Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[K. Steven]

Did you just wait it out or what did you do?

Dosed phosphate (Seachem Flourish Phosphorus) to bring it up. It was 0, while NO3 was 25. PO4 starvation likely shifted conditions to favor Ostreopsis growth and limited competitive algae growth.

 

[Paullawr]

On another forum, a lot of people remove their sand bed and have had success that way. Has anyone here removed their sand to battle Dinos? I know Dinos can take hold in BB systems, but I wondered about this the other night and hadn't seen anyone here remove their sand.

Yes sand removal is usually part of the process of irradiation.

The life cycle consists of a pecillie cyst, which then moves to a vegative dormant cell. They look dead. They can then shift to sexual or binary fission. Either way they multiply. Finally resting back as pencille cyst. If the environment is not favourable it turns to a full on protected cyst making it highly impervious to treatments.
Both pencille and full cysts remain in sand bed for long periods of time. Removing it helps stop that part of their life cycle. It won't prevent it but falling on to a glass bottom floor is easier to put back in to suspension than living in sand.

 

[Paullawr]

Effects of my tank nuke....

Well it's gone.

 

[IvanW]

I managed to get this pest under a scope yesterday and this is what I found

 

[IvanW]

Cheerios

 

[landlubber]

@mcarroll sorry to point you out on this but i feel your experience would be helpful.
i've been fighting this for seemingly the entire 18 months my tank has been running and the die off following a recent mini crash seems to have tipped the scales in favor of the issue.
i just need a little help deciding whether this is a dinoflagelletes issue or a variety of brown cyano in your estimation?
https://goo.gl/photos/ram1SMu9S7oDcVcU9
edit: my apologies for the photo link. photobucket seems to be down at the moment so i can't properly link the photo.

 

[Rakie]

Yes sand removal is usually part of the process of irradiation.

The life cycle consists of a pecillie cyst, which then moves to a vegative dormant cell. They look dead. They can then shift to sexual or binary fission. Either way they multiply. Finally resting back as pencille cyst. If the environment is not favourable it turns to a full on protected cyst making it highly impervious to treatments.
Both pencille and full cysts remain in sand bed for long periods of time. Removing it helps stop that part of their life cycle. It won't prevent it but falling on to a glass bottom floor is easier to put back in to suspension than living in sand.

Yeah that's what I've read and heard. Of course, I've also heard and seen people say that does nothing. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's species related. Maybe it's reefer related. Maybe it's the biome of each individual tank, or the bacterias we chose to dose or not dose, or the if we used dead rock or LR, or rock from another established tank, or right from Fiji..

I'm starting to believe in the reef gods

Anyways, I totally missed what "nuke" you used as well. What have you used?

Lastly, a grasping at straws crazy thought.. I recently had a bit of bad luck with Prazi and a wrasse. I had read that PraziPro has alcohols in it which bind the meds and make them have a longer half-life in the water (or some other magic science stuff). I was told this alcohol will eventually be taken up as a CARBON SOURCE, leaving the medication...

So people with dinos are often told to NOT dose any type of carbon sources like vodka, sugar, or w/e... Made me wonder, because both times beating dinos, they reared up again as soon as I dosed Prazi..

That's quite a stretch, but when you're left scratching your head anything sounds reasonable. Though admittedly I've not much faith in this particular scenario.

 

[mcarroll]

@mcarroll sorry to point you out on this but i feel your experience would be helpful.
i've been fighting this for seemingly the entire 18 months my tank has been running and the die off following a recent mini crash seems to have tipped the scales in favor of the issue.
i just need a little help deciding whether this is a dinoflagelletes issue or a variety of brown cyano in your estimation?
https://goo.gl/photos/ram1SMu9S7oDcVcU9
edit: my apologies for the photo link. photobucket seems to be down at the moment so i can't properly link the photo.

Seems possible, but lacking bubbles is a little unusual. Does it look pretty much like that all day, even right before lights out?

I am liking the $12 toy microscope I have so far.....if you have no microscope for ID then I'd suggest considering one of these.

How does your tank stack up in the terms of the first post? Does your tank seem to be a candidate?

 

[Paullawr]

Yeah that's what I've read and heard. Of course, I've also heard and seen people say that does nothing. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's species related. Maybe it's reefer related. Maybe it's the biome of each individual tank, or the bacterias we chose to dose or not dose, or the if we used dead rock or LR, or rock from another established tank, or right from Fiji..

I'm starting to believe in the reef gods

Anyways, I totally missed what "nuke" you used as well. What have you used?

Lastly, a grasping at straws crazy thought.. I recently had a bit of bad luck with Prazi and a wrasse. I had read that PraziPro has alcohols in it which bind the meds and make them have a longer half-life in the water (or some other magic science stuff). I was told this alcohol will eventually be taken up as a CARBON SOURCE, leaving the medication...

So people with dinos are often told to NOT dose any type of carbon sources like vodka, sugar, or w/e... Made me wonder, because both times beating dinos, they reared up again as soon as I dosed Prazi..

That's quite a stretch, but when you're left scratching your head anything sounds reasonable. Though admittedly I've not much faith in this particular scenario.

My two cents on the sand removal.

It should work to an extend with all species as regardless of whether they live in the sand or migrate to the water column they all share the same thing. It's the sand basin which allows them to protect their cysts.

With @Jolanta case it may have been an issue with her species not being stressed enough to encyst. Therefore they were still in an a sexual and binary fission cycle.

The tank nuke was kalk slurry bringing the ph up to 9.8 in around a minute.
The two follow up doses of sodium carbonate to rebuffed ph.

I made no effort to filter the calc precipitation which literally chalked up the snotty strings.

After a week I changed some water. I was running carbon by day 4 mostly to git rid of smell and toxin from dead dinos.

It's a use at caution approach and may or may not work.

 

[alshayazoo]

I've been reading this thread and the approach really rings a chord with me. Like many I thought I had diatoms after I did a big clean on my Reefer 250. I think stirring up my sand bed triggered the outbreak. I worked at reducing nutrients, running GFO, biopellets, and phosguard for possible silicates before I diagnosed my problem as Dino's.

I made the decision to change conditions so that other algaes have a chance to outcompete the Dino's. I removed the nutrient reducers and started feeding more. I had an add on refugium that was growing Chaeto but the growth wasn't enough to outcompete the dinos. I've replaced the refugium (and saved under cabinet space) with a DIY macroalgae reactor which I am running 24/7. I then manually removed as much of the dinos from the sand as I could.

I'm hoping that with the added feeding of my tank and the constant light on the Chaeto in the reactor that I will see the dinos recede. I'm 2 days in now so fingers crossed.

 

[mcarroll]

I've been reading this thread and the approach really rings a chord with me. Like many I thought I had diatoms after I did a big clean on my Reefer 250. I think stirring up my sand bed triggered the outbreak. I worked at reducing nutrients, running GFO, biopellets, and phosguard for possible silicates before I diagnosed my problem as Dino's.

I made the decision to change conditions so that other algaes have a chance to outcompete the Dino's. I removed the nutrient reducers and started feeding more. I had an add on refugium that was growing Chaeto but the growth wasn't enough to outcompete the dinos. I've replaced the refugium (and saved under cabinet space) with a DIY macroalgae reactor which I am running 24/7. I then manually removed as much of the dinos from the sand as I could.

I'm hoping that with the added feeding of my tank and the constant light on the Chaeto in the reactor that I will see the dinos recede. I'm 2 days in now so fingers crossed.

Great start!

How are your PO4 and NO3 levels now, and how have they been in the recent past?

 

[K. Steven]

I did a 30% WC today, in addition to the quarterly pump cleaning, and will observe for any Ostreopsis rebound in the next couple days. This is the first WC in several weeks, but haven't dosed PO4 in weeks either. Hopefully they don't rear their ugly head again...

 

[fragit]

I still have yet to test my water but I will this weekend. Strange thing is that yesterday the tank looked a little better after work. I have not dosed anything nor changed anything. I have not been running filter socks since 7/5, and have been feeding 2 cubes of frozen. I did get some rubble from my LFS at the end of June. Today I get home from work and boom! Barely any Dinos I can't believe it!

 

[drawman]

Well sadly I get to throw my hat in the ring as well. It appears I have dinos in my frag tank but don't have a microscope to ID. Certainly walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc.

Visually my guess is I was bottoming out in PO4 as I had very little algae growth. The tank is barebottom and running fallow at the moment so I'm feeding a little daily and am getting back to dosing NeoPhos. Tanks does not have the skimmer running at the moment. I'm wondering if it would be beneficial to get it going and run carbon as well.

Also has anyone tried predosing their water change water with PO4 to see if that is an effective measure at preventing a bloom after WCs?

 

[mcarroll]

I'm not sure how firm the link is between water changes and dino blooms in the first place....it seems coincidental.

If you're growing dino's and have zero or near-zero PO4 (how's NO3?) then NeoPhos is almost certainly worth trying, however you want to dose it.

Work your way up to 0.10 ppm in the tank while watching for signs of changes – and do not let NO3 bottom out in the process.

 

[Reefer1978]

I'm not sure how firm the link is between water changes and dino blooms in the first place....it seems coincidental.

We know what WCs do - they re-introduce nutrients. We also know dino's bloom while certain nutrients are in abundance - i.e. iron.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Trying to fit this post in. Busy day... Anyway, @mcarroll i have a positive update. I haven't touched the tank in about 3 or 4 days(other than feeding and nutrient dosing) and I can say that i see about 90%-95% reduction(visually). In fact the rocks haven't shown any brown webbing or snot like appearance growth. However other algar and cyano is growing.

I dosed trace elements for the first time(ever) this morning. I'll keep it vague for now and give a more detailed update this evening as to the whats and whys. This might also confirm if trace elements help dino growth.

 

[K. Steven]

No return of Ostreopsis after the 30% WC two days ago.

 

[mcarroll]

We know what WCs do - they re-introduce nutrients. We also know dino's bloom while certain nutrients are in abundance - i.e. iron.

In our context we're pretty explicitly talking about N and P...sometimes C as "nutrients". (Yes things like K come up, but they are atypical.) Strictly speaking, traditional salt mixes do not introduce any major nutrients. They'll refund or replace the product in most cases if you find that yours is.

In context then, Fe would be a micronutrient – something that's available (and used) only in small quantities. It seems like in most tanks that food items would more than replenish whatever iron is removed or consumed under normal conditions. Even dry foods have iron in them.

Micronutrients are not something most folks can measure at home – so is a micronutrient deficiency such as Fe likely in most tanks?

I did take a quick scan of as many triton results (not a survey of the most typical tanks, but it's the only bank of test results) as I could in a short time and I didn't see any. For what that's worth...a targeted search would be more interesting, but more intensive as well.

Here's the thing – there are also folks who do water changes and do not see those responses. So the link can't be all that firm.

I'm not saying there's no possible link – nutrient limitation in the broader sense is a fundamental ecological concept – I only questioned how strong the link is here for us. How generally true that will be outside of a particular case.

I'm certainly not against abstaining from water changes as part of a recovery effort if it seems to make sense in-context BTW.

I just wouldn't generally recommend upsetting a regular water change routine unless I was totally baffled at the cause of a given bloom.

Thankfully, causes usually aren't that mysterious once you dig into a situation.

 

[K. Steven]

This is just my hypothesis, but I think the water change theory is due to the reaction to a sudden drop in nutrients, not some trace mineral necessarily in the salt mix itself. I think dinoflagellates have developed the ability to take advantage of any sudden decrease in N and P, but other organisms struggle. Again, purely conjecture...