Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[wopadobop]

The issue with mounting them that way is that no air can escape and the bulb will over heat. Also . If your pump fails and the light stays on. Could start a fire. I’d flip it 180 degrees for safety.

 

[mcarroll]

Updated the front page:

Post #2725 has a great diary of tank observations, test results and time-series graphs during the treatment for dino's from one of our members.

(Is that good wording? Pls make a suggestion!)

 

[wopadobop]

video? as low power as possible.
not looking like stuff I've seen under scope before.


algae, diatoms, bacterial films, cyano, ciliates, and dinos can all show up on glass. Usually the dinos have to attach to something else to do it though. And glass doesn't really suit their style.

That’s at 300x power. Ill see if i can get a video of it but the dang things swims so fast it goes in and out of the eye Peice pretty fast. Ill see if i have a lower powered eye peice . Ill try my best.

On a side note. Does anyone know if the Acro eating flat worm is actually feeding on acropora flesh or the dinoflagellate species inside the acropora?
Flatworms may be the answer to why some get Dino’s and some dont?

 

[mcarroll]

Is this biomass uptake saturation? Or the initial bloom consumption of p04 with a leveling off as they hit critical mass?

Yes! All of the above. I feel that most of it is going down to bacterial decomposition of dino theca....

....which logically could fuel a subsequent dino-bloom as the hetertrophic part of the bloom gorges on the bacteria.

Once that mega-carbon-source is used up, eventually the food source will dry up and autotrophic dino's should predominate and the dino-bloom should subside....

...and PO4 consumption gets back to normal.

That was a GREAT post.

Thanks @IKD for sharing!!!

 

[becks]

is the debate regarding dry rock and live rock a viable argument?

can the microfauna really make a difference?

 

[Jolanta]

Awesome detailed data from @IKD incoming...
1/6-1/20...

1/20-1/29...

1/30-2/2...

Phosphate consumption over treatment time.

I cant see good in those charts

 

[mcarroll]

is the debate regarding dry rock and live rock a viable argument?

can the microfauna really make a difference?

IMO yes. Some of the material in the first post talks about this aspect of system stability.

The bigger question may be "What else can really substitute for it?"

If it's not coming from the live rock, are we assuring that it does come from somewhere?

We're talking about a lot more than a bacterial innoculant, of course.

 

[Bebow]

For Large Cell Amphidinium only, anyone wanting to try dosing Silica to have diatoms outcompete the dinos as outlined in this paper previously discussed.

Brightwell SpongeXcel silicate source
Salifert Si test kit

I'm going to presume a 10 gal tank with 10ppm No3 = 2.25 ppm N

"1 drop per gallon of water increases ionic silica concentration by ~0.20 ppm."
Test (guessing zero Si)
day 1&2 - 5 drops (.20ppm cumulative Si)
Test (guessing zero Si)
days 3,4,5,6 - 10 drops (1.0 ppm cumulative Si)
Test (guessing some small amount Si)
days 7,8,9 - 16 drops (0.32 ppm per day, 2.0 ppm cumulative Si)
Test (no idea what it'll show at this point)

When It says "Test" I'd check for diatom growth, overall tank health, Si and N and P to see consumption by the tank to see if it's shifting.
If the Si keeps getting eaten up immediately, with no signs in tank changes, I'd continue upping drops by +5 drops per 10 gal every 3 days.
If something is happening like a shift toward noticeable diatom bloom, then I'd hold dose steady for a few days and monitor the relative amounts of diatoms/dinos.
If Si accumulates (I doubt, but possible) wait and see what happens around 0.5ppm Si for a few days. This is approximately the paper's Si levels.
If after a few days of monitoring at 0.5ppm Si, the dino growth is still much more significant than diatoms, then I'd continue upping the dose by +5 drops per 10 gal every 3 days, up to 1.5-2ppm Si then I'd hold/back off the dose. I wouldn't attempt to exceed around 2.25 ppm Si which is 1:1 Si:N at 10ppm NO3.
I suspect the system will start producing lots of diatoms well before you ramp up to a sustained 1:1 Si:N at 10ppm NO3.

I’ve been dosing Si from sodium silicate mixed with RO water for a week now. I ended up pretty close to your numbers, NO3 8ppm , Si around 3ppm. Diatoms heavy on the glass so snails are happy. LPS corals look better than ever, SPS good also. Tank seems to using up 1ppm Si so I’m dosing every other day
Sand areas of amphidinium Where looking darker so i was going to vacuum out those areas but decided to scope some samples and found the diatoms far out numbered the amphidinium cells. With that I thought it may be better to let the micro-war wage on and leave the sand bed alone. Also took some photos of an organism I haven’t seen before Si dosing and have not been able to ID. Doesn’t look like a diatom. I’m curious as what it is. It’s the leafy shaped organism in the photo.
Looks like the next week maybe the key, we will see!

 

[taricha]

is the debate regarding dry rock and live rock a viable argument?

can the microfauna really make a difference?

On either side (before or after) a dino bloom - yes. During a toxic bloom, no.

Microfauna, biodiversity, green algae, whatever you want to call it can act against a dino take-over in the beginning, and after dinos are pushed out, can add stability to prevent a later re-bloom.
But adding biodiversity while there are brown patches and strands of millions of toxic dino cells per mL just ends with dead microfauna. Which makes more nutrients available to the dinos.
Very few people have had success with that approach during a bloom.

 

[becks]

On either side (before or after) a dino bloom - yes. During a toxic bloom, no.

Microfauna, biodiversity, green algae, whatever you want to call it can act against a dino take-over in the beginning, and after dinos are pushed out, can add stability to prevent a later re-bloom.
But adding biodiversity while there are brown patches and strands of millions of toxic dino cells per mL just ends with dead microfauna. Which makes more nutrients available to the dinos.
Very few people have had success with that approach during a bloom.

My pukani rock has given me nothing but troubles since I used it, my tank has been stable over the last year, but I’ve just been battling one thing or another. This is my second Dino bloom, coral growth stopped, I turned off my GFO reactor and it started to recede once my hair algae started to grow again. My issue now is the vermetid snails are effecting my herbivores as I mentioned earlier, I was planning on an anemone second tank, but I think I will break this down and start again with indo live rock and embrace more of the older methods regarding reef tanks.

The strange thing about my vermetid s is their population exploded whilst I was away and not feeding the tank

 

[wopadobop]

May not be a flat worm? Not a biologist. This was tough to pull off. I had to use the actual camera to zoom in on it without a eye lense. And hold it steady.
:?

 

[taricha]

I’ve been dosing Si from sodium silicate mixed with RO water for a week now. I ended up pretty close to your numbers, NO3 8ppm , Si around 3ppm. Diatoms heavy on the glass so snails are happy. LPS corals look better than ever, SPS good also. Tank seems to using up 1ppm Si so I’m dosing every other day
Sand areas of amphidinium Where looking darker so i was going to vacuum out those areas but decided to scope some samples and found the diatoms far out numbered the amphidinium cells. With that I thought it may be better to let the micro-war wage on and leave the sand bed alone.

Experimentalist hero!

Also took some photos of an organism I haven’t seen before Si dosing and have not been able to ID.

Looks like the next week maybe the key, we will see!

It is a diatom! If you look closely there's a transparent not-quite-rectangle wedge-shaped outline around the "leaf". That's the diatom's silica skeleton (frustule - they call it). The leafy area is the pigmented chloroplast.

Look forward to next week update. Awesome stuff!

 

[taricha]

May not be a flat worm? Not a biologist.

100% acoel flat worm. Mine look like this

Do they eat dinos?
Yes, in theory. Flatworms have symbiotic microalgae - tetraselmis, amphidinium, symbiodinium, depending on kind of flatworm - inside. Theoretically, they would ingest these. But in practice the strains that live in the worms aren't the strains that bloom in our tanks.
Or at least we haven't observed such - yet.
But maybe yours do.

 

[wopadobop]

Day 3

Masssive decrease in Dino’s. I have been dosing p04 and nitrates 40 ml per day of each. On top of that. I have had my Refugio light running 24/7 and the Dino’s seemed to explode in there. This morning , I isolated the refugium and removed the Chaetomorpha ball. Gave everything a thorough wipe down and cleaning . I then rinsed the Cheeto ball in warm fresh water with a soak for 10 minutes. That should in theory wipe out any Dino’s contained within , but wasn’t going for completely sterile .

The flat worms are all over the Dino’s in the display, rocks, glass , everywhere the Dino’s are the flatworms are moving over it . Under the scope they are still very active . I will let tank be with no cleanings for the time being and see what effect these may have on eradication. I do have film algae on the glass starting to grow.

Sps are find. Lps are fine. Everything is healthy. I think I just lucky and knew about this thread from the chrysophite research i had done before so i know what to do and had everything on hand and ready to go . So far so good.

 

[reefwiser]

video? as low power as possible.
not looking like stuff I've seen under scope before.


algae, diatoms, bacterial films, cyano, ciliates, and dinos can all show up on glass. Usually the dinos have to attach to something else to do it though. And glass doesn't really suit their style.

I have had them in several tanks down they the years and yes some do grow on the glass.

 

[Bebow]

It is a diatom! If you look closely there's a transparent not-quite-rectangle wedge-shaped outline around the "leaf". That's the diatom's silica skeleton (frustule - they call it). The leafy area is the pigmented chloroplast.

You are exactly right! I missed that! That makes 4 different diatoms I’ve spotted.

 

[O'l Salty]

I decided to order a UV sterilizer. I've been mechanically cleaning as much of the Dino's as I can. Vacuuming the sand daily and blowing off the rocks and corals then replacing the filter socks. Amazing how fast this stuff grows back. I'm hoping that eliminating as many Dino's as possible will aid in restoring a healthy biodiversity. My thought is that black outs and chemicals can disrupt the healthy biodiversity and ultimately make the problem worse.

Will a diatom filter help to remove more Dino's?

 

[five.five-six]

So it’s been 2 weeks without siphoning any off and there are like 2 small patches of what could be Dino’s left in the tank. No strings haning off corals, nothing on the sand bed glass turns green every few days.

What I’ve done:

O3 2 hrs a night

Got a big fish and am feeding the crap out of the tank

Siphoned off as much dino biomass as I could and exported it with my 5” 100 micron sock wrapped in paper towels inside 7” sock contraption.


Here’s the thing. I haven’t done a WC since this all started and for a portion of the ordeal I was running a crapload of GAC, like probably 5 pounds.

I want to do another WC Burt am afraid to. How long should I wait?

 

[Cscultho]

Have you verified the dinos showing up on your sandbed now are Ostreopsis? How long did you run the UV for previously?

I have not verified them yet. i plan to do that today. at this point im only assuming it is ostreopsis because that was what i battled last time.

I ran my UV for 2-months before pulling both the sand and UV out of my system.

 

[RedneckReefer68]

I noticed at the begining of last week I was getting dinos. I did some googling and a couple threads popped up from r2r that I read and planned my attack. 1st step I sucked all the sand out of my nano through a filter sock and dumped the water back in my tank.
They was all over the sand so I got a lot of them. One thing I noticed is, if so the flow is off in the tank, they will let go and float to the surface. So I siphoned more. Next day there was very little showing up. I had a Coral order coming in and my phosphate was a little high so I decided to do a larger water change than normal. Big mistake, 2 days later they was back again in full force. I started to raise my nitrate slowly and siphoned a few more times. This weekend I bought a 24 watt internal UV. Turned off all flow and waited a few minutes for then to rise to the top. Fired the UV up and ran it for a couple hrs. I used the turkey baster to blow off any dinos still on any rocks and Corals. After a couple hrs I could tell it was working. My tank water started doing so I fired back up the return pump to circulate the water back from my sump to heat the tank back up and repeated. After another hr or so. Tank was looking good and floaters was getting harder to find. By the time I turned my return back on I went from using the turkey baster from about every five minutes to a hr or longer. As of lights off last night I couldn't find a single strand with bubbles on anything. UV if still running in the meantime.