Are these Dino's??

John Hernandez

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I've been battling this problem for the last month or so and I am getting very frustrated now. I am reading all the threads and the wealth of information is overwhelming. I believe I caused this by dosing NoPox, bringing my nitrates down too low. I added an algae scrubber at the same time. I have since stopped dosing and removed GFO. Nitrates are around 5 now and Phosphates are .05 at last check. I am siphoning the sandbed every other day into a filter sock and I added a UV sterilizer. Nothing seems to work. I do have the algae scrubber still going with my thought being the algae growth would help to out compete the dino's but I'm not sure if that is how it works and maybe I should shut it off for the time being. My next step is a 72hr blackout but before I do that I am hoping to get assurance that I am actually fighting the right plague. My more sensitive corals are now starting to show serious stress and I have even lost a couple. I appreciate all the help from the R2R community. :)

IMG_3972 copy.jpg

IMG_4043 copy.jpg

KRUSTYSPLACE_2020_0118-1954-1877-2.jpg

KRUSTYSPLACE_2020_0118-1954-1877.jpg


And what the heck is this???

KRUSTYSPLACE_2020_0118-1954-1881.jpg

KRUSTYSPLACE_2020_0118-1954-1881-2.jpg
 

45ZoaGarden

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Yes those are dinos. I had a mixture of just about every known species and tried every treatment imaginable. Stopped wc’s, cheato reactor, uv sterilizer, siphoning them with a sock, etc. sure they all helped, but after an almost year long battle, I finally killed them dead with Fauna Marin Dinox
 

taricha

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@John Hernandez in pics 5&6 the pink/purple thing is a sclerite (calcium structure) from a soft coral or similar.
In the same pic it looks like there are chrysophytes. Not a dino.
In pics 3&4 it is a dino, and it's not one that we see in the hobby. I'll have to look more closely.
The brown patch in pic 2. which sample came from there? pics 3&4 or 5&6? need to know what's actually causing your brown stuff.
 
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John Hernandez

John Hernandez

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@John Hernandez in pics 5&6 the pink/purple thing is a sclerite (calcium structure) from a soft coral or similar.
In the same pic it looks like there are chrysophytes. Not a dino.
In pics 3&4 it is a dino, and it's not one that we see in the hobby. I'll have to look more closely.
The brown patch in pic 2. which sample came from there? pics 3&4 or 5&6? need to know what's actually causing your brown stuff.

Ok that is fascinating. Im looking up everything you are describing. Pic 1&2 are all over the sandbed. I can say that pic 1 is of the right side of my tank and 2 is on the left. Pics 3-6 are all from the same sample. Just different magnifications. I could do more samples if that would help and post more pics. It was concentrated only on the sandbed but in the last few days it is now starting to show up on the rocks in some places. I added the UV sterilizer last week and I kinda thought it would be more effective.
 

taricha

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Pics 3-6 are all from the same sample. Just different magnifications. I could do more samples if that would help and post more pics.
Okay. So you are saying if you zoomed in on the tiny brown dots in pics 5 & 6 then they would look like the dinos in Pic 3 & 4? Sorry, that means I misjudged the magnification in pics 5&6. So ignore the chrysophyte part.
Would love to see a video of the cells moving, or another couple of pics.

Any ideas as to how you got a kind of dino no one else has?
 
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John Hernandez

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Okay. So you are saying if you zoomed in on the tiny brown dots in pics 5 & 6 then they would look like the dinos in Pic 3 & 4? Sorry, that means I misjudged the magnification in pics 5&6. So ignore the chrysophyte part.
Would love to see a video of the cells moving, or another couple of pics.

Any ideas as to how you got a kind of dino no one else has?

I can try to get a video of that. I don't have the adapter for my microscope so I have to try to hold it right on. I will attempt it here shortly. As for how I got them. Thats just how things go for me I guess. If someone is going to get the one type that no one has it will be me. :) I have no idea how I got them. The only thing I can say is that I was dosing NoPox to bring down my Nitrates and apparently brought them down to zero along with Phosphates at zero. Only for about a week but I guess that was enough. I have since added an algae scrubber (best thing I ever did) and Nitrates stay around 5ppm with Phosphates around .05 (I have also stopped running GFO). Stay tuned for updated photos.
 

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Possibly from a wild colony or a snail the lfs got from the ocean. I would try a cheato reactor or scrubber to compete with the dinos. If that doesn’t work, I would go for Dino x. Here are the ones I had

70C633FF-67CE-49BC-8FDC-7118A91CE83F.jpeg 13DB7332-3E4F-4FB2-B0C5-802D273DD5EF.jpeg 07AEC158-6453-4CBD-8254-3904AD533B60.jpeg 5CE69962-03B9-4B9A-B52A-16F74E19B723.jpeg
 
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John Hernandez

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Possibly from a wild colony or a snail the lfs got from the ocean. I would try a cheato reactor or scrubber to compete with the dinos. If that doesn’t work, I would go for Dino x. Here are the ones I had

70C633FF-67CE-49BC-8FDC-7118A91CE83F.jpeg 13DB7332-3E4F-4FB2-B0C5-802D273DD5EF.jpeg 07AEC158-6453-4CBD-8254-3904AD533B60.jpeg 5CE69962-03B9-4B9A-B52A-16F74E19B723.jpeg
Already have a ats that works great. Im seriously trying to figure out a way to do this without dosing anything. I want to figure out the downside of DinoX first. I am reading a lot from the other thread and trying to come up with a plan of attack. I have already tried most of the things that are recommended. That being said, I have to say from your pics it looks like you had it pretty bad. Yikes!
 

45ZoaGarden

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Yeah, it was BAD. The only cons to Dino x was that the corals were a bit upset during the treatment. They were just a bit closed up and the acros didn’t have as much PE. After the treatment, I did a wc and turned my carbon reactor back on then the corals went back to 100%. There’s over 1k in corals in my tank and I feel safe enough with the treatment to do it again if I had to. Like you, I’m also very hesitant to put any magic cure in o bottle in the tank and decided to do it as a last ditch effort. It cured the dinos 7 days before the treatment ended but I did the full term to be safe.
Already have a ats that works great. Im seriously trying to figure out a way to do this without dosing anything. I want to figure out the downside of DinoX first. I am reading a lot from the other thread and trying to come up with a plan of attack. I have already tried most of the things that are recommended. That being said, I have to say from your pics it looks like you had it pretty bad. Yikes!
 
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John Hernandez

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Yeah, it was BAD. The only cons to Dino x was that the corals were a bit upset during the treatment. They were just a bit closed up and the acros didn’t have as much PE. After the treatment, I did a wc and turned my carbon reactor back on then the corals went back to 100%. There’s over 1k in corals in my tank and I feel safe enough with the treatment to do it again if I had to. Like you, I’m also very hesitant to put any magic cure in o bottle in the tank and decided to do it as a last ditch effort. It cured the dinos 7 days before the treatment ended but I did the full term to be safe.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I am going to have to look into this further now. I am at my wits end with this and most of my more sensitive corals are already very unhappy. I’ve been avoiding the blackout cause I don’t really want to do that either. This may end up being the answer.
 

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Hey. Sorry to leave you hanging.
Tentative ID is that this is plagiodinium. It is benthic, loves sand, photosynthetic, from the central america/gulf/carribbean area (but found all the way to Japan) and it shows up in the same samples as many of our favorites.
A total of 24 dinoflagellate species distributed among the
genera Amphidinium , Bysmatrum , Coolia , Gambierdiscus ,
Ostreopsis , Prorocentrum
, Plagiodinium , and Sinophysis
were identified.
Others we've seen in the hobby highlighted in yellow.
here are some pics showing the same structure / shape as in your pics 3&4 in the first post and your video. Off-center lighter pigmented "cap" and a detectable groove running along the side. Laterally flattened, like most sand-dwelling species.
Plag1.jpg

(plagiodinium belizeanum in center)

Plag2.jpg

(scanning electron microscope of same species.)

Your video in post #14 shows a copepod nauplius with one of these cells attached. The thrashing of the pod that fails to dislodge the cell shows how well the mucus of these benthic species works for attachment to sand etc.
Seeing that video and its other habits makes me think we should treat similar to prorocentrum. and a little more reading confirms that this dino is indeed a close relative of prorocentrum.

references:
Benthic dinos from meso-american reefs [pdf]
Ultrastructure of plagiodinium belizeanum

Now, for advice. Here's the best I've got.
Shoot for PO4 in the .05 to 0.10 range (depends on system - my tank dinos do poorly at 0.10), and NO3 detectable ~5ppm. Dose PO4, NO3 if needed, don't overfeed. Feed plain foods - cut out any aminos/coral snow etc.
Run UV into/out of display. 1 Watt per 2 to 3 gallons seems needed for these dinos. If this doesn't make a dent, then you can do a short blackout of ~48hr or so to force whatever cells are capable to go into the water and hit UV.
In the meantime, to try to protect some corals, hang filter floss in light and high flow - in front of powerhead. Some dinos will cling to these high flow places and turn the filter floss brown over the course of a day. Rinse out during the lights on period to wash away the dinos. (can wring out into a beaker - be careful of toxins - and check under 'scope to see what collected).
Blow off any brown that attaches to corals. Coral colonies go down fast when dinos attach. Siphon/export as much as you can, skim lots, harvest from ATS. Run GAC for toxins. since you are dealing with sandbed dinos, dosing Si may possibly help diatoms compete in the sand at the locations where the dinos are thriving.
Since you are reading through the main dino thread, assume stuff about prorocentrum is talking about your kind.

Any idea where you might have bought rock/algae/livestock that might have introduced this? curious whether it's a one-off mariculture shipment, a LFS, or an online retailer. Trying to figure if we should expect to see more of these in the hobby now.

hope some of it helps.

edit: dino-x isn't a dino treatment. It's same chemicals as algae-x and is a harsh algacide with a high frequency of reports of livestock loss, and a low frequency of reported success.
 
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John Hernandez

John Hernandez

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Hey. Sorry to leave you hanging.
Tentative ID is that this is plagiodinium. It is benthic, loves sand, photosynthetic, from the central america/gulf/carribbean area (but found all the way to Japan) and it shows up in the same samples as many of our favorites.

Others we've seen in the hobby highlighted in yellow.
here are some pics showing the same structure / shape as in your pics 3&4 in the first post and your video. Off-center lighter pigmented "cap" and a detectable groove running along the side. Laterally flattened, like most sand-dwelling species.
Plag1.jpg

(plagiodinium belizeanum in center)

Plag2.jpg

(scanning electron microscope of same species.)

Your video in post #14 shows a copepod nauplius with one of these cells attached. The thrashing of the pod that fails to dislodge the cell shows how well the mucus of these benthic species works for attachment to sand etc.
Seeing that video and its other habits makes me think we should treat similar to prorocentrum. and a little more reading confirms that this dino is indeed a close relative of prorocentrum.

references:
Benthic dinos from meso-american reefs [pdf]
Ultrastructure of plagiodinium belizeanum

Now, for advice. Here's the best I've got.
Shoot for PO4 in the .05 to 0.10 range (depends on system - my tank dinos do poorly at 0.10), and NO3 detectable ~5ppm. Dose PO4, NO3 if needed, don't overfeed. Feed plain foods - cut out any aminos/coral snow etc.
Run UV into/out of display. 1 Watt per 2 to 3 gallons seems needed for these dinos. If this doesn't make a dent, then you can do a short blackout of ~48hr or so to force whatever cells are capable to go into the water and hit UV.
In the meantime, to try to protect some corals, hang filter floss in light and high flow - in front of powerhead. Some dinos will cling to these high flow places and turn the filter floss brown over the course of a day. Rinse out during the lights on period to wash away the dinos. (can wring out into a beaker - be careful of toxins - and check under 'scope to see what collected).
Blow off any brown that attaches to corals. Coral colonies go down fast when dinos attach. Siphon/export as much as you can, skim lots, harvest from ATS. Run GAC for toxins. since you are dealing with sandbed dinos, dosing Si may possibly help diatoms compete in the sand at the locations where the dinos are thriving.
Since you are reading through the main dino thread, assume stuff about prorocentrum is talking about your kind.

Any idea where you might have bought rock/algae/livestock that might have introduced this? curious whether it's a one-off mariculture shipment, a LFS, or an online retailer. Trying to figure if we should expect to see more of these in the hobby now.

hope some of it helps.

edit: dino-x isn't a dino treatment. It's same chemicals as algae-x and is a harsh algacide with a high frequency of reports of livestock loss, and a low frequency of reported success.
So first of all.. You Rock!! Seriously. Not even kidding. Second this is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. I am reluctant to dose anything and prefer a natural solution. I can't even imagine where this may have come from since I haven't added anything new in a while. The last time I added anything was when I picked up a couple of frags from my LFS on Black Friday. I feel I may have already been dealing with it at this point however, just as small patches in the sandbed. No new rock. No new sand. Go figure. Some of your suggestions I am already doing. Which is good. I do have a couple of questions though. I know I will feel stupid when you answer because I am sure it is obvious but, you say to dose Si, is that Silicate? If yes what would I dose to acheive that ? Also my Nitrates stay right at about 5 creeping up to 10 on occasion but my Phosphates are at .05 Is there a recommended product to dose up to .1? Last of all, also I am curious if you can suggest a better solution to be able to photograph through the microscope. I shoot Nikon and also with my phone if necessary. I am very anxious to get started on this and I will keep you updated if you are interested.
TY, TY, TY
 

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