Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[k log(omega)]

Can I get an ID on this? I'm thinking prorocentrum? I recently had a really bad outbreak and beat it back with some aggressive tactics and everything in the tank has been looking great for over a month.

Today I checked my sand under the microscope and I'm seeing a pretty good amount of these. I have nonzero N and P and everything is looking really good. Corals fully opening, sponges growing, snails and inverts seem to be doing okay (all of which was not the case during the previous outbreak), so I think I caught this pretty early on. Do you guys think I should go at it aggressively again, or just wait and see if it starts to take over?

 

[ReeVo]

New to the forums but not new to the hobby. My 20 gallon IM peninsula tank has been up for roughly 6 months. I started off with dead rock and sand and used Dr. Tims One and Only to cycle the tank. I battled GHA for about a month recently and decided to manually remove it. I also purchased 2 emerald crabs and 2 turbos to take care of the rest and reduced the photo period. That took care of problem within a week but then I was hit with dinos. I bought an Amazon microscope to ID the dino and I'm sure it's Large Cell Amphidinium but would like to get a positive ID from the community. Thanks!

Dinoflagellate ID - Possible Large or Small Cell Amphidinium Pt.1

Dinoflagellate ID - Possible Large or Small Cell Amphidinium Pt.2

Dinoflagellate ID - Possible Large or Small Cell Amphidinium Pt.3

 

[bishoptf]

Happy New Years everyone! I have a question for @taricha @ScottB I know I read taricha discussing this but for the life of me I cannot find his posting discussing it. I have a newer small qt frag tank that I set up, dry rock but it has been cooking for almost a year now and had been trying to keep nutrients up but wasn't where I wanted them and started seeing some ostreo popping up, nothing bad but still. Was dosing nitrate and phosphate to try to get them up but seems like nitrate was easier to elevate and still dosing phosphate which I guess since I have rock and sand its binding since I dose and next day its low. Anyway I had some leathers that really could care less but I also had some digi's in there that I had fragged from the main tank and they had been doing well also but now looks like most of the digi tips have bleached. I did change my lighting but I matched the par, I was keeping alk in pretty decent range so the only thing that I can think that may have done it was raising my nitrate faster first before getting phosphate up.

I'm pretty sure somewhere I read a posting from @taricha that stated you should first try to get phosphate up first before elevating nitrate. Is that relocation correct and if so why does raising nitrates before phosphate cause so much damage etc. Just trying to learn what may have caused the digi's to have this issue and avoid it in the future. I've not had any issue in the past and they are usually pretty forgiving so not sure what I did to tick them off and would like to avoid it in the future.

Thanks

 

[k log(omega)]

Happy New Years everyone! I have a question for @taricha @ScottB I know I read taricha discussing this but for the life of me I cannot find his posting discussing it. I have a newer small qt frag tank that I set up, dry rock but it has been cooking for almost a year now and had been trying to keep nutrients up but wasn't where I wanted them and started seeing some ostreo popping up, nothing bad but still. Was dosing nitrate and phosphate to try to get them up but seems like nitrate was easier to elevate and still dosing phosphate which I guess since I have rock and sand its binding since I dose and next day its low. Anyway I had some leathers that really could care less but I also had some digi's in there that I had fragged from the main tank and they had been doing well also but now looks like most of the digi tips have bleached. I did change my lighting but I matched the par, I was keeping alk in pretty decent range so the only thing that I can think that may have done it was raising my nitrate faster first before getting phosphate up.

I'm pretty sure somewhere I read a posting from @taricha that stated you should first try to get phosphate up first before elevating nitrate. Is that relocation correct and if so why does raising nitrates before phosphate cause so much damage etc. Just trying to learn what may have caused the digi's to have this issue and avoid it in the future. I've not had any issue in the past and they are usually pretty forgiving so not sure what I did to tick them off and would like to avoid it in the future.

Thanks

i know i’m not who this was intended for, but i think the idea is that along with being absorbed by rocks, phosphate is used up more readily by corals, algae, etc in the presence of nitrate. so elevating nitrate causes/allows organisms to more quickly absorb phosphate also.

 

[bishoptf]

I think this is the one that I read - https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/do-we-need-nitrate-in-a-reef-tank.976904/post-11310846

Not sure if this is what caused my issues but something ticked off my sps and bleached most of the tips and when I say tips I mean a good inch, algae is growing on them...not sure what I need to do in order to turn it around and not sure what caused it but guess we will see how it goes...

 

[Rick Krejci]

Have a new plague of Dinos...got myself a microscope and I think they are prorocentrum, but some have 2 sack-like features. They do dissipate at night. Trying the normal course recommended for these, including running my 25W UV at lower flow and increasing nutrients. I took a video of a few different views, I especially I like the creature at 30sec looking like it's trying to eat one. Thanks in advance!

 

[GazS]

Hi all,

Struggling with a bad breakout of brown slime and snail deaths. Trying to confirm that it’s a prorocentrum ? Any thoughts ?

Thanks!

 

[menoet1us]

hello.. i am fighting dinos and i think i have both coolia and Amphidinium..can you help me out? thanks for every help!

 

[ScottB]

Happy New Years everyone! I have a question for @taricha @ScottB I know I read taricha discussing this but for the life of me I cannot find his posting discussing it. I have a newer small qt frag tank that I set up, dry rock but it has been cooking for almost a year now and had been trying to keep nutrients up but wasn't where I wanted them and started seeing some ostreo popping up, nothing bad but still. Was dosing nitrate and phosphate to try to get them up but seems like nitrate was easier to elevate and still dosing phosphate which I guess since I have rock and sand its binding since I dose and next day its low. Anyway I had some leathers that really could care less but I also had some digi's in there that I had fragged from the main tank and they had been doing well also but now looks like most of the digi tips have bleached. I did change my lighting but I matched the par, I was keeping alk in pretty decent range so the only thing that I can think that may have done it was raising my nitrate faster first before getting phosphate up.

I'm pretty sure somewhere I read a posting from @taricha that stated you should first try to get phosphate up first before elevating nitrate. Is that relocation correct and if so why does raising nitrates before phosphate cause so much damage etc. Just trying to learn what may have caused the digi's to have this issue and avoid it in the future. I've not had any issue in the past and they are usually pretty forgiving so not sure what I did to tick them off and would like to avoid it in the future.

Thanks

Yeah I wrote about that in the article linked below. It is important to get PO4 available and stable first. It can take A LOT PO4 solution to saturate the rock and sand to the degree necessary to leave some in the water. But once you get to your target I have not had to keep dosing much if any.

A lack of consistent PO4 COULD be the issue, especially if you are actually at 0 ppm.

A Dinoflagellate Treatment Guide

As the title suggests, this is intended as a short guide on what to do when you suspect dinoflagellates are trying to overtake your system. It is an attempt to boil down the protocols discussed across 11,000 posts in this "Are you Tired" thread...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[MrGisonni]

My dinos are still at it in my classroom reef. Nitrates at last test 30 ppm and Phosphates .15 Now the cyano is making a comeback in low flow areas. My nutrients are slowly coming down a bit, (Rowaphos, a denitrification chamber and chaeto) I am becoming convinced that in that reef at least, it's more about the lack of microbial diversity and numbers and less about nutrients. Corals meanwhile Lps, SPS and softies are growing.

 

[Fish Think Pink]

wanted to get this info somewhere where it will help people fighting dinos - feel lucky we got @Jason mack recorded and he makes it simple (not that it doesn't still stink fighting these):

 

[MrGisonni]

So I get it with the ICP test that's a good call. But dosing phytoplankton and water column living zooplankton at the same time I turn on a UV sterilizer doesn't seem like a great plan. I guess they can be used in steps and off and on. Has anyone tried macro algae to fight these things? I would love to throw a little bit of caulerpa banded to a piece of rubble and sit it right on top of the dinos in the sand.

 

[Tritie]

If I have coolia and procentrum, can I run uv and dose silicates concurrently? Or will the UV kill off the diatoms rendering silicate dosing useless?

 

[taricha]

hello.. i am fighting dinos and i think i have both coolia and Amphidinium

Looking at those, I see only amphidinium. No coolia in those pics or vids. There is a spherical slow-spinning form of amphidinium that shows up sometimes and looks like that kind is in your samples too.

I'm pretty sure somewhere I read a posting from @taricha that stated you should first try to get phosphate up first before elevating nitrate.

I think this is the one that I read - https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/do-we-need-nitrate-in-a-reef-tank.976904/post-11310846

Not sure if this is what caused my issues but something ticked off my sps and bleached most of the tips

yes, you found the correct post where I talked about that. There does seem to be a pattern that if your tank was zeros and you dose NO3 to get it elevated, but PO4 stays zeros - there's often coral stress/bleaching in that scenario. As ScottB says, we try to get PO4 up first before raising NO3 - seems safer that way.

 

[CloudReefer]

Need some more experienced eyes here. Is this Amphidinium or Ostreopsis? Or something else? (I do have a thread to ID diatoms started, but since I am pretty sure I found dinos as well felt it would be more appropriate to contribute here).

If it's Ostreopsis, how has it not killed anything in my tank? It's mixed with diatoms in my sand, and my snails, blenny etc. have eaten the crap out of it for like a month or more with no ill effects, and it's been in my tank for at least 3 or 4 months. At one point it coated everything in the tank and I had zero deaths. I do run 1/2 cup - 3/4 cup of activated carbon in a bag, but I wouldn't imagine that would help when animals are directly consuming the stuff. Also, will Ostreopsis even live in the sand? My rocks are now very clean... I had assumed I had LCA until I got my microscope.

Some pics of samples I took today. 400x with coverslip.

 

[Tritie]

Need some more experienced eyes here. Is this Amphidinium or Ostreopsis? Or something else? (I do have a thread to ID diatoms started, but since I am pretty sure I found dinos as well felt it would be more appropriate to contribute here).

If it's Ostreopsis, how has it not killed anything in my tank? It's mixed with diatoms in my sand, and my snails, blenny etc. have eaten the crap out of it for like a month or more with no ill effects, and it's been in my tank for at least 3 or 4 months. At one point it coated everything in the tank and I had zero deaths. I do run 1/2 cup - 3/4 cup of activated carbon in a bag, but I wouldn't imagine that would help when animals are directly consuming the stuff. Also, will Ostreopsis even live in the sand? My rocks are now very clean... I had assumed I had LCA until I got my microscope.

Some pics of samples I took today. 400x with coverslip.

Pic 3 and 5 do look like ostreo. Others don't really look like dinos to me...

 

[CloudReefer]

Pic 3 and 5 do look like ostreo. Others don't really look like dinos to me...

Yeah I am pretty sure those are diatoms mostly.

 

[Tritie]

Yeah I am pretty sure those are dinos mostly.

1 and 2 look too green. 4 might be some dino but it's hard for me to tell. They almost seem too elongated.

 

[CloudReefer]

1 and 2 look too green. 4 might be some dino but it's hard for me to tell. They almost seem too elongated.

Yeah now that you mention it that is pretty green. Interesting because I got it from a brownish red clump off my sand that I thought was LCA. Most of the stuff is made up of the pill shaped things in 4 and 2, at least in the 2 samples I've looked at so far. Taricha mentioned in my other thread that he thinks he sees cyano in there, which might be the green?

Going to have to take some samples in the daytime when the mats come back in force. I suspect there will be more dinos in there then.

 

[CloudReefer]

oops disregard this post lol