Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Jolanta]

I think maybe they are getting worst now when I changed water and added sand couse silica was introduced? In the sand they look like diatoms actually but in the rock they get really long. Today I will try my best to make some miscroscope video and hope you can help me identify them.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think maybe they are getting worst now when I changed water and added sand couse silica was introduced? In the sand they look like diatoms actually but in the rock they get really long. Today I will try my best to make some miscroscope video and hope you can help me identify them.

It is not uncommon to see dinos get worse with a water change, potentially consistent with their high need for some trace element.

 

[Dogtown]

was just curious because I use ozone and didn't notice any effect but uv did but I still have it on rocks and sand and looks way way better I just blow it off sand and rocks daily but notice by next day its no where as bad as was hoping in time it goes away after all methods adding the uv was the best

This is isolated and anecdotal, but Glennf has been using both UV and ozone for 10+ years and has commented that he never experiences dinos. He asks others if they have dinos and what their setups are in an attempt to establish a pattern. He doesn’t make any claims as to why his tank hasn’t had dinos over so many years.

I use ozone daily but not UV and find that the ozone seems to help, but does not eliminate dinos. That is, I seem to notice fewer dinos when I keep redox around 400 vs keeping redox at around 300 continuously.

It would be interesting to know if there are studies in the commercial aquaculture industry that have tested the impact when using both methods combined for safe and continuous disinfection?

 

[Jolanta]

It is not uncommon to see dinos get worse with a water change, potentially consistent with their high need for some trace element.

Thanks Randy, yes I always had a bloom after water change but now I cant see any dino in the microscope, the cells I see are round and gold color, wont move and are really really small and my toy microscope dont help, when I had ostreopsis I could see it easy couse they are big. Now all I can see is this, and its with 900 magnification.

 

[mcarroll]

Hi all, here with some good and bad news. 4 days with out UV still not even one cell of ostreopsis visible under the microscope, all I can see is those round golden motionless cells. The bad thing is my tank dont look to good couse those golden cells took over, the good is they dont seem to bother corals.
Here is a video I took of how it looks in the tank.

I really understant the importance of having microscope couse if I didnt I would be sure I have dinos.
Hope one day someone will help me to identify whats this.
Have a nice weekend.

They do look kind like in the video you posted but they are getting really dark in color now and have a very long stips.

Thanks Randy, yes I always had a bloom after water change but now I cant see any dino in the microscope, the cells I see are round and gold color, wont move and are really really small and my toy microscope dont help, when I had ostreopsis I could see it easy couse they are big. Now all I can see is this, and its with 900 magnification.

I think I'm with @reeferfoxx that this is cyano....or at least cyano co-blooming with something else. That is common.

It might still be able to be chrysophytes in that case, but you should see cyano cells of some kind in the sample – not a pure sample of green unicells.

Considering an "impure culture" does anything on PhycoKey's Cyanobacteria section look more like what you see?

Cyano+chrysophytes was the first evolution toward my chrysophyte bloom going away.

 

[Paullawr]

I used red ciano rx couse of a friend from spain who erradicated ostreopsis with it but in my case it didnt work.
They do look kind like in the video you posted but they are getting really dark in color now and have a very long stips. I think I had the same in my big tang and it went away when I started to feed natural frozen food, first it was kind of light in color and like white short hair algae, then it changed to golden and longer strips with bubbles and then it got really long and dark waving with water movement and then disapeared eaten by my tangs. Bad thing I can put a tang in my nano

So long as its not ostreopsis

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

yea its a new tank. This is a Triton setup with large chaeto fuge I also have a skimmer. My N04 usually stays around 10PPM or so. My P04 usually measures around 5 on the ULR Phosphors tester but bottoms out every few days. I usually put some food or seachem phosphors to keep it up. Just was trying to figure out what it was since nothing matches it when I look under the scope.

Bottomed out PO4 may lead to dinos. It is recommended on here to keep it at 0.1 ppm minimum. You don't want to be one of us...

Does anyone know how much I should dose my 25 lagoon ehich is prob about 16 gallons of water volume starting off with using seachem flourish phosphorus and seachem flourish nitrogen and how to go about dosing everyday and how much to test I have salifert test kits . Thank you

The bottles have instructions for how much to dose based on tank size at your target nutrient levels. Go by the tank volume size not the water amount when you start. It won't hurt to over dose in the beginning. Once a day should be enough but test every day to get a feel for your tanks consumption rate. It will most likely require more and more PO4 everyday if it reads 0 on your tests. Keep increasing your dose until it registers the next day at 0.1 ppm. Then hold that dosage amount to maintain the minimum. I had to test my PO4 and NO3 daily for a month as the levels keep changing.

Slowly reading this entire thread. Still Can t tell if I have ostepsis or
Amphidinium. If anyone can help will help me decide on uv or not.

If you can see a huge difference in the amount of dinos a few hours after lights out, then UV should help if the UV and its pump are sized correctly. Otherwise it will do nothing for you. UV is not supposed to do anything for large cell amphidinium but misidentification does happen, trust what is happening at night in your tank on this one to decide if UV will be effective.

I used red ciano rx couse of a friend from spain who erradicated ostreopsis with it but in my case it didnt work...

You did use red cyano RX but you do run UV as well. It does look like cyano, so maybe the medication stopped being effective do to GAC or your UV? The water change could have reduced its potency as well. Plus, sometimes it just comes back. Not unheard of with medications.

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

I'm about ready to throw in the towel on these things. Nothing is working and they keep coming back more than before [emoji35]

I think it would help to get an update on your situation. I think maybe you may just need something additional to knock this stuff out. Please fill us in on the below information and we'll figure something out.

1) What are your nutrient levels at and how often are you testing to make sure they stay that way?

2) Have they been identified yet? Can't find any reference to your strain from previous posts.

3) Do they seem to go away significantly a few hours after lights out? If so then size a UV and pump for it. I posted a guide for sizing a few pages back.

4) Are you running GAC to help with the toxins? Are you running any other treatments or equipment?

5) Are you doing water changes? If so, then I recommend stopping. It acts against your dosing and reintroduces trace elements to aid the dino bloom.

 

[mdd1986]

I agree with not letting the P04 bottom out. I'm working on preventing that. Just was wondering with the brown stringy stuff was and how to get rid of it. Do you think its diatom since its a new tank?

 

[reeferfoxx]

I'm about ready to throw in the towel on these things. Nothing is working and they keep coming back more than before [emoji35]

As long as you are maintaining N and P at 10ppm and .10ppm you will see dinos get worse before they get better. In the off chance you see hair algae, dont fight hair algae. Let it grow outthen manually remove with a toothbrush. It always helped me to let the hair algae grow long before manual removal. If you haven't added a UV, I would do that as well. I will say you arent alone in wanting to throw in the towel. I wanted to many times before I realized the only thing I can control are nutrients. Some other tips to help is letting Alk fall to 7dkh for minimal coral nutrient uptake. I think many people neglect to realize how efficient coral are at uptaking nutrients.

 

[johnsamm7]

Thanks for the reply will start dosing and keep you guys updated I'm sure more questions to come

 

[mcarroll]

I agree with not letting the P04 bottom out. I'm working on preventing that. Just was wondering with the brown stringy stuff was and how to get rid of it. Do you think its diatom since its a new tank?

Did you run any of the tests from the first post to check it? That's the way to know. Even better is a microscope since they're so cheap...but you can start with the other diagnostics first to get the ball rolling.

This is the section you can use without a scope...

Confirming the ID of your dinoflagellate is important if possible.

• To begin with, make sure you have Dinos – no special equipment needed
• Use @taricha's dino confirmation guide on posts #986-987.

 

[RedneckReefer68]

As long as you are maintaining N and P at 10ppm and .10ppm you will see dinos get worse before they get better. In the off chance you see hair algae, dont fight hair algae. Let it grow outthen manually remove with a toothbrush. It always helped me to let the hair algae grow long before manual removal. If you haven't added a UV, I would do that as well. I will say you arent alone in wanting to throw in the towel. I wanted to many times before I realized the only thing I can control are nutrients. Some other tips to help is letting Alk fall to 7dkh for minimal coral nutrient uptake. I think many people neglect to realize how efficient coral are at uptaking nutrients.

Phosphate is .14 I'm trying to keep nitrates around. 10 sometimes the tall to around five. Hair algea if in full force

 

[Jolanta]

Bottomed out PO4 may lead to dinos. It is recommended on here to keep it at 0.1 ppm minimum. You don't want to be one of us...



The bottles have instructions for how much to dose based on tank size at your target nutrient levels. Go by the tank volume size not the water amount when you start. It won't hurt to over dose in the beginning. Once a day should be enough but test every day to get a feel for your tanks consumption rate. It will most likely require more and more PO4 everyday if it reads 0 on your tests. Keep increasing your dose until it registers the next day at 0.1 ppm. Then hold that dosage amount to maintain the minimum. I had to test my PO4 and NO3 daily for a month as the levels keep changing.



If you can see a huge difference in the amount of dinos a few hours after lights out, then UV should help if the UV and its pump are sized correctly. Otherwise it will do nothing for you. UV is not supposed to do anything for large cell amphidinium but misidentification does happen, trust what is happening at night in your tank on this one to decide if UV will be effective.



You did use red cyano RX but you do run UV as well. It does look like cyano, so maybe the medication stopped being effective do to GAC or your UV? The water change could have reduced its potency as well. Plus, sometimes it just comes back. Not unheard of with medications.

I used UV maybe a week after the treatment. I really dont care about this new algae, maybe it will go on its own with time, the important think I cant see ostreopsis anymore My corals look good and started to grow so Im hopefull dinos wont come back.

 

[Jolanta]

I think I'm with @reeferfoxx that this is cyano....or at least cyano co-blooming with something else. That is common.

It might still be able to be chrysophytes in that case, but you should see cyano cells of some kind in the sample – not a pure sample of green unicells.

Considering an "impure culture" does anything on PhycoKey's Cyanobacteria section look more like what you see?

Cyano+chrysophytes was the first evolution toward my chrysophyte bloom going away.

It dont look like anythink I can find in the web I need to buy a better scope couse they are too small.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Phosphate is .14 I'm trying to keep nitrates around. 10 sometimes the tall to around five. Hair algea if in full force

Which dinos do you have and how long has thw hair algae been growing?

 

[reeferfoxx]

I used UV maybe a week after the treatment. I really dont care about this new algae, maybe it will go on its own with time, the important think I cant see ostreopsis anymore My corals look good and started to grow so Im hopefull dinos wont come back.

Did you borrow the UV? Any reason you cant run it full time?

 

[costacarles]

Hey guys, some help with ID needed

Tank and micro views, and video

NO3 around 2-3
PO4 0.06








Thanks!

 

[Jolanta]

Did you borrow the UV? Any reason you cant run it full time?

The problem is , its big and to run it I need to take the cover of my tank off and Im scared to find my fish on the floor, also my hose coneccion wast secure and every time I leave house I was scared how I will find all when Im back, I really dont see why run it for now, I cant see any ostreopsis or other tipe of dinos and the thing I have now dont change night and day so it wont go watercolumn for UV to kill it. If I only see ostreopsis back I will put UV back.

 

[Jolanta]

Hey guys, some help with ID needed

Tank and micro views, and video

NO3 around 2-3
PO4 0.06








Thanks!

Maybe prorocentrum?