piece of it and within 2-3 hours it can look like you removed nothing, due to the fact that dinoflagellates reproduce so fast, a population can double within half an hour or something insane like that.

Save yourself a lot of trouble right now and go immediately to the step of turning your lights off. It is the only method to combat dinoflagellates. If this is indeed what you have, first off my sympathies (many people have suffered this, myself at least twice, others more so). It will hound you and hound you and hound you. Trust me on this one, your only first step to success in battling this is starving them of light. Your big challenge will be to find out how to do this without impacting your light-needing animals such as your corals and clams. As far as I'm concerned, corals can stomach the lack of light for a few days just fine, but clams maybe not. You'll have to figure it out for yourself what's going to work for you, but I cannot overemphasize this enough: you can *only* fight a dinoflagellate bloom by starving them of light. If you have actinics you can try maybe running just actinics for a week, but don't be surprised if this fails - even stray light from an adjacent window may be enough to invalidate your efforts - the only way to fight a bad dinoflagellate bloom is through starving them of what they are looking for.

You can try limiting your nutrient load by reduced feedings and increased skimming and rowaphos and so on, but don't be surprised if it doesn't work. An excess of nutrients may lead to the conditions favourable to a dinoflagellate infestation, but realistically the problem is that they are there, and there is no real mechanism to remove them. Your only hope is through starvation. I'm sorry -- I know you said you only want to tackle a reduced photoperiod as a last resort, but I'm trying to save you a lot of futile effort - they will persist. Your only hope is by removing what they are looking for which in this case is light.

Best of luck. Frankly, your aiptasia and crab problems may seem to add to your headaches, but if you indeed have dinoflagellates they are the least of your worries right now. Get that dinos bloom dealt with, if in the process you can deal with the others, great, but if not -- focus on the dinos first. It can be a hobby killer. I count my two experiences with fighting dinos in my systems as the lowest points of all time with respect to my reef tanks, and believe you me, in ten years in the hobby now I have seen it all, I've seen some nasty things, but very few compare to a bad dinoflagellate infestation.

I wish you the best of luck. Chin up - it can be beat, but you will be severely tested in the meantime.

[Clown]

Does This Algae Grow Realy Fast And Long Like a hair algae?
and If You Clean It Grows Back In A Few Hours?
If So Try Useing Filtered Water(if your useing tap water), And Problem Will Go Away
...
Or At Least it did for me

[Psyire]

Thanks for the encouragement and tips.

I noticed today that the brown plague was worse on the two sides of my tank compared to the middle. (the middle is a newer bulb, only a month old) So what I did is change all three bulbs to new Reeflux 12K bulbs that I just recieved. We'll see what kind of change that makes tomorrow.

I also plan to post pictures of what this infestation looks like. It's not near as bad as some of the pictures I've seen posted on the 'net, but it's bad enough that it needs some serious attention.

Today I ordered some necessary firepower and commando tools. (filter media & test kits)

I've also started with increasing my skimming and upping my ozone (a hair)

Tomorrow I'll be doing a full test on my water and a full filter change on my RO/DI. (then I will start making new water for a water change)

I'm attempting to make 'slow' changes to the system, however I've lost nearly all my SPS so I'm not that worried anymore... fish are fairly tolerant, as are softies and LPS.

I'm going to go to bed tonight praying that a battle between the dino's and the aptasia breaks out, with both sides eradicating each other... however unlikely that is.

Ruth: Thanks for the offers, I'll be in touch. (PM)

Delph: I'm definately re-thinking my lighting schedule as we speak, but I'm curious as to what dino change will happen due to my bulb changes)

Clown: Definately not Hair Algae... I've seen a lot of that stuff before. (not so much in my tank, but others)

[christyf5]

Good luck, I used your battle plan in my Dino Battle of 2004-05 (also included increased alkalinity, increased flow, increased water changes, turkey basting, siphoning, replacement of aragonite sand with oolitic, addition of chemipure, you name it I tried it). Damned things stuck around for a year. At the height of the evilness I was putting the tank in complete darkness with a blanket overtop for 2 days. They still came back. Eventually I ripped out the sandbed and went barebottom, powerwashed all the rock and restarted the tank. Pretty drastic move but I've been dinoflagellate free for over a year now and am glad I did it :biggrin:

[reeferaddict]

Yeah I think I'd just get a rope and chair if I got Dinos at this point... friggin' hair algae was enough for me thank you!

[Psyire]

So after increasing skimming, changing carbon, and rowaphos, things look a little better. I would say about 20% better than they were at the beginning of the week. I'm patiently waiting my test kit for Silicate so that I can run some tests on my tank water and my RO water.

I'm hopeing to be able to pinpoint the exact nutrient problem I have.

[Psyire]

Recieved my Silicate test kit today and was hoping for some answers.

Unfortunately I didn't get many, other than Silicate is not the problem. Both my RO/DI water and my tank water readings are 0.

I am happy though that my Silica based sandbed is not leeching a lot into the water. (Black Tahiti Moon Sand)

[Beverly]

I'm hopeing to be able to pinpoint the exact nutrient problem I have.

I don't think you will be able to measure the nutrients that are causing your dinos as the dinos are utiltizing them as quickly as they are produced/released in your tank. That said, though, it's great that you are testing your source water for as many things as possible to reduce the chances of introducing more nutrients from water changes and top ups.

BTW, how are the dinos today, and what steps other than the ones you've already outlined have you taken to reduce the dinos?

Wishing you luck in your battle :)

[Psyire]

Pictures I just took:

http://www.playhardrc.com/misc/aquarium/180Dino1s.jpg

http://www.playhardrc.com/misc/aquarium/180Dino2s.jpg

http://www.playhardrc.com/misc/aquarium/180Dino3s.jpg

I've pretty much stuck to my plan so far. My next step is a few water changes as I have eliminated silicate in my RO/DI as a problem. (I didn't want to add anymore silicate if I was in the first place)

My Refugium needs a good cleaning as well... there is a bit of a detritus build up happening there.

[Psyire]

There seems to be some speculation that this may be infact Diatoms and not Dinos.

Any ideas?

[Psyire]

Do Diatoms disappear at night and come back slowly through the daylight cycle?

[Psyire]

Water Parameters as of right now.

Salinity: 1.025
PO4: 0
Silicate: 0
Mg: 1250
Ca: 400
pH: 8.2
dKH: 7.2
Nitrate: 15
Temp: 80.4


...

[christyf5]

IMO thats not dinoflagellates. Firstly, dinoflagellates look like brown snot trailing in the breeze swamped by bubbles (the bubbles go away at night and reappear during the day). Secondly, snails won't touch it, they'd rather shrivel up into their shells and die on the sandbed before making trails in it. I think you're dealing with diatoms there. Diatoms do utilize silicate and they do it quickly so there is a possiblity that it could be your problem.

Have you changed up your lighting schedule at all (ie. decreased photoperiod)? That might help.

[reeferaddict]

I'm thinking they're Dinos dude. Diatoms are usually cyclical and can result when tank conditions are changed suddenly. Introduction of silicates is key to the success of diatoms and some people have actually dosed silicates to allow for diatoms to become the dominant algae as they are easy to get rid of. Basically once the silicates are consumed you can scrub, scrape or blow diatoms into the water column to be skimmed away. Also, there are quite a few natural grazers of diatoms.

Dinos are a plague however. From the look of your gravel shots I am guessing you have dinos. They overgrow large areas and smother other life very quickly forming stringy gooey stinky kinda clumps. I've actually been extremely fortunate to not have these, but I have had every other damn kinda algae, and from what has been said earlier on, you are probably best to go that route. I have read of so many posts on here & other boards where this pest is truly a hobby killer, especially if it is recurrent.

After much hard work to rid my system of pest type algae, I am happy to scrape the diatoms and green algae off the glass twice a week. I never have to worry about this on my rocks or such though. Try running your Alk a little higher for a couple of weeks to see if that may help. Skimming is more efficient at higher alkalinity and pH, but who knows if it will do anything for Dinos...

[reeferaddict]

Yes the glass shots DOES look like diatoms... but the gravel looks like dinos... just my humble opinion though I know Christy has had more experience with Dinos... :lol:

[Quagmire]

I would say diatoms also judging from the glass.Its hard to tell with the black sand,but I would think its the same.Ive never had dinos,but have had diatoms of and on,when ever I add new equip,or sand.