Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[Troylee]

People have found things like a live rock addition helped if the dino population was small. If the system was overrun with dinos, then simply adding live rock didn't do much to change the bloom.

Yeah.. I had them knocked down but still a few patches in my sand.. I added some lr from my new tank and they got knocked down more.. I got tired of waiting to move my live stock to a new tank and just went for it! I took all my fish and corals and placed them in a new tank that had its own established live rock and haven’t had any problems.. I drained the Dino tank and it’s gone! Yay lol.. thank god they didn’t transfer from my 60 gallon to my 380 gallon system

I was dealing with these!

 

[taricha]

@Bitcoin Reefer
If that were my system, I'd do manual removal of anything discolored on the sand surface (vacuuming out).
The fact that it's many many things means that there will be competition when this stuff grows back and won't be overwhelmingly dinos. The large amount of photosynthetic color means that there's a lot of nutrients represented in the sand surface.
The amount of growth on the sand would also make me re-evaluate my nutrient levels and herbivores. It looks like enough of a mix, that I would not worry about herbivores being able to find good food, and it should be fine to add some.
Just my thinking.

 

[taricha]

I was dealing with these!

looks like some prorocentrum in there.

 

[Troylee]

looks like some prorocentrum in there.

Pain in the butt!! I had the stringy ones earlier and h202 took those out.. couple months later these guys showed up.. I dozed mb7, h202, sponge excell and kept my lights all blue at 20% while running a uv 24/7 and stiring those guys up.. it knocked them down a lot but not out.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

@Bitcoin Reefer
If that were my system, I'd do manual removal of anything discolored on the sand surface (vacuuming out).
The fact that it's many many things means that there will be competition when this stuff grows back and won't be overwhelmingly dinos. The large amount of photosynthetic color means that there's a lot of nutrients represented in the sand surface.
The amount of growth on the sand would also make me re-evaluate my nutrient levels and herbivores. It looks like enough of a mix, that I would not worry about herbivores being able to find good food, and it should be fine to add some.
Just my thinking.

Ok I will try manual removal. I was worried about vacuuming and taking out whatever stuff is consuming the dinos maybe or competing. I see lots of I think nematodes, and those ciliate things running wild. It seems like by doing so many treatments that maybe we just keep switching one problem for another instead of just letting it play itself out and a natural competition occurring and finally ending in a balance. This is why I've been hesitant to bring in UV or any chemiclean or anything like that.

You're the pro so I'll definitely follow your advice with manual removal, and some more herbivores. What herbivores do you suggest? Before you answer let me post some photos from today. Interestingly on one side of the tank, the green color has faded to what looks like a grey, which seems like something is dying in the sand covering, but when I take microscope sample, it is VERY alive with massive dinos, I think cyano? nematodes, ciliates, and other stuff? If you can please ID these photos coming up I'd really appreciate and let me know if it changes your prescription on what to do.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

Ok I will try manual removal. I was worried about vacuuming and taking out whatever stuff is consuming the dinos maybe or competing. I see lots of I think nematodes, and those ciliate things running wild. It seems like by doing so many treatments that maybe we just keep switching one problem for another instead of just letting it play itself out and a natural competition occurring and finally ending in a balance. This is why I've been hesitant to bring in UV or any chemiclean or anything like that.

You're the pro so I'll definitely follow your advice with manual removal, and some more herbivores. What herbivores do you suggest? Before you answer let me post some photos from today. Interestingly on one side of the tank, the green color has faded to what looks like a grey, which seems like something is dying in the sand covering, but when I take microscope sample, it is VERY alive with massive dinos, I think cyano? nematodes, ciliates, and other stuff? If you can please ID these photos coming up I'd really appreciate and let me know if it changes your prescription on what to do.

Also I should note, my Nitrates dropped to 0, and phosphates ranging .08-.20. I’ve heard people mention Nitrates as a possible issue, but Phosphates being much more problematic. I have doubled feeding and phosphates are climbing too fast, but nitrates still 0 for couple of weeks. The tank is FULL of food and poop these fish/coral are eating well lol, dry food, frozen, phyto, Reef Roids, Nori every day. I’ve ordered some Neonitrate to start dosing nitrates so I don’t have to feed such crazy amounts. I held nitrates and phosphates up high for months before this mishap :/ Any ID on these would be helpful too. I'll try to find the ID thread too. These are 400x zoom.

 

[Jennifer1220]

I beat lca with loudwolf sodium silicate. Was dino free for a while. I guess my numbers went out of whack now I have sca. Started dosing silicates again but the fight has just begun.

 

[FlyinAg]

These guys are on my sand and macro. They are persistent agaisnt everything I have tried, which is pretty much all the techniques except silica. I do have diatoms mixed in there with them already as you can see so maybe adding a little silica will push the dinos over the edge?

I have lost some snails and my monti and acan are super ticked. I think I may have had some amount of toxic dinos in my rocks as well, but they seem mostly gone, replaced by some green cyano/slimy looking stuff.

 

[FlyinAg]

Video

 

[FlyinAg]

Ok green stuff is definitely cyano, but there are some dinos mixed in. Weird thing is that the dinos are all for the most part motionless. The one or two I saw moving were very slow. Are they dead?

I will stop blowing off the rocks and macro I guess? Maybe that will let the cyano/diatoms out compete.

 

[taricha]

I will stop blowing off the rocks and macro I guess? Maybe that will let the cyano/diatoms out compete.

Nah. Manual removal as much as possible. Make the dinos and diatoms compete to regrow.
You definitely have a bunch of diatoms, so they should over time grow faster than dinos- if Silica allows.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

Frustration update lol:

I think 9-10 months into dino battle. Summary:

Only thing that seems to work is Silica, but I cannot pull it back without bloom coming back, even slowly over months.

I dosed Silica until bloom beat out LCA dinos.

Coralline and corals started growing back, fish & snails started eating algae again which got overun when the dinos made it not tasty. All was well...

Started pulling back on silica to cut to zero over 1 week period. Dino's flared up again, this time small cell bloomed up with some LCA still mixed in.

I spent $1000 on Promax 120 UV. Ran that, ramped up Silica, diatoms + maybe UV? killed off dinos again.

Pulled back SLOWLY on silica over like 2 months, and by time I got to 7ml/day in 300gal of Spongexcel, I notice dinos flaring up again, even though I test and Silica is at .39ppm still? Diatoms under scope are scarce now. Before was 10:1 diatom:dinos, now 1:10 it reversed. Bubbles all over rocks again. Yay

Will ramp up Silica once again, and see if I can push the dinos back again.

The only other thing that I did differently is I did a pretty big vacuum where I did pull up 3-4 cups of sand, so the top layer of sand which had some algae/diatoms/dinos/cyano mixed in. Sand looked great after, but now dinos back, not sure if it's from the vacuum or drop in silica?

 

[dwest]

Frustration update lol:

I think 9-10 months into dino battle. Summary:

Only thing that seems to work is Silica, but I cannot pull it back without bloom coming back, even slowly over months.

I dosed Silica until bloom beat out LCA dinos.

Coralline and corals started growing back, fish & snails started eating algae again which got overun when the dinos made it not tasty. All was well...

Started pulling back on silica to cut to zero over 1 week period. Dino's flared up again, this time small cell bloomed up with some LCA still mixed in.

I spent $1000 on Promax 120 UV. Ran that, ramped up Silica, diatoms + maybe UV? killed off dinos again.

Pulled back SLOWLY on silica over like 2 months, and by time I got to 7ml/day in 300gal of Spongexcel, I notice dinos flaring up again, even though I test and Silica is at .39ppm still? Diatoms under scope are scarce now. Before was 10:1 diatom:dinos, now 1:10 it reversed. Bubbles all over rocks again. Yay

Will ramp up Silica once again, and see if I can push the dinos back again.

The only other thing that I did differently is I did a pretty big vacuum where I did pull up 3-4 cups of sand, so the top layer of sand which had some algae/diatoms/dinos/cyano mixed in. Sand looked great after, but now dinos back, not sure if it's from the vacuum or drop in silica?

Sorry. These really suck. I had a similar journey a few years ago when I switched from a 125 to a 180. I hate to even mention this but I removed my sand bed and dinos (SCA at the time) started going away almost immediately.

 

[taricha]

The only other thing that I did differently is I did a pretty big vacuum where I did pull up 3-4 cups of sand, so the top layer of sand which had some algae/diatoms/dinos/cyano mixed in. Sand looked great after, but now dinos back, not sure if it's from the vacuum or drop in silica?

My preferred explanation here, is that moving the sand around made available some goodies that the dinos and diatoms had been competing over earlier and were depleted. With a new influx of goodies, the Dinos could begin to grow again. Since there are still diatoms, silicates, and other nutrients I would expect the diatoms to again win the battle over time. Disruptions of the sand, can be small setbacks. But they don't concern me too much. I would still occasionally vacuum out any accumulations of nuisance growth that were big enough to annoy me.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

My preferred explanation here, is that moving the sand around made available some goodies that the dinos and diatoms had been competing over earlier and were depleted. With a new influx of goodies, the Dinos could begin to grow again. Since there are still diatoms, silicates, and other nutrients I would expect the diatoms to again win the battle over time. Disruptions of the sand, can be small setbacks. But they don't concern me too much. I would still occasionally vacuum out any accumulations of nuisance growth that were big enough to annoy me.

So it sounds like you are thinking that the vacuuming of sand bed was more likely what spurred the Dino comeback, not the dropping of the silica?

It would make sense I suppose since my Hannah silica checker was still showing .39ppm which is around what it’s been at for the last months. It’s odd though that even though I’d cut the dosing of SE down to like 50%, the ppm never seems to vary much. I was starting to wonder if Hannah was just inaccurate. I was doing 15ml SE Silica/day at peak and dropped to 7ml over months and still had .39ppm reading when Dino’s came back in force after that vacuuming.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

I’m convinced I may never defeat Dino’s lol. I’m thinking maybe answer is
1. Continued (maybe permanent) dosing of silica to keep LCA Dino’s down and diatoms up.
2. UV for some Dino species like SCA which I get also.
3. Army of Diamond gobies, cucumbers, sand stars, nasarrius etc to keep sand turned enough that the diatoms don’t look so bad.

 

[FlyinAg]

I don't want to celebrate too soon but...

A week ago I finished a 3 day blackout at the suggestion of Vetteguy. This included covering the AIO area. I went on vacation the next day and got back yesterday. Before I left I turned the lights back on, but at a lower setting and with less ramp up/down. I don't have a trace of dinos on my sand or macro.

In addition, I was doing the hydrogen peroxide daily dose at 1ml per 10 gallons, UV 24/7, daily MB7 dose, and daily phyto dose. I also cranked the temp to 83 and am running 1tbs rox carbon per gallon. I did a daily sand stir, rock/macro basting, and also made sure to remove any nastiness on the glass, pumps, etc.

Corals that were suffering are looking better except the montipora, which still isn't extending polyps and lost some color in spots.

The blackout had an immediate effect once initiated.

 

[ScottB]

I don't want to celebrate too soon but...

A week ago I finished a 3 day blackout at the suggestion of Vetteguy. This included covering the AIO area. I went on vacation the next day and got back yesterday. Before I left I turned the lights back on, but at a lower setting and with less ramp up/down. I don't have a trace of dinos on my sand or macro.

In addition, I was doing the hydrogen peroxide daily dose at 1ml per 10 gallons, UV 24/7, daily MB7 dose, and daily phyto dose. I also cranked the temp to 83 and am running 1tbs rox carbon per gallon. I did a daily sand stir, rock/macro basting, and also made sure to remove any nastiness on the glass, pumps, etc.

Corals that were suffering are looking better except the montipora, which still isn't extending polyps and lost some color in spots.

The blackout had an immediate effect once initiated.

Given the username, is this really your jamm?

 

[FlyinAg]

Haha close, Ag for Aggie, as in Texas A&M grad. Haven't flow a crop duster yet, but might get a chance. I fly much faster stuff

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

I have a theory that dinos release something toxic into the water column.

For whatever reason, I have serious issues with my coral unless I do a water change at least every 2 weeks of 33%. I have a 300g + 60g sump, I change 100g every 2 weeks. I used to do water change every 1-2 months or less. I can't think otherwise what is forcing me to water change so much. I don't have any high nutrients. My Nitrates, Phosphates etc would be at zero if I didn't dose them. What else could be either building up or lacking in the tank?

I dose b-ionic 2 part calc/alk, neonitro, neophos, and silica every day.

I don't have rust or anything else according to lab test I do every so often. What else could be happening that forces such frequent water changes if I'm dosing. Right when I do water change, my corals look better almost same day every time. There must be something building up, or something lacking that the water change is balancing.