Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[DarkReefer]

Mea Culpa...that is @taricha guide that I attached, sorry about that but he really does cover most of the things to try based on type so you really need to scope (microscope) things out and determine which flavor that you have then see what he recommends in the guide....chemiclean is really bad for tipping things the other way, ask me how I know so I would not use chemiclean ever again, many do and have no issues but many do and have issues like dino's that show up...

Cheers
Yeah I've scoped it a few times (posts in here further back). But will likely try and get another sample and check taricha's guide again to get a good ID.

 

[taricha]

One thing I have been thinking about lately is what has changed that we see so many more cases. I saw some other threads where folks were talking about it, usually everyone wants to throw out there the live rock vs dry rock (diversity) and I am sure that plays some part but someone mentioned lighting technology. Everyone wants to say that in the *cough* old days always used real live rock and saw little prevalence of tank issues with Dinos, but most if not all tanks in the old days were using MH or T5 lighting, what someone mentioned was maybe it could also be the transition to Led lighting that may be playing a part and I thought that was something to think about. In fact some users noted a switch from MH to LED and had high nutrients and had a case of Dino's, anecdotal but it is something to think about, what about leds could maybe be also lending a hand to the dino surge in numbers...

@taricha @ScottB what do you guys think in regards to lighting in addition to dry rock etc..just thought it was an interesting observation that I never really thought about.

I thought this question was interesting as well. Here's a thread I did on it to try to get some data.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a...he-hobby-now-than-years-ago-some-data.780529/

I went as far back as archived internet pics of forum posts allowed. The summary is that over the 15 years from 2005-2020, there was no change in the amount of dinos among people complaining about brown algae. They didn't know what to call it in 2005-8, but the pics looked just as dino-like as "brown algae" in 2020.
And the ratio of people complaining about "brown algae" vs "green algae" has stayed constant too.

If there were no dinos in the "good old days" then that really predates the data I could get.

 

[bishoptf]

I thought this question was interesting as well. Here's a thread I did on it to try to get some data.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a...he-hobby-now-than-years-ago-some-data.780529/

I went as far back as archived internet pics of forum posts allowed. The summary is that over the 15 years from 2005-2020, there was no change in the amount of dinos among people complaining about brown algae. They didn't know what to call it in 2005-8, but the pics looked just as dino-like as "brown algae" in 2020.
And the ratio of people complaining about "brown algae" vs "green algae" has stayed constant too.

If there were no dinos in the "good old days" then that really predates the data I could get.

So if I understand the data you compiled it appears that there has not been an increase per se from years go by, interesting so maybe since we just know more how to classify it there are more posts about it. I guess we could also say that there are more tanks now vs years ago I just kept seeing the idea that ya know it was rare back in the day...interesting so maybe not...

One constant that I think most can agree on, Dinos Suck!

 

[ScottB]

Cheers
Yeah I've scoped it a few times (posts in here further back). But will likely try and get another sample and check taricha's guide again to get a good ID.

Here is a link to the article. It might help with a little context and the more viable treatment options. Good that you have a UV, but pay attention to the metrics for size, flow and bulb age. These organisms have a protective shell and don't cook easily.

Articles by ScottB

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Troylee]

I'd say the increase also comes from people like myself who've recently gotten into the hobby.
With social media becoming bigger than ever, covid with many people locked down. Many probably wanted things to do, new interests and hobbies. Pictures of beautiful reef tanks on facebook/instagram draw people into the hobby "Oooh wouldn't it be nice to have something like that in our living room?".

With more and more people getting into the hobby as time goes by it'll continue to increase as people will more likely have friends with tanks and so on. So word of mouth gets around more, the idea gets planted in peoples minds and so on. So in a way it makes sense that there's more cases popping up as people search the internet to find ways of dealing with this ugly and painful pest.


I noticed last night that my dinos seem to not have taken much of a hit after the last h202 dose.
Perhaps I went too light...Sigh.

Waterchange again this weekend I guess, chuck in some fresh filter floss, pull out the carbon and up the rowaphos since that's creeping a whole lot and things aren't looking happy.
Then start the process all over again at a higher dosage for one more last ditch effort before the tank comes apart in a month to move house...

Which Dino’s do you have? The ones that string on everything in the tank including corals? They seem pretty toxic and kill stuff.. h202 dosing works for those! I’m the originator of the h202 thread and dosing.. it worked back then and i just fixed a case of them again last month with just straight h202… Or the non toxic ones the Matt the sand? I currently have those in my personal tank and have gotten them under control in couple days with a uv sterilizer and h202 combo… the key to those is make some diy coral snow from calcium carbonate shut off your return pump and dose the display with 2ml per 10 gallons of water and start blowing them off the sand and walls and what ever else they’re growing on and get them in the water column… the calcium carbonate keeps them in the water column longer! let the uv light do it’s thing as you continue to stir them up.. let it run for a hour without the return on as you continue to blow them into the water column every 10 min or so.. after a hour turn your return pump back on and the let the skimmer do it’s job and pull them out while they’re in the column..h202 i dose 1ml per 10 gallons of water at night after lights out “because it doesn’t hurt” I also run the uv light in my display 24 hours a day currently.. I seen great results in 2 days and I’m confident they’ll be gone by the end of this weekend.. I have one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen! Super thick mats in the sand and walls of my tank..
Oh yeah! Chill on the water changes as you’re prolly feeding them if your nutrients are already low.. I had super high nitrates and po4 but I had a hair algae explosion that dropped my nitrates to undetectable and my po4 to .06. I’ve been feeding more to get them up but it hasn’t helped as the Dino’s just consume everything I throw at them haha!

 

[DarkReefer]

Here is a link to the article. It might help with a little context and the more viable treatment options. Good that you have a UV, but pay attention to the metrics for size, flow and bulb age. These organisms have a protective shell and don't cook easily.

Articles by ScottB

www.reef2reef.com

Appreciate the info! Will certainly read into it some more.
The UV I got was a 25W Aqua Ultraviolet. Fairly certain if anything my flow is a little down from where it should be going by manufacturer specs.

and walls of my tank..
Oh yeah! Chill on the water changes as you’re prolly feeding them if your nutrients are already low.. I had super high nitrates and po4 but I had a hair algae explosion that dropped my nitrates to

Quite sure it's Prorocentrum. This was one of the last pics I took after the first h202 attempt. I probably wasn't as attentive this time around with doing things like brushing off rockwork or blowing it off the rock/sand more to get it into the column. I still felt I did this, but it was more once a day or once every other day.

 

[bishoptf]

@taricha @ScottB I sometimes start to think that I am never going to get these guys to leave my tank alone, wish I knew what voodoo to use but I've had Ostreo for months, got a big ole UV and that seem to do the trick. Last water change I notice that my UV was not moving water, looks like it had some algae or something clogging things up and I had been running it for 2-3 months and things have been clear so I took it offline. I would rather not run one and just get the bacteria to figure things out but over the week I notice some tell tell signs on my halmedia some strings showing up then after WC today I saw quite a few bubbles on the halmedia and some rock work, sigh. So I got the UV back out and started it up again...

I'm still struggling to get and keep phosphate elevated, dosing quite a bit of po4 daily and when I test its usually .03 I am trying to get it up to .05-08 or there abouts, if I stop dosing it zero's out. Nitrate is around 8-9ppm so I know that's a problem, but 2.5yr old tank and phosphate is still tanking which I think is odd, but I just keep dosing thinking at some point it will reach saturation and go up. I culture my own pods and add a bottle full almost every week, I see all kinds of life, amphipods, feather dusters everywhere.

So my question is what more can I do, I have diversity, I have the tests to show it, added live sand, rubble etc. Tank looks pretty good for the most part but trying to figure out what else can I do to try to ditch the UV, I've thought about getting some waste away gel to "feed bacteria" but not sure that will help, but trying to figure out what else I can do. Everyone always talks about out compete but it's not clear what you need to do in order to out compete Ostreo, most I've read say to run UV and it clears up and then folks take them back down and they stay away, I mean I know they are always in the tank to a certain extent but not causing problems.

Just thought I would see if you guys have any additional advice, really don't want to run a UV full time, thanks.

 

[DarkReefer]

So it turns out my 'acclimation mode' on the AI App wasn't actually doing anything at all.
This whole time I've been running things on it's normal intensity!

So over the weekend I manually dipped my lights to around 5% now and noticed a huge difference in the brightness.
I also grabbed about 1kg of liverock from the LFS that I chucked in there to try and help.
Attacked the liverock and some of the zoas etc with a toothbrush to try and get rid of the stuff growing on the rockwork and also turkey basted the sand. With those things done I've gone and started dosing h202 again last night.
I've been waiting for my filter fleece to run out too. Should be any day now as I've been watching it closely over the last few days and suspect it may even run out by the time I get home... we'll see.

 

[DarkReefer]

Can't edit my above post so updating here.

Much less dinos showing on the sand when I got home last night thankfully.
Gave the sand another blast with the turkey baster, gave the rocks and zoas another scrub with a toothbrush. Still waiting for the dang filter fleece to finish up lol.

Hoping to keep it dark (on 5% or whatever it is) for another day, maybe 2 before I increase lighting to around 30%. We're on day 2, maybe 3 since I made it darker. Only day 2 of the h202 dosing though (tonight will be 3rd dose).
Some corals aren't too happy about it being darker but they should bounce back. Also need to remember to test in the next day or two just to see how things are going.

 

[bishoptf]

Can't edit my above post so updating here.

Much less dinos showing on the sand when I got home last night thankfully.
Gave the sand another blast with the turkey baster, gave the rocks and zoas another scrub with a toothbrush. Still waiting for the dang filter fleece to finish up lol.

Hoping to keep it dark (on 5% or whatever it is) for another day, maybe 2 before I increase lighting to around 30%. We're on day 2, maybe 3 since I made it darker. Only day 2 of the h202 dosing though (tonight will be 3rd dose).
Some corals aren't too happy about it being darker but they should bounce back. Also need to remember to test in the next day or two just to see how things are going.

One think you can try vs running extended length of blackout you can try alternating 2 days off one day on kind of a thing. I may have missed it but do you have a UV going in the tank? Thats one thing I think may help with Prorocentrum especially when lights are off and they go into the water column where a large UV should do a lot of good and slower is better when it comes to UV.

 

[DarkReefer]

One think you can try vs running extended length of blackout you can try alternating 2 days off one day on kind of a thing. I may have missed it but do you have a UV going in the tank? Thats one thing I think may help with Prorocentrum especially when lights are off and they go into the water column where a large UV should do a lot of good and slower is better when it comes to UV.

Yeah I've got a UV hooked up, however it's not attached in the same way that ScottB's documentation shows (on the DT itself). Mine is part of the return line from the sump into the DT.
Perhaps it's a little less efficient this way, but it's hidden away out of sight and I can leave it on as required without hooking up/disconnecting things.

 

[thedon986]

Yeah I've got a UV hooked up, however it's not attached in the same way that ScottB's documentation shows (on the DT itself). Mine is part of the return line from the sump into the DT.
Perhaps it's a little less efficient this way, but it's hidden away out of sight and I can leave it on as required without hooking up/disconnecting things.

I believe if you are not getting the proper exposure time (return pump is likely too fast) it will be a lot more than a little less efficient for dinos. I had a 15 watt UV on my 70g and needed flow rate around 250gph to get long enough exposure. AquaUV has a good chart for this.

 

[DarkReefer]

I believe if you are not getting the proper exposure time (return pump is likely too fast) it will be a lot more than a little less efficient for dinos. I had a 15 watt UV on my 70g and needed flow rate around 250gph to get long enough exposure. AquaUV has a good chart for this.

If anything my flow rate on the return is on the low side for my sized UV. So I'm quite sure everything is getting blasted to the moon. lol

My return pump is a Octo varios 2 which I'm fairly sure I'm running on setting 3 or 4 which is about 2200LPH-2600LPH (or 581GPH-687GPH).
The 25W Aqua UV Twist I have is generally recommended for 150gallon tank, with UV being rated from 30,000-45,000 as being the 'ideal for reef environment' as higher rates kill planktonic food supply according to their manual.
To achieve this number I need to be running 800-1200GPH. Which I'm under this so the UV is probably more in the vicinity of 45-75K.

So fairly sure I'm over compensating at the moment with the UV LOL

 

[bishoptf]

If anything my flow rate on the return is on the low side for my sized UV. So I'm quite sure everything is getting blasted to the moon. lol

My return pump is a Octo varios 2 which I'm fairly sure I'm running on setting 3 or 4 which is about 2200LPH-2600LPH (or 581GPH-687GPH).
The 25W Aqua UV Twist I have is generally recommended for 150gallon tank, with UV being rated from 30,000-45,000 as being the 'ideal for reef environment' as higher rates kill planktonic food supply according to their manual.
To achieve this number I need to be running 800-1200GPH. Which I'm under this so the UV is probably more in the vicinity of 45-75K.

So fairly sure I'm over compensating at the moment with the UV LOL

I second what @thedon986 states, you can see if it works and that may be the final configuration once you get them under control but slow flow turning over in the DT really is the best option. I am running a 20w in my nano DT (29g tank) and its running less than 120gph, not sure what the size of your tank but you really want to go as slow as possible to make it as effective as possible. Again you may be successful with how you have things set up but if not you may want to move it to the main tank and loop it back there and go slower.

 

[devocole]

Thanks for the advice. I will try the elegant method first.
Cheers

So I completed the elegant method. I used XLM start for nitrifying bacteria rather then ATM. The XLM says is 15X etc etc so my best alternative. My experience:
1. I followed the protocols. I did not let the phosphate bottom out and kept it stable throughout the process. Nitrate did not change much.
2. The rocks look noticeably cleaner.
3. The amphids in the sand did not change much. Maybe a slight reduction but not enough to state success of any kind. I only stirred sand at the front of the tank. There is an equal space behind the rocks I didn't stir. There is no visible difference from the front and back sand areas.
4. It is stressful for the fish just based on behaviour. At the end of treatment a firefish and royal gramma are no longer present and assumed dead. They were otherwise healthy. I am unable to make an exact correlation to the treatment as it could be from other causes.

If I tried again I would not stir sand. Maybe try with no nitrate and phosphate? I don't have corals in the tank presently. I have a hard time seeing this method eradicating amphids from my sand.

 

[thedon986]

So I completed the elegant method. I used XLM start for nitrifying bacteria rather then ATM. The XLM says is 15X etc etc so my best alternative. My experience:
1. I followed the protocols. I did not let the phosphate bottom out and kept it stable throughout the process. Nitrate did not change much.
2. The rocks look noticeably cleaner.
3. The amphids in the sand did not change much. Maybe a slight reduction but not enough to state success of any kind. I only stirred sand at the front of the tank. There is an equal space behind the rocks I didn't stir. There is no visible difference from the front and back sand areas.
4. It is stressful for the fish just based on behaviour. At the end of treatment a firefish and royal gramma are no longer present and assumed dead. They were otherwise healthy. I am unable to make an exact correlation to the treatment as it could be from other causes.

If I tried again I would not stir sand. Maybe try with no nitrate and phosphate? I don't have corals in the tank presently. I have a hard time seeing this method eradicating amphids from my sand.

My perfectly healthy yellow tang died while following the elegant method. 0/10 would not recommend.

 

[brandon429]

Tom you sure are helping reefers a lot by spending dedicated correction time on your system, research, vs letting it go. they need to learn from your win and will what it takes to tame the meanest invasion in reefing. I'm glad your tank isn't any bigger than it is, a rip clean is at least a mass reset before any invasion remasses and then the excellent UV you have works on far less mass, I know you've already done this drill / good thing it's not harmful to run. it's the fundamental control over your investment, and I wouldn't know how to get you off that loop either as your invasion is stronger than a rip clean acknowledged. this is why I'm glad you are sticking with it: to tell us what finally works so we can spread that to others. You and Frogger and BCarl77 have the strongest invasions I've ever seen in a reef tank, theirs were invasive cyano we couldn't beat. more than one rip clean did not beat the invasion for them, they're why we aren't at 100% tame rate.

 

[Troylee]

I’m having a nasty bout with the sand dwelling ones myself! I’m about 80% gone at the moment and waiting to get home today to see if they’re gone! If so I’ll update the thread but it seems to be working great! This is my second bout in the last 3 months Dino’s… first ones were toxic and smothering corals and killing them! This I got rid of with just straight h202 after a week.. these sand ones have been a pain for the last 2 weeks but I changed my plan of attack 5 days ago and so far so good!

 

[DarkReefer]

Tom you sure are helping reefers a lot by spending dedicated correction time on your system, research, vs letting it go. they need to learn from your win and will what it takes to tame the meanest invasion in reefing. I'm glad your tank isn't any bigger than it is, a rip clean is at least a mass reset before any invasion remasses and then the excellent UV you have works on far less mass, I know you've already done this drill / good thing it's not harmful to run. it's the fundamental control over your investment, and I wouldn't know how to get you off that loop either as your invasion is stronger than a rip clean acknowledged. this is why I'm glad you are sticking with it: to tell us what finally works so we can spread that to others. You and Frogger and BCarl77 have the strongest invasions I've ever seen in a reef tank, theirs were invasive cyano we couldn't beat. more than one rip clean did not beat the invasion for them, they're why we aren't at 100% tame rate.

I know you're quite experienced and definitely one of the goto guys for reef cycling and I among others certainly appreciate it, but I'll be danged if I can understand half of what you post sometimes lol. maybe I'm out of my depth

I second what @thedon986 states, you can see if it works and that may be the final configuration once you get them under control but slow flow turning over in the DT really is the best option. I am running a 20w in my nano DT (29g tank) and its running less than 120gph, not sure what the size of your tank but you really want to go as slow as possible to make it as effective as possible. Again you may be successful with how you have things set up but if not you may want to move it to the main tank and loop it back there and go slower.

Yeah understood.
My tank is a waterbox 70.2 (so approx 70gallon system). My UV is quite oversized for the tank seeing it's recommended for 150 gal according to AquaUV manual.

I don't want to get ahead of myself, but feeling quite confident at the moment.
The sand is looking very white, and yesterday saw little to no signs of the dinos on the sand when I got home, so manually turning the lights down (not stupid acclimation mode that doesn't work), along with everything else I've done appears to be having some affect.

Today is probably day 3.5-4 of running my blues at around the 10% mark. Tonight will be day 4 of h202 dosing and dosing 7ml (approx 1ml/10gal).
As some of my corals haven't been out all that much I'm going to ramp things up to about 25-30% tonight when I get home and run this for the next few days. I've also noticed my yellow coris wrasse hasn't been out in days, so I'm assuming the darkness is keeping it tucked away also.

After testing water last night my phosphates are up at 0.362 & Nitrates at 41.5.
I've addressed the phosphates by swapping over the rowaphos and used the online calculator to aim to get it down to about 0.05. Will test these again tonight to see what it's doing. Nitrates will have to wait, might have to refresh the carbon to try and get that down though, because they're getting uncomfortably high.

 

[ggNoRe]

So I completed the elegant method. I used XLM start for nitrifying bacteria rather then ATM. The XLM says is 15X etc etc so my best alternative. My experience:
1. I followed the protocols. I did not let the phosphate bottom out and kept it stable throughout the process. Nitrate did not change much.
2. The rocks look noticeably cleaner.
3. The amphids in the sand did not change much. Maybe a slight reduction but not enough to state success of any kind. I only stirred sand at the front of the tank. There is an equal space behind the rocks I didn't stir. There is no visible difference from the front and back sand areas.
4. It is stressful for the fish just based on behaviour. At the end of treatment a firefish and royal gramma are no longer present and assumed dead. They were otherwise healthy. I am unable to make an exact correlation to the treatment as it could be from other causes.

If I tried again I would not stir sand. Maybe try with no nitrate and phosphate? I don't have corals in the tank presently. I have a hard time seeing this method eradicating amphids from my sand.

Man, I really hate to hear this. When I did it I had around 20 fish and none of them were effected. I'm hopeful your fish are just spooked and hiding.