Just joined the Dino club

[mh0ward]

I’ve joined a few unpleasant clubs in the past month. First was the “My canister filter cracked and leaked a couple gallons of saltwater onto the floor and the ceiling below” club. Then I joined the “My favorite hammer is being eaten by a fireworm I didn’t know I had” club. And today I get to join the Dino club.

I converted a video to GIF because I can’t access YouTube at the moment.

I’ve read a bit about how to fight them, but any advice specific to these types? Tank params are:

NO3: 7.4
PO4: 0.02
Alk: 8.7
Cal: 435

I’ve ordered some NeoPhos (will be here tomorrow) to try and get the PO4 up a bit more to target the 10/0.1 ratio, but outside of that, anything else I should be doing? I’ve only got them lightly right now and want to stay ahead of it to prevent it becoming a bigger problem. It mainly seems to have started after I manually remove a good bit of hair algae with forceps this past week. So maybe I mistakenly removed too much of its competition. In the mean time, I’m trying to syphon the stringy bits with a baster.

Thanks in advance.

 

[C. Eymann]

That's not detailed enough/ too fuzzy to see shell shape or opening of flagella, but by the rotation/ spinning motion it looks like Ostreopsis to my eyes, however much better picture would be needed to confirm, are they teardrop shaped ? One end coming to a fairly sharp point?

 

[mh0ward]

Yes, i would say teardrop shaped would be an accurate description. I’ll try to get a better shot of them tomorrow.

 

[mh0ward]

Update: Ordered a 9W Green Killing Machine. I liked the “all in one” design of it and the wattage and flow rate looked about right for 20 gal. I also read that clipping some filter floss in the tank near a powerhead gives a desirable surface for Dinos to cling to, and indeed it does. I’ve already pulled the floss and rinsed it twice, both times it had quite a bit of the stringy stuff covering it - hoping that’s enough to keep it in check until the UV GKM gets here. I also dosed 0.6ml of NeoPhos to raise the PO4 around 0.01ppm. Plan on dosing that amount each day until it stabilizes somewhere in the 0.05-0.1 range, probably closer to 0.1 with mostly soft and LPS coral. I’ll post some updates on how it goes in case it helps anyone else.

 

[mh0ward]

Another update: After clipping a filter pad near the wave maker and rinsing it out a couple times per day, plus dosing the tank with enough NeoPhos to raise the PO4 by about 0.01 for a couple days, the dynos had already noticeably diminished.

The 9W Green Killing Machine came yesterday and after a full day with it, I don’t really see any evidence of dynos at all now.