The numbers in this tank have always been low. My phosphates have been nearly non-existent from the beginning. Same with nitrates. Rarely getting in the 10-20ppm range.
Sweet! Before I read this response from you, I figured I would at least try to get some UV going, even without an ID yet. I just got back from PetCo and picked up to smaller version of this. Plugging it in shortly.
Oh damn...yeah, everything seemed like it was doing so well in this tank. So I started adding coral without worry. Everything was looking great and then boom...it just exploded on me. This definitely is a crappy feeling man. Hopefully I can contain this without having to wait months. I need to work on getting a sample to ID.
Curious to know if it's safe to take out, dip, and move frags to another tank that's doing good? Or is that a no-no at this point until this is squared away?
So sorry you got this. Dinos are my ‘favorite’ topic. It hit me twice in the first 6 months of nano tank journey. My other tank had a little bit too but it seems more or less resolved now. I always consider Dinos to be the reason that I got so intererested in the whole microbiome discussion early on, and it is still my key area of interest.
The issue with Dinos is that many had it at one point and have advice, but there are apparantly so many different species that you may or may not hit the right treatment, and it is unknown which treatment is the most effective so that multiple different approaches are required.
My advice given your situation is the following:
1. Do not jump into UV already. You might need it later though.
2. Buy a microscope, as recommended earlier, as your no. 1 priority and take a picture for sharing. This was the most painful thing for me since I have not used one since high school, but you need this for identification and progress monitoring. As mentioned above, you need to know which Dinos you have to treat this. The prorocentrums I had could not be fought with UV.
3. Join the Dino group on facebook (Mack's Dino support group). A contentious recommendation, and not a group of professionals, but they provide pragmatic solutions and help identify. And there is a pdf 'manual' how to fix it once identified. Not a scientific manual, just some steps that seem to help, but these helped me twice. Focus is on getting your biome stronger.
4. You need to add carbon ASAP and remove this weekly or more often, as the common issue with the Dinos seems that these are toxic, some very, kills your CUC. The carbon may further reduce your nutrients (which are now low because of your Dinos), but it needs to be added.
5. Do not change your water, as someone also said. This delays the progress by weeks.
6. If you identify your Dinos as prorocentrum, I can provide more advice, but I believe you have another form, and might need UV, but I would go step by step.
I got them a while ago when my nitrates and phosphates bottomed out. Luckily at that point there was no coral yet in the tank. It almost made me want to tear everything down and start over. I just stopped doing water changes, only manual removal and turned off protein skimmer. I was adding NeoPhos, NeoNitro and Microbacter 7 and got my numbers up and months later the problem went away. It was also easy to do a blackout period with no coral. I only had two clowns in there that were fine, my CUC however took somewhat of a hit. I got so much conflicting advice and I never IDd the strain I had so that didn’t help but that’s what worked for me. Best of luck!
