Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[g5flier]

I'd guess amphidinium. Got a video?

No video yet, they are very hard to come by. I've been dosing nutrients, running UV, etc for 2 weeks now and its really taken a toll on the number of them I can see in the microscope.

Hah! Make up your mind!
I'm kidding, but really - for now dinos are the enemy and green algae is your ally. Don't worry - you can stab your ally in the back later with some herbivore grazers once dinos are gone. But for now, you love GHA.




That's a pretty good list of things that generally haven't helped vs dinos. In fact many of them are associated with bringing on dino outbreaks. (sidenote: I've heard a lot of chemiclean -> Dinos lately.)

Check the first post. You'll find it's pretty opposite to what you've been doing lately. Can you give us your Phosphate number again (typo)? Do we have a confirmed Dino ID for you outbreak?

 

[reeferfoxx]

Months seems excessive.
My tank hit a point when the sand was clear, macros were growing, my corals had polyp extension that made me say "wow, I never knew that coral HAD polyps" and if I saw that I'd be fine adding pods at that point. What you want to avoid is adding pods that will have to munch dinos and die, or starve and die - thus fueling dinos.
If my tank is growing algae, and I can't see dinos, I'd be okay introducing some pods in case they had been wiped out by toxins.



Isopods are tougher than copepods, and multiple people (me too) have reported seeing isopods in numbers after a dino outbreak, when copepods aren't really seen (yet).
I actually pushed amphidinium dinos out of my display by macroalgae growth and the amphipods, isopods etc that the chaeto blobs supported and allowed to multiply. So with a low toxin dino, it can go in reverse - macros before dinos are gone. I wouldn't try that on anything other than amphidinium though.

Anyway to answer the general question:
Are dinos gone/invisible?
Is the tank toxin symptom free?
Is P & N consistently present and stable?
Is green starting to grow?
If the answer to all those is "YES", then I'd be fine getting some macros in the sump, and maybe a few into the display.

Is there a macro / green algae habitat in the sump or display?
If "YES", then I'd be okay to add some pods to the fuge. Most people find that a display is mostly where pods go to get eaten, but a fuge constantly churns out pods into the display. That's mostly how mine works.

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Yes/Yes.




Pods ordered. Going to hold off on the macros for a moment. Nutrients are present but low. PO4 - 0.01 NO3 - 0.50 GHA and Cyano present.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Hi all. I'm a long time (25 years or so) reefer. I've never posted anything on any site until now. Before I start I want to thank all of you for posting your information. I have read over every post and am now implementing many of the "fixes" I read about. Hopefully I can add to solving the dino problem.

I got into SPS a little heavier a couple years back when I upgraded my 125 to a 180. My tank right now is pretty wiped out with I believe are dinos. All SPS have died, LPS hanging on a no fish deaths yet. I had them about 10 years or so ago and they went away after killing a couple of fish and inverts. I believe they went away after I replaced my sand and added GFO. My phosphates were measurable on my old red sea kit. Likely they were very high...

This time, I was using GFO for a year or so into my new system, then went heavy with siporax as my nitrates were out of control. I was amazed that I didn't need to run GFO any longer as siporax seemed to keep nitrates and phosphates very low. My outbreak finally came when I upgraded my refugium lighting which likely dropped nutrients to very low levels as my cheato stopped growing.

My outbreak has been going for a couple of months now. Here's what I've done so far (with no improvements):
1. Elevated phosphates with Flourish Phosphorus to over 0.1 ppm (2 weeks now)
2. I've left my nitrates at 5 ppm naturally, although have ordered KNO3 to get to 10
3. Added a 57 aqua uv sterilizer one week ago with measured flow of 250 GPH
4. Added a Jabeo UV sterilizer tonight with estimated flow of around 200 GPH (mag drive 3)
5. Added a 5 micron sock to sump inlet (always ran sockless before)
6. Did some blasting of liverock (although this really disturbed my animals) and sand vacuuming (never vacuumed before)
7. Running carbon more and changing weekly (ran passively in past)
8. Bought the $12 microscope and think I see 'em!
9. I've never added any chemicals for eradication

So I would like to post some videos and photos for help with ID. Sorry for my ignorance, but do I just hit "upload a file" and add them?

Welcome to R2R! Sorry you are having to battle these things.

2 to 3 weeks of elevated nutrients with UV just being added is a little soon. It's not uncommon for dinos to get worse before they start to disappear. You are on the right track.

To upload images, you can click the 'Upload a File' button at the lower right hand corner of the text box(where you type messages). You would then locate the file and select it to upload. Once it's uploaded you can click 'Thumbnail' or 'Full Image'.

For videos, you'll need to upload them to a 3rd party such as Youtube or Vimeo. If you already have a Gmail account, you already have an account with youtube. Just make sure you are logged in and locate your username at the top right hand corner of youtubes website. To the left of your user Icon you will see an Arrow Up that designates uploading videos.

Once you get the video uploaded to Youtube and they give you link Right-click and copy the link. Come back to the R2R page and paste the link within the message.
Sorry, it's a little convoluted process.

If you succeed, you will see a video posted like this.

 

[taricha]

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.

Oof. Yeah, I've had trusted test kits give me nonsense before. I didn't figure it out as fast as you did though.
thanks for follow-up. Hopefully soon we can get a handle on what's a "Normal" tank response to dosing Si during an amphidinium dino bloom.

 

[zachxlutz]

@taricha @mcarroll @Bret Brinkmann @Bebow

Silica Dosing Interim Results:

Since 02/15, I've been dosing Si daily. So far, I've put in 125 ml (into 140 gallons, a total dose of 3.57 ppm) over the course of the last few weeks. I've failed to get a reading on the Salifert Si test kit every time. I've noticed a bit of a change in the glass dusting, MAYBE a slight hue of brown on some of the live rock, sponge growth seems consistent with prior to dosing, sandbed looks similarly brown. Snails seem fine, no real change in behavior. I don't see them too often. I've upped the flow in the tank with two new powerheads, which is helping to keep the sandbed a little cleaner, but I'm not really sure the Si has done too much within my system. I emptied the last drop in the bottle yesterday, I'll have two new bottles coming today. I'm going to keep up the dosing, but ramp it up more and more, now that I don't see any negative effects and see what happens.

Should I look into getting the Hanna Si colorimeter? Are the Salifert kits known to be unreliable? I'll do a quick test tonight and test some RO water with a few drops of silica in it and see if the Salifert test kit is working.

 

[JaimeAdams]

Need I' please

 

[JaimeAdams]

More pics. Sorry guys was posting that via mobile device. This stuff that I am dealing with does not get long and stringy it's more like a rust covering coating in the rocks and sand. I was finally able to get my boss to bring in a microscope to help me identify the species so I can come up with a plan of attack.
@taricha @mcarroll

 

[Jeremy Gibbs]

Need I' please

Hard to say for sure at that magnification but they look like Amphidinium.

 

[subareef]

I'd guess amphidinium. Got a video?


Hah! Make up your mind!
I'm kidding, but really - for now dinos are the enemy and green algae is your ally. Don't worry - you can stab your ally in the back later with some herbivore grazers once dinos are gone. But for now, you love GHA.




That's a pretty good list of things that generally haven't helped vs dinos. In fact many of them are associated with bringing on dino outbreaks. (sidenote: I've heard a lot of chemiclean -> Dinos lately.)

Check the first post. You'll find it's pretty opposite to what you've been doing lately. Can you give us your Phosphate number again (typo)? Do we have a confirmed Dino ID for you outbreak?

I have not had a chance to bring a sample into work and id it with the microscope but I will very soon, just have to remember to pull a sample one night. I was using a hach phosphate kit and it was reading 5ppm and today I used an api kit I have and it registered 0, did the test twice. So I’m guessing the hach kit was junk. So both my phosphate and nitrate are at 0 and I have not seen the nitrate rise in quite some time. The highest I saw it during cycling was around 40. I need to raise that up for sure from what I’ve been reading so far, such as using stump remover or KNO3 for planted aquariums. I also want to raise the phosphates too correct? Would I benefit from adding more nitrifying bacteria? I’ve used dr tims bacteria solutions too, eco-balance.

pH is steady at 8.2
Alkalinity is steady at 180 ppm CaCO3
Cal 400ppm
Salinity 1.025
Temp 79 (77 night)
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
Light are on 8 hours (led)
Have them on for 8 hours full, 2 hours just blue sunrise and sunset, 5% blue moonlight
ReefOctopus 150 in simp protein skimmer
Felt filter socks
In sump fuge not yet set up (been slacking on that)


From reading, I need to rise the nitrate and phosphate to have other algae outcompete the Dino’s, green is my friend right now.

I had the tank going good, had lots of copepods in the tank, I’d always see them all over the glass. Got my first cyano outbreak and used chemiclean and others like I said In my original post and now I haven’t seen a single one since then. My fault for all the nonsense I’ve been trying to use I’m guessing, set myself back when I bought I was helping it. There’s so much info on Dino’s and a lot of it seems to contradict other stuff so it’s hard to get a concrete answer. Every strain is different.

 

[taricha]

From reading, I need to rise the nitrate and phosphate to have other algae outcompete the Dino’s, green is my friend right now.

I had the tank going good, had lots of copepods in the tank, I’d always see them all over the glass. Got my first cyano outbreak and used chemiclean and others like I said In my original post and now I haven’t seen a single one since then.
There’s so much info on Dino’s and a lot of it seems to contradict other stuff so it’s hard to get a concrete answer.

find a source of simple inorganic Phosphate (like Flourish Phorphorus etc.) and do the same for Nitrate. Elevating P to stable, available state is first priority. Nitrate can follow.
End nutrient starvation, grow everything and push the tank toward balance. Don't do anything for a while that would suppress grown of the base level biodiversity.
post a vid when you can.

 

[dwest]

Thanks to you all for your quick help. I have a few photos. One is a tank close-up and the others are microscope photos. I will figure out how to upload my videos soon (hopefully!). Can anyone help me with an ID with the photos attached?

 

[RedneckReefer68]

I got my UV running tonight. First thing I did was turn off all flow except UV. The strings went into the water column and I used a big white plastic spoon I mix water up with and pushed then through it for about 45 minutes. Then lights off to keep them in the water column to cycle through it.

 

[Bob Lauson]

While I am only 1 week into to this euphoric state, not seeing Dino’s is a wonder. I am very grateful to several members of this forum who have advocated staying the course and pushing through. This hobby/life is too cool.

 

[dwest]

OK. We'll try the video now. Can anyone help me ID. Sorry the video is short...

 

[dwest]

Hey BL. Glad things are looking up. I am hoping for that also. Did I see that you had a 40W UV for your 180 gallon tank? And that was your turning point correct? I have a 57W UV and a 55W UV on my 180 and l no luck.

 

[Jeremy Gibbs]

find a source of simple inorganic Phosphate (like Flourish Phorphorus etc.) and do the same for Nitrate. Elevating P to stable, available state is first priority. Nitrate can follow.
End nutrient starvation, grow everything and push the tank toward balance. Don't do anything for a while that would suppress grown of the base level biodiversity.
post a vid when you can.

It won't take much. You don't have to raise them to the point your growing GHA everywhere. 5 ppm of Nitrate and .05 ppm of phosphate. The important part is really the ratio be 16:1 or higher N. If you had a chance outbreak you should probably increase flow. Also, using products like Fiji Mud can significantly increase biodiversity of your microfauna and keep the dinos from coming back so easy the next time.

 

[Bob Lauson]

Hey BL. Glad things are looking up. I am hoping for that also. Did I see that you had a 40W UV for your 180 gallon tank? And that was your turning point correct? I have a 57W UV and a 55W UV on my 180 and l no luck.

I plumbed the Pentair40w UV directly into the display and tank. A week prior I started dosing PO4 and they are running at 0.15 - 0.25. Nitrates are pretty stable at 10 ppm. I will also say that I was so disgusted by the Dino’s that prior to PO4 dosing, every 2 to 3 days I would vacuum out the visible Dino’s from the display tank from wherever I would see them - on corals, live rock, sand bed, etc. I ended up with very little sand bed left. Over the course of the last few months I have probably thrown away about 80 lbs of live sand. Despite how bad the Dino’s were, I would make sure I used a turkey baster and blow off all the corals every night. To answer your question - yes the UV sterilizer made a huge impact. BUT I was not leaving anything to chance. Dosing and, I believe, mechanical removal was critical to keep the Dino’s from gaining more of a foothold. I leave it to the experts on this forum to chime in their comments as well but I think reading through this thread and employing the methods has made
L a difference. (Said the novice with 1 week of positive results.)

 

[dwest]

Thanks BL. Removing sand may be next on my list...Both my sterilizers are plumber directly to display.

I will try my video again since the first one failed. I made this one "live" so hopefully it works. Once I get a positive ID hopefully I can proceed. Assuming this video posts OK, can someone help with ID? Thanks!

 

[kecked]

Ok so I increased phosto 0.12ppm all dinos are gone isn’t the morning but return by end of day though just a light coat. They are gone each morning. I find phosphate is getting used up pretty quick and my nitrates are dropping again. No carbon dosing. Real sloppy feeding. Some people would kill to have my problem of low nutrients. The pukani soak can’t make phosphate fast enough worked for two days and got used up. Tsp here I come.

 

[mcarroll]

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

I think someone else altready mentioned that's a different group of dino's...it's a HUGE family with over 2000...all pretty much niche specialists, apparently.

My corals are thriving, my snails seems healthy, my hermits are lazy(I dont like hermits lol), and my water parameters are stable. Has anyone else tried adding pods and macro algae to their refugiums after eradication? Should I be the guinea pig? @mcarroll @taricha @Beardo Thoughts on this?

I'm pretty much with Taricha on this....once you have multiple signs that toxins are gone and "plankton/coral friendly" things are looking happy again, it should be safe to start adding more diversity. Adding coral is a great way to do it BTW. As with all things reefy, go slow at first "just in case".