Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[The new fish on the block]

My guess is that phyto would simply be food for the raging dino's in a bloom, but did they explain the theory behind how it was supposed to work?

I believe it said that the phyto feeds on the silicates

 

[The new fish on the block]

I believe it said that the phyto feeds on the silicates

https://www.algaebarn.com/using-live-microalgae-to-control-nuisance-dinoflagellates/

 

[Paullawr]

Something else to consider that could be easier, although not really the same thing, is Marineland’s water polishing filter. It is a micron filter that can also use diatom powder with if you want.

They are cheap so you could even deploy more than one. I think they may be slightly more flexible to use than a filter sock too since there is a pump installed.

2¢

Diatom filters and these filters have been used at expense but have not fulfilled their goal. See 'other' thread.

 

[BigJohnny]

what variety did you have?

No idea, it was also before I knew people were identifying different varieties and recommending treatment. It was more of a mystery then, although I wasn't as active on the forums

 

[Paullawr]

My guess is that phyto would simply be food for the raging dino's in a bloom, but did they explain the theory behind how it was supposed to work?

According taricha they dont eat.

 

[Paullawr]

No idea, it was also before I knew people were identifying different varieties and recommending treatment. It was more of a mystery then, although I wasn't as active on the forums

Photo is unlikely to work. Protist are a step up the evolutionary ladder.

They usually spear their victims Before consumption.

 

[IvanW]

Back in Sept/October sometime after talking to Sanjay Joshi and Julian Sprung I decided to follow their advice and just left the tank without doing too much to eradicate this pest. Sanjay was of the opinion that the Dinoflagallites would eventually " burn" themselves out.
Well that seems to be happening.I bumped up the Phosphates and Nitrates and am still feeding heavy,stopped doing water changes and every now and again stir up the sand bed with a turkey baster. Corals and fish are doing really well. I plan on not doing any water changes for at least another month or so and see what happens.

 

[The new fish on the block]

Back in Sept/October sometime after talking to Sanjay Joshi and Julian Sprung I decided to follow their advice and just left the tank without doing too much to eradicate this pest. Sanjay was of the opinion that the Dinoflagallites would eventually " burn" themselves out.
Well that seems to be happening.I bumped up the Phosphates and Nitrates and am still feeding heavy,stopped doing water changes and every now and again stir up the sand bed with a turkey baster. Corals and fish are doing really well. I plan on not doing any water changes for at least another month or so and see what happens.

Would you happen to know what type your were
dealing with?

 

[mdd1986]

Really great thread. Thanks for all the info in here. I recently set up a small 20 gallon tank with a mix of dry rock/live rock for a coral QT. I have zero fish or inverts in this tank and have never fed it. I do have traceable amounts of nitrate and Phospate and have an outbreak of what looks like dinos. My question is what would be a proper level to keep Nitrates and phosphates if I decided to does them. Right now I'm keeping only soft and LPS type corals no SPS.

 

[mcarroll]

I bumped up the Phosphates and Nitrates and am still feeding heavy,stopped doing water changes and every now and again stir up the sand bed with a turkey baster. Corals and fish are doing really well. I plan on not doing any water changes for at least another month or so and see what happens.

I remember you stopped by back in July....glad your animals are doing well!!!

How long after that post in July did you wait to start the N and P dosing you mentioned above?

Any chance that you have a microscope you can use to get pics or a movie of what you have growing?

($10 for the one several folks on this thread have used....not a significant expense....you may not have seen the info about this on the first post as it's somewhat new.)

 

[mcarroll]

Really great thread. Thanks for all the info in here. I recently set up a small 20 gallon tank with a mix of dry rock/live rock for a coral QT. I have zero fish or inverts in this tank and have never fed it. I do have traceable amounts of nitrate and Phospate and have an outbreak of what looks like dinos. My question is what would be a proper level to keep Nitrates and phosphates if I decided to does them. Right now I'm keeping only soft and LPS type corals no SPS.

If you're showing a signifiant amout of N and P in testing (not zero; not near-zero) then it's not too likely to be dino's.

Have you tried any of the dino test listed in the first post yet to make sure that's what you have?

If you don't have a toy scope (see note above; also first post) it will be helpful for this AND lots of other things down the road as the tank matures!

(I kinda keep the dosing levels off of the front page to keep people from dosing without reading a little, doing a little bit of ID work and maybe asking a question or two to make sure it's the most-right thing to do. This is no "cure". )

 

[IvanW]

I sent an email yesterday to Gregg Mendez at that algeaid website,together with the pics this was his response
Hi Ivan,

Those are either Gambierdiscus or Prorocentrum. I can’t quite make out the edges of the cells well enough to tell. If Prorocentrum it is from the toxic side of that genus ( they are all symmetrical). Toxic Prorocentrum produce diarrhetic shellfish poisoning toxins. Gambierdiscus is also toxic. It produces ciguetera toxin. It is a much more dangerous toxin. Gambierdiscus is closely related to the Ostreopsis pictured on my website. In the wild these toxins typically only affect human health when the toxins have been concentrated in the tissues of fish and shellfish that have been feeding on the algae (or feeding on fish who are feeding on the algae). In home aquaria, blooms can get so concentrated that efforts to kill the algae can occasionally release dangerous amounts of toxins. Care should be taken when attempting to eradicate these algae. Physical removal of algae prior to any attempts to kill the algae in the tank can help cut down on the number of algae dying and releasing toxin in the tank.

Like so many of the toxic dinoflagellates, these are benthic species adapted for living in sand. They will, however, rise out of the sand and into the water column at night. This will make them vulnerable to solutions such as filtration and UV/Ozone if the treatments occur at night. It should be noted, however, that these treatments are also likely to kill any natural predators that are helping control the algae population. They form cysts, that can survive desiccation and many chemical treatments, allowing them to seemingly rise from the dead just when you think you have eradicated them. While the cysts are highly resistant to chemicals, the vegetative cells are not. In fact a sudden salinity change like a freshwater or half strength saltwater dip will lyse/kill the cells in seconds. This is why a quarantine protocol for everything that goes into your tank should include a dip (among other reasons). They also form mucous that can protect them from grazers and some chemical treatments. This is why you often find them in blobs and strings rising from the sand.

The good news is that in my experience both of these species tend to be among the dinoflagellates that are easier to eradicate than others. The bad news is that my attempts in the past to survey people experiencing dino blooms hasn’t turned up any consistent successful treatments. My suspicion is that the commonly prescribed cures you find online don’t have any impact on long term success (though many are quite effective are temporarily reducing the amount of algae). My suspicion is that long term success in controlling the population of these species is about controlling nutrient levels and harboring populations of natural predators of the algae. Without too much time on the microscope I can typically find benthic dinoflagellates such as these in most marine aquaria, even those that have never experienced a dino bloom. Your aquarium is a delicately balanced ecosystem.

Physical removal of the algae to protect your aquarium inhabitants will give your aquarium time to develop a population of predatory microorganisms. You might be able to speed this process along by adding substrate from healthy aquaria.

Let me know if you have any questions, and feel free to share my words with wet web or any online forum you participate in.

-Gregg

I originally posted this back in September on another thread in this forum.

 

[IvanW]

I remember you stopped by back in July....glad your animals are doing well!!!

How long after that post in July did you wait to start the N and P dosing you mentioned above?

Any chance that you have a microscope you can use to get pics or a movie of what you have growing?

($10 for the one several folks on this thread have used....not a significant expense....you may not have seen the info about this on the first post as it's somewhat new.)

It was somewhere in October that I bumped up the N and P. I have not done it since, probably need to check it and readjust as needed.

 

[mdd1986]

If you're showing a signifiant amout of N and P in testing (not zero; not near-zero) then it's not too likely to be dino's.

Have you tried any of the dino test listed in the first post yet to make sure that's what you have?

If you don't have a toy scope (see note above; also first post) it will be helpful for this AND lots of other things down the road as the tank matures!

(I kinda keep the dosing levels off of the front page to keep people from dosing without reading a little, doing a little bit of ID work and maybe asking a question or two to make sure it's the most-right thing to do. This is no "cure". )

My P levels were around.08 and my nitrate was around 10 PPM. I will do the peroxide test to see. i have left the lights off for a few days and add some GFO to lower the phosphates to see what happens.

 

[mcarroll]

@mdd1986 It doesn't sound like you're pulling info from the first post on this thread yet. I would not limit nutrients now....if you don't have dino's blooming now, you might cause it.

If your tanks is sorta new, you could be experiencing a case of the uglies....if so that'll pass on it's own with proper application of a CUC.

Can you post an example picture of your bloom when you get a chance?

 

[mdd1986]

@mdd1986 It doesn't sound like you're pulling info from the first post on this thread yet. I would not limit nutrients now....if you don't have dino's blooming now, you might cause it.

If your tanks is sorta new, you could be experiencing a case of the uglies....if so that'll pass on it's own with proper application of a CUC.

Can you post an example picture of your bloom when you get a chance?

Yes I will. I haven't had the chance to know for sure if they are dinos but was planning to do the peroxide test. I was just asking moving forward because I would imagine my N and P will get close to zero in this tank pretty quickly since I do not have a source for them (no fish or feeding). I thought for sure it was dinos without any sort of bioload in the tank. I was somewhat surprised to see measurable N and P. Maybe it was some die off on the live rock I put in.

 

[mcarroll]

It was somewhere in October that I bumped up the N and P. I have not done it since, probably need to check it and readjust as needed.

Your pics are interesting as most of them show a pretty heterogeneous ecosystem – not at all typical of toxic situations where dino's are usually the only thing left. (Co-blooming with one single other type of algae like cyano is also fairly common.) Toxins can be moderated pretty well with activated carbon though, so if you were always running carbon you could have had toxins being generated and not know it.

Did you ever try applying a UV or diatom filter (mostly at night) to help things progress?

 

[mcarroll]

I was just asking moving forward because I would imagine my N and P will get close to zero in this tank pretty quickly

I wouldn't pre-worry about that....if you notice, that's only one of the leading indicators for dino's....and pretty much at least two of them have to be in evidence. FYI, I have run my tank fish-free with MASSIVE coral populations for around ten years now – no real issues.

That said, don't go piling on GFO and carbon dosing somewhere in the future. Shouldn't be a need, and they seem to be the other two of the three main leading indicators of dino blooms.

Last, if you do everything with moderation as your tank grows and matures, then all of these less-ideal outcomes become less likely.

 

[Paullawr]

I sent an email yesterday to Gregg Mendez at that algeaid website,together with the pics this was his response
Hi Ivan,

Those are either Gambierdiscus or Prorocentrum. I can’t quite make out the edges of the cells well enough to tell. If Prorocentrum it is from the toxic side of that genus ( they are all symmetrical). Toxic Prorocentrum produce diarrhetic shellfish poisoning toxins. Gambierdiscus is also toxic. It produces ciguetera toxin. It is a much more dangerous toxin. Gambierdiscus is closely related to the Ostreopsis pictured on my website. In the wild these toxins typically only affect human health when the toxins have been concentrated in the tissues of fish and shellfish that have been feeding on the algae (or feeding on fish who are feeding on the algae). In home aquaria, blooms can get so concentrated that efforts to kill the algae can occasionally release dangerous amounts of toxins. Care should be taken when attempting to eradicate these algae. Physical removal of algae prior to any attempts to kill the algae in the tank can help cut down on the number of algae dying and releasing toxin in the tank.

Like so many of the toxic dinoflagellates, these are benthic species adapted for living in sand. They will, however, rise out of the sand and into the water column at night. This will make them vulnerable to solutions such as filtration and UV/Ozone if the treatments occur at night. It should be noted, however, that these treatments are also likely to kill any natural predators that are helping control the algae population. They form cysts, that can survive desiccation and many chemical treatments, allowing them to seemingly rise from the dead just when you think you have eradicated them. While the cysts are highly resistant to chemicals, the vegetative cells are not. In fact a sudden salinity change like a freshwater or half strength saltwater dip will lyse/kill the cells in seconds. This is why a quarantine protocol for everything that goes into your tank should include a dip (among other reasons). They also form mucous that can protect them from grazers and some chemical treatments. This is why you often find them in blobs and strings rising from the sand.

The good news is that in my experience both of these species tend to be among the dinoflagellates that are easier to eradicate than others. The bad news is that my attempts in the past to survey people experiencing dino blooms hasn’t turned up any consistent successful treatments. My suspicion is that the commonly prescribed cures you find online don’t have any impact on long term success (though many are quite effective are temporarily reducing the amount of algae). My suspicion is that long term success in controlling the population of these species is about controlling nutrient levels and harboring populations of natural predators of the algae. Without too much time on the microscope I can typically find benthic dinoflagellates such as these in most marine aquaria, even those that have never experienced a dino bloom. Your aquarium is a delicately balanced ecosystem.

Physical removal of the algae to protect your aquarium inhabitants will give your aquarium time to develop a population of predatory microorganisms. You might be able to speed this process along by adding substrate from healthy aquaria.

Let me know if you have any questions, and feel free to share my words with wet web or any online forum you participate in.

-Gregg

I originally posted this back in September on another thread in this forum.

Good read

 

[Denisk]

I removed the sand bed and run a 36 watt UV. It pretty much took care of all the the brown snot like Dino. I no longer have it anywhere but my phosphate was all the way at .18 and the nitrate was around 8ppm or so.

At one what point can I start lowering the po4, as I feel like it’s a little too high for sps? I dropped the po4 to .13 and got a brownish film on my Powerhead and I’m worried that they’re coming back and the uv isn’t stopping it.

Anyone else see this happening? If so, what did you do? Should I just keep po4 high for the time being?