Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[mcarroll]

Thanks I don't have a way of taking a picture yet. Might pick up a USB camera for my microscope. Need to do a little digging into what is available.

Cellphone camera should work fine. Get a cellphone mount if you can't keep it stable....but lots of folks just do it by hand and it works out!

 

[cobra2326]

Has this been posted yet: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28505508

Looks like Ostreopsis cf. ovata can use organic Phosphorus efficiently. I believe this was already noted in one of @mcarroll s posts, but it's worth reinforcing.

 

[mcarroll]

Has this been posted yet: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28505508

Looks like Ostreopsis cf. ovata can use organic Phosphorus efficiently. I believe this was already noted in one of @mcarroll s posts, but it's worth reinforcing.

The closing line from the abstract:

Based on the present findings, Ostreopsis seems to have adaptations that allow it to thrive in P-limited environments where organic P is the main source of P.

That does appear to go hand in hand with these:
The role of nutrients in decomposition of a thecate dinoflagellate
Bacterivory in algae: A survival strategy during nutrient limitation

 

[Mike S]

Cellphone camera should work fine. Get a cellphone mount if you can't keep it stable....but lots of folks just do it by hand and it works out!

Ok so i tried my cell phone. Not the best photos but you can see their shape.

 

[kecked]

Anyone try using miracle grow or other fertilizer? Trying it now. Dino’s hit my uln tank zeros across the board. Rebooting and added Tim’s one and only. Dino’s better over night but creap back. Was advised to correct by adding nutrients. Thinking fertilizer looks like a good possibility. Fertilizer in ethanol sounds like a possible treatment.

Has anyone discovered a phage for Dino’s? http://aem.asm.org/content/77/21/7837.full

 

[Jolanta]

Ok so i tried my cell phone. Not the best photos but you can see their shape.

Ostreopsis ovata, try UV, for me it did wonders!

 

[Mike S]

Thanks! I have an 80 watt sterilizer on my 300 gallon and just changed the bulb about 2 months ago. My nitrate and phosphate had bottomed out during a 3 month fallow period for a week or two and the little hair algae that i had died back. My fish went back into my tank two weeks ago. Nitrate is now around 0.75 phosphate 0.05. Dinos are appearing on my rocks here and there more heavily on my frag rack. I'm blowing them off every evening. I've also dialed bast my AST. I'm also considering slowly dosing phosphate and nitrate.

 

[Jolanta]

Thanks! I have an 80 watt sterilizer on my 300 gallon and just changed the bulb about 2 months ago. My nitrate and phosphate had bottomed out during a 3 month fallow period for a week or two and the little hair algae that i had died back. My fish went back into my tank two weeks ago. Nitrate is now around 0.75 phosphate 0.05. Dinos are appearing on my rocks here and there more heavily on my frag rack. I'm blowing them off every evening. I've also dialed bast my AST. I'm also considering slowly dosing phosphate and nitrate.

I instaled 55w on my 40 gallon and it was gone in days, I have almost two weeks I took of the UV and still no ostreopsis visible under the scope. My nitrates are reading 5 for the first time, I was adding potasium nitrate and it wont rise above 1 or 2, now I have a few days with out dosing and they are at 5. My phosphatr was always high, about 0.2, now its 0.05.

 

[RedneckReefer68]

No. Most manufacturers don't make UV small enough or should I say, quality enough for a nano tank. Right now i'm using a 9w UV from petsmart on my 30 gallon. It's fine for now and easy to conceal in my all-in-one tank. My goal is to get a Coralife Turbo twist plumbed into my return lines. Unfortunately, im running into issues finding a straight inlet adapter for my tank. Once I find that i'll add the new UV.

How is that UV working on your nano?

 

[mcarroll]

Has anyone discovered a phage for Dino’s? http://aem.asm.org/content/77/21/7837.full

That's a way-cool link!

Here's the thing....phages are simply the word used for bacterial viruses. (Viruses which specifically target bacteria.) You would need the algicidal bacteria AND their phages for this treatment.

BUT....

There are dino viruses too...apparently called Dinodaviruses.

Thanks for sharing that link – awesome!!

 

[reeferfoxx]

How is that UV working on your nano?

Well, i've been dino free for a couple to few months now. Hard to say UV had an impact. My resolve was unique and not always advised to reproduce.

 

[kinetic]

I might have the world's worst case of dinos.

Every 2 days, a 1/2" mat of dinos forms on everything. My overflow becomes thick with the stuff. I had brought my PO4/NO3 levels up consistently with dosing food grade Sodium Nitrate and Trisodium Phosphate, which made it worse. I've been manually removing dinos every 2 days. I decided to try using DinoX, but it hasn't gotten any better.

All my SPS are dead.

The 2 - 3 hours I spend every other day battling this just isn't working, nor is it fun. Anyone else have this bad of Dinos? I'm close to just shutting everything down and selling it off.

 

[Justin Ostafew]

I might have the world's worst case of dinos.

Every 2 days, a 1/2" mat of dinos forms on everything. My overflow becomes thick with the stuff. I had brought my PO4/NO3 levels up consistently with dosing food grade Sodium Nitrate and Trisodium Phosphate, which made it worse. I've been manually removing dinos every 2 days. I decided to try using DinoX, but it hasn't gotten any better.

All my SPS are dead.

The 2 - 3 hours I spend every other day battling this just isn't working, nor is it fun. Anyone else have this bad of Dinos? I'm close to just shutting everything down and selling it off.

I've been mounting what I would call an informed and methodical effort for about 4 months to reverse what has been years of dinos which I'd previously (and mistakenly) been trying to starve into oblivion by running ULNS. However, despite all my efforts (consistently raised N and P, manual removal, 3 day course of Metro, addition of a possibly undersized UV sterilizer, decreasing light intensity, addition of pods, and most recently installing an oversized UV sterilizer, I just can't seem to knock back these Ostis. The only thing that had any significant effect was Metro, but as we all know that is only a temporary glimpse of what things could be.

At this point all I've got is a ton of Cyano, a lot of green algae, and Dinos happily growing on top of all of it. Every night I blast all the surfaces with a turkey baster, but at the end of the next day bubbles everywhere still. Under a scope I see Dinos... Although recently there are much more pods than there were before.

My QT is currently warming up in preparation to receive my remaining livestock, so I'd say this DT had about another week before it gets the FW and bleach treatment.

An interesting note in the subject, when bringing up my QT I started with a bio-wheel that was seeded in my DT, added fresh SW, and ghost fed for a while. The first signs of life to show up were mainly diatoms. Shortly after I threw in some scrapings from my ATS, and shortly after that I saw Dinos (Osti) showing up. I found N to be low but present, P virtually 0. Dosed those up and pretty quickly the dinos were replaced by Cyano and a bit of green algae. I haven't done anything with it since, just letting it cook. I'm pretty confident that when I drop in my live stock I will not see a Dino explosion because preferred life was allowed to establish BEFORE the dinos could mess everything up. In fact I will intentionally add more dinos to the QT and observe to prove my theory.

Good luck fellow reefer, we can't win them all...

 

[Beardo]

I've been mounting what I would call an informed and methodical effort for about 4 months to reverse what has been years of dinos which I'd previously (and mistakenly) been trying to starve into oblivion by running ULNS. However, despite all my efforts (consistently raised N and P, manual removal, 3 day course of Metro, addition of a possibly undersized UV sterilizer, decreasing light intensity, addition of pods, and most recently installing an oversized UV sterilizer, I just can't seem to knock back these Ostis. The only thing that had any significant effect was Metro, but as we all know that is only a temporary glimpse of what things could be.

At this point all I've got is a ton of Cyano, a lot of green algae, and Dinos happily growing on top of all of it. Every night I blast all the surfaces with a turkey baster, but at the end of the next day bubbles everywhere still. Under a scope I see Dinos... Although recently there are much more pods than there were before.

My QT is currently warming up in preparation to receive my remaining livestock, so I'd say this DT had about another week before it gets the FW and bleach treatment.

An interesting note in the subject, when bringing up my QT I started with a bio-wheel that was seeded in my DT, added fresh SW, and ghost fed for a while. The first signs of life to show up were mainly diatoms. Shortly after I threw in some scrapings from my ATS, and shortly after that I saw Dinos (Osti) showing up. I found N to be low but present, P virtually 0. Dosed those up and pretty quickly the dinos were replaced by Cyano and a bit of green algae. I haven't done anything with it since, just letting it cook. I'm pretty confident that when I drop in my live stock I will not see a Dino explosion because preferred life was allowed to establish BEFORE the dinos could mess everything up. In fact I will intentionally add more dinos to the QT and observe to prove my theory.

Good luck fellow reefer, we can't win them all...

Out of curiosity, how did you have your UV plumbed?

 

[Beardo]

I might have the world's worst case of dinos.

Every 2 days, a 1/2" mat of dinos forms on everything. My overflow becomes thick with the stuff. I had brought my PO4/NO3 levels up consistently with dosing food grade Sodium Nitrate and Trisodium Phosphate, which made it worse. I've been manually removing dinos every 2 days. I decided to try using DinoX, but it hasn't gotten any better.

All my SPS are dead.

The 2 - 3 hours I spend every other day battling this just isn't working, nor is it fun. Anyone else have this bad of Dinos? I'm close to just shutting everything down and selling it off.

I had dinos really bad as well went through much the same as you are. Lost a tank full of corals, twice. (Thought I was over them and restocked). Fought them for 3 years and have to admit I came to a point I considered tearing it down but am glad I didn't.
I wish you luck and if you really enjoy the hobby I would encourage you to keep at it.

Which dinos are you dealing with?

Just noticed you are not too far from me, I'm in Brentwood. I might be able to lend you a hand. Feel free to PM me.

 

[Justin Ostafew]

Out of curiosity, how did you have your UV plumbed?

First time I had the smaller UV (15-20w, can't remember exactly) on its own circuit pulling from and returning to the sump. Didn't measure the flow on that one but I'd estimate around 100 gph.

Currently I have the 55w sterilizer plumbed on its own circuit pulling from and returning to the DT. Flow through that one is measured at 200gph. Pulls from one side of the tank and returns to the other.

Total system volume is 50 gal, minus some for rock etc.

 

[Beardo]

First time I had the smaller UV (15-20w, can't remember exactly) on its own circuit pulling from and returning to the sump. Didn't measure the flow on that one but I'd estimate around 100 gph.

Currently I have the 55w sterilizer plumbed on its own circuit pulling from and returning to the DT. Flow through that one is measured at 200gph. Pulls from one side of the tank and returns to the other.

Total system volume is 50 gal, minus some for rock etc.

Surprised you haven't had better results since you upsized the UV. Have you checked with the scope to verify it is still Ostreopsis?

 

[Justin Ostafew]

Surprised you haven't had better results since you upsized the UV. Have you checked with the scope to verify it is still Ostreopsis?

Yup, looked at it last night (new UV had been in operation for 2 days at that point). I don't think it was completely ineffective as the skimmer went nuts after the first night of operation, but the following evenings the tank was still brown and bubbles everywhere. Under the scope there are lots of Ostis.

I got fed up with the tank looking like garbage last night so I scraped the front and side panes of glass clean (was letting them grow green before that), and went to town with a scrub brush on the rocks I could secure for cleaning. I'm home late tonight so I won't see the aftermath of that attack until tomorrow evening.

From when they were at their worst the Ostis are knocked way back and they're no longer forming strings. But they're just on all the tank surfaces now and I can't get rid of them.

 

[Beardo]

Yup, looked at it last night (new UV had been in operation for 2 days at that point). I don't think it was completely ineffective as the skimmer went nuts after the first night of operation, but the following evenings the tank was still brown and bubbles everywhere. Under the scope there are lots of Ostis.

I got fed up with the tank looking like garbage last night so I scraped the front and side panes of glass clean (was letting them grow green before that), and went to town with a scrub brush on the rocks I could secure for cleaning. I'm home late tonight so I won't see the aftermath of that attack until tomorrow evening.

From when they were at their worst the Ostis are knocked way back and they're no longer forming strings. But they're just on all the tank surfaces now and I can't get rid of them.

I think that was a good move. I would clean the glass and blast the rock (turkey baster or small powerhead) regularly to get as much as possible in the water column. I prefer to do that right after lights out so they don't just resettle. I blasted rock right after lights out and then early morning for about a week with good success.

 

[Justin Ostafew]

I think that was a good move. I would clean the glass and blast the rock (turkey baster or small powerhead) regularly to get as much as possible in the water column. I prefer to do that right after lights out so they don't just resettle. I blasted rock right after lights out and then early morning for about a week with good success.

All along I have been blasting the tank daily at lights out, all surfaces including the rocks and glass. What's different is that last night I scraped all the green and brown off the glass that I'd previously been allowing to grow at the advice of this thread, trying to promote green algae growth etc.