Creating acrylic black out puzzles to battle Dinoflegellates.

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Okay, so I have a good question. My dinos are large cell amphidiums. Why do they only stay on the sandbed and not my live rock? I do see some reefers shut down their systems becuase the dinos overun rocks, corals etc.
Mine hug the sandbed like mad, I vacuum them out with at 25 micron sock and this really helps keep the population down, they do regroup and I hit them the next day again.
But they are not going on my live rock at all, I have live rock from the ocean, paid a lot for it, it was aquacultured.
I never started with dry rock that as it is a magnet for all sorts of unwanted algaes, etc to grow on the surface.
So, I am wanting to ask, why not just place some say plate corals or even other small rocks that have corals on top of the live rock, to be placed on the gravel that has dinos?
You see when I moved around my live rock when I was cleaning the gravel of dinos, under the live rock is zero dinos, I am assuming they like the light and need it for some form of metabolism.
Are there any other reefers out there, that have ugly dinos only on the sandbed but nothing on their rocks?
If the dinos were not ugly nasty yellow/green snut, like if they were a nice see through color, my aquarium would look so nice.
I can't wait for my 5 micron sock to arrive, this Thursday I do batle again and will rank it against the 25 micron sock that has helped a lot.
Any suggestions about placing things over these dinos, I even thought about cutting a thing black piece of acrylic on my CNC machine to place over the area that has dinos, THINK OF IT AS A PUZZLE, WHEN YOU PLACE IT ONTO THE MAP, BELOW CAN NO LONGER HAVE LIGHT, WILL THAT WORK, I AM THINKING ABOUT IT, THAT WAY THEY DON'T HAVE ANY LIGHT TO WORK WITH BUT THE LIVE ROCK AND CORALS CONTINUE TO GET LIGHT.
Just a frustrated thinking out of the box Reefer.
 

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Okay, so I have a good question. My dinos are large cell amphidiums. Why do they only stay on the sandbed and not my live rock? I do see some reefers shut down their systems becuase the dinos overun rocks, corals etc.
Mine hug the sandbed like mad, I vacuum them out with at 25 micron sock and this really helps keep the population down, they do regroup and I hit them the next day again.
But they are not going on my live rock at all, I have live rock from the ocean, paid a lot for it, it was aquacultured.
I never started with dry rock that as it is a magnet for all sorts of unwanted algaes, etc to grow on the surface.
So, I am wanting to ask, why not just place some say plate corals or even other small rocks that have corals on top of the live rock, to be placed on the gravel that has dinos?
You see when I moved around my live rock when I was cleaning the gravel of dinos, under the live rock is zero dinos, I am assuming they like the light and need it for some form of metabolism.
Are there any other reefers out there, that have ugly dinos only on the sandbed but nothing on their rocks?
If the dinos were not ugly nasty yellow/green snut, like if they were a nice see through color, my aquarium would look so nice.
I can't wait for my 5 micron sock to arrive, this Thursday I do batle again and will rank it against the 25 micron sock that has helped a lot.
Any suggestions about placing things over these dinos, I even thought about cutting a thing black piece of acrylic on my CNC machine to place over the area that has dinos, THINK OF IT AS A PUZZLE, WHEN YOU PLACE IT ONTO THE MAP, BELOW CAN NO LONGER HAVE LIGHT, WILL THAT WORK, I AM THINKING ABOUT IT, THAT WAY THEY DON'T HAVE ANY LIGHT TO WORK WITH BUT THE LIVE ROCK AND CORALS CONTINUE TO GET LIGHT.
Just a frustrated thinking out of the box Reefer.
I like your experimental treatment of covering the dinoflagellates. Could you dose something like hydrogen peroxide under the covering to kill them?

Why do dinoflagellates, or for that matter any photosynthetic organism pest, congregate where they do is very likely because light, waste removal and food levels are optimal which includes CO2.. A high density population of organisms simply cannot exist if these factors are not present. It is not just PO4 and not just low NO3. The resiliency of these high density populations makes them seem self sustaining, able to exist no matter what you do to change water quality. I have to wonder whether there is a bacterial population acting synergistically with the dinoflagellates creating this seemingly invincible plague. There still has to be other factors but the bacteria-dinoflagellate team help to send good growth into overdrive. Examples of what might make this mutually beneficial relationship work is the the bacteria is providing the dinoflagellate something, like NH3 or the bacteria is removing O2 and providing CO2 while the dinoflagellate is feeding the bacteria organic carbon. This synergy might not be able to exist on the live rock surfaces. The biofilm on those surfaces might not support this conjectured bacteria-dinoflagellate relationship to form and be maintained.

if the bacteria-dinoflagelate biofilm is a real phenomenon, getting rid of it will be difficult. Fighting biofilms or biofouling is difficult. Preventing or interfering with attachment is a strategy. Your rocks might be a testament to that. Disrupting biofilm population might be another strategy. The removal of light could break the mutualism of the bacteria-dinoflagellate, though not easily. Could injecting bottled bacteria into the infested sand be another way to nudge the biofilm away from being dominated by the bacteria-dinoflagellate partnership? The mutualism is probably more complex, but a simple bacteria-dinoflagellate model might help give you ideas to optimize your local blackout approach rather than trying to deal with the problem by messing with the water quality.
 
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I like your experimental treatment of covering the dinoflagellates. Could you dose something like hydrogen peroxide under the covering to kill them?

Why do dinoflagellates, or for that matter any photosynthetic organism pest, congregate where they do is very likely because light, waste removal and food levels are optimal which includes CO2.. A high density population of organisms simply cannot exist if these factors are not present. It is not just PO4 and not just low NO3. The resiliency of these high density populations makes them seem self sustaining, able to exist no matter what you do to change water quality. I have to wonder whether there is a bacterial population acting synergistically with the dinoflagellates creating this seemingly invincible plague. There still has to be other factors but the bacteria-dinoflagellate team help to send good growth into overdrive. Examples of what might make this mutually beneficial relationship work is the the bacteria is providing the dinoflagellate something, like NH3 or the bacteria is removing O2 and providing CO2 while the dinoflagellate is feeding the bacteria organic carbon. This synergy might not be able to exist on the live rock surfaces. The biofilm on those surfaces might not support this conjectured bacteria-dinoflagellate relationship to form and be maintained.

if the bacteria-dinoflagelate biofilm is a real phenomenon, getting rid of it will be difficult. Fighting biofilms or biofouling is difficult. Preventing or interfering with attachment is a strategy. Your rocks might be a testament to that. Disrupting biofilm population might be another strategy. The removal of light could break the mutualism of the bacteria-dinoflagellate, though not easily. Could injecting bottled bacteria into the infested sand be another way to nudge the biofilm away from being dominated by the bacteria-dinoflagellate partnership? The mutualism is probably more complex, but a simple bacteria-dinoflagellate model might help give you ideas to optimize your local blackout approach rather than trying to deal with the problem by messing with the water quality.
I enlisted the Swift SW380T it arrives on Friday. I am first going to get the correct ID of this Dino that only stays on my sandbed, it's a mixotrophic so my experiment to knockout some light from above with black out plates, will see if they move towards the light, where the acrylic plates are not covering.

Your theory sounds very convincing because they are not anywhere on my live frock which is aquacultured from KP aquatics, that surface of the liverock is occuppied by some other organisms. And the live sand top layer seems to be the perfect combo for them to use the energy from photosynthesis and then at night they retreat deep into the sand bed, thus the sand turns more white at night, they are up to something, and I am about to discover something with acrylic black out plates and my microscope. I will try and I will see what happens. Stay tunned.
 

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Dan_P

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I enlisted the Swift SW380T it arrives on Friday. I am first going to get the correct ID of this Dino that only stays on my sandbed, it's a mixotrophic so my experiment to knockout some light from above with black out plates, will see if they move towards the light, where the acrylic plates are not covering.

Your theory sounds very convincing because they are not anywhere on my live frock which is aquacultured from KP aquatics, that surface of the liverock is occuppied by some other organisms. And the live sand top layer seems to be the perfect combo for them to use the energy from photosynthesis and then at night they retreat deep into the sand bed, thus the sand turns more white at night, they are up to something, and I am about to discover something with acrylic black out plates and my microscope. I will try and I will see what happens. Stay tunned.
Looking forwards to your observations and experiment results.
 
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I like your experimental treatment of covering the dinoflagellates. Could you dose something like hydrogen peroxide under the covering to kill them?

Why do dinoflagellates, or for that matter any photosynthetic organism pest, congregate where they do is very likely because light, waste removal and food levels are optimal which includes CO2.. A high density population of organisms simply cannot exist if these factors are not present. It is not just PO4 and not just low NO3. The resiliency of these high density populations makes them seem self sustaining, able to exist no matter what you do to change water quality. I have to wonder whether there is a bacterial population acting synergistically with the dinoflagellates creating this seemingly invincible plague. There still has to be other factors but the bacteria-dinoflagellate team help to send good growth into overdrive. Examples of what might make this mutually beneficial relationship work is the the bacteria is providing the dinoflagellate something, like NH3 or the bacteria is removing O2 and providing CO2 while the dinoflagellate is feeding the bacteria organic carbon. This synergy might not be able to exist on the live rock surfaces. The biofilm on those surfaces might not support this conjectured bacteria-dinoflagellate relationship to form and be maintained.

if the bacteria-dinoflagelate biofilm is a real phenomenon, getting rid of it will be difficult. Fighting biofilms or biofouling is difficult. Preventing or interfering with attachment is a strategy. Your rocks might be a testament to that. Disrupting biofilm population might be another strategy. The removal of light could break the mutualism of the bacteria-dinoflagellate, though not easily. Could injecting bottled bacteria into the infested sand be another way to nudge the biofilm away from being dominated by the bacteria-dinoflagellate partnership? The mutualism is probably more complex, but a simple bacteria-dinoflagellate model might help give you ideas to optimize your local blackout approach rather than trying to deal with the problem by messing with the water quality.
Finally got three videos for you to see where I am against the Amphidinium. The first video show them on my sand bed and the next two the placement of the acrylic grids and skirt, what do you think?



 

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Finally got three videos for you to see where I am against the Amphidinium. The first video show them on my sand bed and the next two the placement of the acrylic grids and skirt, what do you think?




You did it! Cool. Should be interesting.

While watching the videos, I was thinking. When you black out the top of the sand bed with acrylic, might you be reducing the oxygen available to the sand? Is this equivalent in some respect to creating a deep sand bed? I guess the only potential risk is sulfate reduction to hydrogen sulfide. I have no idea if this can happen, it was just a random thought. I guess it is something to keep an eye on. I know you were planning an awesome 30 day blackout. Maybe after a few days of covering, pull up a syringe of water and sand and give it a sniff for H2S, rotten eggs. There can be some H2S without covering the sand, so you might need to do the sniff test before covering as a baseline. Maybe clear acrylic have an effect too.

Looking forwards to the results.
 

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Day 2 blackout skirts on Amphinidiums

Poor dinoflagellates! Their some mean person stacking black acrylic on top of them. :)

It would be fascinating to see what’s going on under the acrylic. I am thinking of hijacking your idea, changing to clear acrylic and passing a piece of rigid tubing through the center of the acrylic plate to occassionally draw out water samples. I would measure oxygen levels for one thing.
 
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You did it! Cool. Should be interesting.

While watching the videos, I was thinking. When you black out the top of the sand bed with acrylic, might you be reducing the oxygen available to the sand? Is this equivalent in some respect to creating a deep sand bed? I guess the only potential risk is sulfate reduction to hydrogen sulfide. I have no idea if this can happen, it was just a random thought. I guess it is something to keep an eye on. I know you were planning an awesome 30 day blackout. Maybe after a few days of covering, pull up a syringe of water and sand and give it a sniff for H2S, rotten eggs. There can be some H2S without covering the sand, so you might need to do the sniff test before covering as a baseline. Maybe clear acrylic have an effect too.

Looking forwards to the results.
Very provacative thinking of the potential risk of sulfate reduction to hydrogen sulfide. I have seen tanks get 7 day complete blackout with extreme values of high nitrate and phosphate since they forgot to run skimmer etc. I am crossing new ground that has never been done before.

My sandbed came from 20 lbs livesand when I started the tank. My live rocks really cover a lot of the sand already, so the dinos kept only to the outskirts that you see. I have been with them for 1 month and have only raised phosphates .04-.08 and 5-9ppm Nitrates, and it was time to hit them with this idea.

With only 2nd day with the skirt and grid, I see the dinos struggling to get light seaping from the sides, that I showed in the video. I can only speculate that they are struggling for some extra light, as we both know these amphinidiums are mixotrophic.

I purchased the Swift Stellar 1 Pro/ Trinocular, it comes in tomorrow. I will do samples from the sides to see what the concentration of dinos I have under the plates and compare that to what I had before no plates on the dino.

Thanks for posting, I value what you came up with and I will be vigilant of that.
 
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Poor dinoflagellates! Their some mean person stacking black acrylic on top of them. :)

It would be fascinating to see what’s going on under the acrylic. I am thinking of hijacking your idea, changing to clear acrylic and passing a piece of rigid tubing through the center of the acrylic plate to occassionally draw out water samples. I would measure oxygen levels for one thing.
Please I encourage you to use any and all of my ideas and share them will all reefers interested in becoming mavericks in their thinking. We will break new boundaries, painfully but necessary to help others also inflicted with this plague of epic proportions for those that closed their tanks down.
 
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Love the idea. I think it will work. However, I think the dinos will simply come back after a few days as they usually do.
Agreed, but that has been for how many days of a complete blackout? Was it 3 days or 7 days blackout? I haven't seen more than that without affecting the corals and fish. My idea, is very odd/maverick that I black out the sandbed without affecting my live rocks and corals or fish, snails, I don't own any nasartih snails that bury under the sand.

I want to stun theses Amphinidiums, I want to hit them hard with something different, 15 days or even 30 days of these grids. Okay, so if they retreat and go dormant as is expected, I have read so much on them, they will return when I create that environment that was conducive to them arriving the 1st time. So I try really hard to not bottom out my nitrates/phosphates, yes?

Reefers on youtube have battled them each year, I have them for 30 days, I want to try this to allow other bacteria/algaes to grow and take over the sandbed. I want to experiment and see what changes occur when the grids/skirt come off. Will they come back in 3 days, like I have seen with the 7 day blackout on entire tank?

Remember 7 day blackout on whole tank takes a negative effect on all organisms. I am trying to hit the dinos only or majority of them, and allow the plates that you see to grow diatoms or cyano if I add silicates.

Let me get 1 week in, I am doing water changes now that the grids are in place with the skirt to get back my SPS which are hurting really bad.

Thanks for your comments, I value each input, I really do!
 
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Day 5: Acrylic grids on Amphinidiums, we see trochus snail eating off the top of the acrylic plate. Conclusion that is a win for us, as dinos are not taking to the smooth surface of the grids while algae is!
 

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Day 5: Acrylic grids on Amphinidiums, we see trochus snail eating off the top of the acrylic plate. Conclusion that is a win for us, as dinos are not taking to the smooth surface of the grids while algae is!

Fascinating. Seems like the brown slime is not going to move to the top of the acrylic. Are you temped to peek under the acrylic?
 
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Fascinating. Seems like the brown slime is not going to move to the top of the acrylic. Are you temped to peek under the acrylic?
Yeah but I know it is too early to check, many reefers here have done 7 day full blackouts and I want to at least do 1 week peek and show all of you and then put the plates back down and go another 7 days.

But I also been dosing so much neo nitro and Neo phos I didn't do a test for 4 days since my calculations were spot on, however the stressed corals were not taking down what I was placing. I tripled my numbers PO3 .13 and my NO4 12ppm. Lost more SPS frags.

My cheato had skyrocketed and couldn't pull out any more nutrients as it was packed.

Look at my video.
 
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Fascinating. Seems like the brown slime is not going to move to the top of the acrylic. Are you temped to peek under the acrylic?
I did do a tentative video just didn't get a chance to upload it, I removed just the side skirt to peak inside, what do you think?
 

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