Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[chefjpaul]

I had a tri-color valida STN prior to my dino outbreak. The increase in nutrients actually brought it back! Even now, with dinos running the tank, it's growing like a boss. Now my green and stellar stylophora STN'd and are now growing hair algae.... I can't explain that. But good luck to your battle! If you can keep alk stable and calcium up, you shouldn't have any SPS issues. Shouldn't.;Oldman

thank you.
yeah, the main elements are very stable, lucky to have a great dosing set up. So far the corals are fine.

I'd love hair algae right now.
Out of all the years and tanks, the worst I've had was minor cyano. Now All my fish get sick and whole tank seems to crash....sucks.

Started with a sterile tank, life needs life.

 

[ImpossibleKid]

I have, more than once.
I've followed this page since it took over for the other thread.

I won't go out and buy a tool, just because either, I basically know where I need to go with this tank.

I know exactly what you mean, I was very hesitant to buy any tools either. UV was the last thing I bought for that exact reason.

The one tool you absolutely should buy before any other would be the microscope for identification. Especially before a big purchase like a UV sterilizer. Depending on what species of dinoflagellate you have, UV may not even be effective.

thank you.
yeah, the main elements are very stable, lucky to have a great dosing set up. So far the corals are fine.

I'd love hair algae right now.
Out of all the years and tanks, the worst I've had was minor cyano. Now All my fish get sick and whole tank seems to crash....sucks.

Started with a sterile tank, life needs life.

I did the same in starting with a sterile tank. I think you're on the right track starting with elevating nutrients inorganically (Flourish) and then focusing on getting more life into the tank. That's the path I chose to take and it seems to be working. I no longer see any trace of dinos under the microscope and there's hair algae growing now as well. After a cleaning I'll post some updated pictures.

UV was a huge factor in killing Ostreopsis for me, more so than any other method I've tried over the almost 2 years I've been battling it. I can almost feel my sanity returning. But definitely ID first.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Anyone ever try putting seachems phosphorus in the ATO reservoir? lol (i'm a little tired and slap happy)

 

[taricha]

I won't go out and buy a tool, just because either, I basically know where I need to go with this tank.

UV not strictly required, but a method of ongoing selective Dino cell removal/killing is kinda necessary. UV is one way to do this, and for many people the least-fuss way to make it happen. You could siphon daily, if that suits you. Other methods that remove cells from the water column are ok too. They just have to remove a LOT of cells.
(Skimming does nothing in this context)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Anyone ever try putting seachems phosphorus in the ATO reservoir? lol (i'm a little tired and slap happy)

You can put most types of nitrate or phosphate or both into an ATO. Only thing to avoid is obvious incompatibilities, such as calcium nitrate and sodium phosphate.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

(Skimming does nothing in this context)

How do you know?

 

[mcarroll]

Finally get to join the club after many years of dino avoidance.

DINO CLUB
Sorry, we're full.​

Always ran a bit heavy on nutrients until now.

Older is better.

Light C. dosing, siporax

The carbon dosing slants things toward bacteria, away from phytoplankton.

Guess I need to buy a microscope.

Selecting a microscope – $12 or so will get you in the game, but you don't have to spend a lot more to get a MUCH better scope. (I'm on the $12 option, currenly.)

What is your take on the UV

Effective – run it if you have it. Otherwise, as was already said, ID first. Some dino's don't really go into the water under our tank conditions.

Love the blog too.

Thanks!!!

BTW, I lost all my email subscribers when I switched to the new domain (long story) so if you want email alerts when I post, you have to resubscribe. (This applies to anyone. Sorry in advance!)

Out of all the years and tanks, the worst I've had was minor cyano. Now All my fish get sick and whole tank seems to crash....sucks.

Started with a sterile tank, life needs life.

It's amazing how common this story is....sorry it's your story too now.

Anyone ever try putting seachems phosphorus in the ATO reservoir? lol (i'm a little tired and slap happy)

I would do it that way. I've even wondered if you could put the phos and nitrate in there together (both potassium based), but I'm not sure about that. @Randy Holmes-Farley might know if they can be combined for sure! Refresh, then post!

 

[mcarroll]

How do you know?

I've never seen anyone make so much as a dent in dino's with skimming.....and I think 100% of tanks with dino's have a skimmer running. I guess it would be interesting to see if dino's of any type were worse without a skimmer.

@taricha has been into this pretty intensely – he may have experimented along these lines already.

 

[sfin52]

Or are they better with out a skimmer is another great question

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I've never seen anyone make so much as a dent in dino's with skimming.....and I think 100% of tanks with dino's have a skimmer running. I guess it would be interesting to see if dino's of any type were worse without a skimmer.

@taricha has been into this pretty intensely – he may have experimented along these lines already.

Yes, its a big difference between saying a skimmer does "nothing" (in the context of dinos) and a skimmer doesn't solve a dino problem.

I'm not saying skimmers help (although I'd speculate they'd be more likely to help than hurt), but I just wanted to see if there was evidence behind the claim.

 

[BoomCorals]

So what do you guys see here? These are at 1200x

 

[sfin52]

I think all these pics under the microscope are always so cool. It's hard to believe something so small could leave us so desperate and frustrated.

 

[taricha]

How do you know?

(Skimming is useless in this context). "this context" referring to the very narrow issue of removing dino cells from the water column in numbers that make a dent in the population.
It's all circumstantial evidence.
1. heavy skimming doesn't seem to slow/halt/reverse bloom cell numbers.
2. Skimmer cups have very low numbers of dinos.

I started from the presumption that skimming should strongly remove dino cells. I mean they are 25-60 micron terrible swimming almost neutrally buoyant particles covered in mucus that produce and trap their own bubbles. How can skimming not remove them?
But people with big rocking skimmers still have blooms take over their tanks, (some people -me- have a bloom onset correlating to shortly after they upgraded skimmers) and when people look in their skimmer cups, they see very few dino cells, when it should be concentrated.
...So my refined presumption: skimming would strongly remove dinos, if it came in contact with them, but it doesn't because the dinos stay in the main tank, few getting to the sump. ....But people with insane high turnover between sump/tank still don't have dino blooms reduced by skimming nor skimmer cups with lots of dinos inside. And people have had success with uv in sump right next to a skimmer that didn't make a dent. (But I still think in-tank uv is better)

So why don't dinos get skimmed out?
Smart people have pointed out to me that skimming is actually not really as good at removing particulates as we think it is.
And maybe the low skimmability of dinos tells us that dino cells leave the mucus mat behind on the substrate to go into the water, but that is pure speculation. People do report the mats get less brown overnight, not that rocks get less slimy, so maybe there's something there. I dunno.

There is a fun little trick. Hang a piece of filter floss flapping like a flag in front of strong flow in a well lit part of the tank. After a day, compare the ostreopsis dino cells from what you wring out of the filter floss to what collected in your skimmer cup.
My filter floss was always brown, full of pure ostis, and my skimmer cup never had any significant number of dino cells to speak of.


I do still recommend running a skimmer when fighting dinos though, and there may be good reasons to run or not run a skimmer during a dino bloom, but direct cell removal really doesn't seem to be one.

 

[taricha]

So what do you guys see here? These are at 1200x

Pic 1, the sesame seed shaped things are ostreopsis dinos and the smaller triangle things are diatoms.

Pic 2 lots of typical pennate diatoms, and Holy Mother of That's the biggest diatoms(?) I've ever seen.
I gotta stalk Phycokey to hunt down that one.

 

[BoomCorals]

Pic 1, the sesame seed shaped things are ostreopsis dinos and the smaller triangle things are diatoms.

Pic 2 lots of typical pennate diatoms, and Holy Mother of That's the biggest diatoms(?) I've ever seen.
I gotta stalk Phycokey to hunt down that one.

Let me know what you find! I thought they were quite large as well!

These were from my QT which is where I get some nasties.

 

[sfin52]

After 3 months it finally looks like this. I was too disgusted to take pic in the beginning. In hindsight I wish I would have. Seeing everybody else's takes look so pristine mine looked like junk. Today is the first day that most of the sand bed is not covered

 

[sfin52]

During this Dino take over I lost two Duncan's with about 10 heads apiece , a couple of snails and most of my pods.

On the bright side algae is starting to grow. My fish are starting to pic at the rocks again. The pod population is also on the rise.

I was getting close to dropping copper in the tank and seeing how that would turn out. But @mcarroll stopped me from another thread and pulled me to this one. Thank you all from a greatful reefer!!!!

 

[ImpossibleKid]

During this Dino take over I lost two Duncan's with about 10 heads apiece , a couple of snails and most of my pods.

On the bright side algae is starting to grow. My fish are starting to pic at the rocks again. The pod population is also on the rise.

I was getting close to dropping copper in the tank and seeing how that would turn out. But @mcarroll stopped me from another thread and pulled me to this one. Thank you all from a greatful reefer!!!!

I would also like to thank @mcarroll and @taricha as well as everyone else in the thread. I don't want to jinx it but I feel like I've beaten Ostreopsis at least for now. I siphoned a bunch of the cyano out of the tank yesterday and did the first water change in a long time, and here is the tank today:

And a closer view of the growth on the rocks:

Never thought I'd be so happy to see some good old-fashioned hair algae. I'll also be building an ATS today. Nitrate and phosphate were low yesterday so I dosed back up but will focus on ramping up organic nutrient levels over the next few weeks. Auto feeder should be here tomorrow to help with that.

 

[sfin52]

Isn't great to see the rocks and the sand again.

I never thought I would miss seeing green again. The last time I missed seeing green I kissed the grass. 110 days in Saudi. I would this time too but I might scare my fish to death.

 

[reeferfoxx]

So whats the cheapest microscope that will be adequate enough to see dinos?