Dinoflagellates? or another form of cyanobacteria?

These brown bubbling snots started showing up after I eliminated the original cyanobacteria problem via Phosban 150 reactors running GFO and carbon.

I am not sure if these are dinoflagellates or yet another form of cyanobacteria.
They are not at plague proportions just yet, but I have been playing janitor every day brushing these things off, specially away from the corals and gorgonians.

The cable for my temperature sensor:


Return nozzle of the Phosban reactor:


Covering the palythoas and other surfaces:



They would form long thin strings that flow with the current:



So far, the powerheads and sandsifting critters in the tank have prevented the brown snot from covering the sand. But I can see them starting to form over dead spots over the sand and I have to brush those areas clean.
My poor gorgonians are the worst affected because their entire bodies would get smothered in a matter of hours. I would clean them off and come back to see them covered again some time later.


Curious enough, very little of it grows on the back wall. I wonder if the snails strip the glass clean every night and dislodges whatever clumps that form over there.

You are right. Dinos. Try a blackout for several days and see if that takes care of them (before they are covering everything).

I have had a dino problem exactly like yours since I set up my new 120 tank about 8 months ago. Blackouts for days at a time, 3+, combined with siphoning the dino out at the end, and using Chemiclean have produced the best results, but to this day I am still fighting dino and just yesterday I finished up a 3 day blackout combined with the chemiclean and siphoning the visible dinos out... so far so good, but then again, it usually takes a couple days to reform on everything in my tank.

It has sorta hurt the hobby for me, but I am hoping someone like you will tell me what to do to magically get rid of them. From what I understand it's an ongoing battle and you have to use multiple methods to get rid of it, no one process will get rid of it usually. EDIT: And by the way, I protein skim with a very efficient skimmer, I have been running high dollar GFO in a reactor up until about a week ago when I decided to run high quality carbon in its place to see if that helps with the dino. I also have filter socks for mechanical filtration and about 180 pounds of live rock for bio filtration. I have heard running Ozone can fix the problem, but the equipment to run it seems expensive and is not an option for someone like me on a limited budget.

Good luck and I will be following this in hopes of a good solution.

Thanks.

Here is my poor 55gallon tank wrapped up like a termite infested house.


I have a 100gallon tank getting prepped, and I was planning on seeding the new tank with live rocks from this tank.
However, with the dino issues I might have to just do a fresh cycle on the new tank to minimize the chances of dino contamination. The old rocks would be sanitized and retired along with this 55gallon tank.

I had a thread about my fight with Dino's but can't seem to find it.

But I do remember doing a a 3 week, complete black out and huge water changes.
Good luck with that fight.

RockStacker said:

Thanks.

Here is my poor 55gallon tank wrapped up like a termite infested house.


I have a 100gallon tank getting prepped, and I was planning on seeding the new tank with live rocks from this tank.
However, with the dino issues I might have to just do a fresh cycle on the new tank to minimize the chances of dino contamination. The old rocks would be sanitized and retired along with this 55gallon tank.

Click to expand...

I haven't tried completing wrapping my tank like that. Hopefully that's the solution I've been missing. My tank is in my basement so it doesn't get much light, but I suppose it does get some during the day. Let me know whether or not that worked when you are finished with your blackout. Good luck!

I Have a teensy bit of these, Had more, but I did the peroxide thingie and now they are almost gone

I did a 10% water change this evening.
While doing that I inspected the tank to see what's going on.

There is a significant buildup of gray gunk on the powerheads that look like wet dust bunnies. I am thinking they are either dead algae or dead dino husks that clumped together.
I brushed and siphoned them out.

So far I do not see any of the dino strings flowing in the water.

The corals appear to be doing OK and the fish seem excited to see me again.
The gorgonians are no longer coated in dino gunk and are showing full polyp extensions.
However, the orange gorgonian appear to have lost 1 inch of tissue from the top and has exposed skeleton :(

It is too early to tell if the dino's are defeated, I'm sure they are still lurking in the water waiting for a chance to grow back.
I will continue the blackout for another 3 days and do another 10% water change after that.
I will also feed a little amount to the fish at that time to make sure they do not starve.

I have already set the LEDs back to 10% just in case I forget when it is time to turn the lights back on. I am sure the corals will need to be acclimated again to the LED's after severals days of blackout.

After a week blackout and 10% water changes every 2 days, it looks like the dino issue is under control.
I think I may have caught it early and the water was not yet saturated with the dino's when I started the treatment.
Here's to hoping the dino's stay away for good!

good luck! many of us have battled the dinos. I posted a very lengthy thread about my struggles with it also.

andysgirl8800 said:

good luck! many of us have battled the dinos. I posted a very lengthy thread about my struggles with it also.

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Thanks!
From my last encounter with dino's a few years ago, They kept creeping back and I had to do frequent water changes until they gave up.
I know how persistent these buggers are and I am not keen on declaring victory just yet.

I am now however, in a much higher state of vigilance and would initiate further countermeasures should these snotty invaders show their faces again.


I am now seeing a few valonias appear on the rocks. Ahh the life of a reefer.

Well, just a few days later and the brown snot is slowly showing up again.
I am deciding between running another blackout or going straight to a peroxide treatment.

RockStacker said:

Well, just a few days later and the brown snot is slowly showing up again.
I am deciding between running another blackout or going straight to a peroxide treatment.

Click to expand...

In my ongoing battle I've been doing both blackouts and peroxide. Still seeing it though. You should try both at the same time.