anyone with a magic cure or answer?

tang daddy · #1 11-09-2007, 05:19 PM

niloc sorry to hear about your losses! does anyone maybe even christy have any pics of what it looks like the dreaded dino so that others can detect it better if god forbid we ever get it.

christyf5 · #2 11-09-2007, 06:19 PM

I'll try and find some of my old pics. It was a painful time so I don't know if I have many around.

Delphinus · #3 11-09-2007, 07:08 PM

I went through it twice and am pretty sure I never took any pictures of it either (not the sort of thing you want to remember). The first time I had it, I tried everything (I mean everything) and nothing did anything for it. I had to do the tank-blackout thing several times before it went away permanently. The second time, well, it happened just as I was moving. The disruption of the tank move seemed to kick it. Although it was about a week before I was able to finish the wiring at the new place and get my halides going, so that might have been a part of it.

As far as cyano versus dinoflagellates ... I'm not sure that snails dying is a complete slam dunk for an ID. I think cyano will kill off snails too. One thing that sticks out in memory about dinos was that they literally disappear during the lights-out period. So if you're starting the day off with a clean tank but fininishing the day with gobs of goo everywhere, it's dinoflagellates. Cyano forms more sheets that cover everything, dinos can be a little more string-like. And bubbles everywhere, bubbles like crazy. And it doubles in population so insanely fast. I found I could siphon nearly 100% out of my tank, and within about 6 hours the tank would like I hadn't done it at all since it was completely back.

blaster · #4 11-09-2007, 11:17 PM

I would take out part of your sand bed.

christyf5 · #5 11-10-2007, 02:44 AM

Here are some photos. I found the dinos grew best on top of other algaes.

And sometimes other algaes grew on top of it

Yeah I'm pretty good at growing algae I'd say. Thank goodness those days are over!!

kwirky · #6 11-10-2007, 05:25 AM

omg i think I had that in my 120g tank! THAT crap is what caused me to throw my arms up in frustration and get rid of my reef tank in July! I had zero nitrates, zero phosphates, reduced lighting period, hand removed. nothing worked.

It bubbled, it was like brown snot, and it multiplied like crazy no matter how much I removed. It was an endless battle. I thought it was a slime algae but now in retrospect I'm having second thoughts. Bubbled like crazy and was kinda stringy. I look at that photo and I'm sure it's EXACTLY what I had.

Grew all over the back and side glass (kept the front clean daily with a magnet cleaner). It grew on everything plastic too. Pumps, pipes. It loved pull-zip-ties. There would be 5" long strings of the stuff off zip ties. I'd remove it and they'd be there again 2 days later. I had to feverishly remove it from the plugs of my frags. I was afraid it would grow onto the coral.

Good luck dude. That stuff won the battle in my previous tank: I took it down

On another note though my liverock was kept in a pitch black rubbermaid bin for a few months and now there's NO pests left on my liverock. Most of the macroalgae that was getting out of control is gone too. If you take down your tank in frustration just store your rock for a few months n start a tank back up again

Delphinus · #7 11-10-2007, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwirky

It bubbled, it was like brown snot, and it multiplied like crazy no matter how much I removed. It was an endless battle. I thought it was a slime algae but now in retrospect I'm having second thoughts. Bubbled like crazy and was kinda stringy. I look at that photo and I'm sure it's EXACTLY what I had.

Based on this description alone, without question, you had dinoflagellates.

I nearly tore down the tanks I had it in too when I was fighting it. It's demoralizing.