Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[mcarroll]

I have dosed Fluconazole to cure bryopsis while I am dosing NO3 and PO4 again, which I believe will feed the bryopsis. Any idea which one I should tackle first? Or can I fight both at the same time?

I'd try both to see how it goes.

Giving the tank back to the dino's isn't healthy for anything in the tank, and may not be too healthy for you either. If you decided to, activated carbon will control toxins in the water pretty well, but I'm not sure that's helpful on the bryopsis side since it might be taking out your drug....so keeping N and P up will get my vote. (Your bryopsis population is small right? So die-off shouldn't affect nutrient levels too much.)

Even with elevated nutrients, fluconazole should keep any bryopsis protoplasts from forming new cell walls while it's active in the water.

Since the fluconazole will prevent cell wall repair too, the current crop of bryopsis should eventually succumb to the riggors of the tank, damage from photosynthsis, etc, . This is probably why shaded areas don't die off as quickly – low levels of photosynthsis would cause low levels of damage...maybe no net damage in some areas. If there's less damage, then the fluconazole has less role to play.

All - I've started another thread with my Triton results... would you mind checking it and seeing if you think anything there could be leading to my dino problem?

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/triton-results-analysis-zachs-120-gallon-reef-resurgence.324166/

Think ecology, not chemistry!

(Check out those links back on the first post. One or two other related posts on my blog under the algae, dino or nutrient sections too.)

While we are boosting N and P (and often doing some other support activities), it's the downstream effects on the microbial food web that we are after.

In most of these cases there's been a very peculiar deficiency of N and P in the system.

This deficiency has almost always been caused artificially by excessive usage of carbon dosing+phosphate removers.

When the dino's take over they themselves actually promote this N- and P-starved environment in at least a couple of ways, so when we add N and P we're working against the dino's in at least two ways.

First, adding N and P allows their high-carbon detritus to be broken down more quickly. Eventually after the blooming has stopped and everything has "composted", the N and P that would normally be available in the tank will be freed up and you can probably stop or greatly reduce dosing. I'd still be mindful of not letting N or P reach zero again just in case.

Second, we're giving other organisms a chance to have nutrients so they can grow and re-populate the tank.

There are several other factors that also tie in, including just how severely depopulated the tank had become before remediation started – toxic dino's are bad enough on the rest of your microbial food web, but some of the chemical treatments folks have been known to try against dino's are even worse.

Dino's + cyano in co-bloom seems to be the final state on tanks like this....none of the usual measures seem to help at this point.

GFO adds soluble iron, for example, so it could be iron "dosing" and not low phosphate.

Have you noticed an actual correlation with Fe levels in some actual cases of dino blooms?

I'll have to try and look back through some test results on the thread and see if anyone else has also posted Triton tests.

It already seems to me like a lot of people get dino blooms. But it seems like even more folks would have dino outbreaks if GFO was strongly linked as an Fe source too and not merely as a route to artificially/extremely low P levels.

From experience so far I'm not sure there's a strong link with Fe and dino blooms, at least in our tanks. But evidence/new research sure could prove me wrong. We've already learned a lot of new things along the way here, sometimes from very old research.

 

[mcarroll]

Almost like dino cells but round in shape and fast, alot smaller then the dino sells.

These small cells were pretty aggresive and attacking dino/cyano cells, even moving dino sells when they swarmed it.

Any idea what these small things can be? "good" bacteria?

These have been sighted a few times.....I think I remember once that they were suspected to be symbiodinium. @taricha might remember better.....can't remember if @jason2459 might have ID'd them before too.

 

[taricha]

@Randy Holmes-Farley @mcarroll
On the issue of "Trace element" limitation with Dinos.... a while back, I looked through bunches of reports (and lots of triton tests) of users with dinos that the population would plateau, and then with the addition of something - would explode again. This was repeatable in these systems - and seems a clear sign of some sort of nutrient limitation.
Maybe I missed something, but here are the big takeaways I got from hunting through bunches of these in search of the "trace element" in question:
1 - It was never anything that showed up very often on a triton test (this could mean it was organics/vitamins, or trace elements still bio-available at levels below test sensitivities.)
2 - The same result was being achieved in different systems, when sometimes what was added in one system had nothing in common with what was added in another. Different nutrients were being limited.
3 - In at least some systems, it was Iron.
4 - some interesting additives (to me) that have caused this in people's systems: Iron additive, Water Changes, Trace Element mix, feeding dried Nori especially Red Sea Veggies (Palmaria palmata), Amino Acids (AcroPower).
5 - it was never simple NO3 or PO4
(Some people got similar effect just by letting Alk fall absurdly low - 5 or so - but that's about as interesting/useful as leaving the lights off. Of course nothing grows)

 

[zachxlutz]

Think ecology, not chemistry!

(Check out those links back on the first post. One or two other related posts on my blog under the algae, dino or nutrient sections too.)

While we are boosting N and P (and often doing some other support activities), it's the downstream effects on the microbial food web that we are after.

In most of these cases there's been a very peculiar deficiency of N and P in the system.

This deficiency has almost always been caused artificially by excessive usage of carbon dosing+phosphate removers.

When the dino's take over they themselves actually promote this N- and P-starved environment in at least a couple of ways, so when we add N and P we're working against the dino's in at least two ways.

First, adding N and P allows their high-carbon detritus to be broken down more quickly. Eventually after the blooming has stopped and everything has "composted", the N and P that would normally be available in the tank will be freed up and you can probably stop or greatly reduce dosing. I'd still be mindful of not letting N or P reach zero again just in case.

Second, we're giving other organisms a chance to have nutrients so they can grow and re-populate the tank.

There are several other factors that also tie in, including just how severely depopulated the tank had become before remediation started – toxic dino's are bad enough on the rest of your microbial food web, but some of the chemical treatments folks have been known to try against dino's are even worse.

Dino's + cyano in co-bloom seems to be the final state on tanks like this....none of the usual measures seem to help at this point.

Have you noticed an actual correlation with Fe levels in some actual cases of dino blooms?

I'll have to try and look back through some test results on the thread and see if anyone else has also posted Triton tests.

It already seems to me like a lot of people get dino blooms. But it seems like even more folks would have dino outbreaks if GFO was strongly linked as an Fe source too and not merely as a route to artificially/extremely low P levels.

From experience so far I'm not sure there's a strong link with Fe and dino blooms, at least in our tanks. But evidence/new research sure could prove me wrong. We've already learned a lot of new things along the way here, sometimes from very old research.

Like Randy said, organisms can use Fe present at levels way below sensitivity of any test. But Fe also gets depleted, so tests are not really helpful on Fe either way.

How long have you been in this phase where you add a ppm or so of PO4 and its gone by next test round? (It's good. keep plugging along.)
Also, if you are really wanting to see things grow other than dinos, then Randy's suggestion of a trace element cocktail is good plan, and I've done similar for a phase in my tank. Make sure the tank isn't limited in anything. Be prepared to export Dino cells though. They WILL grow, but hopefully other stuff will too.

I've been dosing KNO3 as needed (weekly or so since) since 12/16/2016. I've been dosing PO4 since 6/11/2017. After the first bloom of dinos receded, I began to slack on my nutrient testing and lo and behold the dinos returned. I've been AGGRESSIVELY dosing KNO3/PO4 to 10 ppm/.2 ppm daily since 08/15/17. The tank will use almost the entirety of the PO4 within 24 hours. I believe it MAY be slowing down the consumption... I'm not sure though. Dinos still appear to be going strong. Since 08/15 I've dosed 1.77 ppm of phosphates into the tank! WILD!

I need to work on my export methods more as I'm holding off on water changes I'm not really sure how to remove the dinos from the system... Maybe a siphon hose through a filter sock into the sump? Would a felt sock filter out the dino cells?

I've seen some cyano popping up... this may be a breakthrough period?

I also started dosing Prodibio BioDigest last night in an attempt to build up the bacterial population of the tank to help soak up the dino detritus.

I've got a doser and Red Sea ABCD coral colors trace elements I could put online really easily... That could be an option.

 

[rockstarta78]

I'd try both to see how it goes.

I have dosed both NO3 and PO4 since they were reading close to 0, but dosing just made Bryopsis grow out even faster. Next day I still read 0. So I didn't dose last night. Maybe I'll dose tonight and see what the test result shows tomorrow.

(Your bryopsis population is small right? So die-off shouldn't affect nutrient levels too much.)

Actually it wasn't much, but since dosing NO3 and PO4 it has taken off. Now there are some HUGE patches all over the tank. So I dosed Fluco on Monday. Last night I saw some bryopsis that had their tips whitening. So I guess it's a sign of these things are starting to die.

 

[m0jjen]

I need input. Basiclly i have green cyano all over the place, mainly on rocks. Its not that much still, its thin patches here and there. I took a sample of my sandbed (took a turkeybaster, sucked it full with top layer of the sandbed, put it in a container and shook it some to make the oragnism slit from eachother and mix with the water. After this i put 5 samples under the microscope, what i saw actually made me really happy. about 100-300 diatoms per sample, some green cyano. 1-3 DEAD dino cells.

Does that mean im marshing on to victory?!

 

[mcarroll]

@m0jjen what you're observing seems to be pretty typical of the cycle – keep it up!
(It's almost a pattern-repeat of the break-in cycle at the beginning of the tank.)

If you haven't added anything to your cleanup crew it might be time to expand.

This is something that might not get enough emphasis up in the rest of the thread....most everyone loses their CUC in these outbreaks due to the toxins, or at least part of it. This is why activated carbon is almost always a good idea during one of these blooms.

As soon as toxins are under control and there's some indication of a turn-around – usually a slowing or recession of the dino's and a few spots of cyano or hair algae popping up – that's the time to start testing one or two new snails or crabs to start ramping the CUC population back up.

 

[m0jjen]

@m0jjen what you're observing seems to be pretty typical of the cycle – keep it up!
(It's almost a pattern-repeat of the break-in cycle at the beginning of the tank.)

If you haven't added anything to your cleanup crew it might be time to expand.

This is something that might not get enough emphasis up in the rest of the thread....most everyone loses their CUC in these outbreaks due to the toxins, or at least part of it. This is why activated carbon is almost always a good idea during one of these blooms.

As soon as toxins are under control and there's some indication of a turn-around – usually a slowing or recession of the dino's and a few spots of cyano or hair algae popping up – that's the time to start testing one or two new snails or crabs to start ramping the CUC population back up.

My CUC is actually intact since i replenished it between my outbreaks, the latest outbreak is after i reintroduced sand and it wasnt that bad So i have ~20 snails and 10 hermits in my 425XL, probably could squeeze in a few more of each but i think that it will be fine in the long run :]

 

[mcarroll]

I need to work on my export methods more as I'm holding off on water changes I'm not really sure how to remove the dinos from the system... Maybe a siphon hose through a filter sock into the sump? Would a felt sock filter out the dino cells?

I've seen some cyano popping up... this may be a breakthrough period?

Should be! I would continue water changes, at least to allow you to do some gravel vacuuming.

If not, the Magnum Polishing Filter or Vortech diatom filter might be another option that could help.

My CUC is actually intact since i replenished it between my outbreaks,

That's good – and a good sign! How about lesser CUC like pods? Much if any presence?

 

[m0jjen]

That's good – and a good sign! How about lesser CUC like pods? Much if any presence?

Have plenty with small crustaceans, not the count i used to have but i see them

 

[zachxlutz]

Should be! I would continue water changes, at least to allow you to do some gravel vacuuming.

Manual removal via water change siphon hose resulted in three five gallon buckets looking like this:

I'll continue as needed. I really hope I'm making a dent in this. It's a nightmare.

 

[mcarroll]

Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!

It's a nightmare.

It's an adventure!
It's a learning experience!

 

[Jolanta]

Hi there, @Jolanta! We are still hanging in there! We see Ostreopsis species only under the scope; no strands. Some Coolia species under the scope, but small cell Amphidinium is what we're fighting right now on the sandbed and a bit on some rocks. We are still dosing Vibrant weekly, but it doesn't seem to be helping with the Amphidinium. We're also dosing NO3 and PO4 to work on keeping those elevated. Visible dinos are not our big problem now; our corals are dying off one by one (lost a brain, a frogspawn, and now the montipora and others are so bleached and unhealthy. SOMETHING else is still amiss in our tank. We've got some new liverock and sand from Tampa Bay curing in our QT tank now, so hoping that perhaps adding some biodiversity again that way may "jumpstart" whatever's wrong back into line.

I know you miss your tank, and I wish you the best of luck as you soon restart.

Im sorry for you in my tank at the end all was dying, my zoas and ricordea was getting smaller and disapearing, loosing color. From so many things I put in this tank I knew my water was bad so I better decided to restart. I promised myself dont put any medication in my tank ever again, no matter what happen. I really wish you can establish your tank with new live rock or sand,hope you get something than eats dinos!

 

[m0jjen]

Manual removal via water change siphon hose resulted in three five gallon buckets looking like this:

I'll continue as needed. I really hope I'm making a dent in this. It's a nightmare.

Do you have a sandbed? I got those buckets aswell when it was at its worst point. I removed the sandbed and continued to manually remove for about a week the it was "gone" to the naked eye. after 4 weeks i reintroduced sand and it came back, nto as much tho, and i started dosing kh2po4 + kno3 and only feed frozen foods + iodine. Nothing else. Now, 3 weeks after dosing i have a ****ton of diatoms and some green cyano along wit a few patches of hair algae which most likely will be gone when the po4 drops.

 

[zachxlutz]

Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!



It's an adventure!
It's a learning experience!

It's certainly a learning experience! I'm learning I should have let nature take it's course orignally with this tank and skipped on all the GFO and Vibrant dosing right off the bat!

Do you have a sandbed? I got those buckets aswell when it was at its worst point. I removed the sandbed and continued to manually remove for about a week the it was "gone" to the naked eye. after 4 weeks i reintroduced sand and it came back, nto as much tho, and i started dosing kh2po4 + kno3 and only feed frozen foods + iodine. Nothing else. Now, 3 weeks after dosing i have a ****ton of diatoms and some green cyano along wit a few patches of hair algae which most likely will be gone when the po4 drops.

Yes, I have a sandbed and I have a few wrasses and a goby that require it. I'm going to manually remove as much of the dinos as I can every day, continue dosing KNO3 and PO4 and agitate the sand bed daily with a turkey baster to keep the dinos suspended and able to be skimmed out. I've seen a few patches of GHA and a few patches of cyano here and there. Hopefully, you and I are on the right path! What is your thought process on only using frozen foods? What about the iodine?

 

[m0jjen]

Yes, I have a sandbed and I have a few wrasses and a goby that require it. I'm going to manually remove as much of the dinos as I can every day, continue dosing KNO3 and PO4 and agitate the sand bed daily with a turkey baster to keep the dinos suspended and able to be skimmed out. I've seen a few patches of GHA and a few patches of cyano here and there. Hopefully, you and I are on the right path! What is your thought process on only using frozen foods? What about the iodine?

Ok! One way to deal with the wrasses is to put containers with sand in, like a tupperware or simular, this so limit the area where dino can retract during the night The thought process is quite simple. Pellets and other processed fabricated foods are loaded with alot of things. Fatty acids, carbons and whatnot. Frozen foods are natural and followes the redfields ratio. So nothing unnecessary is going into the tank. The iodine is due to algae needs it and triton pretty much always shows mine at zero.

 

[Cscultho]

Ok! One way to deal with the wrasses is to put containers with sand in, like a tupperware or simular, this so limit the area where dino can retract during the night The thought process is quite simple. Pellets and other processed fabricated foods are loaded with alot of things. Fatty acids, carbons and whatnot. Frozen foods are natural and followes the redfields ratio. So nothing unnecessary is going into the tank. The iodine is due to algae needs it and triton pretty much always shows mine at zero.

Ive tried the stirring the SB and trying to get rid of all the dinos with water changes and filtering but unfortunately for me it was a losing battle. the only way i was able to get what i thought was an upper hand on the visible dinos was to remove 99% of my SB. Just like you mojjen, when i reintroduced my SB the dinos came right back. So im at the stage of trying to remove the SB slowly and trying to find that balance between just enough sand and no dinos. Also im trying the frozen food route and keeping my UV off. Regardless of how much i dose N&P i am unable to grow any other algae. And my N&P #'s are elevated, 10ppm & 0.1.

 

[m0jjen]

Ive tried the stirring the SB and trying to get rid of all the dinos with water changes and filtering but unfortunately for me it was a losing battle. the only way i was able to get what i thought was an upper hand on the visible dinos was to remove 99% of my SB. Just like you mojjen, when i reintroduced my SB the dinos came right back. So im at the stage of trying to remove the SB slowly and trying to find that balance between just enough sand and no dinos. Also im trying the frozen food route and keeping my UV off. Regardless of how much i dose N&P i am unable to grow any other algae. And my N&P #'s are elevated, 10ppm & 0.1.

Eventually the algae will come, be patient

 

[Cscultho]

Eventually the algae will come, be patient

What level P & N are you trying to achieve or did you get to when you started seeing the dinos recede?

 

[mcarroll]

This might be a shot in the dark now. If nutrient dosing is designed to feed organisms which have a predatory nature on dinoflagellates and encourage their growth, if you have no organisms left to multiply then the dosing nutrients may not achieve much.

Would it be worth then (whilst continuing to dose) add a piece of live rock/sand to hopefully introduce these beneficial ciliates and higher organisms.

What we could do with, is an inoculation process. Take and pass around water and sand from cured tanks. Try and pass on the good guys.

Missed dropping a Like on that comment back when it happened somehow.

In a word: definitely.

Anything from detritus, to sand to chunks of rock from a healthy tank. The scummier the sample you take, the better.

I've done this a few times in the course of my tank's history "just because" when my LFS had a huge live rock tub. I'd get a scoop of silty muck off the bottom and pay for it as Live Sand. Got some awesome tube worms once. Mostly it was just invisible goodies though.