Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[Jaysin13]

Anyone tried dino-x before?

I was under the impression that Dino-x didn't work against amphidinium and could even fuel the fire.... I'm no expert though.

 

[coachb9]

Well that would make sense and part of the reason I’m asking before dosing. Just to make sure I have the right strain, here’s what I’m dealing with.

 

[taricha]

I dosed seachem flourish nitrogen to get to 5ppm nitrates. Worked great.

BUT I have been dosing seachem flourish phosphorus daily. Next day the tank tests at 0 again. Can anyone explain where my phosphates are going?

The same stuff applies as in the other thread. these dinos are good at getting P, they also create carbon rich environments where any P added gets consumed by bacteria to process the extra Carbon.
Its as though dino tanks have a "phosphorus debt" that has to be paid down before P levels can become normal.

For coral health, be careful about raising nitrates in a tank while its still under P depletion.

 

[Jaysin13]

The same stuff applies as in the other thread. these dinos are good at getting P, they also create carbon rich environments where any P added gets consumed by bacteria to process the extra Carbon.
Its as though dino tanks have a "phosphorus debt" that has to be paid down before P levels can become normal.

For coral health, be careful about raising nitrates in a tank while its still under P depletion.

Well my nitrates climbed to about 25 but I have them back down to 5 now. Dose phosphates 2x daily. Dinos seem gone and tank looks great. Corals colored up and coralline is a deep red color. I'm scared to stop dosing the phosphate. I don't wanna dose it forever though.

 

[coachb9]

I’m confused here. My phosphate is 0.16 at last check. I’ve been trying to get it down. Should I stop doing that?
Nitrate is 5ppm

 

[Jaysin13]

I’m confused here. My phosphate is 0.16 at last check. I’ve been trying to get it down. Should I stop doing that?
Nitrate is 5ppm

Based on my limited knowledge from this thread and the main Dino thread dinos thrive in a phosphate depleted environment where there is not a lot of biodiversity to out compete it for food. My goal at the outset, and the basic strategy that I could deduce, was to keep nitrates around 5ppm-10ppm and phosphates around 0.05-0.10 to allow other algaes to propagate in the display while simultaneously trying to keep the Dino population low. I had tested 0 N and 0 P for probably 6 months prior so I had to dose to get those levels where I needed them. I also vacuumed the sand through a 10 micron sock daily for about a month.

Since you have the N and P and seem to have had them idk if your situation is the same as mine. I am also no expert on Id'ing the strain from the microscope image so hopefully someone far more versed will chime in here and help you with an approach. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

[Jaysin13]

The same stuff applies as in the other thread. these dinos are good at getting P, they also create carbon rich environments where any P added gets consumed by bacteria to process the extra Carbon.
Its as though dino tanks have a "phosphorus debt" that has to be paid down before P levels can become normal.

For coral health, be careful about raising nitrates in a tank while its still under P depletion.

So if I'm understanding you correctly once the dinos are gone the carbon levels should drop and dosing phosphates will become less and less necessary..... This could also explain why, when I started dosing phosphates, my skimmer level rose drastically. Am I getting it? Thanks for all the help btw.

 

[taricha]

I’m confused here. My phosphate is 0.16 at last check. I’ve been trying to get it down. Should I stop doing that?
Nitrate is 5ppm

Yes. Nutrients are your friend right now. Let your tank's natural communities (algae diatoms etc) scale up over time to bring nutrients down. This will give you lots of competitors in the niches that dinos had occupied.
I wouldn't do anything more aggressive than algae in a fuge or a scrubber to reduce nutrients.

 

[taricha]

So if I'm understanding you correctly once the dinos are gone the carbon levels should drop and dosing phosphates will become less and less necessary..... This could also explain why, when I started dosing phosphates, my skimmer level rose drastically. Am I getting it? Thanks for all the help btw.

Yes. The mechanism is clearer with other kinds of dinos. They leave behind their armor (theca) every time they split, and the theca is super carbon heavy.
Amphidinium don't have theca, but they apparently make other carbon-heavy products: mucus, strands, toxins, other random polysaccharides (and cells themselves) - all carbon heavy.
The way the bacteria community processes carbon by consuming a lot of P, means that this excess carbon can be thought of as phosphorus debt. Once this phosphorus debt is paid down, then a tank can maintain normal phosphate levels without having to dose insane amounts of P.
Eventually, P levels can be maintained by just feeding.

 

[Jaysin13]

Yes. The mechanism is clearer with other kinds of dinos. They leave behind their armor (theca) every time they split, and the theca is super carbon heavy.
Amphidinium don't have theca, but they apparently make other carbon-heavy products: mucus, strands, toxins, other random polysaccharides (and cells themselves) - all carbon heavy.
The way the bacteria community processes carbon by consuming a lot of P, means that this excess carbon can be thought of as phosphorus debt. Once this phosphorus debt is paid down, then a tank can maintain normal phosphate levels without having to dose insane amounts of P.
Eventually, P levels can be maintained by just feeding.

Perfect. Thank you again for your time and help. You have a knowledge and way of explaining what is happening in the chemistry that makes it all crystal clear.

 

[taricha]

Well that would make sense and part of the reason I’m asking before dosing. Just to make sure I have the right strain, here’s what I’m dealing with.

The scope pic is a little bit weird. It sort of obscures the feature we'd normally use to ID. But from what I can make out, as well as your tank pics and descriptions it seems like this is indeed amphidinium. Now as for the methods, Dino X has had mostly people report harsh livestock side effects, bleach brings almost nothing good to a tank, peroxide seems ineffective at getting to the Dinos that are hunkered down in Organics in the sand bed. UV shouldn't touch these either, those who report success with this strain and UV are in the far minority.
The main treatment methods is addressing nutrients as laid out in the main Dino thread. In the first post of this thread I have listed a few possible things we might do to help give us an extra leg up in addition to that. There may be other experimental things that make sense, and I'll try to write those up as they get tested.
Before we get to experiments, how are you doing on the nutrient stuff? (Check the first post of the main dino thread to see what I'm talking about.)

 

[Javamahn]

I dosed seachem flourish nitrogen to get to 5ppm nitrates. Worked great.

BUT I have been dosing seachem flourish phosphorus daily. Next day the tank tests at 0 again. Can anyone explain where my phosphates are going?

This is expected continue to dose and even increase the daily dose until you see a stable reading above 0. I was double dosing 10 ml everyday for my 90 gallon until phosphates held steady around 0.8

 

[JaimeAdams]

Anyone tried dino-x before? I’m not making any headway

Did not work at all for me.

 

[Jaysin13]

This is expected continue to dose and even increase the daily dose until you see a stable reading above 0. I was double dosing 10 ml everyday for my 90 gallon until phosphates held steady around 0.8

Oh wow. You were dosing a total of 20mls a day of seachem phosphorus brand specifically?? I have been dosing 2mls twice a day. Total of 4mls. If I test shortly after it shows at 0.25 or so but after 12 hours 0.0 again. I guess I'll bump it up.

 

[bh750]

Thanks for that detailed update! I'm on pretty much the same exact path and situation. In an effort to boost biodiversity I just added 6lbs of Walt Smiths Fiji Mud to tank and refugium last night. Today i just had 5 lbs of garf grunge and 5 lbs of grunge plus arrive at my house. Added some stuff from indo pacific sea farms last week (snails, worms, stars, snails). I already have a healthy population of pods and other worms.

Maybe a little early but I'm too excited not to post. It's been a little under two weeks since I started the above method. Also added a CUC that included snails conchs and cucumbers during that time. I'm amazed to say a couple of days ago I've seen a noticeable improvement!! Not sure which aspect of the method did it per se but for the first time since I can remember my sand bed is mostly white with only a few patches of Dino's and cyano.

+++ for biodiversity.

Hopefully will have another positive report in the next week or so!!

 

[JAMSOURY]

Anyone try the chaeto blob method? Will it end up sucking nutrients and zeroing everything out having chaeto in the dt?

 

[taricha]

Anyone try the chaeto blob method? Will it end up sucking nutrients and zeroing everything out having chaeto in the dt?

With good test kits and sensible N & P levels you can keep things from zeroing out while having even a lot of macro in display.

I was going to comment that my chaeto blob experience actually had many similarities to what @bh750 just reported.

The key to how well these grazer-empowering methods work on a particular outbreak seems to be tied closely to how toxic the dinos are. If almost totally non-toxic like mine, then grazers can be very important.
This is my favorite Dino video. It's a tanaid (a shrimp-like critter) and its young eating amphidinium by the claw-full.

 

[TRNANCE]

Wanted to repost this from the other dino thread. Looks to be having some level of success with the Macroalgae Crowding method which is the second idea talked about in the First Post on this thread. This worked for me mutiple times vs Large Cell Amphidinium, hasn't yet been thoroughly tested by others.

My Macroalgae is covered in Cyano but is still growing and still in the main display.

 

[bh750]

With good test kits and sensible N & P levels you can keep things from zeroing out while having even a lot of macro in display.

I was going to comment that my chaeto blob experience actually had many similarities to what @bh750 just reported.

The key to how well these grazer-empowering methods work on a particular outbreak seems to be tied closely to how toxic the dinos are. If almost totally non-toxic like mine, then grazers can be very important.
This is my favorite Dino video. It's a tanaid (a shrimp-like critter) and its young eating amphidinium by the claw-full.

So on that note do you think it's possible for a conch to consume dinos? I clearly watched one of my new conchs sweep away with his "trunk" I call it all over the sand. When he hit sand that was brown from dinos the result was white sand tried to get it on video. Maybe the conch touching the sand just forced the dinos down underneath the top layer.

 

[taricha]

So on that note do you think it's possible for a conch to consume dinos? I clearly watched one of my new conchs sweep away with his "trunk" I call it all over the sand. When he hit sand that was brown from dinos the result was white sand tried to get it on video. Maybe the conch touching the sand just forced the dinos down underneath the top layer.

Absolutely. My conch was great at clearing patches of the brown dinos coating the sand grains, and to a lesser extent, a large cerith ate some too.