Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?
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mwilk19
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Thank you.
mwilk19
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I know the feeling. If anyone ever comes up with a sure fire method of eradicating this scourge, they're going to make a lot of money.
I know 
thats why im jetting out of here now :O
I would love to go o natural problem is I don't know a reefer in my area who does a good fish QT to steal a hunk of live rock to get some of that good stuff.
thats why im jetting out of here now :OI would love to go o natural problem is I don't know a reefer in my area who does a good fish QT to steal a hunk of live rock to get some of that good stuff.
Jolanta
Active Member
I think metro is like blackouts, you think you won and as soon as you start to feel happy they are back. Dont do that, also dont do peroxide, you will end as I did, couse all those quimicals will only kill your microfauna and dinos will come back with more force.
OP
OP
mcarroll
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I know
I would love to go o natural problem is I don't know a reefer in my area who does a good fish QT to steal a hunk of live rock to get some of that good stuff.
If you at least know local folks with healthy corals, then getting some fresh coral frags should be pretty safe. No rock – fresh clippings.
Frags won't bring everything to your tank, but they'd at least bring a lot of coral-friendly microbes!!!
Unless your fish are compromised for some reason (overcrowding, poor diet, other stress factors), bringing a piece of live rock from a friend's healthy tank should be an extremely minor risk. Even a bag of detritus from their sump – it's something I've done on numerous occasions and recommend it often enough.
Certainly if the folks you know can't keep their livestock alive, you'd want to reconsider. ;Dead
It's worth repeating that for most cases resolving nutrient issues (see post #1) does seem to work – nutrients is definitely the place to start your troubleshooting and fix-it actions if you have a dino bloom.
maksim serebro
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Jolanta, I'm doing exactly what you did. Tore everything down, fresh water and bleach. Now everything is just sitting. I'm afraid to fill the tank up with water because I heard that cysts can survive for months out of water. After you restarted everything, any signs of Dino's? I also was thinking of heating the rock in oven for a few hours in order to kill the cysts just incase bleach didn't do its job.
Jolanta
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Im also afraid, I let all sit with fresh water and bleach for about a week, I really hope it killed all the ostreopsis, I also cleaned all the tank surrounding and hope for the best, for now Im making rodi water to fill it and start the cycle. I hope we wont get them again.
maksim serebro
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There isn't much info on the cysts. All I know is that they are highly resistant. Can survive out of water, can become airborne like spores, and can survive high salinity and temperature fluctuations. If even one survives it can multiply quickly in a new aquarium due to lack of competition. Once I start the tank, it will be six months of microscope watching before any life is added. Please keep us updated! Good luck
Beardo
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Please don't heat your rock in the oven, there are serious safety risks associated with this.
Bleach will kill the cysts (from studies I have read) but you need to maintain a 500 ppm concentration of sodium hypochlorite for 24 hours. Just need to know the concentration of the bleach you are using and calculate how much to add to reach the desired levels. Also since bleach degrades, I would assume the concentration is less than advertised on the bottle. Bleach also degrades as is reacts with organics on the rock so you may need to add bleach as it soaks.
Heat was also shown to kill the cysts. To do this safely though I would use buckets of hot water outside (not boiling water as you don't want any toxins on the rock to vaporize and be inhaled). The study showed a temperature of 45C for 90 - 120 seconds was effective.
maksim serebro
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Thanks, my only concern with bleach was that it may not get into all the cracks and crevices in the rock. There always trapped air bubbles. What if cysts are trapped there. My thought process was to heat the whole rock and denature to DNA in the cyst
maksim serebro
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Does anyone know how long the cysts can survive without water?
Beardo
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To correct my previous post (was going off of memory when I posted), I should have said 500 ppm of free chlorine. This still had a 3% germination rate of dino cysts. 1,000 ppm of free chlorine provided full kill.
maksim serebro
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Do you happen to have a link to the info above? I would love to read the article. Thanka
Beardo
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Not specific to Osteropsis sp. or aquariums but is applicable.
https://www.researchgate.net/public..._dinoflagellate_cysts_in_ships'_ballast_water
maksim serebro
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Amazing article! Thanks! These things are impossible to kill! They survive at pH 2!
mwilk19
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I don't have a science background but it looks like hot water may be the most cost effective method to eradicate dinos. The question is, what would it do to the silicon in the tank and any other plumbing? H2O2 has been tried but it appears the concentrations that we use are nowhere near high enough. That might be true of bleach, also.
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