Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Beardo]

I'm struggling with dino's. Reading this thread makes me believe it might be caused by overfiltration. I run a chaeto growing fuge which grows a huge amount, use mesh filter socks, use carbon/floss, have a full time 40W AquaUV going, and run a vastly oversized skimmer. I'm perpetually at 0 nitrates and 0.03 phosphate, but the rocks are covered with turf algae in the shady parts and sheets of cyano and dino, I think, in the lighted parts.

Here is some microscope video I've taken and some still photos. Anyone have an idea of an ID for what I'm seeing and how best to deal with them? I believe I'm seeing rotating round ones and some elongated ones that zip around sometimes.

To start taking a crack at the dirty method I've turned one of the two skimmer pumps off and am currently blowing/scrubbing off the dinos in the evening and putting in a mesh sock to catch them and changing the sock out in the morning.

First video looks like Coolia, second has Ostreopsis and I believe Prorocentrum. The ones I believe are Prorocentrum are only in focus for a short time so not 100% positive.

 

[fishbox]

I'm just curious how you guys feel in regards to stirring up or using a turkey baster on a sand bed? I know that tons of people do this without issues and I have to admit that I've been doing it since day one of my tank. However now I have to question whether or not it's killing beneficial micro fauna and bacteria that could help compete against dinos? I mean if stirring up the sand bed can cause the dinos to get into the water column and get killed by a UV light, what's the say that doing the same thing can't cause the same thing to beneficial micro fauna and bacteria? Guess I'm just wondering if I should stop stirring up my sand bed LOL

 

[AlanM]

First video looks like Coolia, second has Ostreopsis and I believe Prorocentrum. The ones I believe are Prorocentrum are only in focus for a short time so not 100% positive.

Thanks. I was, ironically, using a Dino-Lite microscope and had to keep chasing them with the focus to keep them in focus and in field. I had a cover slip on, but they were still coming in and out of focus. Also the Dino-Lite I was using has terrible backlash in the focus knob.

 

[reeferfoxx]

I'm just curious how you guys feel in regards to stirring up or using a turkey baster on a sand bed? I know that tons of people do this without issues and I have to admit that I've been doing it since day one of my tank. However now I have to question whether or not it's killing beneficial micro fauna and bacteria that could help compete against dinos? I mean if stirring up the sand bed can cause the dinos to get into the water column and get killed by a UV light, what's the say that doing the same thing can't cause the same thing to beneficial micro fauna and bacteria? Guess I'm just wondering if I should stop stirring up my sand bed LOL

Anecdotally, I felt stirring the sandbed did more harm than good. Not in the sense of nuking the tank but slowing progression down. I went 30 days without sandbed disturbance with dino and not to say it was the cure but it seemed like it helped. Then when cyano popped up, if I disturbed the sandbed, i would get more cyano. So, for cyano i only disturbed the mats on the surface and let the bottom half stay where it was. This seemed to work for me. Only when I do waterchanges will I disturb portions of the sandbed and not all of it.

 

[Beardo]

Thanks. I was, ironically, using a Dino-Lite microscope and had to keep chasing them with the focus to keep them in focus and in field. I had a cover slip on, but they were still coming in and out of focus. Also the Dino-Lite I was using has terrible backlash in the focus knob.

It's definitely a challenge getting good pics and vids with the movement and limited depth of field.
After watching them a few more times I'm fairly confident in my original Id's. From the pics it looks like Ostreopsis is the dominant species. I dealt with the same species and all 3 responded well to correctly sized UV.

 

[O'l Salty]

Installed the UV Sterilizer yesterday. 25W on a 40 gallon tank. I siphon the sand bed every night and it always comes back the next day. Today the grow back decreased about 80%. I'm pretty sure I have Ostreopsis dinos. Overall the tank is looking pretty good but I did lose two of my favorite acros. I hope the UV keeps working on the problem and I'll probably just keep running it full time.

 

[fishbox]

Anecdotally, I felt stirring the sandbed did more harm than good. Not in the sense of nuking the tank but slowing progression down. I went 30 days without sandbed disturbance with dino and not to say it was the cure but it seemed like it helped. Then when cyano popped up, if I disturbed the sandbed, i would get more cyano. So, for cyano i only disturbed the mats on the surface and let the bottom half stay where it was. This seemed to work for me. Only when I do waterchanges will I disturb portions of the sandbed and not all of it.

My sand bed is only an inch to an inch and a half deep. Normally I blast all the way to but I think I'm going to give up for the time being. Let's see what happens

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

This thread makes my head hurt. So many conflicting thoughts... people say increase nutrients some say reduce. Some let it pass natural some say it kills fish some say it feeds corals and fish. lol

I just assume none of us know anything about dinos and we just throw sh** at the wall and hope it sticks. Some get lucky and some don’t.

Then there are people that wipe their tank at the very first sign of Dinos and those people make me crazy. Guys I’ll be right back, going to call a wrecker to take my car away because it has a scratch on the door. Lol this thread is frustrating.

The basis of this thread is to maintain nutrients above a certain minimum and use some but not all of the other methods as supplemental. Long term control is achieved by maintaining the minimum values even after the outbreak has subsided. I always cringe when I see someone burn their tank down for something like this though. ;Dead

Could I get help with an id? Best pictures I can get...

Sorry Bryant, but I am not familiar with that one. Hopefully this bump will get a response out of someone more skillful at ID than me. Still learning that part. I'm much better at treatment strategy. I hear there is a site called algae ID that is supposed to be good, but I haven't had time to check it out yet.

Anyone still dosing silicates with any updates? I might have found something interesting on that subject. It'll have to wait till this evening as I need to reread it. Till then any updates?

Still in the first week of dosing Si, but still no reading on the Salifert kit. Up to 3 ppm worth of dosing per night. I guess I had a Si sink like I did with PO4?

@Bebow did you experience the same thing when you started dosing Si?

 

[Bebow]

IVe been dosing silicates for about 10 days now along keeping N and P up. Sand samples under a scope showed more diatoms than Dino’s. Saturday I siphoned out all the brown areas then recycled the water through a 1 micron filter. Last couple of days I have noted a dramatic decrease in amphidinium. In fact yesterday I reprogrammed the Apex with the Kessil’s up to 70% intensity at peak and 70% white, also put the T5s back in the mix. Today I see a few small areas with a light dusting of brown. Weird part is a have no algae and few diatoms even though silicate is at 3ppm, nitrate 8ppm and phosphate is almost 1ppm. I’m not calling it a victory yet but it is a significant improvement from the mess I had. LPS corals look fantastic, red Goniopora has come back with full extension and color. Frogspawn was slowly wasting away but now is looking much better.
Plan is to maintain current levels at least another week. I will do some more sand samples shortly to see what diatom, Dino mix I have then decide if I need to siphon the brown areas out again.

Sand samples under microscope showed almost NO Dino’s! I sampled 2 areas that appeared to have a light dusting and counted maybe 10 amphidinium!
I can tell you the method here works! Dosing silicates with Nitrate and phosphate is a solid cure for amphidinium dinoflagellates. I also added copepods and amphipods Thursday.
I’ll update soon.
A huge THANK YOU for all the help!

 

[zachxlutz]

Still in the first week of dosing Si, but still no reading on the Salifert kit. Up to 3 ppm worth of dosing per night. I guess I had a Si sink like I did with PO4?

@Bebow did you experience the same thing when you started dosing Si?

Sand samples under microscope showed almost NO Dino’s! I sampled 2 areas that appeared to have a light dusting and counted maybe 10 amphidinium!
I can tell you the method here works! Dosing silicates with Nitrate and phosphate is a solid cure for amphidinium dinoflagellates. I also added copepods and amphipods Thursday.
I’ll update soon.
A huge THANK YOU for all the help!

I've got an order of Brightwell Spongexcel and a salifert silicate test coming Thursday, as well as a boost to my CUC from reefcleaners.org (various snails, etc). I still get a light dusting of amphidinium on the sand bed, so I'm hoping the resulting diatom bloom and consumption by the snails will help nip the last of the straggling dinos in the bud.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Sand samples under microscope showed almost NO Dino’s! I sampled 2 areas that appeared to have a light dusting and counted maybe 10 amphidinium!
I can tell you the method here works! Dosing silicates with Nitrate and phosphate is a solid cure for amphidinium dinoflagellates. I also added copepods and amphipods Thursday.
I’ll update soon.
A huge THANK YOU for all the help!

Not sure you are in the clear yet. Don't toot that horn just yet

I've got an order of Brightwell Spongexcel and a salifert silicate test coming Thursday, as well as a boost to my CUC from reefcleaners.org (various snails, etc). I still get a light dusting of amphidinium on the sand bed, so I'm hoping the resulting diatom bloom and consumption by the snails will help nip the last of the straggling dinos in the bud.

If silicates are the route for amphidinium, it would be nice to see it experimented on with other dinos. Though, my hypothesis doesn't mimic the same progression.

 

[Beardo]

Could I get help with an id? Best pictures I can get...

It is difficult with the resolution, but i can find some that are Large cell Amphidinium.

 

[zachxlutz]

If silicates are the route for amphidinium, it would be nice to see it experimented on with other dinos. Though, my hypothesis doesn't mimic the same progression.

Can you expand on this? What do you mean when you say your hypothesis doesn't mimic the same progression?

 

[reeferfoxx]

Can you expand on this? What do you mean when you say your hypothesis doesn't mimic the same progression?

Well, the definition of a hypothesis means a proposed explination based off limited evidence that needs to be further looked into.

And so far most of the research on silicates versus dinoflagellates is in regards to amphidinium. When lab cultures of amphidinium are grown with f/2 medium, researchers have to remove silicates otherwise cultures couldnt be grown. Thats why we made the assertion that silicates could help.

 

[zachxlutz]

Well, the definition of a hypothesis means a proposed explination based off limited evidence that needs to be further looked into.

And so far most of the research on silicates versus dinoflagellates is in regards to amphidinium. When lab cultures of amphidinium are grown with f/2 medium, researchers have to remove silicates otherwise cultures couldnt be grown. Thats why we made the assertion that silicates could help.

Understood. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[JAMSOURY]

Trying to read through the whole thread to find this answer but should I turn off my algae turf scrubber in hopes to trying to build up nitrates and phosphates in the tank?

 

[reeferfoxx]

Trying to read through the whole thread to find this answer but should I turn off my algae turf scrubber in hopes to trying to build up nitrates and phosphates in the tank?

I think it would be wise to remove the ATS when trying to build nutrients. The idea is to keep nutrients stable and having the ats would make it more difficult.

Some of us have experienced hair algae once dinos start to disappear. Then again some haven't experienced gha. I think once you start to see dinos reduce and if any gha starts to appear, that then would be a good time for the ATS. Understand though that low nutrients help dinos compete so the long term use of the ats for months after eradication, should be used in a limiting fashion if at all. Nutrients arent the enemy and therefore an ats may not be needed again until the tank matures more or nutrients build to problematic levels.

 

[kinetic]

For those who used DinoX, can you check my process?

1. Removed my carbon reactor
2. UV is still on
3. Skimming is still on
4. Lights are less, but still going (I have a magnifica and a couple btas, can't really shut off the lights for very long)
5. Manually removed / siphoned out as much dinos as I could
6. Dosed about 8ml of DinoX into ~43 gallon total system volume
7. Two days later, 20% water change, run carbon reactor for a couple hours, then repeat.

I also stopped dosing NO3/PO4 (they were undetectable before) while treating it.
I also have no chaeto or algae reactor lights on.

The idea is to kill off as much of the dinos as possible with multiple 2 day doses. Then introduce new chaeto and start dosing NO3/PO4 as usual. The idea being the chaeto will outcompete any left over dinos.

So far I'm on day 4 of dinox treatment. The first day I still dosed NO3/PO4, but I realized I probably shouldn't. I didn't dose any day 2 to now. Dinos are still growing, but I don't think they're growing as fast. Green algae on the glass is half turning white.

Any other suggestions? I'm going to keep this up for a total of 5 days.

 

[mcarroll]

@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?

I suspect that aeration is a skimmers (secret) #1 job....day/night pH cycles are driven by the water being "depleted" of CO2 during the course of the day.

Much like with other nutrients, we're all somewhat trained to think of "low pH" and "high CO2" as some kind of boogeyman.

Much like with other nutrients, CO2 turns out to be a huge benefit to photosynthetic critters – in ways that are even surprising! – not harmful.

I suspect the walls are a high-flow area and that organisms that can compete better at the low-CO2/high-O2 levels (or with the variability) are doing just that.

That could mean that your dino's suffered.

OR that could mean that other oganisms benefitted.

OR both.

On tusday 4 small fish arrives for my nano to keep nutrients in a good level and hope it want need adding nitrate any more, my phosphate never go down 0.05.
Greetings from Mexico and I wish you all dino free tanks.

Glad to hear of the good trend!!!

everything here in the $60-90 range is great. Sturdy metal body, quality glass optics, plenty of magnification. Very similar to the discarded HS sci lab scopes I use.
http://www.amscope.com/student-micr...i_category=1127&manufacturer=1623&order=price

Speaking of that, @revhtree along with your usual venues, check out your local classified section as well as craigslist. Used scopes seem to be pretty common.

My p04 is staying above .1 and I'm getting crazy algea on my plugs and my snails look like they are wearing wigs. Should I hook my ats back up?

CUC!

I’m seeing how important it is to balance cleanup crew with nutrient import and export.

Ditto!

This thread makes my head hurt. So many conflicting thoughts.

I would suggest checking out some of the resources on the first post. Everything is anchored to those resources.

(If you've looked at any of them one time, look again. I can't tell you how many times I've read a few of those links!! )

I'm just curious how you guys feel in regards to stirring up or using a turkey baster on a sand bed? I know that tons of people do this without issues and I have to admit that I've been doing it since day one of my tank. However now I have to question whether or not it's killing beneficial micro fauna and bacteria that could help compete against dinos? I mean if stirring up the sand bed can cause the dinos to get into the water column and get killed by a UV light, what's the say that doing the same thing can't cause the same thing to beneficial micro fauna and bacteria? Guess I'm just wondering if I should stop stirring up my sand bed LOL

I don't think most folks are willing to take care of a tank/sandbed in a way that doesn't wreck the kind of fauna you're talking about.

If you ARE taking care of a living sand bed, then stirring is to be avoided.

Chances are if you've had a dino outbreak, the sand bed fauna took a beating anyway.

For folks not taking measures to care for a living sand bed, then stirring during weekly/monthly maintenance is probably a great idea.

Think of it as simulating a storm. Perfectly natural.

I can tell you the method here works! Dosing silicates with Nitrate and phosphate is a solid cure for amphidinium dinoflagellates. I also added copepods and amphipods Thursday.
I’ll update soon.

Thanks for the update! Please keep us posted!!

And so far most of the research on silicates versus dinoflagellates is in regards to amphidinium. When lab cultures of amphidinium are grown with f/2 medium, researchers have to remove silicates otherwise cultures couldnt be grown. Thats why we made the assertion that silicates could help.

That's only one reason – and one I either didn't know or forgot.

I was actually keyed onto diatoms by some of T. Smayda's writing as well as an article on PUA's I stumbled on.

(polyunsaturated aldehydes, I think a byproduct of diatom metabolism that suppresses dino's blooming behavior somehow)

 

[reeferfoxx]

That's only one reason – and one I either didn't know or forgot.

Yeah I was vague and selfish in my statement. I had a hard time pin pointing any articles in regard to silicates. It wasn't until I found message boards where researchers were struggling and looking for insight.