Dinoflagellates

Tynan Rasmus · 04-22-2007, 11:39 PM

After reading another thread on this forum, I have come to believe that I have severe Dinoflagellates in my nano tank. All my snails in that tank are dead and dying, and have been for the past month or so, I added 5 new ones and they are dying as well. I could not figure out why. Its covering about 80% of the backwall of the tank. Its not on any of the rock.

What causes this toxic algae, and how could it have gotten in my tank? I am guessing I better move the fish to my other tank.

JY13131 · 04-22-2007, 11:45 PM

Do you have pics? Cause now I am sure you are freaking out, I was also on the other thread!!

Tynan Rasmus · 04-22-2007, 11:48 PM

unfortunately My cam is at my dads place, I will try to get one with the cellphone, but after just researching this stuff, now I know I have it. All my snails roll over and stop eating, I have a red film on the top, and the glass gets covered in it every day, the bubbles covering the back of the tank are crazy.

JY13131 · 04-22-2007, 11:50 PM

I also have a red covering at the moment, not so many bubbles. Is it like tufts? Or does it grow vertically like hair (or snot?)!!

Hop · 04-22-2007, 11:56 PM

Sorry to hear that. I wish there was more info on them. IME I found that waterchanges fuel their growth. And I was getting them bad! This was in a 450 gallon tank so there was no taking the rocks out and scrubbing them

I had to leave on business, so the tank got zero waterchanges for almost three months and I decreased the lighting period to 4 hours MH and 8 hours VHO. I upgraded to a skimmer rated twice my system volume and left. The only thing the tank got was fed and the collection cup of the skimmer emptied by my wife.

When I came home they were about 60% gone. I kept the lighting schedule and only did one 20% waterchange a month. It took a total of about 8 months and they were completely gone.

Some people claim that a 3-day black out will rid the tank, but others say it only fueled the problem. Randy Holmes was researching a possibility that higher pH also helped rid them, but I never learned how his study turned out.

I lost quite a few SPS and a few LPS due to dinos. They truly are evil. I would love to hear if others have successfully eradicated them and how!

JY13131 · 04-22-2007, 11:59 PM

How about switching out the sandbed?

Tynan Rasmus · 04-22-2007, 11:59 PM

Here you go, cell phone pics:

Tynan Rasmus · 04-23-2007, 12:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hop

I lost quite a few SPS and a few LPS due to dinos. They truly are evil. I would love to hear if others have successfully eradicated them and how!

Well you are going to hear soon!

JY13131 · 04-23-2007, 12:02 AM

Wow! Good pics. Do you ever try and suction that stuff off?

Tynan Rasmus · 04-23-2007, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JY13131

Wow! Good pics. Do you ever try and suction that stuff off?

Nope, but I tried wiping it off. It only got worse.

Hop · 04-23-2007, 12:04 AM

Well if you suck out a lot, you have to do a waterchange. The waterchange fuels the problem. I could scrape the entire back wall and it would be back just as thick in about a day and half.

JY13131 · 04-23-2007, 12:05 AM

I think you need to try and suction or scrape and scoop at least. Keeping it in there will make the problem worse

Tynan Rasmus · 04-23-2007, 12:07 AM

I agree that waterchanges are not helping, its only getting worse fast, and I just did one a couple days ago.

Tynan Rasmus · 04-23-2007, 12:08 AM

what I would like to know is what causes this, so I can avoid it in my other tanks.

Hop · 04-23-2007, 12:15 AM

I too wish I knew. Researchers are trying to figure it out too

All I know is that it feeds off something or many things in the salt mix. I noted that when I used a "higher content" reef blend of salt it was worse than using a normal content SW salt mix.

Like I mentioned, scraping and sucking it out only made it worse. It was like speading spores everywhere and then since there was less dinos feeding on what ever it was they feed on, it repopulated even worse, very rapidly.

I guess I was lucky. I was just going back over some threads where people lost everything because of them. Still looking but so far, the same routine, higher pH, kalk top off, less light and no water changes. No for sure method that I've read yet. But I'll keep reading and see if anything new has popped up in the last year or so.