Dinoflagellates - What I learned over the years to deal with it

[Mikeltee]

Hey my dad is in Fishers. you poor soul. JK!!!!

Yea it's terrible living in a top 10 ranked city with 5 star schools, roundabouts at every intersection, paying 1% property tax (6000sf home for 250k) and not to mention I haven't locked my front door in 10 years

If it's diversity and inclusion that you seek, stay far away from Fishers Indiana!

 

[Asagi]

Yea it's terrible living in a top 10 ranked city with 5 star schools, roundabouts at every intersection, paying 1% property tax (6000sf home for 250k) and not to mention I haven't locked my front door in 10 years

If it's diversity and inclusion that you seek, stay far away from Fishers Indiana!

mans thats a cheap house. That value was my down payment!

 

[taricha]

To make it simple:

Ostreopsidaceae = UV, second and third option - UV

Non-Ostreopsidaceae = multiple options that helps but no absolute solution, most important is not to nuke the corals while trying to treat.

my perspective here is almost identical, and I thought it was notable how closely we view this issue at this point.

The way I phrase it in my head is we have UV which is our best tool. We can make it more effective for some borderline cases with tricks to push more cells into the water.

Then we have a bunch of mostly conservative interventions that are each like 30% to 80% successful - over a long enough time. (Oh, BTW "long enough time" is itself is one of those 30-ish% interventions.)

people looking for more guaranteed things tend to end up doing more aggressive interventions (by this I mean stuff like stronger chemicals etc.) that seem to cause harm as often as helping.

 

[Mickey]

@taricha Are you saying here that UV is the best option to start with for all types of dinos and not just Ostreopsis?

I've had dino outbreaks off and on for a couple of years and now I'm also battling a really bad GHA outbreak. This latest bout started with bad cyano first, both cyano and spirolina. Then dinos moved in along with the GHA. Under the microscope I see lots of small cell Amphidinium, plus some large cell Amph., and one other type I'm not sure of but it doesn't move a lot.

I'm trying to manually remove as much of the GHA as I can but tank is a 225 that's been set up for 19+ years with large pieces of live rock so really can't remove it from the tank. Feels like a losing battle.

Somewhere on page 2 I think I saw that Reef and Dive suggested using fluconizole treatment when battling both dinos and GHA. I'm hesitant because I don't want to end up with a bigger problem afterwards.

I'll invest in a UV if that's the recommended solution but I don't think I have Osteo's so don't want to do that if it's not needed.

 

[Reef and Dive]

Somewhere on page 2 I think I saw that Reef and Dive suggested using fluconizole treatment when battling both dinos and GHA. I'm hesitant because I don't want to end up with a bigger problem afterwards.

Correct. For this specific scenario I consider it interesting. Once GHA starts dying the environment also changes in terms of nutrients and very often the favorable situation for dinos also changes.

 

[Mickey]

Correct. For this specific scenario I consider it interesting. Once GHA starts dying the environment also changes in terms of nutrients and very often the favorable situation for dinos also changes.

So, you think I should take a chance and try fluconazole? I realize that once the GHA starts dying the conditions in the tank will change so I'll need to watch things very carefully.

I've already lost quite a few corals though fish are all fine. I did add a new clean-up crew two weeks ago and had significant mortality though don't know if it was shipping stress or dino toxin or something else.

Tank is so bad I am getting pretty desparate.

 

[taricha]

@taricha Are you saying here that UV is the best option to start with for all types of dinos and not just Ostreopsis?

Often yes, and this is why....

Under the microscope I see lots of small cell Amphidinium, plus some large cell Amph., and one other type I'm not sure of but it doesn't move a lot.

Dino outbreaks are often a mix.

It sounds like you have a general nuisance algae overrunning the tank problem. And not so much a specific dino problem.
Probably going to have to generally change the relationship between nutrients, food inputs, exports etc.

 

[Mickey]

I know it seems like that but I wonder if it's more an after effect of using chemiclean on the cyano that had overrun my tank while I was away in February. My tank has always been higher nutrient (for many years) and I never had hair algae problem before. Nitrates are around 25 and phosphates are on the way down, now at .8 after running over 1.5 for years.

Do you think using fluconazole now will make things worse? I am relooking at nutrient export situation regardless.

 

[Reef and Dive]

I know it seems like that but I wonder if it's more an after effect of using chemiclean on the cyano that had overrun my tank while I was away in February. My tank has always been higher nutrient (for many years) and I never had hair algae problem before. Nitrates are around 25 and phosphates are on the way down, now at .8 after running over 1.5 for years.

Do you think using fluconazole now will make things worse? I am relooking at nutrient export situation regardless.

I am not into correcting things too much one after the other. If the outbreak came after chemiclean I do not suggest adding fluconazole sequentially...