Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Bret Brinkmann]

So I spent a few hours reading upnon how to tackle my ostreopsis in my 300 gallon tank.

- I had been feeding heavily to try to get my nitrates and phosphates up. Seems that was misguided. Stopped feeding heavily yesterday and dosed some nitrate to get it to around 2 ppm. I'm also putting acropower and reefroid dosing on hold.

- Phosphate has read around 0.04 to 0.05 ppm and I've ordered some seachem flourish phosphate to bump it up slightly.

- I had turned back my ATS but it looks like I should run it normally to comptete with the dinos if I can keep my phosphate and nitrate levels up.

- I've been running around 700 or 800 gph through my sump. All of my return water goes through an 80 watt sterilizer. I've bumped up that flow a little bit.

- Bumped up the flow from my powerheads and am using a baster to knock the dinos off my rocks with the hope of keeping them in suspension and hopefully knock some back with my UV and skimmer.

- Lastly I noticed that my snails weren't hanging on tightly when I was going to work with the baster. I added some carbon last night to address the toxins. They seemed to have a much better grip today.

Is my approach sound or am I off base with anything? Their appeared to be less dinos today and I'm starting to see a little green algae and some cyano. Sounds odd being happy about that lol.

The 80W UV sterilizer is slightly on the small side for a 300 gallon tank. It may work but usually the flow rates give a turn over of about 2-3 times an hour to as much as 10-12 an hour. It may work though. I'm interested to see your results. The UV dose should be more than high enough to kill the dinos, but I'm concerned the turn over rate will be exceeded by the population growth. And if you up the flow rate, then the UV exposure time decreases which may not kill them fast enough. Hence more Watts from the UV may be needed. If it doesn't seem to be working then try increasing flow towards the upper turn over rates.

Inorganic PO4 and NO3 is the route you want to go verses nutrient dosing through feeding. The inorganic nutrients favor the not-dino stuff more. Plus feeding also raises carbon which dinos seem to do well on.

I’ve got mine down to a light dusting. I let nitrate go up to 8-10. I have not added phosphate yet but am running a lot of carbon. I also resumed ethanol. Cap full in 90 gal. 5ml? Only do it once every few days to a week. Also reduced light 20%. And took time to 10 hours. Looking better some days other not.

I mentioned using fertilizer. As mention don’t. It has copper. Should have know that from the color. It looks like pure copper sulfate!

I recommend to stop the carbon dosing for reasons mentioned above.

Anyone try hardware store trisodium phosphate? Not sure if there are other items. How about phosphoric acid? Mix with a little sodium hydroxide to make sodium di tri mono phosphates?
What about an organic form of phosphate? Cheato slurry. Take some cheato and nuke it literally and then put in a blender and add to tank. Yes I could just order phosphate but looking at the options. I think I like the idea of a natural source like algae that is killed and lysed. More balance food source.

Or. Food. How about sushi wraps? The idea feeding the bacteria.

Agree with reeferfoxx below on the nutrient sources.

Keeping things simple is the best route. Potassium phosphate or trisodium phosphate work. Unless nitrates become an issue, potassium nitrate in the form of stump remover works. You might be surprised to know that nutrients feed bacteria. Your rocks and fish food and ambient co2 provide enough carbons for bacteria. Rather than focusing on feeding bacteria, you could just dose beneficial bacteria with a probiotic.

I like thinking outside the box every once in awhile. Especially when a tank crash is affordable.

Affordable tank crash?! ;Wideyed Is that like when I am setting up a nano and I drop the tank as I am bringing it into the house and it shatters on the brick steps?

This morning I added the UV sterilizer to the display tank. Eventually I will move it to the sump area. I bought a Pentair Smart 40W UV Sterilizer with about 180 gph flowing through it.

I believe you have an 180 gallon tank, right? That 40W UV will probably be too small at 4.5 gallons per Watt. The 2 gallons per Watt and less range is where people are getting good results. The flow rate should be good though. You could get a bigger UV or a second smaller UV if you find your current one is not helping.

Would adding NoPox to increase the population of bacteria help fight Dinos? Or would that just add fuel to the fire?

NOPOX hasn't proven to be effective except about a third of the time if I remember correctly. Sometimes I hear it gets worse. I suspect it depends on the strain but more info is needed to draw conclusions. I read about people dosing silicate to encourage diatoms having higher success rates. I am trying that approach myself and should have an update in the next couple of days.

well... i HATE Dinos.

I have been reading all these threads and slowly trying to wage battle. I have a 125 gallon tank and had very low phosphates and 1 ppm nitrates. I am guessing this is what started it. I had just done a chemiclean treatment for cyano which did wonders. My tank had never looked so good. It was about 2 weeks after that treatment that I the dinos came in crazy. They are mostly completely on my sand bed and the roock or coral seem fine so far. I am wondering if the chemiclean wiped out competitors and with the low phosphate the dinos came in. This would be a good thing to look into for those battling cyano with low nutrients.

• I know have phosphates above 0.1. Usually it is staying at between 0.1 and 0.25
• I have nitrates up to 5 ppm and stabilized - Dinos only looks worse sense nutrients are up.
• I have turned off algea scrubber
• I have removed GFO
• I have always had carbon, but changing it more often. Even with carbon I have lost 95% of my snails (counting over 75-100 off the small ones which seem very suceptable)
• I have installed a jabao 55w UV sterilizer and have the pump sitting right on my sand bed. It does not appear to be helping. I have flow all the way up (550 gph pump) and not sure what it should be, although i think mine dino stay in the sand.

I did look at them again under the scope and here is a picture. Based on previous feedback I guess this is amphidinium. I would love to know what the tell is for that type so I can learn to identify.

I also have two movies. One is them swimming. The second is after one drop of hydrogen peroxide. They seem extremely sensitive to hydrogen peroxide, so i really think this will be my next attack. 1 ml/ gallon at night. I am not sure if i should do night or day since they seem to stay in the sand and maybe i want the h2o2 to hit them when they are out the most. Any thoughts?

Swimming:

30 seconds after one drop of h2O2:

The dinos will get worse after dosing... AT FIRST... Then they get limited by another nutrient, it is currently suspected that nutrient is Fe, and then the dinos start to subside and other things start taking their place.

They usually come back after H2O2 and H2O2 usually hurts other things more which makes it counterproductive. Your UV and flow rate should be good as long as they are going into the water column. I'm not the greatest with ID so sorry I can't help there.

It seems like a lot of people have sizing and flow rate issues or concerns with their UV sterilizer. I posted some guidelines for general use and the Jabao brand specifically, but here they are again in case anyone needs them.

UV Watts needed: 1 Watt or more for every 3 gallons. Example; a 100 gallon tank would need a 33W UV or more. 1 Watt for every 2 gallons would work faster, a 50W UV for a 100 gallon tank. There is no maximum for Wattage.

Flow Rate needed: Minimum of you tank volume (NOT actual water volume but tank volume) per hour. Maximum of 12 times your tank volume per hour. So a 100 gallon tank would need 100 gph to 1200 gph.

Again you want display tank volume not water volume. And only display tank need be used for calculations. The UV should draw from the display not the refugium. It's easier to just send the return line back to the display.

 

[Bob Lauson]

I realized after I bought the UV sterilizer that perhaps 40W was too small for my 180 gallon tank but, man, these things get expensive. The manufacturer of the sterilizer stated it was good to 260 gallons. We will see how it works out. The advise on almost every blog has varied opinions and ideas. I really don't know where the line is between manufacturer's recommendation and reefer's experience. I respect all I am learning on this particular thread but would love to see any sort of scientific data on Dino's and uv sterilizers with respect to population growth, sterilizer size, and display tank size.

 

[JAMSOURY]

Still battling Dino’s but when this is over, what’s the best way to prevent these guys from ever returning? Keeping a good amount of N and P in the tank? Which I guess is good for corals too.

 

[saltyhog]

A couple of questions.

My dinos are almost gone. I started dosing phosphate/nitrate 6 weeks ago. I have one rock that I see occasional bubble but nothing else visible (no snot or brown stuff) and just a smattering of brown on the sand which does not get stringy and has no bubbles. My phosphate is running 0.1 to 0.16, and my nitrate is steady at 8.

Most of my corals are getting better. My zoas and RFA's which were "mad" now look good. I lost all of my encrusting montis (Mind Trick, Sunset and Poker Star) early on but all my SPS looked good (improved color) until the last few days. Now 3 different SPS are showing "burnt tips" White tips. Is this due to my nutrient levels/treatment or is this unrelated? Would toxins from the dinos cause this? I am running GAC.

 

[reeferfoxx]

A couple of questions.

My dinos are almost gone. I started dosing phosphate/nitrate 6 weeks ago. I have one rock that I see occasional bubble but nothing else visible (no snot or brown stuff) and just a smattering of brown on the sand which does not get stringy and has no bubbles. My phosphate is running 0.1 to 0.16, and my nitrate is steady at 8.

Most of my corals are getting better. My zoas and RFA's which were "mad" now look good. I lost all of my encrusting montis (Mind Trick, Sunset and Poker Star) early on but all my SPS looked good (improved color) until the last few days. Now 3 different SPS are showing "burnt tips" White tips. Is this due to my nutrient levels/treatment or is this unrelated? Would toxins from the dinos cause this? I am running GAC.

Might be a lack of trace elements?

 

[kecked]

I got an idea from another thread. People complain about dry rock dumping phosphate in the tank. I need some for my Dino issue so I’m going add some left over dry rock to my sump. It will add the phosphate and maybe the algae will cover it so I can remove it and wash it out.

 

[taricha]

Here is what I’m still dealing with!!

Those close ups are all gambierdiscus, which we've gone YEARS without seeing.
Do you have a UV? Guessing it'll work, but this is one kind that hasn't been UV tested.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Those close ups are all gambierdiscus, which we've gone YEARS without seeing.
Do you have a UV? Guessing it'll work, but this is one kind that hasn't been UV tested.

@revhtree Look you got a rare one!! ;Facepalm Sorry. You can't catch a break here. Better than having 2 or 3 different types? lol

Don't worry, you'll get this beat.

 

[taricha]

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.

Yep. This is a big piece. It's one of the things pointing to Dinos being well-adapted for organics uptake, which is why dosing inorganics has better results than heavy feeding for P elevation.

Taricha as I read po4/sps threads like this one, I have questions as it relates to this thread

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-importance-of-keeping-consistent-parameters.360673/

We can see them suppressing po4 and nutrients down to levels that were claimed as causative for dinos here, so I'm wondering as I read this nutrient debate link above why aren't more sps tanks affected by dinos especially if they're common in sw setups

Thanks for pointing me that way, I'll be looking and thinking about it. It's an interesting Q. I'll say that not all methods of nutrient reduction are the same. Threads on high levels of Carbon dosing tend to reliably generate Dino cases.

Anyone try hardware store trisodium phosphate? Not sure if there are other items.

I've used KNO3, Trisodium Phosphate, and yes even a couple of drops of Miracle Grow Quick Start liquid fertilizer (ammonium phosphate, potassium phosphate, and urea) - heavy Phosphorus 4-12-4.

 

[bh750]

well... i HATE Dinos.

I have been reading all these threads and slowly trying to wage battle. I have a 125 gallon tank and had very low phosphates and 1 ppm nitrates. I am guessing this is what started it. I had just done a chemiclean treatment for cyano which did wonders. My tank had never looked so good. It was about 2 weeks after that treatment that I the dinos came in crazy. They are mostly completely on my sand bed and the roock or coral seem fine so far. I am wondering if the chemiclean wiped out competitors and with the low phosphate the dinos came in. This would be a good thing to look into for those battling cyano with low nutrients.

• I know have phosphates above 0.1. Usually it is staying at between 0.1 and 0.25
• I have nitrates up to 5 ppm and stabilized - Dinos only looks worse sense nutrients are up.
• I have turned off algea scrubber
• I have removed GFO
• I have always had carbon, but changing it more often. Even with carbon I have lost 95% of my snails (counting over 75-100 off the small ones which seem very suceptable)
• I have installed a jabao 55w UV sterilizer and have the pump sitting right on my sand bed. It does not appear to be helping. I have flow all the way up (550 gph pump) and not sure what it should be, although i think mine dino stay in the sand.

I did look at them again under the scope and here is a picture. Based on previous feedback I guess this is amphidinium. I would love to know what the tell is for that type so I can learn to identify.

I also have two movies. One is them swimming. The second is after one drop of hydrogen peroxide. They seem extremely sensitive to hydrogen peroxide, so i really think this will be my next attack. 1 ml/ gallon at night. I am not sure if i should do night or day since they seem to stay in the sand and maybe i want the h2o2 to hit them when they are out the most. Any thoughts?

Hey yours sounds alot like my situation. Ive been dealing with both dinos and cyano in my 300g system for some time now. Twice I've dosed Chemiclean and the tank, like you said, never looked better. I was blown away. But both eventually came back. I have a scope and confirmed its large cell amphidinium along with the cyano. So the dinos are only on my sand bed like you. I just took my ATS offline and refreshed by GAC (carbon). And last week installed two 25W UVs, each of which are rated for 180g.

One thing I'll say for sure is 550 gph flow is way, way to high to kill the dinos IMO. Flow should be like 150-200gph or less. So if you do have the large celled amphidinium (will leave the ID to the pros here) they will stay on the sand and not go into the water column. So UV pump needs to be in the sand like you have it. With that said I'm not sure if or how much UV will help. I've been stirring up my sand bed just a little each time in hope of getting them into the water column and sucked into the pump. Also I vacuum the sand with cyano and dinos through a 10 micron sock. So far not sure if any of this is working. Will know more later this week.

Good luck!

 

[taricha]

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?

I wanted to address this about the two systems and the difference that we are seeing. Bebow's system response was actually unexpected. His silica stayed High almost immediately, when I expected it to drop repeatedly more like what you're seeing Bret, and as seen in Randy's Si dosing article.
So here's what I am guessing is happening.
I was expecting/hoping diatom growth to accelerate, bloom, and suppress the dinos by allelopathy (PUA or similar chemicals). Navicula is a commonly seen diatom in our aquaria that has been shown to suppress dino growth through chemicals it generates. But instead, bebow says Si dosing started some diatom growth, and then Si, N, and P all stayed elevated and stable. At the same time, once siphoned - the sand bed stayed basically clean. Very little dino or diatom growth. All that makes me think there is another trace element limitation at play, much like what happens with green algae competition sometimes.
Bret's system behavior is more expected. Si gets consumed rapidly in most systems, I suspect with continued Si dosing Bret's system may end up where bebow's did. But there might be a huge diatom bloom first. Or maybe they diatoms suppress the dinos chemically long before that point. Worth watching to see. Way too early to conclude what is typical, I think.

 

[Bob Lauson]

For the first time in months I have not looked at my aquarium with something approaching joy. Everyday I would come home and look upon a sea of dinos (ostreopsis) in what little sand remains and coating several corals. I have been dosing NeoPhos for a week and keeping PO4 at 0.12 to 0.15 and nitrates have stayed around 10 ppm. Saturday I added the UV sterilizer to the display tank. Since then the dinos have gone down dramatically. I have not vacuumed the sand in 5 days. A little dino on a couple of corals but nowhere near like it was. One of my rocks was a dino magnet and is now clear (I did purposely put the UV pump inlet near that rock). I am very optimistic. It is still early but have hope for the first time in a while. In the next few weeks I want to add sand back in to replenish the 50lbs or so I have removed and eventually move the UV sterilizer to the sump.

There is likely a 12 step program for dino elimination which starts something like (1)Admit you have a problem (2) seek a higher authority like this forum (3) grudging eliminate the beloved GFO system, (4) smile at a phosphate and nitrate count above absolute zero, etc.

 

[reeferfoxx]

For the first time in months I have not looked at my aquarium with something approaching joy. Everyday I would come home and look upon a sea of dinos (ostreopsis) in what little sand remains and coating several corals. I have been dosing NeoPhos for a week and keeping PO4 at 0.12 to 0.15 and nitrates have stayed around 10 ppm. Saturday I added the UV sterilizer to the display tank. Since then the dinos have gone down dramatically. I have not vacuumed the sand in 5 days. A little dino on a couple of corals but nowhere near like it was. One of my rocks was a dino magnet and is now clear (I did purposely put the UV pump inlet near that rock). I am very optimistic. It is still early but have hope for the first time in a while. In the next few weeks I want to add sand back in to replenish the 50lbs or so I have removed and eventually move the UV sterilizer to the sump.

There is likely a 12 step program for dino elimination which starts something like (1)Admit you have a problem (2) seek a higher authority like this forum (3) grudging eliminate the beloved GFO system, (4) smile at a phosphate and nitrate count above absolute zero, etc.

I like your 12 step program! Lol

If you haven't tried already, try to keep the dinos suspended when you get the chance. Want them in the water column so they can ride that elevator to the penthouse! Now I want a pentair just to call it the penthouse..;Hilarious

 

[kecked]

I found that soaking pukani in ro water makes a nice 0.12ppm phosphate solution. I’m using it in my top off water. Working well.

 

[reeferfoxx]

I found that soaking pukani in ro water makes a nice 0.12ppm phosphate solution. I’m using it in my top off water. Working well.

Wont it go anaerobic?

 

[kecked]

I only had to soak it for a couple hours to get the phosphates. I was surprised how fast it was leached out. I took the rocks back out till next time.

Wont it go anaerobic?

 

[Bob Lauson]

I like your 12 step program! Lol

If you haven't tried already, try to keep the dinos suspended when you get the chance. Want them in the water column so they can ride that elevator to the penthouse! Now I want a pentair just to call it the penthouse..;Hilarious

Yes agreed - I blow off the rocks at night before going to bed. It is nice to have the penthouse suite booked for the next few days. Rather than rent it out to others, I believe I will leave it open with a standing reservation for any dinos who happen to be in the neighborhood and looking for something really nice.

 

[JAMSOURY]

Is the reason for letting the glass go dirty is because Dino’s doesn’t typically stick on the glass and some other algae (gha) has more of a chance of developing on there?

 

[kecked]

I did not know dinos and zooxanthella are related in the same family. Has anyone seen bioluminescence in their tank from them?

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

I realized after I bought the UV sterilizer that perhaps 40W was too small for my 180 gallon tank but, man, these things get expensive. The manufacturer of the sterilizer stated it was good to 260 gallons. We will see how it works out. The advise on almost every blog has varied opinions and ideas. I really don't know where the line is between manufacturer's recommendation and reefer's experience. I respect all I am learning on this particular thread but would love to see any sort of scientific data on Dino's and uv sterilizers with respect to population growth, sterilizer size, and display tank size.

Glad to hear the UV worked for you. I will work on the science request after I finish mcarrol's request for flow fields and boundary layers. I'll post the link here. Probably will be a while though, work is pretty busy right now and not much spare time.

Still battling Dino’s but when this is over, what’s the best way to prevent these guys from ever returning? Keeping a good amount of N and P in the tank? Which I guess is good for corals too.

Yes, and avoid over feeding and carbon dosing from what I have read. Balance is easier, no less difficult, to achieve than balance stability. Your new found balance will be unstable for some time. Not sure for how long.

I wanted to address this about the two systems and the difference that we are seeing. Bebow's system response was actually unexpected. His silica stayed High almost immediately, when I expected it to drop repeatedly more like what you're seeing Bret, and as seen in Randy's Si dosing article.
So here's what I am guessing is happening.
I was expecting/hoping diatom growth to accelerate, bloom, and suppress the dinos by allelopathy (PUA or similar chemicals). Navicula is a commonly seen diatom in our aquaria that has been shown to suppress dino growth through chemicals it generates. But instead, bebow says Si dosing started some diatom growth, and then Si, N, and P all stayed elevated and stable. At the same time, once siphoned - the sand bed stayed basically clean. Very little dino or diatom growth. All that makes me think there is another trace element limitation at play, much like what happens with green algae competition sometimes.
Bret's system behavior is more expected. Si gets consumed rapidly in most systems, I suspect with continued Si dosing Bret's system may end up where bebow's did. But there might be a huge diatom bloom first. Or maybe they diatoms suppress the dinos chemically long before that point. Worth watching to see. Way too early to conclude what is typical, I think.

Update on my Si situation. I bought the Hanna Si tester and ran it and the Salifert at the same time. Salifert was crystal clear, as in no Si while the Hanna maxed out at 2.00 ppm. I suspect my Salifert test kit is no good. Just my particular one not trying to bash Salifert. I even put a few drops of SpongExcel in a fresh sample and still Salifert detected nothing. I'll have to start a product review thread. But I believe my Si has been very high for a long time now. I stopped dosing a week before the Hanna came in and it still maxed out. I believe I have diatoms and will try to confirm later today. I definitely have white sponge growth on the underside of several rocks.

Is the reason for letting the glass go dirty is because Dino’s doesn’t typically stick on the glass and some other algae (gha) has more of a chance of developing on there?

The algae on the glass helps to use the nutrients and in turn create an additional nutrient bottleneck, probably Fe, which dinos have a hard time continuing to bloom in relative to other algae.

I did not know dinos and zooxanthella are related in the same family. Has anyone seen bioluminescence in their tank from them?

I believe the bioluminescence species are not found in our tanks. It would be pretty to see as it was killing everything in the tank though.