Algae help needed

[Skimmer Juice]

are you using rodi water ? running gfo ? I would be vacuuming the sand while doing weekly water changes , remove as much as you can manually . Stay consistent with your water changes and dosing . Stay away from adding different chemicals/aids to try and get rid of . But if you are using rodi , make sure your filters and membrane is good .

[Dash]

+1 on vacuuming sand. I do this every water change - if I’m taking out water might as well be the yucky stuff. Really solved my nitrate problem when my tank was new. Also blowing off rocks with turkey baster once in a while, or brushing off rocks before vacuuming. I was too chicken to add anything to tank that I couldn’t test for. Just a lot of elbow grease and patience.

[Llorgon]

Originally Posted by Skimmer Juice

are you using rodi water ? running gfo ? I would be vacuuming the sand while doing weekly water changes , remove as much as you can manually . Stay consistent with your water changes and dosing . Stay away from adding different chemicals/aids to try and get rid of . But if you are using rodi , make sure your filters and membrane is good .

Using RO/DI, filters are all 6 months old. I think they should be good still. Not sure how you tell. No gfo.

Originally Posted by Dash

+1 on vacuuming sand. I do this every water change - if I’m taking out water might as well be the yucky stuff. Really solved my nitrate problem when my tank was new. Also blowing off rocks with turkey baster once in a while, or brushing off rocks before vacuuming. I was too chicken to add anything to tank that I couldn’t test for. Just a lot of elbow grease and patience.

I have been blowing off the rocks and stirring/blowing the sand during water changes with a turkey baster.


So I should be doing water changes? At j&l they all told me stop the water changes because it like very clean water so I should try to raise my nitrates a bit. Although that might be to encourage more easier to deal with algae to start growing.

[Mattyb]

I’ve battled Dino’s and they suck. Prob the worst thing in the hobby. Firstly u need to find out what strain they are. There is a huge forum on these on reef2reef. Also Devon from “reefdudes” just posted on battling Dino’s on his Facebook page that can help too. I would start with blackout and then start dosing hydrogen peroxide (1ml per 10 gallons I believe). Filter sand everyday but don’t throw the filtered water out. Just run it through a filter sock and back into the tank. I would start dosing phosphate and nitrate and get the tank as dirty as possible to start growing other algae’s so it outcompetes them. Definitely go to reef2reef though and do some research. Good luck

[Llorgon]

Update time. Picked up some phosphate and nitrate dosing from Frogger and he let me borrow his spare Hanna phosphate checker! Thanks Frogger!!

Been dosing nitrates and phosphates for the last week. I think I need to up the dosage since nitrates still reading under 5ppm and phosphates have gone from 10ppb to 15ppb. Might up it to dosing in the morning and at night.

As for the Dino's themselves, they are still there...but I am seeing more hair algae. Although it's brown until I blow off the rocks.

So far the Dino's have taken its toll on my cleanup crew and some of my corals. I lost my big green SPS, plating montipora and forest fire Digi after doing the 3 day blackout.

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[Frogger]

I don't think you need to go any higher on the dosing. The idea is to get readable amounts.

Right now without your cleanup crew your hair algae will take over your tank if your nutrients get any higher.

Did you get the UV sterilizer? Black Friday is less than a week away.

[Llorgon]

Originally Posted by Frogger

I don't think you need to go any higher on the dosing. The idea is to get readable amounts.

Right now without your cleanup crew your hair algae will take over your tank if your nutrients get any higher.

Did you get the UV sterilizer? Black Friday is less than a week away.

From reading through the massive thread on battling dinos on reef2reef they seem to recommend ≥0.10 ppm PO4 and ≥5-10 ppm NO3. Seems to be the parameters people have the most success with. From what I can read the GHA is a sign that the tank is leveling out. There is usually a increase in the dinos, then the other algaes slowly start to grow and out compete it. I will have to try and slowly add a few cuc members back as the other algae grows to battle it. But I will wait for more of the dinos to go away first.


I haven't picked up a UV sterilizer yet. I need to get my hands on a microscope first so I can see what kind of dinos I have. Apparently there is one type that doesn't get into the water column and UV sterilizers aren't useful for it. Plus I was hoping to get some hanna test kits on black friday. Will have to see.

[ReefMadness]

Originally Posted by Llorgon

From reading through the massive thread on battling dinos on reef2reef they seem to recommend ≥0.10 ppm PO4 and ≥5-10 ppm NO3. Seems to be the parameters people have the most success with. From what I can read the GHA is a sign that the tank is leveling out. There is usually a increase in the dinos, then the other algaes slowly start to grow and out compete it. I will have to try and slowly add a few cuc members back as the other algae grows to battle it. But I will wait for more of the dinos to go away first.
I haven't picked up a UV sterilizer yet. I need to get my hands on a microscope first so I can see what kind of dinos I have. Apparently there is one type that doesn't get into the water column and UV sterilizers aren't useful for it. Plus I was hoping to get some hanna test kits on black friday. Will have to see.

R2R is also where I got my information and how I decided on treatment. it's great that you're going follow up on the microscope which is really the most important part.
as you mentioned a UV will be very effective on water column species like amphidinium and you may not even need any further treatment. this is obviously what you're hoping for as some of the people I followed had horrible issues for months and once they added the UV were able to clear their tank in the first few nights.
Unfortunately, UV will have little to no effect at all on prorocentrum which stay in the substrate and where you're better off to establish an environment that encourages algae growth that is too nutrient rich for dinos. this can (and did in the case of my tank) take months where you have a really poor looking tank that is overrun with algae if you don't have something that eats a lot of it.
Also, I don't know if I mentioned it earlier but you can cut a little of the toxicity your inverts take on by running a little activated carbon in the meantime.
good luck!

[Llorgon]

Originally Posted by ReefMadness

R2R is also where I got my information and how I decided on treatment. it's great that you're going follow up on the microscope which is really the most important part.
as you mentioned a UV will be very effective on water column species like amphidinium and you may not even need any further treatment. this is obviously what you're hoping for as some of the people I followed had horrible issues for months and once they added the UV were able to clear their tank in the first few nights.
Unfortunately, UV will have little to no effect at all on prorocentrum which stay in the substrate and where you're better off to establish an environment that encourages algae growth that is too nutrient rich for dinos. this can (and did in the case of my tank) take months where you have a really poor looking tank that is overrun with algae if you don't have something that eats a lot of it.
Also, I don't know if I mentioned it earlier but you can cut a little of the toxicity your inverts take on by running a little activated carbon in the meantime.
good luck!

I'm thinking I might try bringing a sample of the dinos to J&l and see if I can get an ID that way. Then I don't need to go out and buy a microscope. I was looking in the tank last night and I do see some dinos floating in the water. Not sure if that means they are the water column species though.



I have been looking into UV sterilizers. I have very limited room under my tank, but I found a few in tank UV sterilizers that aren't expensive and have decent reviews. So I might try that if it turns out the dinos are the ones in the water column.


I have found I am having trouble getting my nitrate and phosphate up and keeping it up. The stuff I got for dosing is supposed to be quite potent, but man, am I using a lot of it twice a day and numbers aren't really moving. Although I think this is to be expected for awhile.

[Llorgon]

Took a sample of the Dino's to j&l and took some pictures the best I could under the microscope. Still trying to figure out exactly what kind they are.

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