Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[mcarroll]

It was my understanding that dino, like other organisms, require some type of trace elements?

As far as I know, we'd have to call dino's carbon-based. I don't think they have requirements that are very different from green algae or even land plants. (Unlike diatoms, which we could call silicon-based.)

The cost of investigating the reason is a bit pricey.

But can a price be placed upon knowledge???

I think Iron and Silicates might be the two more likely candidates to be the "mystery limiter" in a case like yours.

Unfortunately ICP doesn't get Iron....but that means you might have to consider a cheaper option.

I know Seachem's Iron Multitest is seawater compatible and <$15....but I don't have experience using it. "Measures iron to less than 0.05 mg/L" for what it's worth. Same price and sensitivity range for their silicate test kit.

But what's even cheaper than that?

Reading! Reef Aquarium Water Parameters by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

I can't hotlink directly to the Iron and Silicate sections since it's still 1994 there , but both sections are worth reading!

Here are some excerpts from each section:
Silica

If diatoms are not a problem, then I suggest that many aquarists should consider dosing soluble silica. Why would I recommend dosing silica? Largely because creatures in our aquaria use it, the concentrations in many aquaria are below natural levels, and consequently the sponges, mollusks, and diatoms living in these aquaria may not be getting enough silica to thrive.

So in that article, Randy actually suggests dosing some silica on general principle – for the health of the tank.

Which sounds a lot like our angle with the N and P corrections, so I'd say this is worth experimenting with for someone willing to experiment.

Iron

Because of its short supply and critical importance, it is also subject to aggressive sequestration by bacteria and other marine organisms.

I guess this is why available dissolved iron is supposed to be pretty close to zero in a reef tank. Imagine the effect of carbon dosing (and the resulting bacterial bloom) on such a limited supply. Now re-read the article on my blog about re-oligotrophication (or just google that term). A system doesn't give up its nutrients easily once it has them.

Iron is not easy to measure at levels normally encountered in marine aquaria. It is also not easy to determine which of its many forms are bioavailable in seawater, and which are not. Consequently, aquarists should not target a specific concentration, but rather should decide if they want to dose any at all, and then use an appropriate dosage going forward.

Somewhat similar to the guidance on silica – could be healthy even though it's virtually impossible to test for.

I have to imagine that there is at least some silica and iron in the foods we feed, so that has to address some tank needs. But there are undoubtedly some organisms that depend on a dissolved source.

I will say there are some reefers testing the limits of no water changes on SPS dominant nano tanks.

For what it's worth...

I can't say I'm doing it for any reason other than lack of time, but I've done no water changes on my 100G system since the two 50% water changes during my chrysophyte outbreak. (If you recall..) If you discount those a little, then I can say I've done almost no water changes in I think about 4-5 years...since the end of my "water change a day..." thread. I dose DIY 3-part and have high-quality flake food in an auto-feeder....and no fish again. Corals are all still happy as can be – apparently (I guess) since things are stable overall, including very regular and complete nutrient inputs. I still don't knock water changes, but I don't wave a water change flag around either.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

IME experience having beaten dinoflagellates, primarily O. ovata, in at least 15 different aquarium customer tanks I can say that UV is hands down more effective and safe for long term dino eradication and control than ozone generators. Having tried both, the fastest way to hold down a dino population while you build a stable nutrient profile that can sustain the needed competitive biodiversity to prevent dino blooms is a UV sterilizer. Ozone has too many inherent risks and stability alertering properties to make it a good choice. It can really hit your beneficial bacteria when run at a high level, leading to ammo spikes if you shut it off cold turkey. I have also witnessed massive soft tissue blistering of sps corals and other sensitive stony corals when ozone is run at high levels. This was not from pH or ORP spikes, but occurred after a few weeks from the cumulative build up of tin in the water which strong ozone addition will leach out of any pvc piping. Be forewarned if you try ozone. UV is less impactful on overall system stability and will still afford you the needed respite to build a more balanced and diverse ecosystem that will not allow dinos to get a foothold ever again.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I think Iron and Silicates might be the two more likely candidates to be the "mystery limiter" in a case like yours.

You are right on the money with iron being a major limiting factor. Obviously it's not the sole potential limiting agent, but funnily enough I posted that iron was a primary dino growth limiter like over a year ago in the 'old dino magic cure' thread back when people were still convinced that metronidazole was the answer. Marine dinos have wicked strong ability to emit siderophores and assimilate much of the available iron in a reef tank into their biomass. I suspect this is linked to their commonly brownish, greenish appearance.

 

[smoothmove]

I get outbreaks after my water changes. My main tank is an 80 rimless with a 75 gallon standard tank as a sump. 55 watt UV is on the return to the main tank and the display dumps free into the sump.

I get outbreaks in my main tank, but my sump is clean and outbreak free.
I use three kessil 160's on the 80 gallon and two 160's on my sump. I am thinking that lighting has a lot to do with it. My corals are doing well in both 80 and 75.

I removed one of the lights from my 80 and am going to see if it makes a difference. It is weird that I only have nuisance outbreak in the main tank. I will update. This is only a theory, but I have a perfect control group in my two tanks to test it.

 

[mcarroll]

I suspect this is linked to their commonly brownish, greenish appearance.

Other things may also contribute, but I think their pigments (which appear to be all H, C and O) give dino's most of their color.

From the W:

Most photosynthetic species contain chlorophylls a and c2, the carotenoid beta-carotene, and a group of xanthophylls that appears to be unique to dinoflagellates, typically peridinin, dinoxanthin, and diadinoxanthin. These pigments give many dinoflagellates their typical golden brown color.

 

[tonymacc]

My torch died so I removed it yesterday and it absolutely stank, any ideas?

 

[Paullawr]

I get outbreaks after my water changes. My main tank is an 80 rimless with a 75 gallon standard tank as a sump. 55 watt UV is on the return to the main tank and the display dumps free into the sump.

I get outbreaks in my main tank, but my sump is clean and outbreak free.
I use three kessil 160's on the 80 gallon and two 160's on my sump. I am thinking that lighting has a lot to do with it. My corals are doing well in both 80 and 75.

I removed one of the lights from my 80 and am going to see if it makes a difference. It is weird that I only have nuisance outbreak in the main tank. I will update. This is only a theory, but I have a perfect control group in my two tanks to test it.

Probably barking up the wrong tree, but I have a suspicion trace element etc el in water changes are not the sole driving point for a bloom. Im edging my bets that the flush of water causing disturbance in substrate sets them in to a chain reaction. This would correlate at least to a paper I once read.

Therefore if the above is even remotely accurate a 'gentle water change' may limit the response...

I'm also talking about preventing a bloom rather than mid bloom.

 

[smoothmove]

Probably barking up the wrong tree, but I have a suspicion trace element etc el in water changes are not the sole driving point for a bloom. Im edging my bets that the flush of water causing disturbance in substrate sets them in to a chain reaction. This would correlate at least to a paper I once read.

Therefore if the above is even remotely accurate a 'gentle water change' may limit the response...

I'm also talking about preventing a bloom rather than mid bloom.

The difference in the bloom in the main vs sump is night and day. The only difference between the two is that my display had three lights vs two on the sump.

My corals are happy in both. It is just something I want to test and am sharing it.

 

[reeferfoxx]

As far as I know, we'd have to call dino's carbon-based. I don't think they have requirements that are very different from green algae or even land plants. (Unlike diatoms, which we could call silicon-based.)

Some articles I've read suggest dinos can bloom with diatoms.(maybe not our kind of dinos) Another point one researcher was answering a question on how to grow freshwater dinoflagellates. The one asking felt they were using the right culture but the procedure wasn't working. Another researchers response was marine oriented but made his point of tripling f/2 medium without silicates help grow amphidinium. Interesting.

 

[reeferfoxx]

My torch died so I removed it yesterday and it absolutely stank, any ideas?

Hard to tell. It could be a number of things. I've only had one coral loss during any dino outbreak. It was a bubble coral. Had some sps stn but quickly recovered when nutrients were added.

It could been getting too much flow, too much light, lack of nutrients, or maybe a shrimp is picking at it at night? Hard to tell.

 

[Alitoo.81]

Hi,

added a UV to the system. so now I have Ozone and UV. Tomorrow is the first day after blackout. So far so good. I will continue blowing all the tank everyday to make sure the dinos stay in the water column as much as possible. They are way better than 4 days ago. I can only see normal algae. Lets see what happens using both Ozone and UV.

 

[Jolanta]

Hi, so I was dosing heavy with potasium nitrate to my nano tank dose days couse my phosphate is 0.16 and my nitrate was 0, my ostreopis wasnt so agresive, only some points here and there, all the corals lookes ok but two day ago the first time I got reading of 1 on my salifert test and dinos got really bad, covered all my glases and some corals makeing them close, I dosed some more nitrate to achive higher numbers and went to bed, yesterday I came home from work and dinos on the glass are dying I think, there is round marks and its getting white as if something is eating it. Its not my snails cose they left zig zac form on the glass when they eat. Here are some pictures from yesterday

And thats how it looks today

What do you think?
Other question there is someone on the treat that menaged to eliminate ostreopsis with only balancing the tank? Or there is always some extra like uv, ozone needed?

 

[mcarroll]

Hi, so I was dosing heavy with potasium nitrate to my nano tank dose days couse my phosphate is 0.16 and my nitrate was 0

How long has this tank been running? Have you always had to dose nutrients? Hypothetically that should only be needed in certain circumstances. Do you have an idea why nitrates would be running so low in your specific case?

 

[IKD]

Hi All,
I was hoping someone could confirm my suspicion this is Ostreopsis (assuming the pics are good enough). I had a small outbreak of dinos a few weeks ago. I've raised my nitrates to ~5ppm and waiting for my Hanna low-level phosphate reader to come in so I can accurately measure those levels before adding any Phosphate.

The bloom has gotten much worse since my nitrates went up though, so I'm debating if getting a UV Sterilizer is worth it.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[mcarroll]

@Jolanta I don't recall if you would have already seen the info beginning on post #905 – especially the chart itself.

I only had to read the chart and its explanation about 50 times before I make sense of it.....hopefully my comments afterward in the thread help that and don't make it even worse! Let me know!

 

[Jolanta]

How long has this tank been running? Have you always had to dose nutrients? Hypothetically that should only be needed in certain circumstances. Do you have an idea why nitrates would be running so low in your specific case?

Hi Mcarroll, my nano tank is maybe 5 months old, I cicled the tank with dry rock dry sand, then bring back my corlas from my friends tank from my big tank restart corals where in his acuarium maybe for 4 months or so and he never had ostreopsis problem so I decided to take them back and put them in a nano, it was all ok when I had corals only tank, my nutrients was low as 0.2 nitrate, and 0.03 phosphate, but you will not see dinos anywhere, I had a lot of pods and life in the rock, so I decided to bay a pair of clowns and at first they were not eating well so I tried diferent foods to make them to eat and thats when some dinos started to show, fitst they where only on one spot and I mesured my nitrate was 0.2 and phosphate 0.2 also, the only filtration on this tank is some chaeto, soon after my chaeto started to die so I took it off. Even with out any filtration I wasnt able to rise my nitrates, dinos showed up maybe dwo monts ago but it was all under control, only my clove polips wasnt opening, now when I have nitrate readings over 1 ppm dinos got worst, but I remember you said some how it gets worst before it gets better.

 

[Beardo]

Hi All,
I was hoping someone could confirm my suspicion this is Ostreopsis (assuming the pics are good enough). I had a small outbreak of dinos a few weeks ago. I've raised my nitrates to ~5ppm and waiting for my Hanna low-level phosphate reader to come in so I can accurately measure those levels before adding any Phosphate.

The bloom has gotten much worse since my nitrates went up though, so I'm debating if getting a UV Sterilizer is worth it.

Any help would be appreciated!

You are correct in your ID of ostreopsis. There may be a second species lurking as well. There is a round one just above dead center that resembles Coolia sp.

I am personally pro UV for helping in the fight with dino species that enter the water column, such as what you are dealing with. They need to be sized correctly though.

 

[Jolanta]

@Jolanta I don't recall if you would have already seen the info beginning on post #905 – especially the chart itself.

I only had to read the chart and its explanation about 50 times before I make sense of it.....hopefully my comments afterward in the thread help that and don't make it even worse! Let me know!

Hahhaha yes its a little bit dificult to understand the chart I dont know if I have it good couse my eaglish is not that good, ao yoi recomend lowering nutrients? You say in ratio but lower could you explain what numbers I should look for?

 

[IKD]

You are correct in your ID of ostreopsis. There may be a second species lurking as well. There is a round one just above dead center that resembles Coolia sp.

I am personally pro UV for helping in the fight with dino species that enter the water column, such as what you are dealing with. They need to be sized correctly though.

Thanks Beardo. I have a 265gallon. Earlier in this thread, I saw you mention a 114w sterilizer for his 270gallon tank. Anyone recommend any brands/models of that size? I've never shopped for a UV sterilizer before, so no idea which are considered high quality.

 

[Beardo]

Thanks Beardo. I have a 265gallon. Earlier in this thread, I saw @zachxlutz mention a 114w sterilizer for his 270gallon tank. Anyone recommend any brands/models of that size? I've never shopped for a UV sterilizer before, so no idea which are considered high quality.

My tank is 270g and I run a 114 watt unit on it. I had a 57 watt previously without success. Once I upgraded to the 114 watt Ostreopsis, Coolia and Prorocentrum were cleared out pretty quickly. I personally use an AquaUV brand. Pentair Aquatics is another decent brand as well but I have no personal experience with them. Be prepared though, they aren't cheap.