HELP! Need to identify this algae bloom before it kills all my corals.

[hunggi74]

OP the algae you have is Dinoflagellates. I had/have the same issues and also use AF Reef salt. My nutrients were not in balance as my NO3 was anywhere between 10-50ppm but my PO4 was consistently low at 0.028.The worst thing you can do right now is water changes. The algae thrives on the trace elements in salt mix. I also used Comp123 and that has trace elements in it. My corals were being suffocated by the Dinos like yours are. I tried first a 96 hour blackout but that didn't faze them and only made my corals pale and my fish delvelop ich. I ended up getting some Dino X and dosing as per instructions. 21 day treatment max and then you have to stop dosing for a week. During that treatment time you syphon out visible dinos in tank and reduce your photoperiod to max 5 hours a day. So far after first full 21 day treatment my dinos have been reduced significantly. I still see some, but I'm hoping to be able to rid them by manually syphoning and by balanced nutrient reduction. I have done one water change since last treatment using the AF salt I have remaining. I don't dose Comp123. In fact, I don't dose anything now into tank except Alk. I don't want to do another treatment phase of dino x as I think my corals wouldn't be able to withstand another agggressive round of dino x. I lost a handful of pieces and the remaining corals are all brown to browner. Hoping to color them back up over time. After reading this thread and hearing horror stories about AF salt, I too will be using either IO or RS henceforth. Hope this helps you or anyone else going through the same issues.

[crimper]

That's exactly what happened to my frag tank. Got smothered by Dinos, after dosing Component 123 for about 3 months. I think its the accumulation of trace. I tore it down after loosing most of my SPS colonies. I restarted with the same Reef Salt but only dosing Kalk this time. Its been 3 months now, so far so good. I might go back to dosing bulk chemicals when dosing Kalk isn't enough.

[DKoKoMan]

Originally Posted by crimper

That's exactly what happened to my frag tank. Got smothered by Dinos, after dosing Component 123 for about 3 months. I think its the accumulation of trace. I tore it down after loosing most of my SPS colonies. I restarted with the same Reef Salt but only dosing Kalk this time. Its been 3 months now, so far so good. I might go back to dosing bulk chemicals when dosing Kalk isn't enough.

What a pain in the @$$. Seeing what it did to my sps frags and some larger heads of lps that would not be pretty. What were your water parameters at when dino broke out?

[crimper]

My nitares shoot up to 50ppm then did lots of WC. Phosphate was ideal 0.03. then after i got it under control i think the bacteria kicked in and stripped my nuteients that caused stn on almost all my sps colonies. What's worse is it happened when i was away for 2 days. 😂

[DKoKoMan]

Ugh that's brutal. My nitrates go between 10-25ppm and phosphates are 0.03 (Hanna). I am carbon dosing right now to try and drive the nitrates down instead of WC. My guess is the large WC were encouraging the dino growth with the extra trace elements. What were you dosing for your carbon source?

[crimper]

Originally Posted by DKoKoMan

What were you dosing for your carbon source?

None at the moment, I remove most of my fish and transfered them on my fowlr. I only have one wrasse and a pair of clowns left on my frag tank. I have a pretty low nutrients at the moment. If I need to, I will try NOPOX or maybe biopellets.

[ReefMadness]

i'm at the point where i just want a positive ID on what exactly this is and why aquaforest salt/dosing components seem to have fueled it . it shares qualities of diatoms, dinoflagelletes and cyano which doesn't help either.
currently i'm just doing a weekly 15% water change, i've stopped dosing any carbon products and have opted out of using probiotic salt in favor of just normal reef salt. i turkey baste corals that are looking stressed from the algae but i try not to disturb it so as not to spread it any further.
hoping to create a slide this week to establish exactly what it is.

[DKoKoMan]

Originally Posted by hunggi74

OP the algae you have is Dinoflagellates. I had/have the same issues and also use AF Reef salt. My nutrients were not in balance as my NO3 was anywhere between 10-50ppm but my PO4 was consistently low at 0.028.The worst thing you can do right now is water changes. The algae thrives on the trace elements in salt mix. I also used Comp123 and that has trace elements in it. My corals were being suffocated by the Dinos like yours are. I tried first a 96 hour blackout but that didn't faze them and only made my corals pale and my fish delvelop ich. I ended up getting some Dino X and dosing as per instructions. 21 day treatment max and then you have to stop dosing for a week. During that treatment time you syphon out visible dinos in tank and reduce your photoperiod to max 5 hours a day. So far after first full 21 day treatment my dinos have been reduced significantly. I still see some, but I'm hoping to be able to rid them by manually syphoning and by balanced nutrient reduction. I have done one water change since last treatment using the AF salt I have remaining. I don't dose Comp123. In fact, I don't dose anything now into tank except Alk. I don't want to do another treatment phase of dino x as I think my corals wouldn't be able to withstand another agggressive round of dino x. I lost a handful of pieces and the remaining corals are all brown to browner. Hoping to color them back up over time. After reading this thread and hearing horror stories about AF salt, I too will be using either IO or RS henceforth. Hope this helps you or anyone else going through the same issues.

I definitely think you hit it on the head. I did a bunch of large WC which added fuel to the fire IMO. I tried the blackout which didn't seem to have any effect on these dinos. I may need to acquire a test kit to measure my silicates as this could be different with AF Reef Salt.

It seems to have mellowed out a bit and died off of the coral tips. That being said it is definitely still present in more of a purple hue. I plan on doing biweekly WC's again with the AF salt. Once I'm done this bucket I will reevaluate and possibly transition back to RC.

The weird thing is my tank looked like it was thriving and *bam* within a day this came out and took a hold. It is definitely not as stringy and more on the LR with bubbles. That being said I'm not sure when or if it will break out again. I reduced my photoperiod from 12hrs to 9 hrs with only 6 hr max intensity. The other gots account for sunrise and moon lights.

Has your tank shown any growth recently? Did the dead tips recede or eventually grow Over? Thanks for the information.