dinoflagellates

[pastina]

yeah its like snot lol
i tried to grab it off the pump with my fingers and it just melts away
if it was cyano the chemi clean would have taken care of it not made it worse...i now know 100% that it is dino
ill pick up some phos-zorb tomorrow, not sure if that will help but it cant hurt
now that my sand bed is white again i ordered several corals to place on the sand so not much sand is exposed (hardy corals). it was alot easier to get it off the rocks and corals than the sand bed which was just impossible with my siphon, the net was the only thing that got it out
its kinda weird cuz i put all the dino and sand that i netted out in a bucket, once it hit air it died and became invisible

now im afraid to turn my lights on again

[drsyme]

Like Tom said phos ban might help and it wouldnt hurt.

I am not sure why Sprung recommends no water changes. I would imagine this would also mean no feeding, and that the reason is to limit one nutrient or another that feeds the dinos.

I am convinced from your description that it is dinos, although it is common to get a cyano bloom at the same time. And they are both characterized by trapping oxygen bubbles. If your bloom is most prominent at the end of the photoperiod, with a lot of trapped bubbles, it is likely photsynthetic, and reducing the photoperiod should help.

Yea red tide sucks, a few years ago we had something similar in the Chesapeake bay, a pfisteria bloom (another genus of dinoflagellate), this caused massive fish die offs. The intersting thing, is that the University of Maryland Department of Neurology, sent a psychologist to do neuropsychiatric testing of watermen that were exposed to water during the bloom, and they had significant reduction is cognitive abilities, and then returned to normal a few months later. In other words, the pfisteria produced some toxin that was neurotoxic to people just exposed to the water, which is different than ciguatera in that it was seen in temperate waters (not tropical) and was a result of direct exposure to the toxin in the water, not from the toxin accumulating in fish flesh.

Pfisteria is a fascinating and complex organism, that no one knows much about. If anyone is contemplating a career in oceanography, this is a fertile field. These blooms are likely to worsen over time as SST increases, nutrient run off continues, etc.

I like the phospholuminescent ones though. If you ever sail at night it is a beautiful sight.

[drsyme]

Speaking of sailing, a few years ago during a big late spring regatta (I think it was late spring) I recall watching the dry sailed boats being hauled at AYC. And they all had a brown stain on their bottom. I didnt know any better at the time, and I asked someone what that was, and they said it was called a mahogany tide. This is from an altogether different species of dinoflagellates.

So there are red tides, mahogany tides, brown tides, and pfisteria blooms. All different species of dinoflagellates. As far as I know the mahogany tide was not toxic. But I sure would not want to swim in water that was in the midst of such a bloom.

I feel itchy all over just thinking about it.

[pastina]

yeah kinda gives ya the creeps lol

when you mentioned brown stain on the ship you kinda have me thinking now, ive had a permanent brown stain at the surface of my water for months now, even before i saw signs of dino on the sandbed.
even when i would test the water anything that went into that tank came out with this reddish brown stain even my arm.
i never found out what it was and i sorta just gave up. i would do 10% weekly water changes sucking up the top layers of water and that kept it clean for about 4 days but it would always return

i just hope my 55 gallon doesnt get it. i will not use any coral foods in that tank
i do kinda keep my lights on for a long time, 12 hours actinics and 8 hours of sun (artificial)

[ChrisPrusha]

Well, I have indeed learned something new today (about dinos). Very interesting!

[pastina]

well the lights came on and it started to grow again
it doesnt look as bad as before, its kinda short not as long and flowing
i wonder if my sand is to blame? i used Arag-Alive sand, its wet in the bag and had an experation date. i used it by the date, but it was loaded with a bunch of weird looking dead life lol..maybe a combination of that and the phyto-plex created this mess
i have another idea of removing it, i have a battery operated siphon somewhere in the basement, never used still in the box. im gonna try and find it and see if it will work
at least then i can clean the tank without removing water

lord give me cyano, anything, just get rid of these dino's!!

[pastina]

okee well that was a comical bust
i found the battery siphon, luckily i had 2 C batteries in the house, put it all together, got it to siphon and what a beautiful job it did, all into the sock those dingo's went, then it konked out after about 90 seconds.
seems it cant handle sand in the impeller...oh well back to the drawing board

[pastina]

sorry to post so often on this topic
i modified the skilter, well at least i think i did. i fitted it with a wooden airstone, im waiting for the bubbles to rise and produce foam

ooo im getting chest pains from this whole ordeal

whats the statistics?
#1 killer of americans = heart attack
is #2 reefing???

[hng]

Originally Posted by pastina

whats the statistics?
#1 killer of americans = heart attack
is #2 reefing???

Hang in there Pastina

[pastina]

i wonder if a UV sterilizer would work? not sure how id hook it up to such a small tank tho

[jenajet]

You got more patience than me! I would done broke it down and started over. I got a short fuse tho. Good luck and keep trying. If it is mostly coming from the sand bed maybe replacing would help but then you have all the junk down in the sb to worry about?

[pastina]

okee im winning the battle so far. im down to about 15% dino's in the tank. i added 2 more corals on the sandbed to smother the dino's out, at least if they grow on the corals its way easier to siphon them than the sand. i did no lights for one day, scooped out some of the sandbed, then 20% water change, added more carbon to the filter and phoshate sponge that ive been changing daily. im raising my calc and alk gently. today was the first day i put the daylights on, the dino seemed to perk up a bit with the lights but its managable and not as crazy as it was. dino def hates alk, on the days i dose they lay flat and low and dont seem to flourish. i have a bogus skimmer running its not much but it cant hurt.
i really should have taken a pic of it when it was at its worse, i think it would have made history lol
heres a pic with the way it looks today, you can see on the sandbed what appears to be diatoms but its not thats the left over dino. some threads are on the rocks too. if i can keep it at this level id be very happy

[Twitterbait]

I have battled them before tto but i killed them by

1. not changing water (big surprise for me )
2. siphoning the dino up
3. militant scrubbing of the water through filtering and skimming (remember they feed on phosphates, nitrates, and trace elements)

I think a UV would help for sure because it would kill anything in the water column. get an 8-15w setup.

[Twitterbait]

this is also why BB tank don't usually have issues. they keep the water too clean for algae or dino's

[pastina]

ya know if i would have known this i would have went bare bottom

that was my last water change, im gonna try and go a whole month without one...or ya think i should wait like 6 weeks until my next small water change??
hey no water changes works for me lol

i looked at some uv lights and they look hard to hook up
i dont have a sump so im not quite sure how i can get a uv running