Doesn't sound like you have much to lose if the tank is devoid. Do you have nutrients?
Well I have fish, and literally two zoa frags but that's it. Dinos didn't let any sticks survive. Last test I did i had 30 nitrates, and .08 po4. I have some of that gulf live rock curing in a 10g still. Maybe I'll toss a piece in today that isn't quite fully cured to boost up the bacteria colonies to process that ammonia. It's a 92g system so shouldn't harm anything.
Why don't you cut your loses on the zoa frags and go totally dark for 20 days? I still have mine hanging around as a slight broad shadow in some spots on the sand but only during peak light hours. I did read about someone who had success dosing Vibrant while making sure nutrients didn't bottom out. Another bacterial competitor, I guess. If I don't keep up on my phosphate dosing and testing the shadow starts to get darker and redder. From what I can guess by looking at the scope, I have mostly small cell left, which look like they are the really tough ones. It's definitely easy to get discouraged. I have weeks where I want to give up, then weeks where I buy a bunch of coral. Eight months later and I still have these little buggers hanging in there, refusing to go away completely.
@tarichaI noticed some would just turn in circles “ staying in place and spinning on there own axis. And others were moving so sporadically, I had to chase them around to keep them in view. I haven’t looked into a microscope since junior high, and that’s been a while. I haven’t tried the 25x eye piece. These where at 400x. I purchased the.
AmScope M150C-I 40X-1000X
I read somewhere on here that it was a decent scope.
The thing is, these are only on the sand bed. 3 day black out helped, but they came back. I know large cell amphidinium is unaffected by blackouts according to everything I’ve read. Not sure on small cell. I’ll have to do more reading. The thing is, I’m upgrading from a 54 to a 210. And really don’t want to deal with this again. I’m considering a large uv on the new tank. I just don’t want to plumb it directly in the tank where it would be most effective with certain kinds of dinos. I’ll be starting with new sand and new rock. I plan on keeping nitrates and phosphates up from the beginning and introducing as much diversity as I can. But knowing my luck, it’ll probably rear it’s ugly head again.I read through the whole “Are you tired of battling dinos “ Thread. That took a while!!! Thanks for getting back to me.
youtube.com
Will the amphids not just go into cyst state and wait it out?
I’m sure the biodiversity it adds possibly outweighs the dinos it came with. In their defense. After reviewing the papers that came with each tub of rubble, it clearly says on the pie chart that Dinoflagellata is present. Was actually present on each tubs papers. I also feel it’s impossible to keep dinos out of a system.
I put about 5-6 pounds of the Gulfliverock in last weekend. That, peroxide, and dosing 5ml of PO4 daily is having some effect...there's small clear patches on the rock among the brown dino film. My stance on Dino X now is that if it doesn't clear your tank, it at least takes them down enough to be susceptible to other treatments
Yeah, those are amphidinium, likely small cell.
That's interesting, and it presents one of the limits with broad genetic categorization.
When it comes to this particular species, I could not agree more. It seems to me to be the most difficult species to solve for.
I see cells that look like dinos but no way for me to confirm species based on that image, sorry. At ~4 months or so my advice is ride it out. Keep all the basics (temp, salinity) in line and ride it. More fish poop. Dead rock starts are tough; I don't have the guts for them personally but many do. If you can add some microbial diversity, that is what I would do. Your biome is not natural right now, so dinos fill in for that. The biome needs natural competition. Sure, live rock brings some issues but sterility has a price too.
They're oval and flat and swim straight. They don't have any mucus and disappear into the sand when the lights go out and nothing has died after eating them for months. Do Amphidinium burn themselves out like other things? I've dosed nitrates and am about to start dosing phosphates too but I don't see any other algae. I've introduced hermits and snails with coralline and other algae on their shells but they eventually get covered by this brown stuff. I'm thinking, even if I add a rock with other microbes on it, it's going to get covered at this point. I have a couple acro frags and they've been fine the whole time. Thanks. I think I'll try going back to Microbacter clean while dosing NO and PO4 so they don't bottom out and report back.
I read that they can coexist with diatoms and then I also read that diatoms can out compete them. It’s amazing how little we know about them. This corner has the lowest flow and is totally covered after 4 hours of lights. It never totally disappears which makes me wonder if the darker brown stuff is something else.
It's even more amazing than that. These Large Cell amphidinium are a ghost in the scientific lit. They barely get a mention, they never get nailed down by species, and there isn't a single paper I'm aware of that talks about a bloom in the wild of this type.
Like I said, your system sounds mostly happy, and your dinos seem to be just an annoyance. That means your treatments should be very conservative and minor. I'd add Si, and a little PO4, and then make sure NO3 doesn't zero - but I really wouldn't move it much if my acros were happy and I'm just dealing with some brown sand.
