Dino ID + Treatment

[Mas0n]

Update from me, sorry for being away. Our beloved super-cat passed away. It completely threw me and the whole family out of balance.

Short version: The dino war rages on and has become a war of attrition. But the dinos are back in their trenches, and so life in the tank goes on.

TL;DR:
The 3-day blackout definitely put the dinos on the back foot. But it did the same to all photosynthetic organisms. A fourth day of darkness would probably have helped with the dinos, but the BTA started deteriorating badly. This is the BTA that attempted the infamous "anemone smoothie" a few weeks ago and has still not fully recovered. Green algae and phytoplankton got hit very hard too. On the other hand, the snails resumed their normal activities and seem to be behaving normally. Amphipods, copepods, shrimps, and fish went through it without any visible issues.

Since the lights came back on, the dinos have been trying to regain territory. During the first 3 days, I was vacuuming the sand and replacing approximately 25 L of water daily. After that, I switched to blowing the sand and rocks with a turkey baster, leaving the elimination to the UV. I do it at the end of the light period, when there are the most dinos around. I was worried that the resulting clouds of dinos might be toxic, but they don't seem to be. Only the BTA dislikes the experience, but it recovers almost immediately after I am done.

UV: My Aqua 57W is plumbed in-line with the return pump, sterilising all recirculating water. Estimated flow is 1,200–1,500 L/h. (The whole system contains approximately 600–640 L of water.) Extra flow in the tank is provided by 2× GMP-40s running at 70%.

Nutrients: During and immediately after the blackout, macronutrient consumption dropped. Then phosphate consumption increased for a short period, but last night's measurement showed phosphate at 0.43 ppm. This was surprising, as it had been 0.04 ppm the day before and I had dosed only 0.06 ppm. Nitrate stays between 10-12 ppm now without much supplementation. Alkalinity consumption has increased, and I hope this means the coralline algae have started growing again.

I got 10 Nassarius snails and a sand-sifting starfish on secondment from my other tank to help with... sand sifting. The Nassarius went in first and, initially, went into spasms whenever they touched the brown dino patches. Now they travel across the sandbed without any perceptible stress. (At that point, I introduced the starfish.) I have a hypothesis that maybe the dinos I have release more toxins when nutrients bottom out.

Daily routine:
- Dose 0.01 ppm ammonia in the morning, plus nitrate, phosphate, and alkalinity as needed.
- Dose 300 mL of phytoplankton: Tetra, Nanno, and Chaetoceros (diatom). Skimmer and UV stay off for 30 minutes after dosing.
- Blow the sand and rocks in the evening, making sure all visible dinos are disturbed.

Sorry to hear about your cat, losing a pet is never easy :(

That is a huge jump in PO4, testing error?!

Ugh... we are really in the trenches lol.

 

[Mas0n]

I believe, we need to be patient and keep the tank stable at params which do not favor dinos, and the dinos will be pushed out.

I am really interested in your cuvette shaker! Could you share? Do I hear a stepper?!

That's the plan! Shooting for 25-30 NO3, and .1-.15 PO4 if I can ever get it past .07 lol.

Sure, its a cheap little SG90 9g servo, with a 3d printed housing and cuvette holder + silicone O-ring to hold the cuvette in place. Everything is controlled by an ESP32, and powered by 5v USB-C. Also using a mini OLED, Piezo buzzer, and two momentary switches.

The logic is pretty simple, button 1 (PO4) kicks off a 120s timer and then inverts the cuvette, pauses, and repeats. To hopefully minimize air in the sample for a clean reading. At 120s, it stops and lets out a chirp to signal that it's done.

The second button's logic is similar, but it shakes more vigorously with no pause in between.

Here's a better video showing both modes:

 

[mcarroll]

I have. Plankton sieve 11µm

@robert K (which is too far down the list of Roberts for the R2R software to let me flag him properly) mentioned the seive he's using.

Do you mind telling what you're using to screen your samples at 11µ?

I'm gonna have to make an aquisition but wanna have a better idea of what's out there. Thanks both of ya!

 

[EnterName]

I have. Plankton sieve 11µm

@robert K (which is too far down the list of Roberts for the R2R software to let me flag him properly) mentioned the seive he's using.

Do you mind telling what you're using to screen your samples at 11µ?

I'm gonna have to make an aquisition but wanna have a better idea of what's out there. Thanks both of ya!

I got mine from a German webshop, so the exact website won't help you much, I'm afraid. A lot of plankton sieves are pretty small, and I was quite happy to find a few with a larger diameter (≈ 20cm / 7.8") than the ones I usually see online. A bigger sieve helps the water actually pass through instead of getting stopped by surface tension so easily. Good plankton sieves can be a bit pricey, but if you want to use them for experiments where you have to count cells or something like that, it's important that there are no holes larger than the specified mesh size and that you can clean them with bleach without them falling apart.

I'm sure you will find a decent product with a quick websearch. For a decent 10μm - 15μm net of the mentioned size, I would expect something like
$100 (± $20). Note that if you want to be able to catch smaller Amphidinium species like A. carterae which could be a candidate for "Small cell Amphidinium" I wouldn't go larger than 11μm or too many cells might pass through.