Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[Cwentz758]

So I think it’s time. I’m proud to announce that I believe my Amp Dinos are defeated. I dosed a lot of crap, up to and including algae barn bacteria and phytoplankton, SEED, SpongeExcel, MB7, and NeoNitro.

Those combinations I don’t believe did anything but promote the Dino’s. BUT what I believe worked was Dosing the Sponge Excel (Silicates) until I had a nasty diatom bloom. Once that was in full affect I quit dosing it as my corals began to suffer. I lost all my SPS sticks (only had a few nothing crazy). I did small water changes about 5-8 gallons every two-ish weeks mainly because my hammers were looking sad and deflated and thenew water helped. On top of dosing silicates I started dosing Sodium Nitrate as the Neo Nitro did nothing to raise my nitrates. I got my NO3 up to about 8ppm and kept it there this whole time.

it’s been close to 6 weeks or a little more since I did these few things and stopped the rest and as of today I have almost 0 brown sand. There is what appears to be a small patch of diatom looking brown but the dark stuff is gone. I’ve noticed coralline starting to go crazy on my rocks again and my fish are happy.

My only current worry are my hammers they still seem to be deflated and some heads are beginning to harden and I don’t know what as the rest of my tank parameters are in check.

My zoas and Xenia have taken off through this whole thing as well.

 

[ScottB]

It looks like I have small and large cell variations of this.

For the small cell, could UV be the answer? And then for the large cell just do some manual removal and raise nutrients in the tank?

Correct: raise nutrients >10 NO3 and .1 PO4
Dose SpongeExcel (silicates) to enhance diatom competition.

Sounds like most folks are leaving the sand bed alone. Disturbing it prevents the diatoms from competing as well is the thinking.

 

[bevo5]

Heyo. For y’all using sponge excel - are there lots of large particles when you dose? I just squeezed a few drops after shaking the bottle and lot of particulates came out. Fish got some. I figure that can’t be too bad or there would be threads on that topic. Ur just curious.

 

[Cwentz758]

Heyo. For y’all using sponge excel - are there lots of large particles when you dose? I just squeezed a few drops after shaking the bottle and lot of particulates came out. Fish got some. I figure that can’t be too bad or there would be threads on that topic. Ur just curious.

Ya mine do that. I put it in a syringe or put the dropper in front on a power head.

 

[paulsz]

Correct: raise nutrients >10 NO3 and .1 PO4
Dose SpongeExcel (silicates) to enhance diatom competition.

Sounds like most folks are leaving the sand bed alone. Disturbing it prevents the diatoms from competing as well is the thinking.

Thank you!

It's a bare bottom. There's GHA with dinos on top of it. I'm manually removing them.

 

[ScottB]

It looks like I have small and large cell variations of this.

For the small cell, could UV be the answer? And then for the large cell just do some manual removal and raise nutrients in the tank?

Sorry did not answer the other part of your question about small cell amphids. Yes, UV will help. They are not quite the free swimmers (at night) that ostreopsis are. You may improve results by doing a lights out to get them swimming.

 

[BrianReefer]

I have a confirmed case of amphidinium in my 100g high end acro tank. I’m out of other options and my plan is to dose .2ml of sodium silicate for a few weeks to get it up to 2ppm to drive a diatom bloom. I see some recent posts of people losing acros when increasing silicates, has everyone has this experience or has anyone gone down this path and kept their acros reasonably happy?

 

[Cwentz758]

I have a confirmed case of amphidinium in my 100g high end acro tank. I’m out of other options and my plan is to dose .2ml of sodium silicate for a few weeks to get it up to 2ppm to drive a diatom bloom. I see some recent posts of people losing acros when increasing silicates, has everyone has this experience or has anyone gone down this path and kept their acros reasonably happy?

Mine died within days and there was no saving them even with water changes and the stoppage of dosing.

 

[BrianReefer]

So yesterday I dosed 20ml of SpongeExcel into my 100g tank (before reading Cwentz's post/issue that now has me quite nervous). Until then I was dosing ~4ml/day for a few days but wasn't seeing silicates increase past .4 or so, so I was advised to bump it up. Normally my Phosphates run .06 or so. Before the big dose yesterday my phosphates were at .184 (seemingly elevated by the silicate dosing like others have experienced). I tested again this AM and I'm at 1.33 Silicates (so the big dose jumped me up a full ppm), BUT my Phosphates also jumped up to .248ppm. @Cwentz758, were you testing phosphates with a Hanna ULR regularly and if so what did you find? I'm wondering if what got your SPS was a massive phosphate increase day after day while you were doing those 10ml?

Because of the big overnight jump above and cwentz's issue I think i'm going to pause dosing, let things come down a bit, and take it slower. Thoughts? i have 75+ acros that i'm scared to lose...

 

[Cwentz758]

So yesterday I dosed 20ml of SpongeExcel into my 100g tank (before reading Cwentz's post/issue that now has me quite nervous). Until then I was dosing ~4ml/day for a few days but wasn't seeing silicates increase past .4 or so, so I was advised to bump it up. Normally my Phosphates run .06 or so. Before the big dose yesterday my phosphates were at .184 (seemingly elevated by the silicate dosing like others have experienced). I tested again this AM and I'm at 1.33 Silicates (so the big dose jumped me up a full ppm), BUT my Phosphates also jumped up to .248ppm. @Cwentz758, were you testing phosphates with a Hanna ULR regularly and if so what did you find? I'm wondering if what got your SPS was a massive phosphate increase day after day while you were doing those 10ml?

Because of the big overnight jump above and cwentz's issue I think i'm going to pause dosing, let things come down a bit, and take it slower. Thoughts? i have 75+ acros that i'm scared to lose...

I use the normal Hanna Phos checker. I didn’t notice a giant increase as my phosphates were always a little high. I’ll double check my book in the morning.

 

[Cwentz758]

So yesterday I dosed 20ml of SpongeExcel into my 100g tank (before reading Cwentz's post/issue that now has me quite nervous). Until then I was dosing ~4ml/day for a few days but wasn't seeing silicates increase past .4 or so, so I was advised to bump it up. Normally my Phosphates run .06 or so. Before the big dose yesterday my phosphates were at .184 (seemingly elevated by the silicate dosing like others have experienced). I tested again this AM and I'm at 1.33 Silicates (so the big dose jumped me up a full ppm), BUT my Phosphates also jumped up to .248ppm. @Cwentz758, were you testing phosphates with a Hanna ULR regularly and if so what did you find? I'm wondering if what got your SPS was a massive phosphate increase day after day while you were doing those 10ml?

Because of the big overnight jump above and cwentz's issue I think i'm going to pause dosing, let things come down a bit, and take it slower. Thoughts? i have 75+ acros that i'm scared to lose...

Soo looking at my book. When I started dosing Silicates my phosphates were at .49 which was common for my tank for some reason (mostly believe it was the lack of nitrates).
My phosphate stayed around there or the same up until July when I turned on the GFO reactor and dropped them to .1 as I was dosing Nitrates at this point as well.
This whole process has had me wondering what actually worked. Was it the Silicates with the bloom? Was it dosing nitrates and getting them away from 0?

I didn’t dose anything chemical such as DinoX or vibrant which I’m happy about. Everything I used was bacteria based except the Nitrates which I’m using sodium nitrate.

Another thought, I was dosing 10 drops of Si a day and noticing nothing for about a week or so so I doubled and doubled to where I was at 50 drops. And still nothing. Then I went straight 20ML and boom a had a bloom within days. Maybe that’s what killed my stuff?

 

[RMS18]

Hey guys,

I thought it would be helpful to continue my updates.

11 weeks now since the do "nothing but keep stability" methodand the tank is looking great. The cyano is slowly dissipating over the weeks and the thick mats are non existent anymore. I increased my Amino acid dosing to 3 times a week and all is good. This picture is 5 days since any maintenance has been done.

 

[4sylvester]

Hey guys,

I thought it would be helpful to continue my updates.

11 weeks now since the do "nothing but keep stability" methodand the tank is looking great. The cyano is slowly dissipating over the weeks and the thick mats are non existent anymore. I increased my Amino acid dosing to 3 times a week and all is good. This picture is 5 days since any maintenance has been done.

Looks like i have amphidinium. My rodi crapped out and started killing some coral most likely due to chlorine breakthrough. Also started the beginning of dino in my sandbed. I have been dosing MB7 for 10 days and ready to stop now. Corals don't seem to be bothered so i am going to just keep NO3 at 10 and PO4 at 0.1 and do normal maintenance. I hope to report back with good news in a few weeks.

 

[bevo5]

Quick question. My microscope is a real piece, so I can't get a good photo of the guys I'm dealing with. I'm going to order a new one, but I've attached the best I've got.

Here's the question - they are little round guys that sure seem to match the description of Amphidiniums...but they don't move at all. And they are extremely well clumped together. Every video I see has them moving spinning and swimming independently. There's not a single bit of movement with these.

Is there a chance these are just diatoms?

I moved my nitrate up to about 10
Phosphate to .1

I've been dosing silicates and things are just getting worse, so it's worth asking!

Thank you.

 

[ScottB]

Quick question. My microscope is a real piece, so I can't get a good photo of the guys I'm dealing with. I'm going to order a new one, but I've attached the best I've got.

Here's the question - they are little round guys that sure seem to match the description of Amphidiniums...but they don't move at all. And they are extremely well clumped together. Every video I see has them moving spinning and swimming independently. There's not a single bit of movement with these.

Is there a chance these are just diatoms?

I moved my nitrate up to about 10
Phosphate to .1

I've been dosing silicates and things are just getting worse, so it's worth asking!

Thank you.

I can't make anything out of that pic, sorry. That they don't move, and that they are getting worse with silicate dosing does bend the needle toward diatoms. Did you try the coffee filter test?

 

[4sylvester]

Quick question. My microscope is a real piece, so I can't get a good photo of the guys I'm dealing with. I'm going to order a new one, but I've attached the best I've got.

Here's the question - they are little round guys that sure seem to match the description of Amphidiniums...but they don't move at all. And they are extremely well clumped together. Every video I see has them moving spinning and swimming independently. There's not a single bit of movement with these.

Is there a chance these are just diatoms?

I moved my nitrate up to about 10
Phosphate to .1

I've been dosing silicates and things are just getting worse, so it's worth asking!

Thank you.

I know nothing about microscopes but my observation was the same with no movement when i sandwiched the water between 2 slides. Then i took a clean slide and spread the water on top with no top slide and voila... movement everywhere. Not sure if you are doing the same

 

[RMS18]

Looks like i have amphidinium. My rodi crapped out and started killing some coral most likely due to chlorine breakthrough. Also started the beginning of dino in my sandbed. I have been dosing MB7 for 10 days and ready to stop now. Corals don't seem to be bothered so i am going to just keep NO3 at 10 and PO4 at 0.1 and do normal maintenance. I hope to report back with good news in a few weeks.

Also make sure he big 3 stay stable, alk, cal and mag. This was a big part of it for me. Doing all the bacterias affected alk and cal because if he nutrient swings.

 

[BrianReefer]

Also make sure he big 3 stay stable, alk, cal and mag. This was a big part of it for me. Doing all the bacterias affected alk and cal because if he nutrient swings.

I wish the stability approach worked for me. I have an Alkatronic keeping ALK stable and my Reefbot keeping Calcium, Nitrate, and Magnesium in range, and I monitor my Phosphate every 3-4 days...all rock solid, SPS doing great, but those dang Amphidinium have been here for months. I'm now dosing Silicate with Jason Mack's help and hoping this does the trick...

 

[RMS18]

I wish the stability approach worked for me. I have an Alkatronic keeping ALK stable and my Reefbot keeping Calcium, Nitrate, and Magnesium in range, and I monitor my Phosphate every 3-4 days...all rock solid, SPS doing great, but those dang Amphidinium have been here for months. I'm now dosing Silicate with Jason Mack's help and hoping this does the trick...

What is po4 and no3 at consistently? Also maintenance schedule? I am very confident no one has had Dino's longer than me lol.

 

[4sylvester]

Also make sure he big 3 stay stable, alk, cal and mag. This was a big part of it for me. Doing all the bacterias affected alk and cal because if he nutrient swings.

Thanks, Can you confirm a couple of things on what you did? did you vacuum your sand bed? I do it weekly during my 15% water change.