dinoflagellates

[pastina]

anyone know how to get rid of it?

after thoroughly researching cyano red slime algae it turns out i dont have that at all, i have dinoflagellates. theres no chemical treatment for this
since its the same organism responsible for coral photosynthesis (zooxanthallae)

[dobejazz]

Those are bad I think which tank is it in?

[hng]

Hmmm....sounds kinda gross. Give this link a try. BTW, are you still interested in gold stripe maroon clowns?

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/t_crail.html

[pastina]

its in the 10 gallon
ive been watching it for about a month now thinking its the typical red slime. it wasnt too bad but getting annoying on the sand bed so i decided to try chemi clean.
i added the chemi clean 2 days ago, i followed the directions exactly, but to my surprise the so called red slime got bigger and bigger! im like wtf lol
i thought this stuff was supposed to kill cyano not make it grow more. it was almost as if i added fertilizer. it started to grow on spots it never was before, like the hermit crabs shell! today i noticed it grew in legnth, its now waving in the current about an inch in height.
thats when i started researching chemi clean and adverse effects, i couldnt find any proof that chemi clean causes red slime instead of fixing it but i did find dinoflagellates pictures!! lordy thats when it hit me, i dont have cyano i have this dino poo poo. the chemi clean probably fed it
a few snails died last week, i just figured it was old age or something, then i read that dino kills snails etc that eat it
well the hermit crabs are happy they are sportin new snail shells
so now a new battle will begin.
id like to keep the lights off for 24 hours after siphoning as much as i can out, now will the corals be ok without light for 24 hours???
my ph is 8.3- 8.5 i will raise the alk and calc levels
dang after all this id rather cyano

hng, i decided not to go with the maroon clown, i picked up a small 1" cinnamon clown instead, hes very cute
and the evil puppet blenny update, when i bought the clown i also bought a 3.5" coral beauty, seems like puppet blenny has too many fish to go after now and has calmed down tremendously, he even let the gramma out of his hole for a little bit to eat
i never would have thought adding a few more fish would be the cure for his insanity

ya know what i blame?? adding kents phytoplex
it started the next day but i just thought it was a summer cyano thing
dang i got dingos

[ChrisPrusha]

Where did you read that dinos kill snails? I don't think that's right...at least I have never heard of that.

Keeping the lights off for a day will not hurt your corals.

a pH of 8.3-8.5 is very good. No need to raise Ca or alk levels based on that reading.

Phyto is, unfortunately, a very messy thing by nature. Algae just loves it!

[Black71gp]

for me it killed snails and corals.. would cover the corals and if i was not there to wipe it off it smotherd them... endded up taking the tank down... stupid dinos

[tims]

ya need a good WC and keep up maintinance on the tank

[zxcv123]

Pastina, do you have a skimmer, If you do keeep it going full blast but if you dont change an ample ammount of water and consider getting like a crappy skimmer like a skilter or nano skimmer for the 10 gallon

[pastina]

yeah thats the main problem i cant skim this little tank
i have the skilter and all it does is dump micro bubbles in the tank, but i guess ill have to turn it on. guess the sponge family living in the skilter will be evicted by the bubbles
yes dino kills snails or anything else that eats it. all i did was a simple search on dinoflaglates (ahh now i forgot how to spell it lol) and youll see many sites will say this. its not an instant death, its a slow one, from what i gather they stop eating after consuming the dino and slowly starve, its been witnessed in tangs also after consuming dino.

the thing about water changes is i read in a few areas that water changes make it worse. but ispite of whether or not this is true im still going to do many many water changes, no lights for 24 hours, and cutting the lighting period in half and hopefully this will get rid of it.
dang chemi clean, now i have triple of what i had before

so to move any corals from this tank into my "clean" 55 gallon would be a bad idea huh? would that just seed the 55 with dingos?
cause i only have small clowns in the 10g its an easy tank to tear down, but i wouldnt know what to do with my corals

[drsyme]

Dinoflagellates are protists, and include photosynthetic, and non-photosynthetic varieties. They can be toxic. They are responsible for red tide, which can lead to ciguatera poisoning in people who eat fish that consume the dinoflagellates in the red tide.

They certainly can kill snails.

If you see a dead snail remove it right away, otherwise the toxins and nutrients will be released back into the water.

Reducing light may have no effect. High Ph limits their growth so use kalkwasser if you can. Humic factors may stimulate their growth so activated charcoal may limit this influence.

Julian Sprung recommends: "Let it run its course. Discontinue water changes for the duration of the bloom. ...boost alkalinity... use activated carbon." Chemi Clean could have reduced the bacterial population, which normally competes for nutrients with the dinoflagellates, and stimulated a bloom. Blooms are usually self limited and usually last weeks, but could last months.

[pastina]

drsyme
thnx
i removed all dead snails, well accept for a few shells that the hermits have taken residence in
i had to do a water change to get out the chemi clean, i did about 30% just now. i sucked up all the dino off the rocks and corals and a few hermits backs but unfortunetely i couldnt remove it from the sand bed and thats where it is the most. i would siphon it up only to have sand sucked up with it and clogging the siphon, i kept it above the sand but then it wasnt enough to actually pull up the dino, so i had no choice but to leave it.
i changed the filter pad and added carbon, i shut off the lights, and now all i can do is sit and wait
now tomorrow when it comes time to put on the lights would it be ok to just have the actinics on for the corals?? i feel the sun light actually makes it grow within minutes. every morning i notice its not too bad until i have the lights on then it comes back like a fire storm
geez this is like the worst lol
poor snails

i will start to raise the ph, add more alk and calc tomorrow

p.s i will never ever feed corals again! im throwing away all my marine snow, zooplan etc
i really feel all these coral conconction recipes did this

[hng]

Let's see a pic of the dino's. Maybe it's not dino's cause my brown algae looks like fluffy cotton candy.

[jenajet]

I syphon my sandbed but have to squeeze the tube to keep it from going up to far, this allows the sand to fall back out of pump but loosens the debri enough to get it out. Can you use fresh water dip then transfer the corals to big tank? I don't know just asking if it is something that would work. From what some people say about this stuff sounds like I would try to get the coral out before it kills but agree wouldn't want to transfer this stuff to the larger tank.

[pastina]

its def dino's
i went in there with a net and removed it and alot of sand
i may remove alot of my sand bed if it cant be battled
i havent seen my sand bed in over a month...looks nice and white again, of course it prob wont last
i couldnt get the back of the tank with the net since the rocks are in the way
but i got out about 75% dino
ya know i was gonna take a pic but it was so bad i felt embarrassed
ill take a pic now, but i did clean it off the front. ahh i knew i should have taken a pic when it was an inch high and flaming

[tdwyatt]

...actually, siphoning usually helps to control the dinoflagellate bloom, as will cutting down the photoperiod a good bit and limiting inputs of carbon and nitrogen. Just be prepred to siphon A LOT. Use GAC and phosban if possible, and skim and siphone the rock every other day at the end of the photoperiod, paying special attention to your coral specimens, as once the dinos establih on the skeleton, they will usually kill that secimen.

Is it something that you can pick up or is it more like the consistancy of snot ith bubbles? If it is the mat, it is prolly Cyanobacteria; if it is slimy and cannot be picked up with forceps, then it is probably a dinoflagellate bloom. As Jack pointed out, it is a chlorophyll-containing protist that as a group is also responsible for red tide (didn't you want to hear that???) bioluminesence at night at the surface, several paraitic diseases in mammals, and the endosymbiont of corals. ...check Delbeck and Sprung in Vol. 1, pp 270, and 326-327 for more info. If it is Dino's, you can expect to have more than cosmetic problems, many species are extremely toxic. I have seen entire system die off from the blooms of diatoms.