Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[OpenOcean33]

Hello Everyone I was sent to you guys to help me eradicate my Dinos which are believed to be Amphidinium. So I am back again because my original attempt worked but only for one week. I did a 3 day black out with h202 dosing and it was just a bandaid fix for my problems. I have looked under a microscope and I definitely have dinos however to try and pinpoint which one was hard for me but due to the way it grows i was told amphidnium because it only grows on the sand and under the light. Under the rocks and shadows the sand is as white as can be. Previously I had undetectable phosphate levels and nitrates were low so i decided to stop all water changes for 3 weeks. Just performed a water change and results are salinity- 1.025, Nitrate- 12ppm red sea test (0ppm on API test) not sure why the difference is so huge? any ideas there? Kh- 11.2 dkh, Ca- 470. I have read that raising the phosphates from 0 is good and should see some improvements.Should phosphate maybe be a little lower? Also i siphon every few days to help them from building up does this makes things worse or better? My next steps were going to be a UV sterilizer or dino x. However i see you guys are talking about dosing silicates? What would be the recommended next steps? This has been a 6 months ballet from hell and i appreciate any advise!!

 

[CMO]

Just wanted to report a failure for the record on regular sand siphoning through a 10 micro filter sock. While it seemed to help quite a bit in the first week or so while I was doing it daily, the tides have now changed and my amphidinium are now worse than ever. I'm thinking I've stripped my sand of beneficial bacteria and critters that were helping the situation from too much vacuuming. I'm still slowly removing the sand and going to try some Microbacter 7 to reseed bacteria.

 

[ReefPress]

Just wanted to report a failure for the record on regular sand siphoning through a 10 micro filter sock. While it seemed to help quite a bit in the first week or so while I was doing it daily, the tides have now changed and my amphidinium are now worse than ever. I'm thinking I've stripped my sand of beneficial bacteria and critters that were helping the situation from too much vacuuming. I'm still slowly removing the sand and going to try some Microbacter 7 to reseed bacteria.

Man I removed my sand altogether. No issues anymore. Since people were saying raising nutrients will beat them out I've raised them naturally by feeding a little more. But corals and everything are doing fine. I MAY add more back a couple more months down the road. Here's with sand and dinos, and without.

 

[CMO]

Hello Everyone I was sent to you guys to help me eradicate my Dinos which are believed to be Amphidinium. So I am back again because my original attempt worked but only for one week. I did a 3 day black out with h202 dosing and it was just a bandaid fix for my problems. I have looked under a microscope and I definitely have dinos however to try and pinpoint which one was hard for me but due to the way it grows i was told amphidnium because it only grows on the sand and under the light. Under the rocks and shadows the sand is as white as can be. Previously I had undetectable phosphate levels and nitrates were low so i decided to stop all water changes for 3 weeks. Just performed a water change and results are salinity- 1.025, Nitrate- 12ppm red sea test (0ppm on API test) not sure why the difference is so huge? any ideas there? Kh- 11.2 dkh, Ca- 470. I have read that raising the phosphates from 0 is good and should see some improvements.Should phosphate maybe be a little lower? Also i siphon every few days to help them from building up does this makes things worse or better? My next steps were going to be a UV sterilizer or dino x. However i see you guys are talking about dosing silicates? What would be the recommended next steps? This has been a 6 months ballet from hell and i appreciate any advise!!

I'm not a Dino expert but can at least give you my experience since I'm fighting the same thing along side you for many months now. UV has not worked in my case, nor has repeated 3 day lights out, increased nutrients or regular siphoning through a 10 micron sock. My research on Dino x indicates that it will not help with amphidinium but I've seen some reports of success with Vibrant so I may try that if the following doesn't work. My next attempt in this war will be to stop siphoning which I think may actually be making things worse, dosing bacteria with microbacter 7 and adding a ton of amphipods.

 

[CMO]

Man I removed my sand altogether. No issues anymore. Since people were saying raising nutrients will beat them out I've raised them naturally by feeding a little more. But corals and everything are doing fine. I MAY add more back a couple more months down the road. Here's with sand and dinos, and without.

Looks great without the sand! I'm slowly removing the sand but man do I have a lot of it in my 165g, and in hard to reach placed which makes it no fun trying to get it all out. Ultimately, I'd really like to put the sand back in so really curious for anyone that has removed their sand, did the dinos come back once you added the sand back (assuming you corrected the conditions which spurred them in the first place - low NO3 and PO4).

 

[ReefPress]

Looks great without the sand! I'm slowly removing the sand but man do I have a lot of it in my 165g, and in hard to reach placed which makes it no fun trying to get it all out. Ultimately, I'd really like to put the sand back in so really curious for anyone that has removed their sand, did the dinos come back once you added the sand back (assuming you corrected the conditions which spurred them in the first place - low NO3 and PO4).

When I add mine back it's going to be new sand. I rinsed my sand and it had a smell that seems it wouldn't have went away. I sun dried it and everything. So I got rid of it and am going to do dry sand when I do and ad sort of a thinner layer.

 

[dwest]

I’ll update as well. I’ve been battling amphidium since February. I’ve removed almost all of my sand in my 180 gallon. My LPS are doing well and currently have a couple sps tester frags going. I keep my phosphates measurable on my ulr Hanna checker (dosed at 0.1 ppm for many month) and dose to keep nitrates above 5 as well. Snails are alive and seem to be moving more. Also my alkalinity consumption seems to have risen lately. I see good signs but have major doubts about my ability to keep sps after being able to do so for many years. Lastly, I replace GAC every week.

 

[dwest]

When I add mine back it's going to be new sand. I rinsed my sand and it had a smell that seems it wouldn't have went away. I sun dried it and everything. So I got rid of it and am going to do dry sand when I do and ad sort of a thinner layer.

I love sand but doubt if I’ll ever add it back...

 

[dwest]

Looks great without the sand! I'm slowly removing the sand but man do I have a lot of it in my 165g, and in hard to reach placed which makes it no fun trying to get it all out. Ultimately, I'd really like to put the sand back in so really curious for anyone that has removed their sand, did the dinos come back once you added the sand back (assuming you corrected the conditions which spurred them in the first place - low NO3 and PO4).

I agree, sand is very difficult to remove! I don’t know of any long term success of putting sand back in. I wish I did.

 

[dwest]

Man I removed my sand altogether. No issues anymore. Since people were saying raising nutrients will beat them out I've raised them naturally by feeding a little more. But corals and everything are doing fine. I MAY add more back a couple more months down the road. Here's with sand and dinos, and without.

How long has the sand been gone? Did your acro frags make it through the amphidinium or are those frags new since you removed sand?

 

[dwest]

Hello Everyone I was sent to you guys to help me eradicate my Dinos which are believed to be Amphidinium. So I am back again because my original attempt worked but only for one week. I did a 3 day black out with h202 dosing and it was just a bandaid fix for my problems. I have looked under a microscope and I definitely have dinos however to try and pinpoint which one was hard for me but due to the way it grows i was told amphidnium because it only grows on the sand and under the light. Under the rocks and shadows the sand is as white as can be. Previously I had undetectable phosphate levels and nitrates were low so i decided to stop all water changes for 3 weeks. Just performed a water change and results are salinity- 1.025, Nitrate- 12ppm red sea test (0ppm on API test) not sure why the difference is so huge? any ideas there? Kh- 11.2 dkh, Ca- 470. I have read that raising the phosphates from 0 is good and should see some improvements.Should phosphate maybe be a little lower? Also i siphon every few days to help them from building up does this makes things worse or better? My next steps were going to be a UV sterilizer or dino x. However i see you guys are talking about dosing silicates? What would be the recommended next steps? This has been a 6 months ballet from hell and i appreciate any advise!!

Unfortunately, removing sand while keeping measurable nutrients has had positive results. Am battling as well. Good luck!

 

[CMO]

Luckily my dino situation has had no impact on corals including sps. All corals continue to do very well. I just have ugly sand

 

[OpenOcean33]

Luckily my dino situation has had no impact on corals including sps. All corals continue to do very well. I just have ugly sand

I have the same issue everything looks great except the sand.

 

[OpenOcean33]

Unfortunately, removing sand while keeping measurable nutrients has had positive results. Am battling as well. Good luck!

My only trouble is I have a star fish I would need to find d a temporary home for and nasarius snails . Hmmm.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Luckily my dino situation has had no impact on corals including sps. All corals continue to do very well. I just have ugly sand

I have the same issue everything looks great except the sand.

Did you guys tried adding silicates? I see several positive testimonials in this thread suggesting that the diatom bloom helped.

Hi to all,here is some pics how Si and taricha help me to clean Dino.

The reddish braun pach is not Dino it is Diatom,but am happy with that,because after that coming the green.Natural occurring.

Alright guys I posted a few times on this thread as I have been fighting these guys for a few months and I am happy to say my sand bed is finally white again. I tried water changes through socks, blackout, let tank get dirty, and none of it worked. I started dosing Spongexcel from brightwell heavily for 2 weeks and got my siliacates to .8 ppm and had to leave for a week for work. When I got back my and bed looked worse than when I left. Thought for sure the dinos were getting worse. I started symphoning them out cause it was terrible looking and all I can say it they just have been crazy concentrations of diatoms cause after doing it twice my sand bed is clear and I have noticed diatoms some diatoms on my rockwork where my hermits have all congregated now. I now have a hanna SI checker for sale if anyone would like it that is fighting these things.

I was battling Amphidinum Dino's (confirmed by microscope) for several months. After reading this thread, I dosed silicates (water glass off of amazon) for about a week. My sand bed started looking even worse, and I thought it didn't work. I decided to take a sample and look under the microscope, and to my surprise and joy, there were no Dino's visible in the sample, and TONS of diatoms. I then let the diatoms use up the silicates, and within a week, my sand bed is completely clear! I couldn't be happier.

Diatoms will right themselves once the silicate supply runs out which usually happens fast .. you would let them run their course and not under any circumstances use anything to lower phosphates .. No GFO specifically

if your very careful at raising your nitrates and phosphates to low levels then removal should be easy and also algae shouldn't be a major issue

i tired all different methods a-z and have eventually tore the tank down and a diatom bloom has finally happened in my holding tank and no sign of dinos when i take samples from the tank finally although im still letting the diatoms run have their bloom to make sure dinos are eradicated

 

[OpenOcean33]

Did you guys tried adding silicates? I see several positive testimonials in this thread suggesting that the diatom bloom helped.

This is my next step now

 

[CMO]

Did you guys tried adding silicates? I see several positive testimonials in this thread suggesting that the diatom bloom helped.

No. I'm a bit nervous to start messing with water chemistry aside from NO3 and PO4 since everything is doing really well aside from the sand bed. I'm just going to remove my sand to combat I think (more than half way there). Is dosing silicates in large quantities 100% safe for all corals? I've got too much in the tank now to take any risks. Thanks

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

Maybe I can help you all out a bit from my experience. I had a bad case of Dino’s in my 120 gallon reef I tried everything to get rid of them and finally used bleach dosing which did knock them out. I started getting Dino’s back so tried astrea turbo snails and turns out they eat the Dino’s and won’t die. I got 50 of them on eBay for like $60 and it’s been the best purchase I’ve made in combatting Dino’s. I highly recommend looking into those snails there is a bunch of pics in this thread that are lacking a big clean up crew. Dino’s killed all my cleaner crabs just FYI

 

[OpenOcean33]

Just an update:

I had used vibrant and it has killed all the dinos on the rock work. However, the dinos on the sand remain. I do not wish to remove the sanded because I have to many critters I love living in there. Dosing Si could be my next step, however I don't see to many success stories with this route but there are few. Tanks been running since march, dinos since may... not a great introduction to the hobby for me.

 

[OpenOcean33]

Man I removed my sand altogether. No issues anymore. Since people were saying raising nutrients will beat them out I've raised them naturally by feeding a little more. But corals and everything are doing fine. I MAY add more back a couple more months down the road. Here's with sand and dinos, and without.

Are you going to be adding back in live sand ? I want to try this by removing all the sand and replacing with new live sand to see if this works. Do you know if this method has been attempted before.