Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Troylee]

I've long been a skeptic of pods/phyto but accounts of success have me leaning toward thinking pods/phyto can be a good approach to a low/nontoxic outbreak.
(with toxic types, I've personally observed it just ending up with lots of dead pods overrun by dinos)

I missed that part in his post.. no phyto for me.. just mb7, turkey baste, uv in my display.. shutting my return off for a hour a day and stiring my sand up while dosing mb7 and letting the uv do it’s thang has been my attack.. lol

 

[ggNoRe]

Very nicely done. I know you don't have microscope pics, but can you say anything about toxicity? (dead CUC etc)

In the beginning when the dinoflagellates first started to spread I did have a good amount of snail die off. Probably 5-10 died all within a week. That being said I keep A LOT of snails with the far majority 80% surviving without issue.

 

[DarkReefer]

In the beginning when the dinoflagellates first started to spread I did have a good amount of snail die off. Probably 5-10 died all within a week. That being said I keep A LOT of snails with the far majority 80% surviving without issue.

Congratulations on beating it out, tank is lookin good!

I'm not wanting to count my chickens yet so I've been a little quiet on my results.
I think I've got my lights at about 45% and it's possibly a little too high too quick.
Whilst I'm not seeing anything too bad I do see a very, very faint discoloration on the sandbend in the previously densely dino populated spots.
It was good and clear for a week or 2 I think whilst the lights were lower, the discoloration has only shown as I increased it again. I'm seeing snails do a lot more work on the sand across the front of the tank nightly now too. Wake up to find it freshly 'raked' with lines in the sand along the glass.

I need to pull my finger out and do some more testing, but this week I'll be tearing the tank down to move ( only about 5 mins from current place thankfully). Will attempt to do a water change too.

I've lost a few snails though along the way. Trochus seem to be okay (though they haven't been super happy as I've found more than one that has fallen off the glass etc that I've tipped back over). Zombie snails has had a few deaths and I think 2-3 or so of my strombus.

I also had a soft coral melt after the recent h202 dosing (this could be attributed to the near black out for several days too). It was looking quite limp and the base of it didn't look right, when I touched it, it just basically started to fall apart so I removed it completely.

 

[Jason K]

Please help a novice with ID. Really trying to figure out if I should be adding activated carbon or not. Thanks!

 

[taricha]

Please help a novice with ID. Really trying to figure out if I should be adding activated carbon or not. Thanks!

Looks like large cell amphidinium to me, if I have to guess. I think running carbon is a good idea regardless.

 

[RockyProndoa]

Posted in another thread, but I assumed I would post here as this seems like the more relevant location. Pics #1 and #2 are assumed dinos - ostreopsis?

Pics #3-4 are microscope shots of the additional ailments that the tank currently has.

Pics #5-7 regular camera shots of suspect areas.

Background - 5+ year old, 135g mixed reef display with 100g rubbermaid sump (approx. 50-60g actual sump water volume). Nitrates currently in the 5-10ppm range, phosphates around 0.4 - 0.7ppm.

Currently on day 2 of chemiclean treatment for cyano. Dosing nitrate every 2-3 days to maintain the 5-10 range, otherwise it seems to bottom out.

Appreciate any input.

 

[taricha]

Ostreopsis for certain.
Difficult to treat cyano and Dinos at the same time. Most people do not use chemiclean while also fighting dinos. It's fine to focus on one first, and then shift to fighting the other.

 

[RockyProndoa]

Ostreopsis for certain.
Difficult to treat cyano and Dinos at the same time. Most people do not use chemiclean while also fighting dinos. It's fine to focus on one first, and then shift to fighting the other.

Thank you for the ID. The cyano was a bigger issue than the dinos, so I decided to address that first. I am at the end of my chemiclean treatment, so running carbon to remove the chemical and then assumed to move on to the dinos.

Am i correct in that UV is the recommended treatment for Ostreopsis?

Any ID on the algae?

Thanks!

 

[taricha]

Am i correct in that UV is the recommended treatment for Ostreopsis?

Any ID on the algae?

Yep. UV is the easiest high-success intervention.
Algae looks like gha with dinos attached.

 

[Aquaphil]

Hey everyone. Beginner here and I hope you could help me identifying.
They look like Dinos because of this air bubbles on top but I tried to use a microscope and all I can see are some single random points rushing around.
I have seen some videos here and most of the time there are hundreds of those small cells moving around.

Tank is pretty new. Got it in November 2022. Nano Max Peninsula.
Have some Corals, Snails, Crabs and 2 fish now.

Those algae or Dinos started growing about 3 weeks ago and I tried to remove everything manually but I want to know what I can do to get rid of them.

No2 the last weeks 0
No3 normally 0,5 but last week 0
Po4 very low with 0,01 last weeks
ph is stable at 8 to 8,2

So do you think those are Dinos? Or something else?
Sorry if I am in the wrong place to ask this.
Would love to hear some feedback what I should do.

First thing I will do is to get a new Microscope because this one was a bad choice haha.

 

[Troylee]

Hey everyone. Beginner here and I hope you could help me identifying.
They look like Dinos because of this air bubbles on top but I tried to use a microscope and all I can see are some single random points rushing around.
I have seen some videos here and most of the time there are hundreds of those small cells moving around.

Tank is pretty new. Got it in November 2022. Nano Max Peninsula.
Have some Corals, Snails, Crabs and 2 fish now.

Those algae or Dinos started growing about 3 weeks ago and I tried to remove everything manually but I want to know what I can do to get rid of them.

No2 the last weeks 0
No3 normally 0,5 but last week 0
Po4 very low with 0,01 last weeks
ph is stable at 8 to 8,2

So do you think those are Dinos? Or something else?
Sorry if I am in the wrong place to ask this.
Would love to hear some feedback what I should do.

First thing I will do is to get a new Microscope because this one was a bad choice haha.

Looks to be CHRYSOPHYTES

 

[RockyProndoa]

Yep. UV is the easiest high-success intervention.
Algae looks like gha with dinos attached.

I bought a 40W Smart UV and looking to get it installed. From what I read, input from DT -> output back to DT seems to be the best method. However, I can't seem to figure out exactly 'how' this is done, specifically the input from DT.

Does it matter where in the water column the input pipe is located? High? Low?
What are people using as an input 'strainer' to keep all of the debris out? From my understanding, UV's work better with cleaner water and typically draw from the sump directly after mechanical filtration.
Output would assumed to be installed so that the water returns back to the bottom of the DT?

Appreciate any input!

 

[taricha]

You mostly want to pull water from the display and return to the display, because you want any cells in the water in the display to get as much UV contact as possible.
If solids come with it that's fine too, but it probably means you need some mechanical filtration.

 

[Troylee]

You mostly want to pull water from the display and return to the display, because you want any cells in the water in the display to get as much UV contact as possible.
If solids come with it that's fine too, but it probably means you need some mechanical filtration.

Any idea which strain this is? I have a video but it’s a pain to post it’s a full minute long.. I did post it in reef discussion looking for a dino I’d.

 

[clhardy5]

Any idea which strain this is? I have a video but it’s a pain to post it’s a full minute long.. I did post it in reef discussion looking for a dino I’d.

Any idea which strain this is? I have a video but it’s a pain to post it’s a full minute long.. I did post it in reef discussion looking for a dino I’d.

My guess would be prorocentrum. Kind of blurry - but I don't think I see the beak of LCA.

 

[Troylee]

My guess would be prorocentrum. Kind of blurry - but I don't think I see the beak of LCA.

What ever that worm thing is that was trying to eat them in the video lol.. I had some diatoms mixed in but not many. I started dosing sponge excel to hopefully battle these thing! I’m setting up a 400 gallon system next week and don’t wanna bring these over to the new tank.. these Dino’s are currently in my 60 gallon cube lol..

 

[TurboTang]

Yes - yes I am tired of battling dinos, but it seems I got em again. Last time I had amph. Dinos that stayed in my sand for what seemed like forever. I caused em by bottoming out nutrients with nopox - it was great times never having to clean the glass until....
Since then I've kept nutrients on high side no3@20-25 and po4 0.12-0.14 for at least the past year. And suddenly I have what looks like reddish algae growing on low portions of rock (see pic) and snail die off. I started running 40w uv (flow turns over tank in ~1 hr), and I turned off white light. The advancement seems to have slowed a lot, but I want em gone. I think they are prorocentrum, but I'm not completely sure. I just got some more silica today. Is there something else I can do for this variant? I thought uv would work for these but 2 weeks in and they are still hanging on.

 

[Aquaphil]

Looks to be CHRYSOPHYTES

Okay so what should be my next step?
I just saw one big post here about chrysophytes.
I checked my parameters today before cleaning and removing algae manually.
I am a little bit worried.

No2: 0,04
No3: 0
Po4: 1
Kh: 9
Ph: 7,8
Salinity: 34

Should I just go on with manual removal of algae and 10% water change?
I bought a Ph Buffer to get back to 8 and I will try to feed less. But its a bit tricky if you only have 3 fish and I feed them with half of a frozen food pellet every day.

Is UV also worth a try for chrysophytes?

Also I just realised if those are really Chrysophytes I should ask somewhere else because this is a Dino thread sorry.

 

[Aquaphil]

So here are some pics with my new microscope. Much better quality but there is no movement at all so no video. Shouldnt there be at least some movement?

 

[RX FILLER]

If you keep your phosphate up .05 or alittle higher I do not think you will have a problem but in this hobby nothing is for certain!

Boy that's for sure!