Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[jbeanz24]

Hi there I’m currently battling ostreopsis and I wanted to know can the toxins released go airborne via tank evaporation? Just want to make sure my family’s health is not in any danger.

 

[Hermie]

that thread has nuances too, look how his rocks were tap rinsed. not saying all tanks need that, but all tanks tolerate it if we need the stepped up osmotic pressure especially in a dinos battle. sounds crazy I know but we have four of these done recently where they did use tap on the rocks solely because the rocks were newish, without a lot of corals and coralline, and the tap interval was just to stress dinos cells


the point is we can use disassembly cleaning to circumvent months of tinkering and wait, its a total cheat. the process is vetted across all size tanks because all size tanks do exactly the same steps for fifty pages and its two million bucks or more of rip cleans plus trackable outcomes below.

its so ironic that something this insulting works so well for the masses.

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

*we rarely have folks tap water rinse the rocks, that's for reserved battles

the basic rip procedure of just blasting off rocks with saltwater swishing/twisting in clean water or a brush usually works but for larger systems or once we want to hit in one pass most likely, we step up to tap rinsing of the rocks, not just sand, even though that seems mighty crazy. if there were corals glued on the rocks, we wouldnt tap water hit corals we'd spot apply creatively.

we use surgical precision there, not haphazard

here's another tap rinse, check the outcome even though it wasnt used for dinos it was a gha rip cean by Jedi

32g rework...

My 32g tank has been a real problem for quite a while now. I just cant seem to get the algae under control. Today I decided it's time to do a full rework on this tank. Pried off all the coral frags and removed all of the rock. Scraping all of the algae off the back as possible and scrub the...

www.reef2reef.com

every single reef is doing the same steps, the only variation are the few who got tap water rinsed rocks.
used in dinos battles, we win very often.

I need to rip clean a freshwater tank, any resources for me?

 

[taricha]

I wanted to know can the toxins released go airborne via tank evaporation?

Very concentrated blooms in the wild (mediterranean) have caused documented respiratory irritation in humans.
But that is a very intense bloom where the cells get concentrated by wave action and the bad stuff gets aerosol-ized again, by waves. It will not be dangerous through simple evaporation.

Run UV, and knock them out.

 

[jbeanz24]

Very concentrated blooms in the wild (mediterranean) have caused documented respiratory irritation in humans.
But that is a very intense bloom where the cells get concentrated by wave action and the bad stuff gets aerosol-ized again, by waves. It will not be dangerous through simple evaporation.

Run UV, and knock them out.

Thanks that puts my mind at ease . I ordered my UV should arrive tomorrow .

 

[ScottB]

These are motionless under the microscope?
I'm betting chrysophytes. Not a dino. Search forum for chrysophytes threads. People are trying a few different things for them.

@paddle41773
Agreed. This is chrysopytes or "golden algae" not a dinoflagellate. Go ahead with @brandon429 tactic. If that does not work, a few people have reported that Vibrant helped. Just don't let it bottom out your nitrates. If you do that, you will have a different set of problems.

 

[ScottB]

Hi there I’m currently battling ostreopsis and I wanted to know can the toxins released go airborne via tank evaporation? Just want to make sure my family’s health is not in any danger.

There was a guy on here a few years ago -- a severe asthmatic IIRC -- who reported significant breathing problems with ostreopsis exposure in a small studio apartment. I advised him to shut off the skimmer.

 

[taricha]

. I advised him to shut off the skimmer.

Thanks. I totally forgot about the aerosol potential from skimming. Great point.

 

[jbeanz24]

Thanks. I totally forgot about the aerosol potential from skimming. Great point.

Ok I’ll turn off the skimmer when I get back home.

 

[ScottB]

Ok I’ll turn off the skimmer when I get back home.

As long as nobody in the home has respiratory issues you should be fine. You should also run some GAC. This will remove waterborne toxins from the ostreopsis.

 

[paddle41773]

@paddle41773
Agreed. This is chrysopytes or "golden algae" not a dinoflagellate. Go ahead with @brandon429 tactic. If that does not work, a few people have reported that Vibrant helped. Just don't let it bottom out your nitrates. If you do that, you will have a different set of problems.

So this is a barebottom 20gal coral QT tank with plastic grid frag racks and 1 rock. Doing a rip clean, I guess I could take the rack outside and hit it with a hose and brush, drain the tank and rinse, clean equipment, new sponge filter, brush rock in saltwater then rinse in new saltwater, refill tank, dip corals in iodine then back to tank? Miss anything? I have a 9watt sterilizer going also, is this pointless with chrysophytes?

 

[Acros]

How do I get rid of prorocentrum?

So far I have tried all the below mentioned methods without any success. I am considering dosing Dino-X.

• UV - did nothing.
• Lights out - only temporary relief, comes back strong once light go back on.
• Nutrient dosing - no change noticed, they are stable now, without dosing.
• Silicate dosing - Has not done anything in last 2 -3 weeks. I see diatoms under the microscope.
• live phyto dosing - no change noticed.
• High temperature - no effect.

 

[Acros]

Have you tested your Silicate level? I dosed for two weeks before I started testing and realized I had to be dosing daily about 4x more than what I was. I dealt with prorocentrum for a couple months and have been completely dino free for about 6 weeks. I've done water changes and fed aminos and still no sign of dinos.

I missed this reply earlier.

That is interesting, I haven’t tested my silicates yet. I am going to double my silicate dosing and get a test kit. I have a few sponges in the tank.

 

[COwCOw]

Depends on the stain you have. For Amphidinium water changes and lowering nitrates would make it even worse.
the trick is to help the competition not to kill the Dinos.

Anything introduce competition for dinos will help. Be it live rocks or bacterial products. For some stains silicates dosing to help diatoms to outcompete dinos.

Finally, I got myself to do it, I just wanted to ask your opinion on this plan, I'll keep nitrate and phos consistent while dosing live phytoplankton to see if that will help a bit (just wondering if the phytoplankton will fight off the diatoms and would make it harder for a diatom bloom to happen?) and lightly dose Silicates and see how that goes while keeping my nitrate consistent if nothing goes wrong ill HEAVILY dose both and see how that goes. Just wondering if you think that is a good battleplan for this war. Thanks!!!

 

[ScottB]

So this is a barebottom 20gal coral QT tank with plastic grid frag racks and 1 rock. Doing a rip clean, I guess I could take the rack outside and hit it with a hose and brush, drain the tank and rinse, clean equipment, new sponge filter, brush rock in saltwater then rinse in new saltwater, refill tank, dip corals in iodine then back to tank? Miss anything? I have a 9watt sterilizer going also, is this pointless with chrysophytes?

I can confirm the UV does not seem to affect chrysophytes.

 

[attiland]

Finally, I got myself to do it, I just wanted to ask your opinion on this plan, I'll keep nitrate and phos consistent while dosing live phytoplankton to see if that will help a bit (just wondering if the phytoplankton will fight off the diatoms and would make it harder for a diatom bloom to happen?) and lightly dose Silicates and see how that goes while keeping my nitrate consistent if nothing goes wrong ill HEAVILY dose both and see how that goes. Just wondering if you think that is a good battleplan for this war. Thanks!!!

If it is Amphidinium you want the diatoms to bloom. You don’t kill Amphidinium with silicates but help diatoms to outcompete them. Anything would slow this is not good.

when you say lightly dose not sure what do you mean. dose silicates to around 2ppm. Diatoms bloom will be almost guaranteed.
If you test for silicates top up accordingly else add some 2 times a day.

you can speed up things by siphoning the sand just before you start but not during the process.

go for a week or so then stop to see how it goes. When dinos and diatoms next to each other you will see it as colour difference. Mine started in circles. I wish I have taken pictures as reference.

 

[Dempsey941]

Originally thought it was Amphidinium, but now I'm not sure.

 

[Miami Reef]

Hi guys.

I have coolia Dinos… they aren’t cool.
They stay on the sand bed and don’t go into water column.

This is what I’ve done so far:
Currently black out for almost 24 hours.
Dosed H202 1ml pet 10 gallons. Did it twice today.

I’m planning on turning back on lights tomorrow.

Dosing silicates daily.

I think I know how this happened. I’ve been in fallow for 3 months and didn’t feed for a month in a row. My nutrients went to 0 I’m assuming the bacteria population shrunk due to less feeding which Dino’s took hold.

Can I carbon dose to feed bacteria? My nutrients are higher now.

 

[attiland]

Originally thought it was Amphidinium, but now I'm not sure.

It has a beak. It is Amphidinium

 

[attiland]

Hi guys.

I have coolia Dinos… they aren’t cool.
They stay on the sand bed and don’t go into water column.

This is what I’ve done so far:
Currently black out for almost 24 hours.
Dosed H202 1ml pet 10 gallons. Did it twice today.

I’m planning on turning back on lights tomorrow.

Dosing silicates daily.

I think I know how this happened. I’ve been in fallow for 3 months and didn’t feed for a month in a row. My nutrients went to 0 I’m assuming the bacteria population shrunk due to less feeding which Dino’s took hold.

Can I carbon dose to feed bacteria? My nutrients are higher now.

I might be wrong but h2o2 is contradicting silicates dosing. I would do one or the other. I trust silicates dosing more.
as per carbon dosing I think you should stop that while dealing with Dinos.

 

[Miami Reef]

I might be wrong but h2o2 is contradicting silicates dosing. I would do one or the other. I trust silicates dosing more.
as per carbon dosing I think you should stop that while dealing with Dinos.

Hello. I have an update.

This is what I already did: 1 day black out. H202 dose (only for one day). My phosphates needed a huge push in order to make it rise above 0.02 to 0.05. After my blackout my tank looked foggy. I tested my phosphates and it’s 0.2ppm!

There’s a significant decrease in dinos in my tank, but there’s now a massive spike in phosphates. I dosed plenty of silicates.

I turned on my skimmer, put in my 5 micron filter socks, changing my activated carbon media, and dosed CACO3 as an organic flocculant.

I stopped all liquid carbon and h202 dosing. No feeding either. I’m just worried that Dino’s will come back with all the nutrients.

Now I just be patient?