Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Screwgunner]

I took a media bag and cut it open . Glued it to some plastic and used it for a filter in my sump . The diatoms stuck to it very nicely. So I clean it every day. Diatoms are gone now but still running that filter. I would think filter bags would work you just have to clean everyday. This is for the ones that disappear at night and reappear when the lights come on. I thought I got rid of them running uv sterilizer but my bulb burnt out and they came back.

 

[cowlesdc]

Can I get a ID on Dinos. I have been battling for a while and finally got a microscope to confirm. I think the Dinos are on the decline, but I have a crazy amount of Cyano right now and trying to battle that too. Thanks for the help

 

[Michael's Marine Park]

Could anyone please give me an ID on my dinos? I believe I'm dealing with dinos and cyanobacteria. For background, the tank is 8 months old and I had this issues about 5 months ago. During that time, my heater broke for a week and water temp dropped to 72. All the dinos disappeared. Then 4 weeks ago I started getting them again.

I'm running a 25gal tank with a protein skimmer and no fish.

My water parameters are typically as follows:

Nitrate <5
pH 7.8
Alk 7.8
Calcium 440
Magnesium 1550
Ammonia & nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0.04

 

[DarkReefer]

Looks like my dinos issue could have returned.
I noticed this past week some dark algae growing over the sand again (there was some slight shadow here and there' but it was more GHA on certain sections of rockwork that I was starting to be concerned with).

I did a waterchange last weekend and now suspect/wonder that it may be the water possibly causing the issue ?
Would this be a thing?
I usually get NSW delivered and store it in 2x 220L food grade drums.
These are only opened to refill/waterchanges, there's no pump running in them to circulate water.

These drums usually take about 4-6 months before they're low enough for me to refill.

I know doing a waterchange when having dinos can cause them to explode, but could the stored water as described above be a potential breeding ground for it and so making it a lot worse after a water change than just the water change itself ?

 

[taricha]

Water changes sometimes encourage resurgence of a dino bloom. I don't think storing water long term like that would necessarily do anything more than a normal water change.

 

[DarkReefer]

Water changes sometimes encourage resurgence of a dino bloom. I don't think storing water long term like that would necessarily do anything more than a normal water change.

dang, was possibly hoping it could in hopes of finding the source of this crappy stuff.
So over dealing with it. Makes me really question whether I do actually want to spend more money in this hobby to upgrade to the 4-6ft tank I was hoping for.

 

[Om84]

Looking for ID. This is the highest mag (1000x) I could do on my cheap amazon scope. Bloom happened after Interceptor treatment to treat some kind of invasive copepods. I have a UV and I don't seem to be making headway. Perhaps I don't have it dialed in. I tried black out for 3 days which helped but immediately after lights dinos are back. I do see long strings/mucus, etc. Could be ostreopsis but I'm not sure.

 

[taricha]

Looking for ID. This is the highest mag (1000x) I could do on my cheap amazon scope.

Try to get some on a glass slide instead of the background of the sand. It's hard to make out detail that way. (prorocentrum or large cell amphidinium)

 

[Travi]

Sorry for the crappy video...I have a better scope on the way but just by the movement my guess is Coolia?

 

[taricha]

but just by the movement my guess is Coolia?

agree totally. that swim pattern is coolia.

 

[Budman93]

My one goal is to prevent these. Just reading the first post my last tank checked all the marks. Had chaeto, gfo, dry rock, was a new tank, wayyyyy too big of a skimmer, and didnt feed enough probably.

Recipe for disaster. Wish i still had a picture of how bad it was

 

[DarkReefer]

My one goal is to prevent these. Just reading the first post my last tank checked all the marks. Had chaeto, gfo, dry rock, was a new tank, wayyyyy too big of a skimmer, and didnt feed enough probably.

Recipe for disaster. Wish i still had a picture of how bad it was

You stayed in the hobby still?
Did you go a bigger tank or smaller after it and how long were you dealing with it ?

I seem to be struggling a bit this time around the h202 doesn't appear to be doing as much this time also.

I need to do some testing and a proper ID to be sure it's the same stuff as last time but I'm pretty sure it is. Looks no different.

 

[Budman93]

You stayed in the hobby still?
Did you go a bigger tank or smaller after it and how long were you dealing with it ?

I seem to be struggling a bit this time around the h202 doesn't appear to be doing as much this time also.

I need to do some testing and a proper ID to be sure it's the same stuff as last time but I'm pretty sure it is. Looks no different.

Well it was a one two punch of dinos overrunning my tank coupled with losing power for 4 days without a generator and everything dying . So i guess thats one way to kill dinos lol.

I have a 10g larger tank now (40g). Im doing without a refugium and protein skimmer and just running basic gfo and carbon. Id rather tackle a normal algae outbreak and add more filtration down the line then go overboard early.

 

[DarkReefer]

Well it was a one two punch of dinos overrunning my tank coupled with losing power for 4 days without a generator and everything dying . So i guess thats one way to kill dinos lol.

I have a 10g larger tank now (40g). Im doing without a refugium and protein skimmer and just running basic gfo and carbon. Id rather tackle a normal algae outbreak and add more filtration down the line then go overboard early.

Yeah fair enough.
The dino issue has me thinking more and more lately about throwing in the towel. I enjoy the fish all the time and the corals when things are going well but the dino issue just causes corals to be unhappy etc and I'm sick of brushing the rocks of algae along with the junk on the sandbed suffocating everything and looking terrible.

I was initially thinking I wanted to go bigger to a 4-6ft tank (currently have a 2ft cube tank), but this dino issue is just doing my head in and making me rethink what I want to throw my money into.

Perhaps I've got too much filtration going as well (although my nitrates have been quite high for some time now).
Oh ****... I think I might've just worked out why my peroxide isn't working. I've left the carbon in the tank....

 

[Budman93]

Yeah fair enough.
The dino issue has me thinking more and more lately about throwing in the towel. I enjoy the fish all the time and the corals when things are going well but the dino issue just causes corals to be unhappy etc and I'm sick of brushing the rocks of algae along with the junk on the sandbed suffocating everything and looking terrible.

I was initially thinking I wanted to go bigger to a 4-6ft tank (currently have a 2ft cube tank), but this dino issue is just doing my head in and making me rethink what I want to throw my money into.

Perhaps I've got too much filtration going as well (although my nitrates have been quite high for some time now).
Oh ****... I think I might've just worked out why my peroxide isn't working. I've left the carbon in the tank....

Do you run a skimmer? Try shutting it off and do a full blackout for a few days. I think youll be able to beat it. How are you phosphate levels?

 

[DarkReefer]

Do you run a skimmer? Try shutting it off and do a full blackout for a few days. I think youll be able to beat it. How are you phosphate levels?

Yeah got a skimmer.
I think I've missed a bunch of steps this time around unfortunately. I didn't go back to re-read the process thoroughly.

I forgot to do a blackout or run lower lights, turning skimmer off and taking out carbon etc.
I've got 4 days before I go away for work for a week so I'll have to try and do a small blackout for a couple of days and make the other adjustments also.

Not sure what my phosphates currently were at but they were generally fairly high.
Last time I recorded they were down to 0.052 though but that was almost 2 months ago. Thought I test a few weeks ago but maybe it's turned into a couple of months!

 

[EricR]

This is probably a silly question:
Once a visible outbreak of dinoflagellates has been seen and overcome, is it safe to assume that type/species will always be in the tank (in smaller concentration) so controlling environment to be less conducive to population growth (for that dinoflagellate) is the only realistic, long term plan?

EDIT -- I'm lumping control strategies like UV into "controlling environment" for the jest of the question

 

[taricha]

This is probably a silly question:
Once a visible outbreak of dinoflagellates has been seen and overcome, is it safe to assume that type/species will always be in the tank (in smaller concentration) so controlling environment to be less conducive to population growth (for that dinoflagellate) is the only realistic, long term plan?

EDIT -- I'm lumping control strategies like UV into "controlling environment" for the jest of the question

for a short time, yes. Long term maybe not.

My system had dino outbreaks years ago. I can sample GHA even today and still find a few cells. But I can't get any visible dino growth. No matter how many of the things I do that people say "cause" dinos.
I can run GFO and lower PO4 to zero, dose amino acids, and trace elements. Nothing.
The system just isn't favorable to them now - for whatever reason.

 

[Artzy]

Looking for help identifying, this is the best video I could get with cheap scope. Hoping movement can help ID

 

[taricha]

Hoping movement can help ID

not sure. movement is unusual. got a pic of the tank area where that stuff is?