Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Bakki]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me ID what this is. Apologies for the bad quality of the photo.

Best regards
Jorren

 

[taricha]

I was wondering if someone could help me ID what this is

ostreopsis for sure.

 

[Bakki]

Thank you very much!

 

[reef_ranch]

is this ostreposis? my two frag tanks are overrun by it (its not hurting any of the corals) only two weeks after a deep cleaning. Oddly enough, my display which is plumbed to the frags has none.

 

[DNA]

.
A vast number of dinoflagellates go down into the sand rather than being free swimming at night.
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I was watching a BRStv video where they seemed to be oblivious to this fact so I felt like I had to get this out.
Have you ever wondered how the dinos seem to find the exact same spots day after day?
The space between even very fine grains of sand is vast for the micro sized dinos.

I solved my long lasting Ostreopsis problem some years ago and got to learn a lot about them.

 

[taricha]

Good to see you, @DNA
Welcome to r2r

 

[Alexraptor]

Need a second opinion, since i'm new to this.

Prorocentrum, am i rite?

 

[DNA]

Good to see you, @DNA
Welcome to r2r

Hi Taricha!
I belive we made great progress back in the days. It's been some years already.

I have not bothered to read the forums since I got Ostreopsis sorted out. I just put too much GFO in the reactor, nitrate goes way down and they show up extra fast if I stir up the sand as well. Then I take measures to get nitrate up again and they vanish in 2-3 weeks.

This sort of verifies what we thought, but could not prove that dinos are in all tanks waiting for the right conditions.

 

[Johnic]

I would raise your Ca and MG (let's say 420 on Ca and 1300 on Mg, and lower your PO4. The problem with 'rules' in aquaria - that offer a fix - seems to fail much of the time because each tank is different. If you want my comments on what you're doing - you're doing too much, this is not meant as an insult - but rather suggestions:

1. Pods do not make a difference with regards to Dinos.
2. Photo does not make a difference with regards to Dinos
3. Manual removal - would move it up to every day - or every other day - when it seems like the Dinos are at their peak.
4. IMHO microbacter 7 will not affect dinos
5. The amount of 'rubble' you added compared to your total tank surface area - is probably not enough (and I wouldn't add more)
6. Not sure why you're using all blue - I would perhaps change that - and I would skip blackout days.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Do you have a picture of your tank? And - I'm sorry if I'm seeming to be critical. I would stop all of the supplements - instead - manually remove (siphon) - the Dinos off - lower your PO4 perhaps increase Ca and Mg a little as said above - and wait. they will go away

What size micron filter sock would you suggest to capture the Dino ?

 

[saltyhog]

Need a second opinion, since i'm new to this.

Prorocentrum, am i rite?

You are indeed right.

 

[Auora]

Hi guys. I've been battling dinos for awhile and finally got access to a microscope to identify them. We've got lots of bubbles on the rocks and when I try to clean the tank, it goes everywhere and ends up forming long filamentous strands. Could I get an ID?

 

[saltyhog]

Hi guys. I've been battling dinos for awhile and finally got access to a microscope to identify them. We've got lots of bubbles on the rocks and when I try to clean the tank, it goes everywhere and ends up forming long filamentous strands. Could I get an ID?

Yes, that's also Prorocentrum. I know many recommend UV for these but I don't find it helpful. I treat these just like LCA/SCA with silicate dosing as well as trying to increase biodiversity any way I can.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

Water glass is easily available on Amazon. Unfortunately SpongExcel is only 4% so unless your tank is very small it's not a solution. Also the dosing recommendations they state there rarely seem to be achieved for whatever reason. We are aiming at about 2ppm per day so it would take 1/2 ml per gallon of tank water. That means that large bottle would last 2 days on a 125 gallon tank. That will get cost prohibitive in a hurry.

Water glass is 36-41%. It needs to be mixed with 200-250 cc of RO/DI water and poured slowly in a high flow area. Doseage is 0.2 ml/15 gallons of water volume.

This is a good source of reagent grade water glass. Amazon product

Lastly, unless you live in Europe where the Colombo test kit is available there really isn't a useable test kit here in the US/Canada. Fortunately it's not a big deal as silicate has not proven toxic even at massive over doses. It could prolong the desired diatom bloom but that's the worst thing that should happen.

Hey so is changing from SpongeExcel to Water Glass as simple as 10x more concentration? So I can just dilute the water glass 10x to make it the same dosing as has worked for me with SpongExcel?

Also I’m not sure what you said about SpongExcel seems accurate. I bought 2L of SpongExcel, and it’s lasted me around 5 months with my 360gallon tank. I started with less but currently dose 15ml/day to keep diatoms competing with dinos.

 

[saltyhog]

Hey so is changing from SpongeExcel to Water Glass as simple as 10x more concentration? So I can just dilute the water glass 10x to make it the same dosing as has worked for me with SpongExcel?

Also I’m not sure what you said about SpongExcel seems accurate. I bought 2L of SpongExcel, and it’s lasted me around 5 months with my 360gallon tank. I started with less but currently dose 15ml/day to keep diatoms competing with dinos.

2 liters of SpongExcel?!!!! The largest bottle on BRS is 125 ml for $10.60. Where did you find 2 liters and how much was it?

According to BRS and Brightwell "Each ml of Brightwell Aquatics SpongExcel will increase the concentration of soluble silica [SiO2] in 1 US-gallon (3.785 L) of water by ~4 ppm, or ~0.20 ppm per drop. "

That would mean it would take about 150 ml of SpongExcel to be dosing 2ppm/day (which is the proper dose to treat silicate treated dinos). You would need 4 ml of water glass to dose the same amount of silicate (a 118 ml bottle is $11 on Amazon).

If you're just dosing silicate for your sponges/corals then SpongExcel is great.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

2 liters of SpongExcel?!!!! The largest bottle on BRS is 125 ml for $10.60. Where did you find 2 liters and how much was it?

According to BRS and Brightwell "Each ml of Brightwell Aquatics SpongExcel will increase the concentration of soluble silica [SiO2] in 1 US-gallon (3.785 L) of water by ~4 ppm, or ~0.20 ppm per drop. "

That would mean it would take about 150 ml of SpongExcel to be dosing 2ppm/day (which is the proper dose to treat silicate treated dinos). You would need 4 ml of water glass to dose the same amount of silicate (a 118 ml bottle is $11 on Amazon).

If you're just dosing silicate for your sponges/corals then SpongExcel is great.

Yes, on Amazon for $71 you can get 2 Liters of SpongExcel: Amazon product

You are recommending to dose 2ppm per day? If your math is for initial dose calculated to get the tank to 2ppm/day, I would not expect that you'd dose that much every day, you'd have 2ppm day 1, 4ppm (minus what was used in 24 hours) day 2, 6ppm (minus used) day 3. Seems like you may be dosing massive amounts. 150ml/day sounds way too high for any sized tank. I've seen good success managing dinos with between 7-15ml/day.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

Definitely moving to water glass btw, just ordered 1 gallon of 40%, the one Randy recommends.

 

[saltyhog]

Yes, on Amazon for $71 you can get 2 Liters of SpongExcel: Amazon product

You are recommending to dose 2ppm per day? If your math is for initial dose calculated to get the tank to 2ppm/day, I would not expect that you'd dose that much every day, you'd have 2ppm day 1, 4ppm (minus what was used in 24 hours) day 2, 6ppm (minus used) day 3. Seems like you may be dosing massive amounts. 150ml/day sounds way too high for any sized tank. I've seen good success managing dinos with between 7-15ml/day.

Not referring to the level in the tank but to dosing about 2ppm/day. You will definitely get levels much higher than 2ppm in the but that's not an issue as there's not toxicity even with large over doses. I've seen levels on ICP over 250 ppm with only a prolonged diatom bloom (which isn't bad when fighting dinos). This builds in a silicate source so that when dinos are gone and silicate is slowly used up there's not a sudden drop in silicate OR diatoms.

If you were using water glass it might cost $10(compared to $71 for SpongExcel) or so to get even higher levels

 

[saltyhog]

Definitely moving to water glass btw, just ordered 1 gallon of 40%, the one Randy recommends.

Man, a gallon?! You will only need 4 ml/ day to be dosing 2ppm in a 300 gallon tank. That will last for 9 months or more. You shouldn't need to dose that long. I would check and ICP in a month or so and adjust the dose if needed.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

Man, a gallon?! You will only need 4 ml/ day to be dosing 2ppm in a 300 gallon tank. That will last for 9 months or more. You shouldn't need to dose that long. I would check and ICP in a month or so and adjust the dose if needed.

I’ve been battling Dino’s for about a year. I’ve tried virtually every method and the only thing that seems to work for me is Silica. I hope I can stop dosing silica at some point, but not counting on it. At this point I’m at peace with the fact that I may have to dose Silica permanently lol. Every time I pull back, even slowly, the Dino’s come back with vengeance.

 

[apb03]

I recently started adding SpongExcel to my tank, and I notice this stuff precipitates immediately when I add it to my water...is this normal?