Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Soey]

Hello. Can anyone identify these Dinoflagellates? Im thinking they are Amphidinium, but im not completely sure. Thanks You!

 

[taricha]

Hello. Is this somewhere where i can send images of my dinos under a microscope? Im not sure what species they are.

You can post pics in here. Lots of eyeballs used to looking at dinos.

 

[taricha]

Hello. Can anyone identify these Dinoflagellates?

These are small cell amphidinium dinos.

 

[bishoptf]

Yeah, I would finish the Fluc treatment first. That stuff needs full light to work on the bryopsis. Any shaded parts won't die off and will return.

When you are ready, maybe slap all three UV on there and black it out for 36 hours or so. Get those critters on the move.

Here is what my floss looks like after a couple of days, lol. The good thing is they are so attracted to the floss that they do not cover anything else up. This is with a 24w UV that is on 24/7, lol.

Weeeee

 

[Soey]

These are small cell amphidinium dinos.

Thank you so much! I was certian they were large cell, but i did notice they have small strands and were on all the surfaces, so small cell seems like a much better fit.

 

[Steve2020]

Been fighting a case of large cell amphidinium dino's and decided to give silicate dosing a try. I am using a 41% sodium silicate. Followed Randy's recommended dosage of .96ml per 100gal for 29% sodium silicate for 1ppm which for 250gal would be 2.4ml but because I am using 41% if my calculations are correct I should dose 1.7ml for 250gal for 1ppm. I dosed 3.5ml for a 2ppm and checked with a just purchased Salifert Silicate checker after 1/2hr and it showed no color change. I decided to do another test by adding 1 drop of silicate to the 1ml sample and once the test was complete it looked like milk and was very thick. Looks like this test kit is bad.
From what I have read, silicate diminishes fairly quickly in a tank so question is how often should I be dosing silicate to battle the dino's and is my math correct for 41% sodium silicate?

 

[bishoptf]

Been fighting a case of large cell amphidinium dino's and decided to give silicate dosing a try. I am using a 41% sodium silicate. Followed Randy's recommended dosage of .96ml per 100gal for 29% sodium silicate for 1ppm which for 250gal would be 2.4ml but because I am using 41% if my calculations are correct I should dose 1.7ml for 250gal for 1ppm. I dosed 3.5ml for a 2ppm and checked with a just purchased Salifert Silicate checker after 1/2hr and it showed no color change. I decided to do another test by adding 1 drop of silicate to the 1ml sample and once the test was complete it looked like milk and was very thick. Looks like this test kit is bad.
From what I have read, silicate diminishes fairly quickly in a tank so question is how often should I be dosing silicate to battle the dino's and is my math correct for 41% sodium silicate?

From what I have read Salifert silca testing is not accurate at all, I have the hanna checkers and it seems to be pretty accurate, maybe others will chime in but that is what I have read.

 

[Steve2020]

From what I have read Salifert silca testing is not accurate at all, I have the hanna checkers and it seems to be pretty accurate, maybe others will chime in but that is what I have read.

I've read those bad comments also but I needed a checker quick and the Hanna was not available at either of my LFS's. I do have one on order. In the time being do you know how often I should dose silicate for dino's. Is it every day? I wont be able to check levels for at least a week. I believe I read in another thread that Randy says silicate depletes very fast in a reef tank.

 

[bishoptf]

I've read those bad comments also but I needed a checker quick and the Hanna was not available at either of my LFS's. I do have one on order. In the time being do you know how often I should dose silicate for dino's. Is it every day? I wont be able to check levels for at least a week. I believe I read in another thread that Randy says silicate depletes very fast in a reef tank.

Every tank is different so it's hard to say but what I see in my nano 29g tank is that I can dose to about 2ppm and in about a week it works through 1ppm, but like I said every tank is different and that is why you need to test unless you are using something like spongeexcel that goes by gallons for dosing. I would figure the dosage and try to dose close to 2ppm and then wait and test when you get your hanna checker and adjust from there. To keep my levels up I am only dosing weekly using the waterglass.

 

[taricha]

Salifert Si test has been a dud for several people, including me. Some have said it worked for them, but they are in the minority from what I've seen.

 

[KonradTO]

If the behaviour of the Hanna URL in presence of Si was to be confirmed and properly tested we could use that for measuring silicates, what do you think?
We could take a water sample from the tank, filter it with GFO (hopefully iron does not interfere with the measurement) until we are sure that no phospate is detectable, and then measure it with the hanna URL checker. If with no PO4 this does not work we could always add a known amount of PO4. As far as I remember the measure start to be skewed at 2ppm silicate, which could be a fair aim for dinoflagellates purposes.

 

[taricha]

If the behaviour of the Hanna URL in presence of Si was to be confirmed and properly tested we could use that for measuring silicates, what do you think?

heh, you need multiple ppm Si to just generate a tiny smidge of interference on the ULR P test ~5 or 10 ppb.
Just use working hanna or hach Si measurement chemistry.

 

[KonradTO]

heh, you need multiple ppm Si to just generate a tiny smidge of interference on the ULR P test ~5 or 10 ppb.
Just use working hanna or hach Si measurement chemistry.

Well that stuff is quite pricey. If there is a cheaper alternative why not

 

[ryshark]

Well that stuff is quite pricey. If there is a cheaper alternative why not

From my understanding..... don't bother testing for Silicates. Dose 2ppm worth of Water Glass, daily, until your dinos (Prorocentrum and Amphidinium) are gone. Too many silicates is not that big of an issue, aside from growing lots of diatoms. Get an ICP test after your dinos are gone to see how much silicate you have.
The Hanna PO4 checkers are known to not be accurate while dosing this much silicates, so I bought a Salifert PO4 kit while dosing silicates, to make sure my PO4 stayed elevated enough.

 

[ryshark]

Been fighting a case of large cell amphidinium dino's and decided to give silicate dosing a try. I am using a 41% sodium silicate. Followed Randy's recommended dosage of .96ml per 100gal for 29% sodium silicate for 1ppm which for 250gal would be 2.4ml but because I am using 41% if my calculations are correct I should dose 1.7ml for 250gal for 1ppm. I dosed 3.5ml for a 2ppm and checked with a just purchased Salifert Silicate checker after 1/2hr and it showed no color change. I decided to do another test by adding 1 drop of silicate to the 1ml sample and once the test was complete it looked like milk and was very thick. Looks like this test kit is bad.
From what I have read, silicate diminishes fairly quickly in a tank so question is how often should I be dosing silicate to battle the dino's and is my math correct for 41% sodium silicate?

Daily. I think your math is correct. See my post above about testing.

 

[KonradTO]

From my understanding..... don't bother testing for Silicates. Dose 2ppm worth of Water Glass, daily, until your dinos (Prorocentrum and Amphidinium) are gone. Too many silicates is not that big of an issue, aside from growing lots of diatoms. Get an ICP test after your dinos are gone to see how much silicate you have.
The Hanna PO4 checkers are known to not be accurate while dosing this much silicates, so I bought a Salifert PO4 kit while dosing silicates, to make sure my PO4 stayed elevated enough.

Yes I got this impression from Randy's post. Actually I am past that phase. I did a blackout few weeks ago after noticing the Amphidinium slowing down in growth rate. After a good clean and blackout sand have remained white for the past 2 weeks so hopefully I succeded. I am slowly decreasing Si dosing now, from 2ppm daily to roughly 0.2 ppm/day.
I would like to keep dosing Si to feed diatoms and sponges but I don't know whether high levels of Si for longer time might cause some issues (aside from diatoms blooms, which I don't mind)

 

[KonradTO]

Does anyone know how long after dinos disappear it is safe to start doing 10% weekly WCs again?
I am not even sure I need to do WC, is there a specific reason to do it if my nutrients are in check?

 

[Polyp Punk]

Hey guys. So I been dosing silicates for 2 weeks. I had a big diatom outbreak the tank is filthy but now I’m at the point where I have to decide when it’s safe to start the clean up process. Any suggestions?

 

[ryshark]

Hey guys. So I been dosing silicates for 2 weeks. I had a big diatom outbreak the tank is filthy but now I’m at the point where I have to decide when it’s safe to start the clean up process. Any suggestions?

Take a sample and put it under the microscope to see if there are still dinos. If the dinos are gone then you can start the clean up process.

 

[KonradTO]

Hey guys. So I been dosing silicates for 2 weeks. I had a big diatom outbreak the tank is filthy but now I’m at the point where I have to decide when it’s safe to start the clean up process. Any suggestions?

In my case I did a final blackout to kill the last ones. But if you have considerable amounts of diatoms it might be risky