Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[mcarroll]

contact either the PI or lab technician/assistant

PI = professor in charge?

 

[K. Steven]

PI = professor in charge?

Principal investigator (FYI this is the name listed last on a research paper)

Basically the lead professor/researcher of the lab

 

[mcarroll]

Principal investigator (FYI this is the name listed last on a research paper)

Basically the lead professor/researcher of the lab

Interesting! Thanks for explaining all that!

 

[Rakie]

After a little follow up convo with @mcarrol I figured I'd post my results with Metro -- Which I've seen mostly not work for most people, but work for some others. So, I'd consider this a hail mary, last resort type thing... Seeing as I started losing almost 100% of my Acros, including some really high end ones... I had nothing to lose.

Here's what I can tell you on my system:
- Setup last October -- 50 cube, with sump around 40g water volume
- SPS dominant, had no previous dinos/algae's before
- Fuge was added 2 months ago
- Nutrients are 5-10 no3, .05 - .13 po4 (been swinging a bit with the inability to skim, siporax removal, and lots of dead dinos)
- Fish pop: 4 wrasse, bangaii, 3 gobies, midnight clown
- Inverts: Scarlet flame shrimp & Cleaner shrimp
- Snails: 8 Trochus, 6 Astrea, 5 Cerith, 2-3 Nerite, 5 Nass, 1 turbo
- Other Snails: A few chitons, which happened to have just bred.
- Dosing: 2 part, kno3 / po4 to get nutrients stable, AF Pro Bio S to reseed tank after Siporax removal

Metronidazole -- Used Seachem Metroplex (70% metro conc.).
- Dosage: 125mg/10g (Can use up to 250mg/10g)
- Dosed for: 3 days over 4 days -- Dino death was so rampant, I turned on skimmer during day 3 to clear out the water, and then did my final dose on day 4 (3rd dose)

I continued with bubbling and manual removal -- Bubbling really just aids manual removal, that's all it does, but it helps more than you'd think. I feel safe saying bubbles and manual removal are the cornerstone of dealing with just about any dino species. But they are not enough in and of themselves.

Dino Species -- Ostreopsis Heptagona (As suggested by my buddy with microscope, Ostreopsis Ovata is second contender)

 

[Monkeynaut]

Please confirm this is Dino and if you know it what type... I just got my microscope today so I am really having fun with it.

 

[Monkeynaut]

Metronidazole -- Used Seachem Metroplex (70% metro conc.).
- Dosage: 125mg/10g (Can use up to 250mg/10g)
- Dosed for: 3 days over 4 days -- Dino death was so rampant, I turned on skimmer during day 3 to clear out the water, and then did my final dose on day 4 (3rd dose)

I continued with bubbling and manual removal -- Bubbling really just aids manual removal, that's all it does, but it helps more than you'd think. I feel safe saying bubbles and manual removal are the cornerstone of dealing with just about any dino species. But they are not enough in and of themselves.

So you were successful with this treatment? Also what are you talking about with Bubbling?

 

[Rakie]

Metronidazole -- Used Seachem Metroplex (70% metro conc.).
- Dosage: 125mg/10g (Can use up to 250mg/10g)
- Dosed for: 3 days over 4 days -- Dino death was so rampant, I turned on skimmer during day 3 to clear out the water, and then did my final dose on day 4 (3rd dose)

I continued with bubbling and manual removal -- Bubbling really just aids manual removal, that's all it does, but it helps more than you'd think. I feel safe saying bubbles and manual removal are the cornerstone of dealing with just about any dino species. But they are not enough in and of themselves.

So you were successful with this treatment? Also what are you talking about with Bubbling?

So far, this treatment was very successful. I'm doing my first WC tonight (don't do a WC while you have dinos, at least my species causes a crazy bloom from new SW). I would advise this as a last ditch effort -- Like when you're on the verge of losing $2000+ in corals.

Bubbling is running Micro Bubbles. They help with mechanical filtration -- Mini bubbles basically bind to random detritus in the tank, including Dinos.. The bubbles float, and lift gunk to the surface and through the overflow. This is something you definitely want to do, it will require DAILY filter sock changing, I also put some filter floss in the weirs to catch w/e comes through (also changed DAILY).

There's a lot of ways to successfully beat dinos, but IMHO, nothing works without Manual Removal. And Manual Removal will not work alone.

 

[Monkeynaut]

How did you make the bubbles?

 

[mcarroll]

@Monkeynaut if you run a R2R search on "bubbling" there are actually a few threads on it.

 

[Monkeynaut]

Thanks I will look it up on the other threads, anyone look at my videos yet to see if you think it is Dino's? @mcarroll @Rakie

I also found this triangle thing below. I didn't figure it was dino's though.

 

[taricha]

Thanks I will look it up on the other threads, anyone look at my videos yet to see if you think it is Dino's?

I also found this triangle thing below. I didn't figure it was dino's though.

That one is not too tough.
Licmophora Diatom,
But those other things that may be a dino? Hmmm....
3 Questions
1. What's the magnification on those shots?
2. Can you post a tank pic of the stuff you sampled to get those little guys?
3. Where are you located?

 

[Monkeynaut]

That one is not too tough.
Licmophora Diatom,
But those other things that may be a dino? Hmmm....
3 Questions
1. What's the magnification on those shots?
2. Can you post a tank pic of the stuff you sampled to get those little guys?
3. Where are you located?

The glass will be translucent within a week if I don't clean it. A film will be on the glass after just 24 hours.

I'm in Huntsville Alabama

It is a 40 times objective with a 5mp camera that came with it. I'm thinking the magnification is about 1000, as that is the maximum the scope is rated for and 40 is the highest objective lens.

 

[taricha]

@Monkeynaut
First off, I dunno what they are, what I will say could be wrong, but I don't think they are a dinoflagellate. At least not a kind that normally cause problems for us.
Reasons I don't think it's a problem dino:
Size is very small - based on scale comparison of the triangle diatom and what you say magnification is, you're looking at stuff under 20 microns, more like 5-10. Our problem dinos are usually more like 50 microns and up.
No theca (armor with grooves in it) that most dinos have.
The one that did swim, was swimming viciously fast, unlike our problem dinos that mostly rely on photosynthesis - things that swim that fast are usually primarily predators.

Most cells moving like this in this size class that aren't dinos are ciliates, but yours have no cilia either.
That leaves us with other random tiny unicellular flagellates.
Lots of candidates in families like Prymnesium
http://cfb.unh.edu/phycokey/Choices/Prymnesiophyceae/PRYMNESIUM/Prymnesium_key.htm
...and many Chlorophytes (green algae) that have single-cell flagellate forms
http://cfb.unh.edu/phycokey/Choices/Chlorophyceae/unicells/flagellated/unicell_flag_key.html
In terms of size, shape, color, how some in your sample paired up for reproduction/splitting, and swim pattern - Tetraselmis is actually a pretty similar looking thing.
[edit: hotlinking this image not working, so click for it.]
http://www.scielo.cl/fbpe/img/gbot/v72n1/art07_fig01.JPG



All that said, I don't think what you have is a problem or will become one. None of the things in those families raise a red flag for me. And many of them are stuff we feed in raising live foods. If this stuff starts forming thick brown blankets, snotty blobs, or long strings - then we ought to worry.

let's also tag @jason2459 on this microscope ID Q.

p.s. For random protozoa ID videos - (in addition to Jason) this guy is amazing

https://www.youtube.com/user/fpelectronica

Like a thousand marine protist videos with IDs on nearly every single one. I need to find a way to send the dude some money. If his youtube channel were a book, I'd spend like $50 on it, even though I don't read a word of spanish.

 

[Monkeynaut]

@taricha that is great! I definitely think you identified it. I'm definitely going to follow this guys YouTube channel. If any moderator wants to yank my post out of this thread; it would probably be appropriate. I will rename the videos when I get time

 

[jason2459]

First thing I thought was Tetraselmis sp.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tet...d=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=5-aatacMTpKVzM:

http://cfb.unh.edu/phycokey/Choices...lated/TETRASELMIS/Tetraselmis_Image_page.html

 

[mcarroll]

First thing I thought was Tetraselmis sp.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tet...d=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=5-aatacMTpKVzM:

http://cfb.unh.edu/phycokey/Choices...lated/TETRASELMIS/Tetraselmis_Image_page.html

Looks like those are symbiotic with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symsagittifera_roscoffensis – @taricha didn't I see you post a movie of something that looked like this?

 

[jason2459]

You will often see "tet" often included in phyto cultures which is why I asked where he might have got it from.


Edit: there's about 2 or 3 threads on this it seems. I asked in one of them if he bought a phyto culture from somewhere.

Edit edit: here it is
https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?posts/3845178

 

[taricha]

Revisiting this earlier post.

Here's a little experiment I'm running.
Nano reef tank. 2.5 gal stocked with bits from my display tank. Managed to get a pretty good Dinoflagellate bloom.
Phosphate - 0.012
Nitrate - 0
Ostropsis, Prorocentrum, Small-Cell Amphidinium, and some round Coolia

And my 70 gal display tank, where the water - rocks, corals, macros etc in the nano tank came from is dino free.
Phosphate - 0.092
Nitrate - 10
No dinos, so every couple of days I've been siphoning Dino clumps out of the small tank, shaking them up real good to spread the cells and then pouring them into the display starting on 6/17.

So that's part 1 of the experiment, will update over a couple of weeks.

Phase 2 of the experiment is to Fix the Dino nano tank. I'll post updates on that part in a few days.

Part 1 continued. Poured Dinos into Display tank on 6/17, 6/20, 6/22, 6/24
Display still Clean and Dino free on 6/27, will update again in a week or so.

Part 2: clearing up dinos in the 2.5 gal nano test tank.
Going pretty well so far.

Video from 6/24 before treatment.


Video from 6/27 after 3 days. Dinos still present, but probably at 1% of their levels 3 days earlier.

Both sets of samples from the stringy masses on the glass.
[edit: the pointy motionless cells attached to the green algae at 21 seconds are diatoms, they've picked up as Dino has faded.]

I'll give full details when the treatment is complete. [emoji4]

 

[taricha]

Looks like those are symbiotic with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symsagittifera_roscoffensis – @taricha didn't I see you post a movie of something that looked like this?

Nah, never found any green worms. But apparently flatworms (convolutriloba) which I have had also host "tet" as their symbiont.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Have we figured out a cure yet? LOL ;Hurting