Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[kinetic]

How are you guys using filter socks for manual removal? Do you have a pump with some tubing that drains into a sock?

 

[kinetic]

I know patience is key, but dinos are getting way worse than I've seen in any photos anywhere. It's caking the surface of everything in my tank. There's dinos floating all in the water. Another SPS has RTN'd (covered in dinos for too long maybe?).

I've triple checked my tank parameters, ammonia/nitrite 0, nitrates 5ppm, phosphates .2 - .5ppm.

I had a lot of green algae, but as of late it seems to have tapered off.

I think every day about 1/4" to 1/2" thick mat of dinos grows on everything that gets light.

I'm running carbon and U.V., feeding sparingly, and dosing NO3/PO4 daily (spread out in 3 doses a day) using sodium nitrate and trisodium phosphate (food grade) solutions.

Pretty close to losing the whole tank at this point. I have a bottle of DinoX sitting right here in front of me. Should I go for it? Or is there still a chance the dinos will start to fade?

 

[Beardo]

How are you guys using filter socks for manual removal? Do you have a pump with some tubing that drains into a sock?

I put a low micron filter sock in place of my standard sock them use a hose to siphon from my display into the filter sock.

 

[Bebow]

How are you guys using filter socks for manual removal? Do you have a pump with some tubing that drains into a sock?

I found a 4” x 14” 5 micron filter sock on amazon. My method consist of siphoning water and sand into a Brute trash can then using a pump to pump the water back into the sump through the 5 micron sock. I can use the sumps sock holder and run the return pump on low to keep from overfilling it.
Correction, I found the 4x14” sock on EBay from aquatichobbies, this one is 1 mic. Be careful ordering as some have a steel ring. The one from amazon is 4x8” x 5 mic.

 

[johnsamm7]

#mcarroll any idea of what type these guys are or anyone that can I'd in post #2875-2877 thanks

 

[taricha]

I wanted to revisit this in light of the coral deaths, because I wonder if it's something that's happening more than once, and might be preventable.

Awesome detailed data from @IKD incoming...

I'm interested in the montipora deaths because they are pretty bomb-proof and the monti caps, digis, and spongodes are the only representatives of the sps community that I haven't managed to kill at one time or another.

In addition to toxic dinos setting up camp on the corals themselves - which is bad enough - that alone has cost many reefers their colonies.
I'm wondering here if going from a low nutrient system, and dosing nitrates without accompanying P...

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.

..,then continuing dosing N while P remained fluctuating around zero (and Alk got high too) led to this situation.

Figure 1. Negative direct effects of high nitrogen availability on zooxanthellae growth and heat and light stress resistance of corals according to Wiedenmann et al. [28•]. (a) Under nutrient limitation in a steady-state population where the growth rate is determined by the rate of nutrient supply, zooxanthellae are fully acclimated and show no signs of photosynthetical stress (Fv/Fm > 0.5). (b) Under nutrient-replete conditions, growth rates are increased. Since all essential nutrients including iron/trace elements (*) and phosphorus (P) are supplied in sufficient amounts, the cellular biochemical composition remains stable and under experimental conditions, the photosynthetic capacity and stress resistance are normal. ... (c) Undersupply of growing zooxanthellae populations with P or other essential nutrients including iron/trace elements (*) can result in nutrient starvation of the algae. P starvation, can be induced by the transition of zooxanthellae from a nutrient-limited to a nutrient starved state due to an increased cellular P demand caused by growth rates being accelerated by elevated nitrogen supply. Under this condition, zooxanthellae replace phospholipids [phosphatidylglycerol, PG] by sulfolipids [sulphoquinovosyldiacylglycerol, SQDG]. P starvation reduces the photosynthetic capacity (Fv/Fm < 0.5) and renders the corals susceptible to heat/light stress. Alternatively, P starvation might result when zooxanthellae growing under nutrient replete conditions are deprived of P while nitrogen levels remain high.

basically, corals can decently handle "feast" (high N&P) or "famine" (low N&P), and they can even handle high P and low N, but they aren't well equipped to handle High NO3 while starved of P.

Compelling illustrations here too.

Same guys did follow-up along the same lines. Only more blunt this time.

...We argue, however, that the direct negative effects on the symbiosis are not necessarily caused by the nutrient enrichment itself but by the phosphorus starvation of the algal symbionts that can be caused by skewed nitrogen (N) to phosphorus (P) ratios. We exposed corals to imbalanced N-P ratios in long-term experiments and found that the undersupply of phosphate severely disturbed the symbiosis, indicated by the loss of coral biomass, malfunctioning of algal photosynthesis and bleaching of the corals. In contrast, the corals tolerated an undersupply with nitrogen at high phosphate concentrations without negative effects on symbiont photosynthesis, suggesting a better adaptation to nitrogen limitation. ...Notably, high N-P ratios in the water were clearly identified by the accumulation of uric acid crystals.

No explanation needed on that one. Just more pics to hammer home the point.

Effect of dissolved inorganic nutrient availability on polyp size, and on zooxanthellae density and ultrastructure. Panels on the left hand side show representative photographs of Euphyllia paradivisapolyps from each experimental treatment. Panels in the central column show light microscope images of tentacle endoderm cross sections (× 40 magnification). Panels on the right hand side show micrographs of individual zooxanthellae which represent a mean ultrastructure (n = 100) resulting from the respective treatments (× 6000 magnification). HN/HP = high nitrogen/high phosphorus, LN/LP = low nitrogen/low phosphorus, HN/LP = high nitrogen/low phosphorus, LN/HP = low nitrogen/high phosphorus. AB = accumulation body, ch = chloroplast, LB = lipid body, N = nucleus with condensed chromosomes, P = pyrenoid, S = starch granule, U = uric acid crystals.

It looks like when it comes to coral health, there's very good reason to exercise caution in raising NO3 in a tank where PO4 starvation remains in place.

 

[taricha]

So here are the pictures with the microscope what kind do you think they are

I'm gonna say prorocentrum...

Those indentations in the front indicate it's likely this guy - prorocentrum...

versus this guy - Large Cell amphidinium - with his "tongue" - sometimes recessed and only appearing as a double-notch

I dunno if we need to up our scope recommendations or I'm going blind or what, but distinguishing those two is really hard at the level of detail in @johnsamm7 pics/vids.
Complicating it, they move in almost exactly the same way on video too. Amphidinium are a little smoother gliders, and look like they are actually going somewhere, prorocentrum look slightly more like they are lost.
Anyway, that's just for those curious as to what we're looking at for an ID.

As far as treatment for these proros - follow the standard things recommended for the thread.

Here's something I was thinking about as I plan my attack on my large cell amphidinium...

My brown dusting on my sand bed is large cell Amphidinium. Sad to learn they don't move into the water column so can't use UV.

But I learned that I also have small cell Amph. I don't think they're visible tho as I only happened upon them by inspecting some white sand under my microscope. Do they go into the water column?

If yes, Here's my thought:

BOTH the large and small cell Amph are contributing to the imbalance in my tank. If the small cell Amph do release into the water column and I kill them with UV, then the imbalance of dinos overall is lessened. Making room for other beneficial life to take hold.

Thoughts?

Yes, I would run UV to target the small-cell guys even if it doesn't hit the Large Cell guys. In addition to your reasoning that I agree with, the small cell guys tend to be more often associated with toxins, and their removal might create opportunity for grazer populations to increase - very important vs Large Cell Amphidinium

 

[johnsamm7]

Thank you for the response I appreciate your time for that

 

[taricha]

I have been battling dinoflagellates for about 3 weeks or so. I have been dosing N03 (stump remover) and P04 (Seachem flourish). I have also been dosing Hydrogen Peroxide. At first everything seemed to start to get better after the first couple of days of dosing all that stuff.. But then it seemed to plateau and just held steady keeping a hold.. when I first saw the out break I tested P04 and N03. Of course both were undetectable. I noticed when I run my skimmer (which I have to because of dosing the peroxide) it’s gets worse even though the skimmer isn’t pulling out much. How long have you guys have seen a significant difference in the Dino’s after bringing up your nutrient levels?

peroxide? ew. no.
skimmer makes "it" worse? the dino outbreak? the nutrients? Skimmer can be run just fine vs dinos. see below for the question on the time frame.

Still battling a bad outbreak. Tested phosphorus via a Hanna checker and it’s 0.215ppm.

Got all the whites out of my LED lighting to see if it effects the algae. Nothing yet.

If I were to sketch out a generalized sequence for dino outbreak-treatment process with the methods in this thread it would look something like this.

Start

1. Dino Outbreak and Nutrient Starvation - Low P & N
2. Dosing PO4 (&NO3) - Tank stays depleted in P (maybe N too) while it biologically processes out the P debt or C excess (depending on how you look at it) caused by dinos.
3. Tank finally shows and holds modest levels of PO4 (& NO3) but green algae hasn't started to grow, while dinos are still increasing. Direct dino cell removal/killing still required. Going from #2 to #3 can take a a few days up to a couple of weeks.
4. Tank holding modest levels of PO4 and NO3, green algae is finally growing, dinos also growing. Direct dino cell removal/killing still required. From #3 to #4 can take another 2 weeks - if much longer without green growth, then we need to dig deeper on tank nutrient issues.
5. Green Algae growing, Dinos slowing/receding/not bouncing back. Direct dino cell killing/removal can be scaled back slowly as they disappear. Victory is at hand. Plan for how you can handle your healthy green algae with herbivores and not P (& N) starvation. From #4 to #5 is uncertain time frame - maybe a week to a month from onset of green growth to the slowdown of dino growth.
6. Close observation shows microfauna increase, P (&N) consumption rates return to sanity, and daily dosing no longer required - food inputs can mostly handle the job. Maybe once a week dose to keep balance. #6 may happen simultaneous with #5 but its usually the last reported stages of dino. It means dino influence on tank is entirely gone.

@revhtree where would you say you are on this timeline?

@J Rog my dismissal of peroxide, is because it'll never allow for green to replace the brown, which is a key to what's going on here.

sidenote: I was reading through some old dino threads and came across a discussion from 2011 - with everyone talking about H2O2, Ozone and blackouts. And I realized it could have been every single dino thread at any time in the last 10 years.
"I'm trying this. I'm gonna switch and go with the other. It worked for me. It didn't work for me. What dosage? You gotta do them together like this..." etc etc. and we chase our tails for a friggin decade.

 

[revhtree]

peroxide? ew. no.
skimmer makes "it" worse? the dino outbreak? the nutrients? Skimmer can be run just fine vs dinos. see below for the question on the time frame.



If I were to sketch out a generalized sequence for dino outbreak-treatment process with the methods in this thread it would look something like this.

Start

1. Dino Outbreak and Nutrient Starvation - Low P & N
2. Dosing PO4 (&NO3) - Tank stays depleted in P (maybe N too) while it biologically processes out the P debt or C excess (depending on how you look at it) caused by dinos.
3. Tank finally shows and holds modest levels of PO4 (& NO3) but green algae hasn't started to grow, while dinos are still increasing. Direct dino cell removal/killing still required. Going from #2 to #3 can take a a few days up to a couple of weeks.
4. Tank holding modest levels of PO4 and NO3, green algae is finally growing, dinos also growing. Direct dino cell removal/killing still required. From #3 to #4 can take another 2 weeks - if much longer without green growth, then we need to dig deeper on tank nutrient issues.
5. Green Algae growing, Dinos slowing/receding/not bouncing back. Direct dino cell killing/removal can be scaled back slowly as they disappear. Victory is at hand. Plan for how you can handle your healthy green algae with herbivores and not P (& N) starvation. From #4 to #5 is uncertain time frame - maybe a week to a month from onset of green growth to the slowdown of dino growth.
6. Close observation shows microfauna increase, P (&N) consumption rates return to sanity, and daily dosing no longer required - food inputs can mostly handle the job. Maybe once a week dose to keep balance. #6 may happen simultaneous with #5 but its usually the last reported stages of dino. It means dino influence on tank is entirely gone.

@revhtree where would you say you are on this timeline?

@J Rog my dismissal of peroxide, is because it'll never allow for green to replace the brown, which is a key to what's going on here.

sidenote: I was reading through some old dino threads and came across a discussion from 2011 - with everyone talking about H2O2, Ozone and blackouts. And I realized it could have been every single dino thread at any time in the last 10 years.
"I'm trying this. I'm gonna switch and go with the other. It worked for me. It didn't work for me. What dosage? You gotta do them together like this..." etc etc. and we chase our tails for a friggin decade.

Looks like I’m at number one!

I have never had Dino algae in all my years until this tank. Does CO2 have any adverse effects regarding dino algae? Btw this is my first basement tank and it’s a very tight baement.

Also what would you say my target P and N should be?

 

[RedneckReefer68]

How effective would packing a filter with floss be at filtering the ones in the water column during lights out?

 

[wopadobop]

temps in the upper 60s can cause ostreopsis to encyst, but not really die off immediately. I think there was a toxic event involved.

That was my thoughts as well. Changing out carbon immediately had a positive impact. What ever it was. It killed absolutely everything that was single called . The tank walls and rocks and bottom are spotless. Honestly other than the corals being white, tank has never looked better.

Was this a titanium heater or what? and how did it fail? Just stop working, or come apart in the water?

It was a jaeger heater. It just decided it didn’t want to do it’s Job anymore and never turned on.

Some observations i have had in discussions in another thread that the bleaching was probably due to the stress of the lower temps and the fact that my salt was old. It was in my mixin station for 6+ weeks. It was being heated and stirred 24/7 and all the parameters were spot on but who knows?

Also, at about 8 hours after the event happened i took sample and tested it with my Hanna ULR , the vial turned bright dark blue and flashed 200 so it was beyond the testers ability to measure. I note this as going fast in removing Dino’s or chemical warfare against them isn’t the strategy we want to employ . They suck up and hold a ton of P. Which may be self serving for them to outcompete predators or other organisms for real estate. Gladly my tank recovered the nutrient explosion on its own and is now down to 40 ppb. Which is what we are shooting for .

I cant recommend lowering temps to get rid of Dino’s but I haven’t seen any at all in over a week.

I will be sending in an icp test to check to see if any heavy metals or something detectable leached from the container. Whatever it was , if any , in lower doses could be a Dino treatment? Doubtful but worth a shot.

 

[JonJ]

Update: I removed the chaeto and have had the refugium light off since my last post. I did a 40 gallon water change sucking out and removing the top layer of my substrate and wet dry vacc’d the sump of all detritus. I am not running any carbon or gfo. I added 2 oxydators with 7% peroxide (my thinking was that they would help with potential toxins being released from dying dinos in my unlit sump). I increased nutrient input to three heavy feedings per day and using a scoop of Reef Roids per night. The first few days I could barely detect any nitrates or phosphates and then they spiked. It’s as though the dinos released the nutrients back into the water as they died. Nitrates have been at a steady 2.5ppm and phosphates at .04ppm for a few days. As of today my sand looks great and I have looked at many random samples under the microscope and I cannot find any coolia dinos! I am getting a brown dusting on my mp40 wet sides that looks like diatoms until I got a sample under the scope. Anyone know what these are?

1000x

1000x

 

[Beardo]

Update: I removed the chaeto and have had the refugium light off since my last post. I did a 40 gallon water change sucking out and removing the top layer of my substrate and wet dry vacc’d the sump of all detritus. I am not running any carbon or gfo. I added 2 oxydators with 7% peroxide (my thinking was that they would help with potential toxins being released from dying dinos in my unlit sump). I increased nutrient input to three heavy feedings per day and using a scoop of Reef Roids per night. The first few days I could barely detect any nitrates or phosphates and then they spiked. It’s as though the dinos released the nutrients back into the water as they died. Nitrates have been at a steady 2.5ppm and phosphates at .04ppm for a few days. As of today my sand looks great and I have looked at many random samples under the microscope and I cannot find any coolia dinos! I am getting a brown dusting on my mp40 wet sides that looks like diatoms until I got a sample under the scope. Anyone know what these are?

1000x

1000x

Looks like diatoms to me.

 

[JonJ]

Looks like diatoms to me.

I didn’t think diatoms moved? These are scooting around. If that’s what they are, I’ll take it! My rodi is 7 months old and tests zero tds. I guess some of the frozen food additives that I use could be adding silicates?

Thanks for your help!

 

[taricha]

Looks like I’m at number one!

I have never had Dino algae in all my years until this tank. Does CO2 have any adverse effects regarding dino algae? Btw this is my first basement tank and it’s a very tight baement.

Also what would you say my target P and N should be?

On the CO2 I really can't say. I haven't seen dino cases where people had any awareness of the CO2 levels of their intake air.
Organic Carbon dosing definitely is connected to dinos, but I don't know the chemistry of how elevated dissolved CO2 might do any similar things to Organic C.

I target 0.10ppm PO4 in my system - because at that level everything has enough P to grow fine, and it won't do a surprise nose-dive to zero.
NO3 I aim for 5-10ppm, because under 5 can too easily sneak down to 0 in my system.

Still battling a bad outbreak. Tested phosphorus via a Hanna checker and it’s 0.215ppm.

Got all the whites out of my LED lighting to see if it effects the algae. Nothing yet.

I'd say this is plenty P, so assuming measurable consistent NO3, I'd put you around Step #3.
How long have you had P measurable modest PO4 and NO3 in the system?
And no green growth?

Regarding the lights - please do let us know what you see happening.
But just once for experimentation purposes I'd like to see somebody try the reverse. Instead of making the light more blue-only, I'd be curious to see what happens when someone adds some red, maybe even decrease blues. I have a hunch that green algae would take off, and dinos would have a harder time.

 

[Beardo]

I know patience is key, but dinos are getting way worse than I've seen in any photos anywhere. It's caking the surface of everything in my tank. There's dinos floating all in the water. Another SPS has RTN'd (covered in dinos for too long maybe?).

I've triple checked my tank parameters, ammonia/nitrite 0, nitrates 5ppm, phosphates .2 - .5ppm.

I had a lot of green algae, but as of late it seems to have tapered off.

I think every day about 1/4" to 1/2" thick mat of dinos grows on everything that gets light.

I'm running carbon and U.V., feeding sparingly, and dosing NO3/PO4 daily (spread out in 3 doses a day) using sodium nitrate and trisodium phosphate (food grade) solutions.

Pretty close to losing the whole tank at this point. I have a bottle of DinoX sitting right here in front of me. Should I go for it? Or is there still a chance the dinos will start to fade?

I don't recall which dinos you are dealing with, could you refesh my memory?
If I remember correctly you have two smaller UVs running, how do you have them connected?
As far as Dino-X, I did find it had an effect on amphidinium under the scope but it never eliminated them in my tank or seem to have any impact on other kinds. Also, it was very rough on my remaining corals, I would recommend not using it at this point.

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

If you are using 200 micron filter filter socks most of the Dino’s will pass through, need to be 5 micron or less to catch then all. The info I found says the cells are 5- 15 microns in size. I found 5 micron and 1 micron socks on Amazon, they will clog up pretty quick but I put about 40 gallons through before that happened.

...Correction, I found the 4x14” sock on EBay from aquatichobbies, this one is 1 mic. Be careful ordering as some have a steel ring. The one from amazon is 4x8” x 5 mic.

How is the flow rate through these? I got a 5 micron sock but the flow through it is too slow to be of any practical value. It takes over a minute to let the water drain through it. This would drastically increase the time it takes me to siphon out the dinos.

Also, aren't you dosing Si too? I just started myself so I'm wondering if have noticed anything yet.

I wanted to revisit this in light of the coral deaths, because I wonder if it's something that's happening more than once, and might be preventable.



I'm interested in the montipora deaths because they are pretty bomb-proof and the monti caps, digis, and spongodes are the only representatives of the sps community that I haven't managed to kill at one time or another.

In addition to toxic dinos setting up camp on the corals themselves - which is bad enough - that alone has cost many reefers their colonies.
I'm wondering here if going from a low nutrient system, and dosing nitrates without accompanying P...

..,then continuing dosing N while P remained fluctuating around zero (and Alk got high too) led to this situation.

basically, corals can decently handle "feast" (high N&P) or "famine" (low N&P), and they can even handle high P and low N, but they aren't well equipped to handle High NO3 while starved of P.

Compelling illustrations here too.

Same guys did follow-up along the same lines. Only more blunt this time.




No explanation needed on that one. Just more pics to hammer home the point.

It looks like when it comes to coral health, there's very good reason to exercise caution in raising NO3 in a tank where PO4 starvation remains in place.

Lipid bodies?! Aww, the corals are getting fat. ;Joyful Never knew that could happen.

The color variation in those samples looks a lot like what I observed in my GSP going through dosing. My NO3 shot up over night from 0 ppm to 16 - 32 ppm on my RS kit. The PO4 took over a week to register once dosing started, and I eventually had to dose 22 mL of SeaChem Phosphorus a night for my 39 total gallon system just to have something measurable the next day. I believe that means it was more PO4 limited than NO3 limited.

The PE on the GSP was improved overnight after the first night of dosing. I started both at the same time. But after about a week, I noticed the green color was slightly faded. Now that PO4 has been holding throughout a 24 hour period for over a week I am seeing the more rich green color returning to the GSP.

It looks like I went from a LN/LP to a HN/LP and finally to a HN/HP condition. It also looks like the response rate of GSP to dosing nutrients is about a week. Looking at those polyp pictures, the top ones (HN/HP) look like they have the most PE/growth and the best coloration to me. The bottom ones look browned out. Maybe we should tell people with browned out corals to check their NO3 and dose accordingly?

How effective would packing a filter with floss be at filtering the ones in the water column during lights out?

Completely ineffective at all unless the micron rating is at least as small as 10. I don't think floss gets that small. Check out the micron sock post I quoted above.

Update on my dinos. Weekly growth rate not as bad as it was last week. Keeping NO3 between 8 - 13 ppm on the RS kit. PO4 maxed out the ULR so backed off of dosing. Rate of NO3 seems to be increasing. Used to be able to go three days between dosing and it would only drop to 4 - 8 ppm. So I decreased testing to once every three days. But now it will bottom out. Will need to increase test rate to daily again.

Si finally arrived and I did first dose last night to try and raise it 1 ppm. Still wondering why some people like myself get dinos when I always had lots of diversity and GHA. Maybe bottoming out is more critical?

 

[Beardo]

I didn’t think diatoms moved? These are scooting around. If that’s what they are, I’ll take it! My rodi is 7 months old and tests zero tds. I guess some of the frozen food additives that I use could be adding silicates?

Thanks for your help!

I see quite a few in my tank as well, especially when dosing nutrients. From observation they do move, though not quickly like dinos.

 

[reeferfoxx]

@taricha

Awhile back I reported of having a tiny group of dinos not common for the purpose of the thread but it was the last dinos I've had reoccuring without issues. The only problem is they linger on the glass unless I clean it once a week. Well, though the tank has been visibly clear of coolia or any other major dino, i still dose beneficial bacteria and eco-balance. The BB requires no skimmer for 24 to 48 hours. Thing is and this might be coincidental but I neglected/forgot to turn the skimmer back on. Then became lazy about it. Well after a week without skimming the glass decided to grow green instead of the tiny brown dino. I'm not complaining here as its awesome but any thoughts on that?