Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?
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in addition to the good points by @Reef and Dive, I'll point out the timeline.
Neither trace element competition / depletion, nor beneficial Natural seawater organisms would result in dinos death overnight. But it is possible that some chemical or environmental cue (temp?, salinity?) triggered them to suddenly do something different. Perhaps to end the growth phase and attempt to form resting cysts, or to disperse in water and hunt for better conditions, no idea.
Is a few minutes of air exposure really disruptive to the cells like fresh water is? No experience with air exposure.
Reef and Dive
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If let really dry they explode. If there’s humidity they still live. Tests done checking with a microscope.
I also think it is not a practical solution…
Maximitsurugi
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Well whatever it is that happened, they have gone and have not yet returned. Something shifted with that large water change and exposing the rock. If i knew what it was then id bottle it and be a millionaire. I only share results, not reason. Te cuento el milagro pero no el santo. lol
Reef and Dive
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Sure sure, don´t get me wrong. I´m not doubting you.
It is just the case that this is a really long thread, that have put together a lot of information over many years (in the beginning I did not usually participate doing comments, just as a reader). People like @taricha have been around for years.
So when people comment, we try to understand what has been tried many times and have been working over and over (eg Ostreopsis and UV), and what is better to be considered as a report (things that did not work other times, things that often worked).
Those individual reports are far from invaluable, actually when they start to occur over and over we start to think about new conclusions.
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Great post.
Since you brought up "new conclusions", I'll go ahead and briefly mention a couple of things that I've been thinking about more lately I haven't had time to hash out in detail or write up regarding re-examining some advice.
The first is why it is so difficult to keep (SPS especially) coral alive and healthy while treating dinos. Are the coral losses due to the dinos exclusively, is it that difficult to control Dino toxins? Does nutrient elevation play a role? Would corals be better off with a shorter aggressive algicidal treatment rather than a longer conservative approach?
Secondly, We need to refine the nutrient elevation idea.
Is "low nutrients allows dinos to succeed and dominate" an ok description, Or is it better understood as "low nutrients stress algae, and stressed/dying algae fuels nuisance dino growth".
Under what circumstances is the PO4+NO3 elevation useless / unhelpful. There's a lot of times when we can see people who have kept PO4+NO3 plenty high for a long time and they just have a tank full of gha, and cyano and dinos. Others say they had to elevate nutrients and keep it up for 2 or 3 months, which frankly means it probably didn't help, and they might as well have done nothing and just waited it out.
Thirdly, if the competition game is really largely about Fe limitation, can we play that game more directly, by cutting imports, increasing exports, and possibly oxidizing the Fe in the water to a less bioavailable form?
(just some half-baked thoughts floating around in my head.)
Turf Algae Blues
I’m stuck, Need advise from the community please. 20 gallons 6 years old It was way worse. Been working on it for a bit. January did 2 -10 gallon water changes. Water change of 4 gallons every week since February. Have also taken rocks out to scrub them. Turkey blast rocks 2 times a...
www.reef2reef.com
How I gave myself Dinos.
Mattyreefs
Active Member
In my case, I don't think "low nutrients" might have played any role at all and I'd argue that it had to do entirely with dead competition.
I had a major gha outbreak that I took care of very easily with bigger cuc and manual removal. Shortly after, I had what I thought was cyano and dosed chemiclean, then dinos exploded out of control. In hindsight I definitely should have verified what I was dealing with before acting but you live and learn.
My nitrate and phosphate when dinos took off were 6ppm and .05ppm. I then did a 3 day blackout and everything died off and my nutrients since then have been mostly around 12ppm and .08-.20 give or take. I've never bottomed out on either and I don't think I've had a major imbalance between the two.
One thing I've thought about is similar to your comment on Fe limitation. We seem to know more about what can make dinos worse then what is sure to help. For example, it seems dry rock can be a major factor in dino outbreaks and I realize it has to do with bacteria and not elements. Could there be some correlation between dino outbreaks and with what type of salt is used? Is there much difference in iron content between mixes and if so, could switching to a lower iron salt long term help?
Reef and Dive
Valuable Member
My personal interpretation:
Reasons it is usually hard to keep SPS while battling dinos:
1 - (by far to me) we change too many things on the tank in despair and too frequently
2 - possibly dino toxins, specially for the most toxic species (eg Ostreopsis, Prorocentrum)
3 - misinterpretation: often there’s too much light and expelled symbionts are interpreted as the same dinos that appear elsewhere on the tank
I do not think enhanced iron deprivation would be a great strategy since it is a key element to photosynthesis, so this could be very detrimental to corals. But I’m pretty unsure of my prediction.
Those sky high nutrient tanks (with plenty of GHA and cyano) often have dinos in a counter-intuitive setting: lack of nutrients.
The tank might start to work as a huge ATS and usually dinos start to thrive when “available” nutrients drop close to zero. Often they are perceived in a second moment, when nutrients are pretty high again and the tank owner could fail to detect the trigger. Less often, it is just the case of dinos being another species that are taking advantage of the excess of nutrients…
@taricha as I said, those are also my thoughts, I would love to know if you agree or not…
Biff0rz
Valuable Member
Gha still running strong but dying daily. I'd say it's been reduced by 10% at most. Dinos are now growing off the gha. Time for a second dose? Also, what about chemiclean red slime remover? I used that before when I had cyano and it also nuked all of the gha. @Reef and Dive
Note, Monday will be week 3 of fluzo
Note, Monday will be week 3 of fluzo
Reef and Dive
Valuable Member
If there are already 21 days from first dosage, then yes 2nd dose (remember to turn uv off).
Chemiclean is a very bad idea now, it does not help with GHA and will wipe a lot of bacteria, removing a lot of algae, bacteria and cyano creates a great boost for dinos.
Gator_Reefer
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Fighting a dino bloom (believe ostreopsis) and think Im starting to turn a corner hopefully. However, Ive started noticing these black particles in filter floss that I did not see before the dino bloom.
Curious if anyone thinks this is maybe dead dino or something else in connection with fighting dino blooms.
ataller
Community Member
I have a relatively new tank ~6 months that was seeded with a small around of live rock from my previous tank but was mostly dry rock.
At around the 4 month mark I had a pretty big red spirulina cyano outbreak and I used chemiclean to take care of it. Which it did, quickly.
A couple weeks after the chemiclean I started to see signs of dinos. My tank now has a substantial dino infestation.
I once gave up on a tank due to dinos I could never solve, though that was years and years ago and there seems to be so much more information now, so I am hopeful.
I pulled out my old microscope and can see that the mats are mostly Ostreopsis. They exhibit the spinning motion which I believe is unique to them?
Since the tank is new and there is a low bioload [3 small fish] I have struggled to keep N and P up. I have been dosing but have missed some days here and there and a couple days is all it takes for my N and P to end up at 0 0 (salifert N and hanna phosphorus ).
Using neonitro and neophos I have raised my nitrate to 10 and my phosphate to 0.1 and I will keep it there.
My aquarium is small, the display is around 50G and sump is another 20 maybe. I have a drop in 11w UV, is that insufficient?
Should I be blasting off the rocks ? Should I clean the back glass? Should I touch the sand at all? I did siphon the sand a few times and it only seemed to cause the dinos to return the next day worse.
Should I use filter socks? Or not?
Should I minimize my light cycle? 6 hours? Or leave it as is (around 10 hours).
Should I add macro algae to the sump?
Should I dose MB7?
Should I turn off my skimmer? Turn in down? Turn in Up?
I have been reading through this thread and there are layers of advice spanning over years.
I am hoping someone can give me a summary of what the current best practices are?
I know there is a product out there called DinoX, however since using chemiclean replaced one problem for another I am hoping not to have to try and use something like it again.
Adam
At around the 4 month mark I had a pretty big red spirulina cyano outbreak and I used chemiclean to take care of it. Which it did, quickly.
A couple weeks after the chemiclean I started to see signs of dinos. My tank now has a substantial dino infestation.
I once gave up on a tank due to dinos I could never solve, though that was years and years ago and there seems to be so much more information now, so I am hopeful.
I pulled out my old microscope and can see that the mats are mostly Ostreopsis. They exhibit the spinning motion which I believe is unique to them?
Since the tank is new and there is a low bioload [3 small fish] I have struggled to keep N and P up. I have been dosing but have missed some days here and there and a couple days is all it takes for my N and P to end up at 0 0 (salifert N and hanna phosphorus ).
Using neonitro and neophos I have raised my nitrate to 10 and my phosphate to 0.1 and I will keep it there.
My aquarium is small, the display is around 50G and sump is another 20 maybe. I have a drop in 11w UV, is that insufficient?
Should I be blasting off the rocks ? Should I clean the back glass? Should I touch the sand at all? I did siphon the sand a few times and it only seemed to cause the dinos to return the next day worse.
Should I use filter socks? Or not?
Should I minimize my light cycle? 6 hours? Or leave it as is (around 10 hours).
Should I add macro algae to the sump?
Should I dose MB7?
Should I turn off my skimmer? Turn in down? Turn in Up?
I have been reading through this thread and there are layers of advice spanning over years.
I am hoping someone can give me a summary of what the current best practices are?
I know there is a product out there called DinoX, however since using chemiclean replaced one problem for another I am hoping not to have to try and use something like it again.
Adam
Reef and Dive
Valuable Member
In your case (Ostreopsis) the most simple and effective method is to use an oversized UV with adequate flow for parasites.
It seems you have more than ostreopsis, but one battle each time… If Ostreopsis is solved but you still have other species (small cell amphi maybe) then you may require other interventions…
ataller
Community Member
There are lots of microscopic life in the mats when I pull one out to look at in the microscope.
Regardless of what else I see there is always ostreopsis there so yes I will treat it first.
How do you define an oversized UV unit ? Is it a watt per gallon calculation ?
Adam
Reef and Dive
Valuable Member
1w / 3 gal or more, even better if you mount it on the display
BanjoBandito
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I'm sorry to laugh, but I appreciate some "well, I did this" moments in reefing.Turf Algae Blues
I’m stuck, Need advise from the community please. 20 gallons 6 years old It was way worse. Been working on it for a bit. January did 2 -10 gallon water changes. Water change of 4 gallons every week since February. Have also taken rocks out to scrub them. Turkey blast rocks 2 times a...
How I gave myself Dinos.
Back in the day when we first started using scrubbers, coral clamping was frequently described. It was thought that this Maybe caused by excessive biolfilms causing oxygen exchange problems. The algae could however quickly be depleting iron also which would explain some improvements in some tanks by the introduction of fertilizer via phyto with regard to Dino’s.
Reef and Dive
Valuable Member
Yes you can sure. To avoid too many WC you can use a 50mic shark bag and return water to the sump.
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