Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?
- Thread starter mcarroll
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Bebow
Active Member
I made a dosing solution mixing 60 grams of sodium silicate powder in a 16 oz bottle of RO water. I have to tell you I didn’t know the exact PPM of the solution so I dosed and checked then continued dosing then checking a few hours later over 3 days till I reached 3ppm. I did overshoot a few times after that, as high as 5 ppm but no I’ll effects where noticed. On third day I was seeing diatoms on the glass but never saw any on the rock.
Edit: Want to add, when I say dose I added 25ml of solution
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Bret Brinkmann
Well-Known Member
...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....
...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)
Walls are typically boundaries were flow rates are reduced compared to the rest of the flow field. In these localized regions you will have a viscous boundary layer that inhibits heat exchange as well. The boundary layers will decrease in thickness with increased flow rates but the heat exchange decreases as this happens unless something like a pressure wave comes through and smashes it good. For those of you into engines, this is why your aluminum pistons don't melt when subjected to combustion temperatures that are well above their melting point. But when you get detonation, the shock wave rips right through the viscous boundary layer and heat transfer skyrockets. Then you melt a hole in your piston near the spark plug. The plug is the hottest point in the engine.
Can you link that article about PUA's? I remember someone mentioning dinos don't like diatoms but never got a chance to research it more.
OP
OP
mcarroll
10K Club member
You took me from aquariums to car engines in one sentence. I like you.
I definitely agree with the first sentence.
Tell me if this is more or less compatible with what you were saying in your analogy:
Water on the wall of a pipe is where the flow turns into turbulence (and probably a minute amount of heat in our case) by way of friction of the flow and the pipe.
Funny enough, I have actually described this water flow that's in contact with the wall of the pipe like a "smearing effect" when trying to explain this before. This "smeer" or turbulence layer seems to get thicker with increasing flow rates though....head pressure (psi) increases against the flow, to be sure.
Flow that meets a wall still generates turbulence but with the reduced amount of flow exiting in all available directions rather than down a pipe.
Funny enough, I have actually described this water flow that's in contact with the wall of the pipe like a "smearing effect" when trying to explain this before.
This "smeer" or turbulence layer seems to get thicker with increasing flow rates though....head pressure (psi) increases against the flow, to be sure.Flow that meets a wall still generates turbulence but with the reduced amount of flow exiting in all available directions rather than down a pipe.
BAM!
Inhibitory effect of polyunsaturated aldehydes (PUAs) on the growth of the toxic benthic dinoflagellate Ostreopsis cf. ovata
(BTW, I don't remember what/if anything came up when PUA's entered the discussion before, but you can check out the old posts on this search link: pua)
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Bebow
Active Member
I have some microscope pictures from Saturday just before I siphoned the Dino areas out with sand. Interesting look at different diatoms and 2 types of Dino’s. I have to say my hand washing hygiene after putting them in the tank has tightened up a lot!
J Rog
Valuable Member
Just an update on my situation. Tomorrow will be a week since I added a cheap uv from petco. Today is the first day I don’t see dinoflagellates on my rock! What a relief. The battle is long from over though. I still have some on my back wall and power heads. But non visible on the rock has me very hopeful
J Rog
Valuable Member
It’s called “the green killing machine “. It’s like $80 at petco. My tank is a 70 gallon display and around a 30 gallon sump. I also have been keeping my nutrients up. When I first got the outbreak my P04 and N03 were undetectable. Now my P04 has been between .08-.11 and N03 is around 3ppm. Been dosing stump remover for the N03 and for P04 I use sea hem flourish phosphorus. Been dosing for 2 weeks I believe. So with that plus the UV I think I’m winning. I did see a big difference after 48 hours of running the UV. But it’s a love hate relationship with this uv. The crappy pump puts out a ton of micro bubbles. I contacted the company and they said it will go away over time and the pump needs to prime. But I mean it’s been running a week and I figured it should have cleared up by now. I also did t realize how unclear my water was. I knew it wasn’t crystal clear but as a side affect of the UV I definitely have crystal clear water. Oh, but With a ton of micro bubbles [emoji849]
Bebow
Active Member
Update: sand samples show only a few Amphidinium Dino’s, good population of diatoms. I had some concerns about a few areas but the color is more of a golden brown. Silicate still around 2ppm. I’m thinking we always have some dinoflagellates in our tanks, the only time we see them is when a bloom occurs. There are a lot of people on here that are more expert than I that maybe able to expand on that subject.
Pictures show what my tank looked like on 1/18/18 when I showed up here and what it looks like today, that’s less than 30 days. I have not vacuumed the sand since Saturday, lights are up to almost my normal intensity and color.
The methods for controling Dino’s in this thread goes against what a lot of us have been told for the last couple of years but they work! The days of chasing numbers and ultra low nutrient reefing are over for me. To all those new and struggling with controlling dinoflagellates, Please keep an open mind! The folks here will help you!
ThankYou Reef2Reef
Bob
I know it’s somewhere in one of these 150 pages but I continue to run my skimmer when dosing N and P right?
Also, any other thing I can use to does instead stump remover? For some reason, all Home Depot’s and Lowe’s don’t carry it in stock according to their websites.
Also, any other thing I can use to does instead stump remover? For some reason, all Home Depot’s and Lowe’s don’t carry it in stock according to their websites.
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RedneckReefer68
Well-Known Member
I think some purple use brightwells neonitro with good results. Seachem also makes something but the never slips my mind this morning. I ran my skimmer the whole time and set it to skin wet hopefully to skin out the dinos in the water column during lights off
Update: sand samples show only a few Amphidinium Dino’s, good population of diatoms. I had some concerns about a few areas but the color is more of a golden brown. Silicate still around 2ppm. I’m thinking we always have some dinoflagellates in our tanks, the only time we see them is when a bloom occurs. There are a lot of people on here that are more expert than I that maybe able to expand on that subject.
Pictures show what my tank looked like on 1/18/18 when I showed up here and what it looks like today, that’s less than 30 days. I have not vacuumed the sand since Saturday, lights are up to almost my normal intensity and color.
The methods for controling Dino’s in this thread goes against what a lot of us have been told for the last couple of years but they work! The days of chasing numbers and ultra low nutrient reefing are over for me. To all those new and struggling with controlling dinoflagellates, Please keep an open mind! The folks here will help you!
ThankYou Reef2Reef
Bob
Bob - I'm really glad to hear this and see these photos. I think this silicate dosing, along with nutrient balancing and UV, in some cases, is really valuable in the treatment of these dinos. I'll be joining you in this test, starting this evening. Cheers.
Yes, you can continue to run your skimmer. You can use Sodium Nitrate as well.
J Rog
Valuable Member
Lowes:
$6.97
I don't think HD near me carried it either though....Lowes did.
Ya, Home Depot told me you can order it online with them only. Lowes carries it in store
Bret Brinkmann
Well-Known Member
You took me from aquariums to car engines in one sentence. I like you.
I definitely agree with the first sentence.
Tell me if this is more or less compatible with what you were saying in your analogy:
Water on the wall of a pipe is where the flow turns into turbulence (and probably a minute amount of heat in our case) by way of friction of the flow and the pipe.
Funny enough, I have actually described this water flow that's in contact with the wall of the pipe like a "smearing effect" when trying to explain this before.
Flow that meets a wall still generates turbulence but with the reduced amount of flow exiting in all available directions rather than down a pipe...
Thanks for the link.
Maybe I should start a new thread on the fluid mechanics of aquariums. There is a lot going on here that will need to be explained carefully. It will be a very deep rabbit hole to go down (an entire college level class, not to mention the heat transfer and fluid dynamics both of which are additional classes all their own) that could go off topic fast and not get back on. I'll post a link when I get it started.
tonymacc
Active Member
I think you'll find that UV should be off whilst running Dino-X.
Don't think a w/c is required until after 10 doses/21 days and no carbon etc should be run during this period.
"they were undetectable" you mean your no3 and po4? If so then there's your problem, same as I had, your nopox is stripping your nutrients allowing the dinos to thrive so in that case you need dose some no3 and po4 into your system aiming for 5-10ppm no3 and about .08-0.1 po4, mine has never looked better thanks to the people on this thread. I used Seachem Flourish Nitrogen and Seachem Flourish Phosphorous.
As above.
kinetic
Valuable Member
Thanks Tony.
Will UV render DinoX ineffective? I've been running it non-stop, but I guess I can shut it down.
So I don't need to do water changes every 2 days? Just after 10? It was really unclear in the instructions.
And yes, I was dosing food grade Sodium Nitrate and Trisodium Phosphate. It was great at keeping my levels up, but the dinos were getting so bad even after 10 days, which is why I went for the Dino-X.
BTW, I was following these instructions:
http://static.faunamarin.de/manuals/algea_x_en_sep.pdf
I began dosing the Brightwell SpongExcel Silicates tonight after initial testing showed 0.00 ppm. Dosed 70 drops... Seems excessive to count drops with the amount I'm going to be dosing. I need to measure out how many mL are in a drop. Not sure how to do that. It's going to get annoying to have to dose 200+ drops.
Anyway, I'll report in with results.
Anyway, I'll report in with results.
Jolanta
Active Member
Two days with UV off and after 30% water change still cant find ostreopsis
They look like brown string on the rocks with bubbles but they want grow on corals like ostreopsis do. I would really like to know what are those? They are greenish gold color, I was thinking in chrysophyta but they dont move and I think chrysophyta do. Diatoms maybe? They are really tiny so my toy microscope is not helping
Here is an before picture with ostreopsis and those tiny ones for size comparition.
They look like brown string on the rocks with bubbles but they want grow on corals like ostreopsis do. I would really like to know what are those? They are greenish gold color, I was thinking in chrysophyta but they dont move and I think chrysophyta do. Diatoms maybe? They are really tiny so my toy microscope is not helping
Here is an before picture with ostreopsis and those tiny ones for size comparition.
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