Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[ScottB]

not really clear, if i rase po4 and no3 (i have to remove rowaphos) , it will be much longer to start zeovit. raising to remove after doesn't look a great idea, or not?

I didn't read back but what are your phosphate levels like right now? That you are using a GFO while in a dino thread is unconventional to say the least.

Zeo is a bacterial method that is scarily effective at processing nutrients. You do you. How fully you understand the chemistry of this method will become pretty obvious very quickly. Good luck. Impress us all with your full tank shots of pastel corals. I have seen some beauties before for sure.

 

[ScottB]

To Dino or Not to Dino
4 month old mixed reef
Thought it was just the ugly phase but thinking it might be the extra ugly phase.

I'll be in the lab on Thursday. I can use a basic light inverted scope or a confocal. Right now I'm thinking I can just live mount the sample on a slide and use light on 10X or 20X. Suggestions?

The pictures are what I vacuumed up off the sand bed. The last picture is about 20 minutes later and the wee beasties have conglomerated to several foci on the bottom of the bucket.

Dinos?

I may have gone overboard on the video ;Watching

The music was awesome.

400X plus phone zoom on VIDEO will do nicely. Swim patterns really help.

 

[wolfen281]

The music was awesome.

400X plus phone zoom on VIDEO will do nicely. Swim patterns really help.

Would something like this work? (minus the green fluorescent labeling)

 

[ScottB]

Would something like this work? (minus the green fluorescent labeling)

Pretty sure that is Prorocentrum.

You can confirm for yourself here:

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

Here is a dino treatment guide I have been tinkering on that represents the current consensus on treatment according to species.

A Dinoflagellate Treatment Guide

As the title suggests, this is intended as a short guide on what to do when you suspect dinoflagellates are trying to overtake your system. It is an attempt to boil down the protocols discussed across 11,000 posts in this "Are you Tired" thread along with thousands of other dino threads. I did no...

docs.google.com

 

[SuperSaiyanTang]

Really frustrated by dinos, heres some background.

Tank was running for about two years with Zeovit. Had a bit of a crash and took Zeo offline. At the same time I moved about 40lbs of rock to the sump and put in some new dry rock in the display, also added sand. So I pretty much started from scratch. Everything was ok for a week or so but then I developed cyano. I used chemi clean which wiped out the cyano pretty good but now my sand bed is infested with dinos.

My nutrients are at:
Nitrate:2.5
Phosphate: .09

I run a 54w UV through the sump. Tank is about 150gallons.

Each morning my sand is completely white, by about half way through the day it is covered in brown dinos. I don't have a microscope, but Im just taking a guess that it is amphidinium since the UV doesnt seem to do much. I started dosing some phyto every night last week but it seems like my Dinos are worse. Not sure what to do and I dont want to keep dosing stuff into the tank. Id love to get nice stable tank, any help or advice would be great!

 

[saltyhog]

This is pretty much a text book description of how to get dinos. Low nutrient environment, dry rock and chemiclean removing their competiton.

From your description and lack of UV effectiveness (assuming your UV is properly sized and plumbed) I agree amphidinium is most likely. While it would be better to get a positive ID it's inexpensive to dose silicates which is the primary thing to do for amphidinium. You didn't say where your NO3 and PO4 are but try to get them up to 5-10 and 0.06-0.12 respectively. Also consider dosing phyto/pods and bacterial additives like Microbacter7.

 

[iLMaRiO]

Reading here, looks like dino are common in ULN tanks like zeovit but on zeovit both Alexander and Jacky are saying that low nutrients are not related to dinos (if true, any bacterial reproduction method would not exist as will cause dinos)

 

[iLMaRiO]

Tank was running for about two years with Zeovit. Had a bit of a crash and took Zeo offline.

did you know the crash origin?

 

[ScottB]

Reading here, looks like dino are common in ULN tanks like zeovit but on zeovit both Alexander and Jacky are saying that low nutrients are not related to dinos (if true, any bacterial reproduction method would not exist as will cause dinos)

We all have dinos, diatoms, bacterial film, film algae, coralline, etc. And for the most part, we all have some nutrients. It is really more about surface competitors fighting for space & nutrients.

If the "good guys" don't have enough consistent and balanced nutrient available, they lose. And the scavengers take over.

Or, there can be enough nutrient, and we chose to nuke one competitor (cyano) in exchange for another scavenger (dino).

 

[iLMaRiO]

We all have dinos, diatoms, bacterial film, film algae, coralline, etc. And for the most part, we all have some nutrients. It is really more about surface competitors fighting for space & nutrients.

If the "good guys" don't have enough consistent and balanced nutrient available, they lose. And the scavengers take over.

Or, there can be enough nutrient, and we chose to nuke one competitor (cyano) in exchange for another scavenger (dino).

It's something like measuring no3 when hair algae are present ? Usually you don't have measurable no3 because algea eat them . I think it's the same with zeovit, you have a very very low measurable no3/po4 because you have tons of live bacters that are "working a lot" cheating the measurement.

It's different than using po4 adsorber, in that case the po4 level is really low/unexistant and this could trigger dino/cyano ?

 

[Reef and Dive]

It's different than using po4 adsorber, in that case the po4 level is really low/unexistant and this could trigger dino/cyano ?

Low po4 can trigger dinos.
High po4 can trigger cyano.

 

[saltyhog]

Reading here, looks like dino are common in ULN tanks like zeovit but on zeovit both Alexander and Jacky are saying that low nutrients are not related to dinos (if true, any bacterial reproduction method would not exist as will cause dinos)

They are correct to a point. It's not low nutrients themselves that are a trigger....many high nutrient tanks can also get dinos. However ULN situations do greatly favor dinos over their competition....so if there is already not much competition the dinos pretty much "rule the roost" and take over the available space.

 

[ScottB]

It's something like measuring no3 when hair algae are present ? Usually you don't have measurable no3 because algea eat them . I think it's the same with zeovit, you have a very very low measurable no3/po4 because you have tons of live bacters that are "working a lot" cheating the measurement.

It's different than using po4 adsorber, in that case the po4 level is really low/unexistant and this could trigger dino/cyano ?

GHA are another very effective surface competitor particularly in tanks that cannot support tangs due to size.

Treating dino tanks with GHA is an added level of difficulty for me at least. It is a tough spot to be in regardless of dino species.

Zeo really does a number on measurable nutrients. I don't know enough about it to write intelligently. I have seen some beautiful acro gardens with it, but by count, far more systems with heavy in/out. But I don't live in Europe anymore, so there is that.

When it comes to managing PO4, I strongly prefer lanthanum chloride over GFO. So much more simple to be precise than with GFO.

 

[iLMaRiO]

Zeo really does a number on measurable nutrients. I don't know enough about it to write intelligently. I have seen some beautiful acro gardens with it, but by count, far more systems with heavy in/out. But I don't live in Europe anymore, so there is that.

i'm still struggling in choosing the method, if zeovit or full triton. i'm in this situation from months...

 

[iLMaRiO]

anyway, i've put the UV, stopped dinox, new charcoal, removed rowaphos.... let's see what happens

 

[iLMaRiO]

this is the current situation. looks like dead dinos to me. what do you think?

 

[iLMaRiO]

 

[iLMaRiO]

how can i check if i won the battle?
Just looking for dinos or with a microscope?
tank seems clean actually.

 

[ScottB]

how can i check if i won the battle?
Just looking for dinos or with a microscope?
tank seems clean actually.

From the looks of it you won the battle.

The "war" is forever. Just keep it a cold war. All reasonably established tanks have some dinos. So you should expect to find some under the scope. Ideally, a better looking surface competitor will come along and dominate those surfaces. Bacterial film would be nice. Algae film would be fine also.

 

[Yodeling]

this is the current situation. looks like dead dinos to me. what do you think?

That looks utterly dead. I wonder if it was the DinoX that killed it. With just nutrient control, UV, bacteria, etc, I would expect slow reduction over a period of days/weeks. I don’t remember reading any case where Dino’s just suddenly withered and died in massive quantities. How much DinoX did you add? Did you do anything else to your tank?