Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[bishoptf]

I've been wrestling with small cell amphid and nothing really seems to make a dent, I've had UV in DT for weeks and not much change. I have not tried Si dosing but that might be next, I've been trying to get more copepods going and dosing phyto daily but so far the Dino's just shrug it off and keep going, it is pretty demoralizing. I can see why there is such a large portion that abandon things, if you deal with dino's with no clear path for long periods of time is a big BUMMER.....

Wishing everyone reading this thread good luck, I wish I knew the magic potion for small cell but if and when I get there I will post what I tried etc...

 

[Quietman]

Respectfully, I disagree. While dinoflagellates enjoy photosynthetic properties, they are not an algae. They are self propelled, swimming protists. They have an exoskeleton (theca) that is protective. Some more than others. You can see in these linked photos some are seen to be molting.

Dinoflagellate Identification Guide

I've had this laying around for a while. Had some recent interest, so I tweaked it a bit and am posting it. Not really about cures just ID pictures, videos, and a few short facts. Hope it can be helpful.

www.reef2reef.com

Yes, I'm aware...but the exposure is the basically the same as for algae as I understand it. I was commenting on operations not taxonomy or biology.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

For everything you want a high enough exposure to damage/kill the organism so it dies or cannot reproduce. That exposure is lower for algae (dino) than for protozoa (ich). However, algae can reproduce quickly so the flow needs to be higher to overcome the reproduction rate. For protozoa, relatively slow flow as possible to maximize exposure as the reproduction rate is less a factor than tolerance of uv exposure.

Dinos aren't algae, but protozoan. They are also "armored". As a result, they require longer exposure time for the UV to be effective.

You are looking for approx 3x tank volume turnover per hour

 

[Quietman]

Dinos aren't algae, but protozoan. They are also "armored". As a result, they require longer exposure time for the UV to be effective.

You are looking for approx 3x tank volume turnover per hour

Ok.didn't work for my until I had at least 8x. Soon as my UV flow drops, they come back. So sure...but IME - they can reproduce faster than 3x on mine.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Ok.didn't work for my until I had at least 8x. Soon as my UV flow drops, they come back. So sure...but IME - they can reproduce faster than 3x on mine.

Worked for me when I had my ostreopsis outbreak.

Not really sure what else to tell you, but I would continue doing what has worked for you.

 

[Drumstin]

So is 0.25 phosphate too high? I’m having trouble finding what the target is. I’m sure that I don’t need to dose when at this level but I’m wondering if it’s too high and if that could be causing the Dino issue since I have zero nitrates. Just dosed neonitro for second time.. fingers crossed I actually read nitrate tomorrow...

 

[Gildo]

Ostreopsis ...
I have had these beasts for almost 2 years now. Raised po4 and no3, 1 UV lamp, 2 UV lamps, low flow ... nothing, they just seemed to disappear half distraction and came back. Strangely Uv has an effect but not much with them .. while the corals died one after the other ... I finally tried dinoX, after 3 weeks of treatment with the recommended dosage, they were still there ... I doubled the dosage, tripled ... nothing is still there ... now finished with dino x I'm dosing bacteria ... we'll see ... no3 50 ppm, po4 0.5 ppm

I ask you:

since now I have only 2 small lps left, half dead ... a blackout of a week or even more time (how much?) and continue to dose bacteria ... would kill them? Or these super killers, can they go into hibernation or something and come back when I turn on the lights?

@taricha @ScottB​

 

[ScottB]

So is 0.25 phosphate too high? I’m having trouble finding what the target is. I’m sure that I don’t need to dose when at this level but I’m wondering if it’s too high and if that could be causing the Dino issue since I have zero nitrates. Just dosed neonitro for second time.. fingers crossed I actually read nitrate tomorrow...

I am not afraid of .15 PO4 but you are getting a bit racy at .25. No need to rapidly correct but bringing that back down slowly is better over time.

 

[Drumstin]

I am not afraid of .15 PO4 but you are getting a bit racy at .25. No need to rapidly correct but bringing that back down slowly is better over time.

Thanks. Maybe the microbactr and phyto i'm adding will bring it down.

 

[ScottB]

Ostreopsis ...
I have had these beasts for almost 2 years now. Raised po4 and no3, 1 UV lamp, 2 UV lamps, low flow ... nothing, they just seemed to disappear half distraction and came back. Strangely Uv has an effect but not much with them .. while the corals died one after the other ... I finally tried dinoX, after 3 weeks of treatment with the recommended dosage, they were still there ... I doubled the dosage, tripled ... nothing is still there ... now finished with dino x I'm dosing bacteria ... we'll see ... no3 50 ppm, po4 0.5 ppm

I ask you:

since now I have only 2 small lps left, half dead ... a blackout of a week or even more time (how much?) and continue to dose bacteria ... would kill them? Or these super killers, can they go into hibernation or something and come back when I turn on the lights?

@taricha @ScottB​

Those are some very high nutrient levels you posted. It is hard to imagine ostreopsis being able to compete with the resulting GHA growth that would support. Do you have GHA?

I don't know what is in Dino-X so would not recommend that. Did you keep a timeline of all your steps and what happened in the following weeks?

Generally with Ostreopsis, you raise nutrients, run carbon (GAC) and run UV slow at 1 watt per 3 gallons to/from the display. I have used this method 3 times successfully. Not sure what is different for you, but sorry.

 

[ScottB]

Thanks. Maybe the microbactr and phyto i'm adding will bring it down.

I generally like both MB7 and phyto, but without nitrates I think that is not ideal.

I would avoid both until you get a low but consistent nitrate reading. Honestly this nutrient management stuff is tricky around dinos, but you need measurable on both. Phyto adds PO4 more than NO3. MB7 lowers both IME on my systems.

 

[Gildo]

Those are some very high nutrient levels you posted. It is hard to imagine ostreopsis being able to compete with the resulting GHA growth that would support. Do you have GHA?

I don't know what is in Dino-X so would not recommend that. Did you keep a timeline of all your steps and what happened in the following weeks?

Generally with Ostreopsis, you raise nutrients, run carbon (GAC) and run UV slow at 1 watt per 3 gallons to/from the display. I have used this method 3 times successfully. Not sure what is different for you, but sorry.

Yes i run carbon (GAC), for now i haven't GHA (dinoX effect, i stop it 5 day ago).

what I have done in these 2 years has always been the same: increase in nutrients, use charcoal, mechanical removal with socks and wool hanging in the tub in flow areas, UV, disappearance of dino (but still visible under a microscope), bacteria dosage . ok for a month, then start flowering again and start all over again! What I have noticed is that I should always check the po4 and no3 levels forever one day and another, because at some point the usual dose of maintenance is not enough and they reappear immediately, at every re-flowering the cause was one or 2 days of distraction with the po4 and no3 tests the values dropped and the dinos reappeared. it is too precarious a balance, at the slightest distraction they come back and are stronger and more difficult to eliminate! the first time 3 days of nutrient dosing were enough to make them disappear, the second 1 week, the third a month and UV, the fourth a month and UV, the following 2 months more UV and an important appearance of cyan!

so now that I have no more live corals ...
Would turning off the lights for a week or more (how long?) Would kill them, or are they able to go into dormancy (cysts, spores?) And return as soon as conditions are favorable?

 

[ScottB]

Yes i run carbon (GAC), for now i haven't GHA (dinoX effect, i stop it 5 day ago).

what I have done in these 2 years has always been the same: increase in nutrients, use charcoal, mechanical removal with socks and wool hanging in the tub in flow areas, UV, disappearance of dino (but still visible under a microscope), bacteria dosage . ok for a month, then start flowering again and start all over again! What I have noticed is that I should always check the po4 and no3 levels forever one day and another, because at some point the usual dose of maintenance is not enough and they reappear immediately, at every re-flowering the cause was one or 2 days of distraction with the po4 and no3 tests the values dropped and the dinos reappeared. it is too precarious a balance, at the slightest distraction they come back and are stronger and more difficult to eliminate! the first time 3 days of nutrient dosing were enough to make them disappear, the second 1 week, the third a month and UV, the fourth a month and UV, the following 2 months more UV and an important appearance of cyan!

so now that I have no more live corals ...
Would turning off the lights for a week or more (how long?) Would kill them, or are they able to go into dormancy (cysts, spores?) And return as soon as conditions are favorable?

Ah. Now I understand. I had 3 relapses myself, the last episode almost a year ago. But if I were to take a scraping today and put it under a microscope I would find ostreopsis guaranteed. And if I let my nutrients fall they would reappear. If I dose amino acids they would likely bloom. They like phyto as well, but my nutrients are pretty high now so it is manageable.

My long term solution was just adding a lot of pooping fish and feeding them well.

 

[Biologic]

Dino’s or what appears to be — are gone.

From every picture and research I’ve seen it was a dino bloom. Appeared only on sand. Most present before lights out. Went away at night. Stringy and bubbles in the brown gold film. Killed snails that touched it. My corals were not growing. Drove pH up and down like crazy. So consuming lots of CO2. PH was highest at the end of day. My pH swing went from 7.75 to 8.33.

what I did—

-72 hour black out
-pH stablized at 7.77
-ran an air stone, I do not have a skimmer. Ran from outside. No change in pH observed.
-raised my tanks temperature from 78 to 80
-during black out, at the 12 hour mark, I dosed 3% h2o2, caused a sharp decrease in ORP, and a slow rise to the same normal level prior to dosing 12 hours later. I did this only once.
-post black out, running all blues, green, purple/violet and worked back in red and whites but max 10%. Previously running them at 40% max. I have a knock off radion, with very similar cree LED’s and configuration. Definitely at their worst when my lights were whitest. The blue seems to be better, thus far.
-parameters are 10 ppm NO3 and 0.15 ppm PO4, SG 1.026. Alkalinity 7.0+. Trying to hold it steady. PH continues to have a diurnal swing. From 8.1 to 7.85
-I am going to start using a sodium carbonate two part and focus on keeping alk stable, and boost pH.
-stop cleaning my glass

Added —
-ran a HOB protein skimmer on this tank, temporarily post treatment. Maybe for 72 hours. I don’t have enough bio load to sustain a big HOB skimmer on a 28 gal nano cube.
-BrightWell Microbacter 7 - 5mL’s per day for 5 days immediate post black out. I am going to continue with .5 mL here on out
-ZeoBak - 5 drops, started 4 days post black out, just trying to add as much biodiversity
-added really really old sand from my LFS’s sand vats. This stuff is ancient and has rubble and the sand itself is sticky, the bed was solid as a rock. Rubble pieces even had purple sponges. The system is plumbed into a live rock curing vat. I added the sand through a tube directly on the sand bed.
-shook a big ball of chaeto into the tank, releasing many different pods and critters.
-added an cheato reactor, not sure how well this is working. It’s a DIY reactor I made myself.

—observations
-lost one SPS, which seemed to be ill prior to treatment
-I have a species of brownish green hair algae growing on the sand bed, which was present prior to the outbreak. It’s not terrible. Far better than dinos.
-growth, color and polyp extension are better on all corals. Thank you blue spectrum
-coralline algae starting to grow again.
-trochus snails avoid dinos, asterenas try to eat it, and fall on their backs and never recover.
-glass appears fairly clean and *diatom* free. Dinos never landed on glass. I do have plenty of the typical hard to magnetic scrap green alage growing.

I kind of threw the kitchen sink at it.

Wanted to update.

Stopped cleaning my glass totally from the previous post. No cleaning. The glass was green with the typical green algae that grows daily without cleaning.

I was continuing dosing BrightWell Microbacter at 5 mL and Zeovit MicroBact at 10 drops daily. I started to have a reinfestation of dinos. This time on the rocks. A couple tiny bubbly strands were floating on the rocks. The sand started to get brown again.

Early this week I backed down the dosage from 5 to 1 ml of Microbacter7 and 1 drops daily.

Yayyyyyy My sand is pristine white. No green micro hair algae. No brown slime. Corals seem to be happy. I’ve notice my trochus snails on the sand.

Here’s a shot of my nutrients at this time. Today they are at PO4 0.17 and NO3 10 PPM

My pH, is much more steady as I keep alkalinity stable. I also ran my skimmer line outside. My pH never falls below 8.0 and my pH goes to 8.3 in the day time.

I dose Sodium Carbonate and I use Aquavitro Balance to help keep pH up. Use with caution though.

 

[Drumstin]

Ok today phosphates dropped finally. Now at 0.19 (from 0.25) so maybe I’m about to start reading nitrates. Will dose nitrate at same amount tonight and see what they look like tomorrow.

 

[Drumstin]

Woohoo! Reading nitrates finally! 2ppm and 0.14 phos.. feeling like progress!

 

[ScottB]

Woohoo! Reading nitrates finally! 2ppm and 0.14 phos.. feeling like progress!

I forgot to mention that dosing nitrates into a nitrate depleted system WILL LOWER your PO4. The bacteria that eat PO4 need some nitrate available. Keep an eye on PO4. Your corals can do fine with limited nitrate; they are very efficient consumers of it. Not so with PO4. They will hate you if PO4 bottoms. (And dinos will return.)

 

[Drumstin]

I forgot to mention that dosing nitrates into a nitrate depleted system WILL LOWER your PO4. The bacteria that eat PO4 need some nitrate available. Keep an eye on PO4. Your corals can do fine with limited nitrate; they are very efficient consumers of it. Not so with PO4. They will hate you if PO4 bottoms. (And dinos will return.)

Thanks man. I did read about that and am watching closely. It's down to 0.12 this morning so I'm assuming it'll keep dropping and tonight might be a bit lower. At what point should a jump in with a bit of PO4 dosing? Thanks again guys. Hopeful that things are going in the right direction now.

 

[ScottB]

Thanks man. I did read about that and am watching closely. It's down to 0.12 this morning so I'm assuming it'll keep dropping and tonight might be a bit lower. At what point should a jump in with a bit of PO4 dosing? Thanks again guys. Hopeful that things are going in the right direction now.

If you can stay comfortably above .05 u should be fine.

IME the pace of PO4 consumption was highest in the beginning and then slowed. It is the initial couple weeks of nitrate dosing where the biggest changes came in.

 

[Drumstin]

just vacuumed the sand into my sock and washed the sock after a quarter of the tank was done each time dumping the water that in the sock if possible.. contemplating scrubbing the rocks. Not sure. My leather is about to die I’m pretty sure. :/ here is a pic of what I’m dealing with without blue lights on..