Dinoflagellates my experience......h2o2 reefing tool!!!!!
thanks for the help, so you think i should split the 20ml into 10ml un morning and 10ml at night
h2pvnus
Active Member
Here http://www.h2oaquatics.co.uk/additives-1/qfi-dinoxal-250ml . Available in UK they can ship to US
audi772
Community Member
Well the dinos won guys. Almost a month of daily dosing. It did back the dinos off a lot but they never disappeared. The reason I say they won I'd because since the dinos first started they were outcompeting my corals and unless I cleaned them off everyday they would get overrun. Casualties from the dinos are three rocks of zoas, rock of gsp, rock of gloves, and my Coco Worm who lived happily with me for over a year now. So tank is getting tore down, vinegar scrubbed, all new rock and sand.
sansupt
Community Member
Ive been battling this scourge for the past 2 months, i have a 90 gal micxed reef with a 30 gal sump(100 gal total volume), i have been dosing 20 ml peroxide for the lat 21/2 weeks, i did a total black-out 2 weeks ago and last week its starting to come back, nowhere near like before the blackout. I need some recommendations, should i increase the dose(can it be done any higher safely), can i do another blackout or too soon, or wait it out a little longer? this seems to be a loosing battle. any help would be appreciated.
Lucky1456
New Member
What is interceptor Troy?? I'm new at this hobby and just like a sponge trying to absorb as much info as possible. I too have the algae crap as everyone else have. I was going to start dosing Vodka this week. I was waiting for my clam to come in so I have my filter feeder in place before starting. I want to try the H202 too. Are you still doing carbon now even with the H202 or this was a quick fix and back to the carbon maintains?? Let me know please. Also another question I cant find anything about at all so far. My LFS owner set up a new display tank maybe 6 weeks ago and I have never seen such beautiful coral grow so big so fast before. I mean the colors are brighter then anything I have ever seen too. So I ask what he was dosing this tank with and he hands me a bottle of something called Fuel. Tells me to dose a inter cap full twice a week. This has to do with amino acids and other foods for the corals. He tells me that this doesn't get filtered out of the system and the coral will feed threw the skin all the time and open and feed regularly too. Then he starts to tell me about something else that the Germans use to speed growth of the coral. He said the name and it went in one ear and out another. Any idea what this was he was talking about?? Let me know please. Like I said I'm trying to absorb everything I can get my hands on. Just think I flunked Biology. LOL If I had only known were that was going to leaded!!!!
Wiz
2500 Club Member
dinos
I had dinos a while back. Researched for days. Nothing described worked. Dosing, week blackout, nothing. What finally worked was this. Raised my dkh to 12 using oven baked baking soda.which slowed the growth noticably. Vacuumed the entire tank twice a day. Used a tank pyhthon with the large end removed to strenghten the suction and ran it straight to skimmer area of sump through a filter sock and sponge. (Careful. Suction is strong. Accidently sucked up my duncan from an inch away.) Got about 12 scarlets which unlike most cleaners were unaffected by eating it. And cut my light cycle to minimum. Last and most important got two tiger sand conchs. They ate this stuff like crazy with no ill affect. Perfect little vacuums. Didnt read about them anywhere. So imagine my surprize when the one I had when dinos appeared munched it like crazy and didn't die. Ran right out for a 2nd one. And they worked hard. I really cant say enough about the tiger sand conch. Helped with the dinos, stirs the sand bed, cleans everything in its reach. Fantastic cleaner. Probably the best in my experience. Took about a month of this treatment. Eventually they stopped coming back. I vacuumed another week after last sighting. And its been months now
I had dinos a while back. Researched for days. Nothing described worked. Dosing, week blackout, nothing. What finally worked was this. Raised my dkh to 12 using oven baked baking soda.which slowed the growth noticably. Vacuumed the entire tank twice a day. Used a tank pyhthon with the large end removed to strenghten the suction and ran it straight to skimmer area of sump through a filter sock and sponge. (Careful. Suction is strong. Accidently sucked up my duncan from an inch away.) Got about 12 scarlets which unlike most cleaners were unaffected by eating it. And cut my light cycle to minimum. Last and most important got two tiger sand conchs. They ate this stuff like crazy with no ill affect. Perfect little vacuums. Didnt read about them anywhere. So imagine my surprize when the one I had when dinos appeared munched it like crazy and didn't die. Ran right out for a 2nd one. And they worked hard. I really cant say enough about the tiger sand conch. Helped with the dinos, stirs the sand bed, cleans everything in its reach. Fantastic cleaner. Probably the best in my experience. Took about a month of this treatment. Eventually they stopped coming back. I vacuumed another week after last sighting. And its been months now
Montireef
Community Member
Hi folks!
After almost 2 months battling with ostreopsis ovata and losing about 30 fishes, tons of snails and dozens of acroporas I came across with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKeEeFt_gBU
It is an unknown ciliate thriving in my 600 gal tank that outcompetes and seems to attack dinoflagellates. It is everywhere: on the rocks, on the plastic grid, on the glass, even in the skimmate...Millions of them, in less than a week I have seen ostreopsis becoming whitish and vanish; I still can find ostreopsis but much less than a week ago and looks as it is going to disappear.
After almost 2 months battling with ostreopsis ovata and losing about 30 fishes, tons of snails and dozens of acroporas I came across with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKeEeFt_gBU
It is an unknown ciliate thriving in my 600 gal tank that outcompetes and seems to attack dinoflagellates. It is everywhere: on the rocks, on the plastic grid, on the glass, even in the skimmate...Millions of them, in less than a week I have seen ostreopsis becoming whitish and vanish; I still can find ostreopsis but much less than a week ago and looks as it is going to disappear.
Wiz
2500 Club Member
I beat dinos over a period of a month or two. It was time consuming. Two siphons one in the morning one at night. Lower right schedule. Higher alkalinity. And two tiger sand conchs . Which ate it all day long and had no ill effect on the two that I have. Just an FYI
Pants
Community Member
That is a dinoflagellate. There is a good chance it is this one, or something related. I've been wanting to dump some in someone's tank for awhile to see if it would clear up a dino bloom, but no one has wanted to be my guinea pig.
Can you get some video with higher magnification to confirm my suspicion?
SantaMonica
Valuable Member
Dino's are the first to go away, when you increase your N and P and Ammonium export. This might help:
Nutrient Export
What do all algae (and cyano too) need to survive? Nutrients. What are nutrients? Ammonia/ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and urea are the major ones. Which ones cause most of the algae in your tank? These same ones. Why can't you just remove these nutrients and eliminate all the algae in your tank? Because these nutrients are the result of the animals you keep.
So how do your animals "make" these nutrients? Well a large part the nutrients comes from pee (urea). Pee is very high in urea and ammonia, and these are a favorite food of algae and some bacteria. This is why your glass will always need cleaning; because the pee hits the glass before anything else, and algae on the glass consume the ammonia and urea immediately (using photosynthesis) and grow more. In the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton consume the ammonia and urea in open water, and seaweed consume it in shallow areas, but in a tank you don't have enough space or water volume for this, and, your other filters or animals often remove or kill the phytoplankton or seaweed anyway. So, the nutrients stay in your tank.
Then, the ammonia/ammonium hits your rocks, and the periphyton on the rocks consumes more ammonia and urea. Periphyton is both algae and animals, and is the reason your rocks change color after a few weeks from when they were new. Then the ammonia goes inside the rock, or hits your sand, and bacteria there convert it into nitrite and nitrate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.
Also let's not forget phosphate, which comes from solid organic food particles. When these particles are eaten by microbes and clean up crews, the organic phosphorus in them is converted into phosphate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.
So whenever you have algae or cyano "problems", you simply have not exported enough nutrients out of your tank compared to how much you have been feeding (note: live rock can absorb phosphate for up to a year, making it seem like there was never a problem. Then after a year, there is a problem).
So just increase your nutrient exports. You could also reduce feeding, and this has the same effect, but it's certainly not fun when you want to feed your animals
Nutrient Export
What do all algae (and cyano too) need to survive? Nutrients. What are nutrients? Ammonia/ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and urea are the major ones. Which ones cause most of the algae in your tank? These same ones. Why can't you just remove these nutrients and eliminate all the algae in your tank? Because these nutrients are the result of the animals you keep.
So how do your animals "make" these nutrients? Well a large part the nutrients comes from pee (urea). Pee is very high in urea and ammonia, and these are a favorite food of algae and some bacteria. This is why your glass will always need cleaning; because the pee hits the glass before anything else, and algae on the glass consume the ammonia and urea immediately (using photosynthesis) and grow more. In the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton consume the ammonia and urea in open water, and seaweed consume it in shallow areas, but in a tank you don't have enough space or water volume for this, and, your other filters or animals often remove or kill the phytoplankton or seaweed anyway. So, the nutrients stay in your tank.
Then, the ammonia/ammonium hits your rocks, and the periphyton on the rocks consumes more ammonia and urea. Periphyton is both algae and animals, and is the reason your rocks change color after a few weeks from when they were new. Then the ammonia goes inside the rock, or hits your sand, and bacteria there convert it into nitrite and nitrate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.
Also let's not forget phosphate, which comes from solid organic food particles. When these particles are eaten by microbes and clean up crews, the organic phosphorus in them is converted into phosphate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.
So whenever you have algae or cyano "problems", you simply have not exported enough nutrients out of your tank compared to how much you have been feeding (note: live rock can absorb phosphate for up to a year, making it seem like there was never a problem. Then after a year, there is a problem).
So just increase your nutrient exports. You could also reduce feeding, and this has the same effect, but it's certainly not fun when you want to feed your animals
UK_Pete
Active Member
Hi Pants,
I took a couple of photos through the microscope recently and since I just saw youre still around I thought you might take a look if you have a moment? These are at 1000x and (IIRC) 100 times respectively. In the 1000x shot the green cells are about 5 microns across. I got a decent sample of the slime which was uncontaminated with other stuff I think, and made a thinish slide of it. I can see that whats holding the cells together is some kind of slime with very small cells, dinos I guess, caught in the slime, but well spaced apart as you can see in the first photo. Is this a typical dino slide? I took the shot at 100x to show as best I could that this is a kind of trail of mucous with these cells in it but the mucous is clear. The 1000x shot shows the mucous seems to have no significant opacity, and shows what I guess are the source of the mucous, but do you know of any dinos or anything else that exudes this mucous? Otherwise maybe I just have a few dinos caught in a mucous of some other origin perhaps. They wernt moving BTW.
I took a couple of photos through the microscope recently and since I just saw youre still around I thought you might take a look if you have a moment? These are at 1000x and (IIRC) 100 times respectively. In the 1000x shot the green cells are about 5 microns across. I got a decent sample of the slime which was uncontaminated with other stuff I think, and made a thinish slide of it. I can see that whats holding the cells together is some kind of slime with very small cells, dinos I guess, caught in the slime, but well spaced apart as you can see in the first photo. Is this a typical dino slide? I took the shot at 100x to show as best I could that this is a kind of trail of mucous with these cells in it but the mucous is clear. The 1000x shot shows the mucous seems to have no significant opacity, and shows what I guess are the source of the mucous, but do you know of any dinos or anything else that exudes this mucous? Otherwise maybe I just have a few dinos caught in a mucous of some other origin perhaps. They wernt moving BTW.
Pants
Community Member
Since those photos dont seem to be zoomable heres a zoomed version, not great quality - cells are about 5 micron.
All the dinos I've seen as pests in people's tanks are benthic mucous producing dinoflagellate species. While not closely related, convergent evolution seems to have caused very similar adaptations to life in sand (namely production of mucous, compressed cells, and toxin production). So while the mucous is a good indication you have a benthic dinoflagellate, it is not a good diagnostic feature for identifying which dinoflagellate you have. I keep seeing the same groups of dinos over and over and they are as follows:
- Ostreopsis - sesame seed shape swims while tethered creating a tether ball like appearance. This is a large cell about 50 microns by 30 microns. [video=youtube;G04hKQg9Rig]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G04hKQg9Rig[/video]
- Amphidinium - similar shape to Ostreopsis but with a funny fold at the apex of the cell and much smaller (20 x 12 microns) [video=youtube;Y578C6sd-wY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y578C6sd-wY[/video]
- Unidentified - A small round cell that does not move and is thickly enveloped in mucous. (~10 microns). I think it is a dinoflagellate, but have not confirmed. I'd love another sample but need someone local to provide it since this one doesn't ship well. It reminds me of Symbiodinium. [video=youtube;R6h7U3HhciI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6h7U3HhciI[/video]
Does yours "disappear" at night? This is a common online diagnostic feature for these dino outbreaks and I've wondered if this little guy does swim at night or whether it just hides in that thick mucous all the time.
Take some samples of your water column and let me know if you see your little guy there as well.
Nammy
Community Member
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