Dino Identification question

[joe-ejs]

Hello,

I am fighting a Dino outbreak and wanted to confirm with others that this is Large Cell Amphidinium. They exist on my sand bed and a few rocks sitting on the sand bed.
Just want to make sure I am choosing the correct plan to fight them, which is to dose Silicates using Spongexcel.

Thanks

 

[Dan_P]

Hello,

I am fighting a Dino outbreak and wanted to confirm with others that this is Large Cell Amphidinium. They exist on my sand bed and a few rocks sitting on the sand bed.
Just want to make sure I am choosing the correct plan to fight them, which is to dose Silicates using Spongexcel.

Thanks

Kinda like an Amphidinium, but not sure. @taricha?

 

[Lavey29]

https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/dinoflagellateid12_12_2019-pdf.1324729/

 

[joe-ejs]

https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/dinoflagellateid12_12_2019-pdf.1324729/

thanks for sending this over. I had previously looked at this document and believe Large Cell Amphidian is what is in the photo I shared. Just wanted to confirm. They definitely look like it and they do in fact move like a Roomba vacuum.

 

[taricha]

Kinda like an Amphidinium, but not sure. @taricha?

agreed. large cell amphidinium.

 

[joe-ejs]

agreed. large cell amphidinium.

Taricha, thanks for the confirmation.

So new question. I have raised what was undetectable Phosphate/Nitrate levels to now Phosphate hovers between .03 and .1ppm and Nitrate is between 1-5ppm. I continue to dose every few days.

I am also dosing Spongexcel with a target of around 2ppm. Dosing once a week.

So now that I am keeping detectable levels of Phosphate/Nitrate/Silicates in my tank, I know over time the Diatoms produced from the Silicate dosing will compete against the Dino's and eventually hopefully win.

While all that is occurring as mentioned above, if I did a water change, siphoning a top thin layer of Dinos off the sand bed (or going deeper), would that assist with removal of dino's, or am I going backwards in the war as I am introducing new trace elements in the water column that the dino's feed off of by adding fresh saltwater?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yes on large cell amphidium. As I mention to others, its biological deficiencies that are causing the dino structure and to stop them in their tracks, no light is first key followed by the addition of bacteria to overcome the bad bacteria allowing them to thrive
Prepare by starting by blowing this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles. Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10% IF you have light dependant corals such as SPS) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights which works as an oxidizer. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED AMINO OR ADD NOPOX which is food for dinos, however you can feed coral, food which will help no3 and po4 to increase. If increasing nutrients, try to keep no3 to about 5 until you are done battling these cells.
Doing a daily siphoning will help greatly But . . . . . Siphoning will reduce nutrients , so siphon the water into/through a filter sock and save the water and return it back to tank. Obviously clean the filter sock each time.
You can feed fish as normal and if doing blackout, ambient light in room will work for them

 

[DDenny]

Yes on large cell amphidium. As I mention to others, its biological deficiencies that are causing the dino structure and to stop them in their tracks, no light is first key followed by the addition of bacteria to overcome the bad bacteria allowing them to thrive
Prepare by starting by blowing this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles. Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10% IF you have light dependant corals such as SPS) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights which works as an oxidizer. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off. During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as micro bacter 7 or XLM) per 10 gallons. Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED AMINO OR ADD NOPOX which is food for dinos, however you can feed coral, food which will help no3 and po4 to increase. If increasing nutrients, try to keep no3 to about 5 until you are done battling these cells.
Doing a daily siphoning will help greatly But . . . . . Siphoning will reduce nutrients , so siphon the water into/through a filter sock and save the water and return it back to tank. Obviously clean the filter sock each time.
You can feed fish as normal and if doing blackout, ambient light in room will work for them

Dealing with dinos and from what I can tell this type. I can't get a good 400x photo with my phone from the microscope but what I see structure wise they are the same. I appreciate the information as well. Will be out of town for the next couple of days but when I return on the 14th going to get to siphoning out the sand bed top layer and blowing off the rocks like you said. only have a few zoas at the moment and a couple of fish so will turn the lights out for 5 days as well. Finally got nutrient levels up nitrates 2 and PO4 is at .095. I have a small 3w green machine UV going but its probably too small for this 25g lagoon tank. Changing out filter socks every other day at the moment as well.

 

[joe-ejs]

agreed. large cell amphidinium.

So quick question on fighting Large Cell Amphidinium. I am dosing Silicates and raising nitrate / phosphates per instructions.

There seems to be a difference of opinion of also turning lights off for 3-5 days and dosing H.P. at night during the 5 days. What results have others seen with this lights off approach? Does it help, does it shorten the battle? Curious to get other folks feedback on this approach...thanks!

 

[taricha]

There seems to be a difference of opinion of also turning lights off for 3-5 days and dosing H.P. at night during the 5 days.

Large cell amphidinium generally go down into the sand during hours of darkness. And when I held some in a container in a dark drawer for 7 to 10 days, they were still alive and swimming actively, though they lost most of their photosynthetic pigment and became nearly clear. So people may think the sand looks better as the photosynthetic organism gets lighter, but they seem happy to live heterotrophically (eating stuff) for that time period rather than needing light every day.
Couple that with the fact that the amount of hydrogen peroxide needed to directly kill Dino cells is quite high, and lights off generally pushes this type down into the sand where they wouldn't encounter hydrogen peroxide anyway, and this is why I don't recommend that approach. They may help, but in an unpredictable way and they could just as easily be working against each other.

 

[apb03]

So quick question on fighting Large Cell Amphidinium. I am dosing Silicates and raising nitrate / phosphates per instructions.

There seems to be a difference of opinion of also turning lights off for 3-5 days and dosing H.P. at night during the 5 days. What results have others seen with this lights off approach? Does it help, does it shorten the battle? Curious to get other folks feedback on this approach...thanks!

The way I beat it was the following (all-out war approach):

1. Install a UV sterilizer ideally a closed loop setup (pump in the display and exit into the display. Do this temporarily and move to a discrete location later.

2. Purchase one or two Marineland Polishing filters and some diatomaceous earth to charge it with

3. Get a small utility pump like a Sicce 1.0 and get a nipple for it, use as a dino blaster


Once you get the above tools ready, hit the tank with a 3-day blackout. At least every 12 hrs blast the sand and rocks with the dino blaster. The goal is to get all the dinos up in the water column to either get hit with the UV or picked up by the polishing filters. Once the lights come back on, keep up with the dino blasting and start a bacteria regimen like Dr Tim's Dinoflagellates regimen (Waste Away and Re-Fresh). He has a handy guide to follow for about 10 days or so.

It's expensive and tedious but it took care of the situation for me in about 2 weeks. Clean sand ever since.