Dino and coral health question

[Maho.B]

Hello all. Question for you, most all of my corals have been looking stressed and some losing tissue over the last few weeks. I've been testing every other day and all parameters are looking good...a few weeks ago my LFS identified the Ostreopsis type of dinoflagellate in my system with there microscope. I've decided to get a UV sterilizer but its not here yet. My question is this: does the presence of these dinos in the system affect coral health (the stress im serious) in general even if they're not growing directly in the coral? Or should I be lookout for some other cause? Thanks.

 

[thedon986]

If the presence is big enough yes for sure. They release toxins so use carbon and dose up your N & P to more than minimal levels.

 

[Maho.B]

If the presence is big enough yes for sure. They release toxins so use carbon and dose up your N & P to more than minimal levels.

Thanks thedon986 when I found out I had them I did start running carbon so hopefully that helps some until the UV...my nitrate is at 6.0 and phosphate is .02 so I may need to bump that up?

 

[DanyL]

You need a good amount of dino in the system to make their toxins affect your coral. Other causes could also be direct contact, but from my understanding it isn’t what you’re experiencing here.

I think it’s best to post here your parameters, and also a picture and a short history of your tank so others could chime in and make sure there isn’t some obvious cause that went unnoticed.

 

[thedon986]

Definitely get that N more like 20 and P more like .15 but don’t do it overnight

 

[Uncle99]

The low (or no) phosphate may have allowed pest algae’s like Dino’s to thrive and outcompete your good algae’s and together, corals suffer. In sufficient quantity, can kill as they can be toxic.

The key to Dino’s is numbers. They replicate quite fast to you gotta remove them faster than replication and introduce chemistry that favours the good stuff.

So UV during darkness, removing and cleaning socks or filter just before lights on, lightly siphon the sand surface only are ways to lower numbers.

Bad algae’s and bacterium hate stable water chemistry. Ensure all parameters are on point and not fluctuating, add some bottled bacteria daily, and a dash of phyto. This will feed the good guys.

If you keep up the fight, in about 2-3 weeks you will notice a change in Dino population and in about 4-5 week, the good guys get in enough population to outcompete those bad guys and they will disappear forever….or until water chemistry becomes unstable or you starve the good guys.

Bump the phosphate to .1ppm, nitrate fine.

 

[Maho.B]

Definitely get that N more like 20 and P more like .15 but don’t do it overnight

Thanks for the feedback. Here are the parameters as of earlier this morning.

Alk: 8.0
Calcium: 430
Phos: .02
Nitrate: 6.0
Mag: 1350
Salinity: 35
Temp: 77.8 (I do notice this does swing about A degree and a half throughout the day sometimes)

I'm not home right now so I can't send pictures. However a quick history is:

System is a little over 10 months old, 110 gallon total volume. 2 red Sea reef waves, two power heads (the ones that come with red Sea reefer). Octopus protein skimmer and a reef mat in sump.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed the alkalinity was slowly climbing and found out through folks on this forum that it was likely due to me increasing my nitrate dosing. At its highest it was in the 10.3 range so over the course of a couple of weeks I stopped the dosing pump and let it slowly fall to 8.0 and that's where I'm keeping it now. Other than that change, the other parameters have remained stable.

The dinoflagellates are mostly on parts of the sand bed and a little bit here and there on the rock work, a few of the corals that sort of had areas that died back did immediately get some of the dinoflagellates growing in the exposed areas. The majority of corals do not have any directly growing on them or around them, but I would say it seems like 80% of the corals are looking stressed over the last few weeks. Not sure if the slow increase and slow decrease of the alkalinity is to blame over the last several weeks? With the SPS. I can maybe understand that but even corals like favia and pectinia are stressed.

Let me know if you need any other information that would be helpful. Thanks.