Dinoflagellates &/or chrysophytes

Our tank:
100 gallon live rock/live sand reef tank.
7 fish.
3 shrimp.
2 starfish.
30ish snails.
25ish hermit crabs.
A multitude of stomatella.
15ish corals.

Equipment:
2 wavemaker-controlled powerheads
Strong return pump (at work, exact specs at home)
Protein skimmer
40 gallon sump with 3 sections baffled off (refugium in center)
PO4 reactor

All chemical specs are fine. Nitrates are at zero, obviously nitrites and ammonia are also at zero. Alk is higher, calcium is high, and the only problem is a slightly low pH of 8.0 which I'll be buffering up tonight.

I'm assuming it's dinoflagellates as it looks exactly like this (not my tank):


However, I read this article, which under the heading "Dinoflagellates in the Aquarium: "Snotty" Dinoflagellates and Fish Parasites" says that it probably isn't, in fact, dinoflagellates and is more likely chrysophytes.

In any case, has anyone else had this particular problem? It's bloomed all over my substrate, liverock, and is even seeming to "attack" my hammer coral (it's not brown jelly, I've dealt with that before).

Thus far, my plan is to remove my snails to a quarantine tank, as I've heard dino affect them more than the other creatures in the tank. I did a 24 hour blackout last night, and it seems to have slowed it down. But my coral provider said that just slows their metabolism and to keep the lights on regularly, otherwise efforts to kill it will work less effectively. He told me to raise my pH to 8.4-8.5 and keep my Alk high.

Any other suggestions? I've also heard to avoid doing water changes as to starve it of nutrients. Good idea/bad idea?

Anyone ever successfully eliminate this stuff? Did you have any casualties in the tank?

Thanks!

 

The key thing that stands out for me with dyno's are the air bubbles trapped inside, but that is no way to 100% correctly identify something.

 

I had cyano on my sanbed, with bubbles exactly like that only it was red....not sure what that is though...

 

Well, it's either dinoflagellates or chrysophytes, but in either case I just really need to know how to get rid of it

 

starve it out

 

Your test are reading 0 because the algae is eating everything. I would stop feeding for like a week and do 2 water changes during this time 20%. Wait 4 days between them IMO.

 

I had dino and it looked exactly like that. It started out as what I thought was cyano and continued to get worse. I was manually removing handfuls of this everynight sometimes a couple times a night. I would remove dixie cups of this stuff.I first cut my feedings down by over half. I installed a phosban and carbon reactor. I was doing every couple day water changes, my skimmer was skimming, cut my lighting schedule down dramatically. Still it did not get better. It started to attack my corals and killing my snails.

So the first thing I did was raise my pH. My pH had been constant at 7.8. THis was causing fluctuations with my kH and my calcium. I was dosing 2 part solution. I started to also dose kalk nightly. I then turned my lights off for 5.5 days (I waited until my pH was at 8.4..which was achieved rapidly by using aqua vitro 8.4 to kill lights). This included my acentics, my LEDs...all lights. I continued to dose the kalk and the 2 part on daily basis. I checked my kH, calcium and pH daily to ensure I was ok. I wanted my pH to be at LEAST 8.4 at all times. My goal for my kH was around 10 and calcium stayed around 460 or so....but it was important to test daily.

I also replaced my UV sterilizer that was broken.On the 5 day I turned on my acentics only for a couple hours. The next day I added my MH for a couple hours and each day added a small bit of time. The max my MH is on now is 5 1/2 hours. My acentics were on for longer. I have SPS, LPS, clams and everything did very well without the light. After about 7 days I did a water change. I did have to dose kalk daily for about 2 weeks straight, then every couple days and now I am on a weekly schedule....along with the daily 2 part.

But the key is starving that crap out...turn off your lights, reduce the amount of foods, raise your pH up (I am actually trying to keep a little above 8.4 and my corals are thriving right now).I am about 1 1/2 months or so without any sign of dino in my tank. As soon as I turned on my lights it seemed better. Now mind you....I know as soon as I get lazy and let my pH drop or increase nutrients in water they WILL come back. Make sure you are using RO/DI water, your skimmer is working well and reduce the nutrients

 

oh..and the only thing that was lost was a part of my birdsnest coral and some snails. That is actually how I figured out that it was dino and not just cyano when it started killing my corals. I have to admit, my tank looks brand new now....the sand looks white, algea is way down and everything is thriving. It was/and still is a lot of work! I still am testing almost daily, figuring out dosing levels, water changes etc.

Do you make your own water or do you buy it? Make sure the water you are using is "good" water. I was making my own water but I made a few mistakes...I was way past replacing my resin and I was storing my water in a non-food safe container (leaches crud)

If you buy your water from the LFS have them check the TDS of it. I know for a fact that the place where I used to buy water from had not changed their membranes and resin and their water was bad. Also make sure that they have specified tanks to store water in...not sharing the water they are selling with their display tanks or pulling water out of their display tanks. Also dont add the water from any fish or corals you get into your tank. I am now seeing a lot of the stores around me with dino really bad (I am not buying anything right now cause of that) but if it is in their system will get back in your system

 

I had the same thing, my tank looked exactly like that. The thing that worked for me was a lot of water changes that included sucking it off the sand and brushing it off the rocks! I also turned the lights out for a few days.

 

I also had a ''dino'' problem. I did almost exactly what Schackmel did lights out for 4 days maintain high ph via kalkwasser and no feeding it seemed to have done the trick going on 4 weeks now with no signs i also ran carbon and phosban.GOOD LUCK!