Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

ScottB · May 30, 2022

ZombieEngineer said:
I ended up just grabbing this one as a happy medium that I can plumb into my sump after the temporary setup for dinos is done. The Green Killing Machine will stay hooked up for the rest of its return period or when dinos are completely gone, so I will end up running double UV once the other shows up.

27 Watt High Output UV Sterilizer

The IceCap UV sterilizers can be used on saltwater, freshwater, and ponds to help control and even eradicate parasites, algae, fungi, bacteria, and protozoa without any harmful chemicals or biocides. When set up, maintained, and properly operated; free-floating microorganisms will be killed by...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

I also grabbed a mj600 to get the approx 3x tank turnover per hour target.

Sorry late in reply -- i finally have weather suitable for flying.

I cannot find much argument with the ideas presented so far. But maybe I missed mention the need of dosing (food grade) sodium nitrate and trisodium phosphate if you are deficient? Numbers for NO3 and P04 are >0 ???

Lastly, are you @Zombie from the Neptune forum? If so, I owe you direct dial info. Happily.

ZombieEngineer · May 30, 2022

ScottB said:
Sorry late in reply -- i finally have weather suitable for flying.

I cannot find much argument with the ideas presented so far. But maybe I missed mention the need of dosing (food grade) sodium nitrate and trisodium phosphate if you are deficient? Numbers for NO3 and P04 are >0 ???

Lastly, are you @Zombie from the Neptune forum? If so, I owe you direct dial info. Happily.

I have some neophos and neonitrate coming tomorrow to get NO3 and PO4 back in check. These last measured NO3 0.0, PO4 0.03. I also got 8oz ea of sodium nitrate and trisodium phosphate from loudwolf that I can use to "refill" the neophos and neonitrate after I use those up.

Yes, this is Zombie from Neptune forums. Been taking a break for a few years after a tank crash I couldn't pin down (corroded magnet in RODI barrel + bryopsis that I mistook for Fluconazole being the cause) and getting ready for my first kid. Got back in after seeing how much my son loves the fishes and figuring out what kept killing my CUC.

ScottB · Jun 1, 2022

ZombieEngineer said:
I have some neophos and neonitrate coming tomorrow to get NO3 and PO4 back in check. These last measured NO3 0.0, PO4 0.03. I also got 8oz ea of sodium nitrate and trisodium phosphate from loudwolf that I can use to "refill" the neophos and neonitrate after I use those up.

Yes, this is Zombie from Neptune forums. Been taking a break for a few years after a tank crash I couldn't pin down (corroded magnet in RODI barrel + bryopsis that I mistook for Fluconazole being the cause) and getting ready for my first kid. Got back in after seeing how much my son loves the fishes and figuring out what kept killing my CUC.

Welcome back. Raising nitrates is super easy and quick. Phosphates on the other hand... but you have some of that. Ostreos generally respond well to UV and some nutrient so this should be an easy recovery.

Are you also the new pilot zombie over on the /flying Reddit thread? Or the aviation thread? You zombies seem to be all over the place these days. Maybe I just hang out in all the wrong places.

Seriously, thanks for your service over on the Neptune forum. I really appreciate your contributions there. Maybe you can take over for @SuncrestReef as the APEX guru here on R2R as I know he is taking a break for a bit.

ZombieEngineer · Jun 1, 2022

ScottB said:
Welcome back. Raising nitrates is super easy and quick. Phosphates on the other hand... but you have some of that. Ostreos generally respond well to UV and some nutrient so this should be an easy recovery.

Are you also the new pilot zombie over on the /flying Reddit thread? Or the aviation thread? You zombies seem to be all over the place these days. Maybe I just hang out in all the wrong places.

Seriously, thanks for your service over on the Neptune forum. I really appreciate your contributions there. Maybe you can take over for @SuncrestReef as the APEX guru here on R2R as I know he is taking a break for a bit.

So far unresponsive, but I was only able to add nitrates so I just did 2ppm to start. Phosphate got delayed until tonight. Hopefully the bigger UV will do the trick when that shows up tomorrow.

Do you think it would be worthwhile to do a full tank blackout once I have the bigger UV setup?

I am not a pilot, so not the same guy there.

Happy to help with programming and automation stuff.

ScottB · Jun 1, 2022

ZombieEngineer said:
So far unresponsive, but I was only able to add nitrates so I just did 2ppm to start. Phosphate got delayed until tonight. Hopefully the bigger UV will do the trick when that shows up tomorrow.

Do you think it would be worthwhile to do a full tank blackout once I have the bigger UV setup?

I am not a pilot, so not the same guy there.

Happy to help with programming and automation stuff.

Mmm. I forgot to mention that you should not replace nitrates in a nutrient depleted system without having sufficient PO4. Sorry. @taricha was not around to correct my omission. Hopefully your .03 of PO4 can hang on; it tends to get hammered when you add nitrates to a depleted system. Dump in some nori while you wait. It seems to add phosphates for me at least. If you are bouncing around zero PO4, dose very very generously. I had to dose 2 liters of solution. It binds to aragonite until it saturates.

Yes, a blackout can accelerate displacement once you have the proper UV in place. If you have to wait on the UV, you can also just clamp a bunch of filter floss in high flow/light areas where they like to hang out. Rinse before lights out.

Once your kid(s) are in/out college, start some flight lessons just for giggles. Shockingly addictive.

bishoptf · Jun 5, 2022

I can't seem to get rid of my ostreo last year I had large cell but since Decemeber and a chemi clean treatment (i know I know) ostreo has popped up and I cant for the life of me get rid of them. I had a 9w in DT Aqua Illumination UV running 24/7 (29G dt with 20g sump) and added another 10w in tank UV (cheapie from Amazon) but was only running at night but looks like they are getting worse and not better so maybe I need to run 24/7. SInce I've battled them I know the routine but what do you do when it doesnt appear to be working, everyone says UV works on ostreo but maybe I have the super versions since they will not go away. They talk about tank diversity, I've added live rubble, live rock, live sand from @AquaBiomics and have even tested my tanks, they range in the top tier for diversity but Dino's still out compete, I've attached my latest @AquaBiomics testing (remove the .txt extension to be able to open them in browser). Everyone like to talk about diversity but from what I am seeing its more to it than that, there is some magic bacteria mix that appears to make a difference and I wish I knew what it was.

Nitrate is around 5, it varies a few days ago it was 8, Phosphate was .07 today. I do have some GHA that I am struggling with also but trying to keep that in check but really would like to be rid of the dino's. If I need to buy a better bigger UV I am willing to do that but right now I am looking for what else I can do to tilt the table. I've dosed MB7 etc, I've done blackouts or really just run with moonlights and the tank looks great without the bright lights but as soon as I hit it with the lights out they come back, lol. I've only got a couple of leathers right now but wanted this to be an SPS dominate tank so I havent dared add any until I think things have stabilized.

@ScottB @taricha or anyone else have suggestions, all ears, really getting old at this point,lol.

taricha · Jun 5, 2022

Tom Bishop said:
@ScottB @taricha or anyone else have suggestions, all ears, really getting old at this point,lol

If you have a confirmed working UV (or two!) ...and confirmed ostreopsis, then m the next thing I'd do is add a short blackout period. 24-48hr or so. Sometimes if dinos like their niche, the enter the water column less. Extended darkness or low light can make them seek better spots. (I'd make sure the UV are working first. )

bishoptf · Jun 5, 2022

taricha said:
If you have a confirmed working UV (or two!) ...and confirmed ostreopsis, then m the next thing I'd do is add a short blackout period. 24-48hr or so. Sometimes if dinos like their niche, the enter the water column less. Extended darkness or low light can make them seek better spots. (I'd make sure the UV are working first. )

Yeah UV are working, I think the new one may be going way faster than I need but not an easy way to turn the flow down but both of the bulbs are lighting up. I did a lights out about 2 weeks ago, as you can imagine lights out and the tank looks really good, but when the lights come back on the un wanted vistors show back up, lol.

Here is a pic, pretty sure they are ostreo...

They never get crazy out of control since I always do something to keep them somewhat in check but its just getting old and would like to out compete them once and for all. I have thought about dosing some silica, I have some water glass but thats not usually needed for ostreo. Maybe thinking of doing a lights out every other day or something like that, something to change it up. Just not sure with the diversity in my tank why it's so difficult to kick them to the curb.

bishoptf · Jun 7, 2022

Trying to alternate days with Lights on and off, today lights were on and im hanging filter floss batting and they seem to really like that, I rinse out at the end of the day at lights out. Seems to keep them off the other stuff but still wondering what I can do to get something to out compete them...guess I will try this for a while and see what happens.

taricha · Jun 7, 2022

Tom Bishop said:
Trying to alternate days with Lights on and off, today lights were on and im hanging filter floss batting and they seem to really like that, I rinse out at the end of the day at lights out.

This is a very good thing to do. I'd tweak it this way: Move up your rinse-out time to noon to early afternoon - like before 2pm. A lot of ostreopsis cells leave the surfaces in late afternoon. They don't wait until close to lights out.

edit:
and really, the fact that your filter floss browns up like that means that your UV just aren't doing the job. There are tons of cells in the water they ought to be killing.

bishoptf · Jun 7, 2022

taricha said:
This is a very good thing to do. I'd tweak it this way: Move up your rinse-out time to noon to early afternoon - like before 2pm. A lot of ostreopsis cells leave the surfaces in late afternoon. They don't wait until close to lights out.

edit:
and really, the fact that your filter floss browns up like that means that your UV just aren't doing the job. There are tons of cells in the water they ought to be killing.

Yeah, I have 2 9watt UV but thats my feeling also just not sure which direction to go in but I've only got a 29g DT and 20g long sump so it's not a lot of water, maybe 35 or so total gallons guess I will go back to looking at different UV's, sigh.

bishoptf · Jun 7, 2022

I had a green killing machine 9w in my rodi container so I will swap one of the units out for that one, and order a green killing machine 24w version but will see if the 9w version makes any dent vs the other unit I had in there, I think the flow in the other unit was way to fast....will take a few days to get here so we will see if the 9w version makes a difference in the mean time.

Thanks @taricha for the input...

vital · Jun 13, 2022

hi guys
i want to report significant progress against amphidinium with prodibio biodigest. my 130 gallons were overwhelmed with nasty Dinos, many beautiful acros gone dead. 1 ampule per day 1 week (1 hour after turning lights off, for a 1 hour: main circulation off, wave makers on, uv off), 1 ampule every other day second week, 1 ampule per week afterwards made a magic for me. I also had 55W UV on 24/7 (except that 1 hour, as I dosed prodigious biodigest), skimmer on and that's it. no light changes, no blackouts.

why do I refer to prodibio and not UV? cause I had UV on before and then I have had Dino exploded

KonradTO · Jun 13, 2022

mikeytrw said:
Update on week 7 of my SCA and LCA silicate dosing treatment!

The number of dinos found while taking samples had been dropping to the point where it was really hard to find them amongst all the diatoms and 2 days ago I found none at all, so have started to cease dosing silicates.

My tank is starting to look totally awesome now the the CUC can actually make a dent on what has been constant explosive diatom growth.

I'm not going to call mission success just yet, as I want to give it a few weeks for everything to clear and for the tank to hold dino free for a bit before I hail a win but signs are looking strong. Wish me luck.

I'm going to continue dosing live phytoplankton and pods and rotifers and continue with the biodiversity drive from live mud and rock and bacteria dosing.

If all goes well and the tank holds dino free I'll do a write up of everything I did and what I dosed etc just in case there's something interesting or valuable.

any updates?

mikeytrw · Jun 13, 2022

Hey all,

So I promised an update so here it is, I believe I'm still in the 'clear' from SCA and LCA so to speak. I've taken multiple samples regularly of anything that looks suspicious and while I can still find dinos if I look hard enough, they're rare and massively outnumbered by the other micro diversity I see under the scope.

So here's what I did:

Raising Nutrients:

I dosed NeoNitro and NeoPhos until my nutrients were at 10ppm and 0.1ppm NO3 and PO4 respectively. I tested daily with the Hanna HR Nitrate and LR Phosphate checkers. I upgraded to the ULR phosphate as I found the LR just not sensitive enough. When I had a full-on diatom bloom I had to dose quite heavily and daily to keep the levels up.

I stopped water changes.

Dosing Silicates:

I used this waterglass: inoxia UK waterglass and tested with the Columbo Marine silicate test kit. The Salifert test kit was useless.

I found to get things really going I had to dose 0.8-0.9ml of waterglass daily on my Reefer 250 (225L total volume). I would test every morning to check the level wasn't getting out of hand and dosed every day. The diatom bloom was heavy and relentless. In the evenings I could see the water actually looking sort of cloudy due to the amount of diatoms in the water.

I vacuumed the sandbed into a 5nm filter sock in the sump every so often for the first 4/5 weeks, and stopped doing so for the last few weeks.

Adding Biodiversity/competition:

I dosed MB7 every day or every other day, also added this product regularly as well and also added Aquaforest Life Source (Fiji Mud) every 2 weeks. I added two pieces of mature live rock from my LFS which had come from another long running tank. This brought coraline and other creatures with it, bristle worms, asterina starfish and spaghetti worms and the other really thin legged starfish and sponges. Some good, some bad but I'm sure lots of diversity nonetheless.

I also added a load of AF Life Source mud to the refugium area of my sump, I dont run macro algea, but it's full of Alfagrog media and now mud as well. So plenty of space for bacteria to multiply.

Phytoplankton:

I dose 5 species phyoplankton every day, added loads of copepods and rotifers and their 'zooplankton' mix. I suspect my pods got annihilated by my captive bred mandarin, I'm sure she enjoyed the fun snack (she usually eats frozen and a mix of granules)

Observations:

When I started, microscope samples were relatively void of life other than dinos and diatoms, now if I look at a sample under the scope there's a crazy diverse culture of all kinds of moving critters, little crabby things, long spindly things, nematodes, rotifers, amphipods etc. My diatom diversity is surprisingly pretty thin with just pennate diatoms and the odd pizza. I also found small patches of dark red cyano.

Since I stopped dosing silicates, everything cleared up on it's own. There has been some growth on the sandbed but this is green algae, not brown and microscope observation shows it's not dinos, although I check regularly.

I've started water changes again and have done two 10% changes since stopping silicate dosing. My alk and nutrients remain solid at 8.3 dkh, 10ppm NO3 and 0.1ppm PO4, I no longer have to dose nutrients. My corals are happier than ever and I have started tentitively and slowly dosing Red Sea Coral Nutrition amino acids and fatty acids. But I will be stopping that in a heartbeat if I see signs of dinos taking over again.

So far, signs are good. Thanks to everyone for their help. I'll edit this if I remember anything else that I've missed.

KonradTO · Jun 13, 2022

mikeytrw said:
Hey all,

So I promised an update so here it is, I believe I'm still in the 'clear' from SCA and LCA so to speak. I've taken multiple samples regularly of anything that looks suspicious and while I can still find dinos if I look hard enough, they're rare and massively outnumbered by the other micro diversity I see under the scope.

So here's what I did:

Raising Nutrients:

I dosed NeoNitro and NeoPhos until my nutrients were at 10ppm and 0.1ppm NO3 and PO4 respectively. I tested daily with the Hanna HR Nitrate and LR Phosphate checkers. I upgraded to the ULR phosphate as I found the LR just not sensitive enough. When I had a full-on diatom bloom I had to dose quite heavily and daily to keep the levels up.

I stopped water changes.

Dosing Silicates:

I used this waterglass: inoxia UK waterglass and tested with the Columbo Marine silicate test kit. The Salifert test kit was useless.

I found to get things really going I had to dose 0.8-0.9ml of waterglass daily on my Reefer 250 (225L total volume). I would test every morning to check the level wasn't getting out of hand and dosed every day. The diatom bloom was heavy and relentless. In the evenings I could see the water actually looking sort of cloudy due to the amount of diatoms in the water.

I vacuumed the sandbed into a 5nm filter sock in the sump every so often for the first 4/5 weeks, and stopped doing so for the last few weeks.

Adding Biodiversity/competition:

I dosed MB7 every day or every other day, also added this product regularly as well and also added Aquaforest Life Source (Fiji Mud) every 2 weeks. I added two pieces of mature live rock from my LFS which had come from another long running tank. This brought coraline and other creatures with it, bristle worms, asterina starfish and spaghetti worms and the other really thin legged starfish and sponges. Some good, some bad but I'm sure lots of diversity nonetheless.

I also added a load of AF Life Source mud to the refugium area of my sump, I dont run macro algea, but it's full of Alfagrog media and now mud as well. So plenty of space for bacteria to multiply.

Phytoplankton:

I dose 5 species phyoplankton every day, added loads of copepods and rotifers and their 'zooplankton' mix. I suspect my pods got annihilated by my captive bred mandarin, I'm sure she enjoyed the fun snack (she usually eats frozen and a mix of granules)

Observations:

When I started, microscope samples were relatively void of life other than dinos and diatoms, now if I look at a sample under the scope there's a crazy diverse culture of all kinds of moving critters, little crabby things, long spindly things, nematodes, rotifers, amphipods etc. My diatom diversity is surprisingly pretty thin with just pennate diatoms and the odd pizza. I also found small patches of dark red cyano.

Since I stopped dosing silicates, everything cleared up on it's own. There has been some growth on the sandbed but this is green algae, not brown and microscope observation shows it's not dinos, although I check regularly.

I've started water changes again and have done two 10% changes since stopping silicate dosing. My alk and nutrients remain solid at 8.3 dkh, 10ppm NO3 and 0.1ppm PO4, I no longer have to dose nutrients. My corals are happier than ever and I have started tentitively and slowly dosing Red Sea Coral Nutrition amino acids and fatty acids. But I will be stopping that in a heartbeat if I see signs of dinos taking over again.

So far, signs are good. Thanks to everyone for their help. I'll edit this if I remember anything else that I've missed.

Thanks for sharing! This actually makes me think that is all about microfauna and phyto/bacterial diversity. All these things you mentioned seemed to work on filling the niche slowly left free by the dinos. In my case it is curious that in my sump there are no dinos while there is a lot in the dt. My theory is that my sixline exterminated all the pods while my sump is predator free and therefore pods thrive there and keep nuisance algae under control

mikeytrw · Jun 14, 2022

KonradTO said:
Thanks for sharing! This actually makes me think that is all about microfauna and phyto/bacterial diversity. All these things you mentioned seemed to work on filling the niche slowly left free by the dinos. In my case it is curious that in my sump there are no dinos while there is a lot in the dt. My theory is that my sixline exterminated all the pods while my sump is predator free and therefore pods thrive there and keep nuisance algae under control

unless you run a refugium it could simply be lack of light. Dinos are photosynthetic. But yes, both in the wild and in aquariums dinoflagellates either bloom or recede on the basis of natural competition for light, space and nutrients.

According to scientific papers they can store nutrients for number of generations hence why they seem to bloom when nutrients bottom out to 0 in our aquariums. everything else stops growing whereas they can still multiply unchecked.

KonradTO · Jun 14, 2022

mikeytrw said:
unless you run a refugium it could simply be lack of light. Dinos are photosynthetic. But yes, both in the wild and in aquariums dinoflagellates either bloom or recede on the basis of natural competition for light, space and nutrients.

According to scientific papers they can store nutrients for number of generations hence why they seem to bloom when nutrients bottom out to 0 in our aquariums. everything else stops growing whereas they can still multiply unchecked.

I call it sump but it is basically a fuge. I have this red slime on the glass I need to check whether its dinos or other stuff.
It is also interesting that my macros were growing well despite the dino outbreak.

Scottybgood · Jun 14, 2022

I haven't posted in quite a while, but have battled various strains of dinos over the last few years "fairly successfully" started with ostreopsis that I beat back with a big UV, then came on coolio's and proro's which i attacked with biodiversity, raised nutrients and aggressive diatom filtration.

For the past several months my rocks and substrate is getting covered with a dark brown coating that looks similar to dinos but acts differently than my dino's in the past (usually will dissipate easily with stirring or turkey baster) but this is almost like a matte. Thought maybe it was some strain of cyano because I have had some on and off appearances with red slime, but Chemiclean doesn't touch it. I can literally scoop it out of the substrate, but it keeps coming back.

Nitrates have been consistently 10-15 for the past year, and PO4 has been between .04 and .1

I was still thinking some sort of cyano or chrysophytes so finally broke out the microscope today to see what I could see. While I see some dinos (in the forms I have seen before) this stuff looks a bit different, but there is movement so. Also I captured some sort of nematode that will swoop in and appears to be FULL of these things.

Maybe not Dino's (or maybe a different strain that I have normally seen under the microscope) or something else. Any ideas in identifying or attacking would be helpful. I apologize in advance of the light flare in the middle of the video, my cheap microscope and camera I guess.

KonradTO · Jun 15, 2022

Scottybgood said:
I haven't posted in quite a while, but have battled various strains of dinos over the last few years "fairly successfully" started with ostreopsis that I beat back with a big UV, then came on coolio's and proro's which i attacked with biodiversity, raised nutrients and aggressive diatom filtration.

For the past several months my rocks and substrate is getting covered with a dark brown coating that looks similar to dinos but acts differently than my dino's in the past (usually will dissipate easily with stirring or turkey baster) but this is almost like a matte. Thought maybe it was some strain of cyano because I have had some on and off appearances with red slime, but Chemiclean doesn't touch it. I can literally scoop it out of the substrate, but it keeps coming back.

Nitrates have been consistently 10-15 for the past year, and PO4 has been between .04 and .1

I was still thinking some sort of cyano or chrysophytes so finally broke out the microscope today to see what I could see. While I see some dinos (in the forms I have seen before) this stuff looks a bit different, but there is movement so. Also I captured some sort of nematode that will swoop in and appears to be FULL of these things.

Maybe not Dino's (or maybe a different strain that I have normally seen under the microscope) or something else. Any ideas in identifying or attacking would be helpful. I apologize in advance of the light flare in the middle of the video, my cheap microscope and camera I guess.