Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[taricha]

Tank is almost 5 years old. For the first 4.5 years little maintenance was done and tap water was used.
I am now using RO water and am getting the maintenance back to where it should be since Oct.1st. and am wanting to get the tank geared up for a full reef.

I have been trying to get things on track. I had a bunch of Cyano on the rocks that I just finished a chemiclean treatment on... Now it looks like the Dino's are taking over where the Cyano was. The sand was rusty before (thought it might have been Cyano but it did not die a off with the chemiclean) but not on the rocks but now the rust is moving to the rocks.

Is there any chance this could be a diatom bloom.

I was doing vodka to lower the nutrients but stopped a few weeks ago. I did have a nitrogen destroyer in place for a bit as well but it is now offline.

I do not have much for coral at this time but the big three are rock steady using aquaforest component 123. But this may be fueling the problem as it adds the trace elements.

Here are the pictures of the tank at this time.

Skimmer is back producing skimmate as the chemiclean was just finished a couple days ago. I have a bag of carbon sitting in between my baffles at this time. Nothing seems to bothered at this time but I would like to get rid of the rust colored dynos.

Any advise on where to go from here would be appreciated.

Funny how when we start getting aggressive with chemical interventions to get our tanks in shape, dinos often follow. They didn't bother us while we were ignoring our tanks.

Stop/avoid: chemiclean, vodka/vinegar, nitrate destroyer, AF123 or any other trace element or vitamin additive.

Quite likely that this is amphidinium dinos and it was living with your cyano until you wiped out cyano.
Could also be diatoms or something else. If no microscope Try the two tests linked in first post, peroxide test (for cyano), and coffee filter test.

What's algae growth like in your system? Based on those P & N numbers, you ought to have algae growing quickly somewhere, in display or fudge or scrubber etc.

 

[cchomistek]

We took a sample this morning for my wife to look at under the microscope. It will be interesting to see what she finds.

I will do the coffee filter test this afternoon aswell.

As for algae, there was quite a bit of green turf algae that we wiped out about 2 months ago with a seahare and trochus snails and crabs. There always has been some light dusting type Cyano that once the turf algae disappeared became more of a matt and proliferated alot and the rust on the sand bed has been around a long time. The trochus snails all dued. We have 1 astrea snail still kicking and the crabs are still living. We rehomed the seahare for now. At this time there is only some brownish hair algae on the back wall. Not very much to be honest.

 

[mcarroll]

As for algae, there was quite a bit of green turf algae that we wiped out about 2 months ago with a seahare and trochus snails and crabs.

Interesting. Were you simultaneously using something to get rid of "excess" phosphates and nitrates, or did you just add this cleanup crew and do nothing else different? By any chance do you have a photo that shows the tank's algae growth around this timeframe?

 

[tonymacc]

Since i have stopped dosing nopox would i be better off throwing in some chaeto and growlamp now or wait till no3 and po4 is up a bit more.I can get some on the way home .

 

[mcarroll]

All things considered, I'd wait until things are back to normal for a good while before adding anything "extra" to deal with nutrients.

So I wouldn't be in any rush for the chaeto. The competition for N and P won't be welcome in the display. Any nutrients that are available should be going toward growing something in the display – something that isn't a dino, that is. Preferably corals, normal green algae, even cyano. Lots of associated critters you can't see. Et al. There's evidence that chaeto can even serve as a refugium for dino's to live in...that wouldn't exactly be serving your present interests.

 

[reeferfoxx]

All things considered, I'd wait until things are back to normal for a good while before adding anything "extra" to deal with nutrients.

So I wouldn't be in any rush for the chaeto. The competition for N and P won't be welcome in the display. Any nutrients that are available should be going toward growing something in the display – something that isn't a dino, that is. Preferably corals, normal green algae, even cyano. Lots of associated critters you can't see. Et al. There's evidence that chaeto can even serve as a refugium for dino's to live in...that wouldn't exactly be serving your present interests.

Interesting. I think that when dinos are considered unnoticeable, with high nutrients, chaeto would be a good addition. It's not an aggressive nutrient reducer and can help benefit in other fashions without dealing with excess gha. Yes corals can reduce nutrients, but cant out compete filementous algae or bacteria.

 

[cchomistek]

Interesting. Were you simultaneously using something to get rid of "excess" phosphates and nitrates, or did you just add this cleanup crew and do nothing else different? By any chance do you have a photo that shows the tank's algae growth around this timeframe?

I was doing vodka at the time to reduce the nitrates and phosphates which helped get rid of the algae aswell. I was up to 17mls of vodka per day at one point. I was seeing bacterial blooms sometimes and then I found out about the nitrogen destroyer (algae was gone at this point but wanted to further reduce the nutrients) so I put it online and wheened the tank off the vodka and then started adding the vodka in a lesser amount to the nitrogen destroyer.

 

[cchomistek]

Ok here is what was found under the microscope.

The last one was a screenshot from a video she took. As you can see there are some larger ones and some smaller dinoflagellates.

So I guess we can confirm that it is dinoflagellates. Now to figure out what type. And what can be done to get rid of them.

 

[cchomistek]

Also apparently the larger ones were more abundant than the smaller ones.

 

[cchomistek]

Perfect!

Yeah, chloramines is the popular disinfectant due to its long lasting effect in water systems. Run some carbon in the tank and look into a filter upgrade. So annoying. I just went through this too.

So do I also need to replace my RO membrane or just the carbon Block and sediment and Di resin??

 

[reeferfoxx]

So do I also need to replace my RO membrane or just the carbon Block and sediment and Di resin??

I like to replace everything when making adjustments. Its a safe approach and allow you to not worry about it for awhile.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Ok here is what was found under the microscope.

The last one was a screenshot from a video she took. As you can see there are some larger ones and some smaller dinoflagellates.

So I guess we can confirm that it is dinoflagellates. Now to figure out what type. And what can be done to get rid of them.

Its not uncommon to have multiple types. @taricha can ID like a champ.

 

[cchomistek]

I like to replace everything when making adjustments. Its a safe approach and allow you to not worry about it for awhile.

Ok right on. I agree. I have posted some pictures of what looks like amphidium and possibly prorocentrum.

Any thoughts on removal. I know everyone says raise the no3 and po4 levels to above zero but I already have both above zero.

 

[Beardo]

Ok here is what was found under the microscope.

The last one was a screenshot from a video she took. As you can see there are some larger ones and some smaller dinoflagellates.

So I guess we can confirm that it is dinoflagellates. Now to figure out what type. And what can be done to get rid of them.

I see some large cell amphidinium. Can't be positive on the smaller but would guess a small cell species of amphidinium from the last pic.

 

[cchomistek]

I see some large cell amphidinium. Can't be positive on the smaller but would guess a small cell species of amphidinium from the last pic.

I see you have gone through a treatment of dinox on a similar sized tank. Mine is 230 gallons. I do have sand. And would like to keep it. I mean I could try and get rid of it but that would be a large undertaking. Is this a method you would recommend? I do not have many corals mostly fish at this point.

 

[James Barton]

Hey everyone I started a new threading figured I'd post here as well.

I've just started battling what I believe to be dinos. My tank is about 4 months old and this stuff just came out of nowhere. It's attached to all my rocks, on my sand, my overflow, and when I blow it off it even will get stuck on my fishes fins. I don't know of it can be toxic to my livestock but I don't know where to start. My foxface will graze at it and my conchs go to town but it is always back with a vengeance. It will get all over my toadstools and mushrooms and now my torch and frogspawn won't open (not sure if the dinos is causing this).

I'm scared for my fish because as soon as I seen it stuck on the find I was thinking fin rot but noticed it wasn't really rotting the fin.

I also have a huge chunk of chaeto in my sump and have been running the lights opposite the dt cycle.

It looks a little Dusty but will get stringy when clumped together.

I need help!!!!!

Temp 78
Salinity 1.025
Ph 7.8
Ammonia/nitrite 0
Nitrate 20
Phosphate 0
Calcium 370
Magnesium 1300
Alkalinity 8

 

[Beardo]

Dino-x was very hard on my corals and I stopped at 9 doses. Still have Amphidinium though along with gyrodinium/gymnodinium. I did confirm through the scope that Dino-X will kill Amphidinium but the negative impacts were more than I was willing to suffer. I'm continuing with maintaining nutrients in hopes of eventually getting rid of them. The positive thing though is Amphidinium are not impacting my livestock like the more toxic species did.
In short, after using Dino-X in my main display, I would not recommend it.

 

[cchomistek]

So

Dino-x was very hard on my corals and I stopped at 9 doses. Still have Amphidinium though along with gyrodinium/gymnodinium. I did confirm through the scope that Dino-X will kill Amphidinium but the negative impacts were more than I was willing to suffer. I'm continuing with maintaining nutrients in hopes of eventually getting rid of them. The positive thing though is Amphidinium are not impacting my livestock like the more toxic species did.
In short, after using Dino-X in my main display, I would not recommend it.

So the most likely solution is to stop dosing the aquaforest 123 components and take the skimmer offline (or overflowing so no skimming is occuring) and over feed to drive up the nitrates and phosphates even more and allow other algae to reestablish and then try to deal with them.

 

[cchomistek]

Also since the amphidium that it appears I have you guys are saying is non toxic. Then I guess that is not the cause of my trochus snails not making it. Is there another reason these snails parished? Also is housing a seahare after the other algaes take over not a good idea?? What other clean up crew species are good at eating these amphidium dinos that are on the sand?

I mean in the end do we not strive to have a reef tank that is hair algae free or close to it?

 

[tonymacc]

Well it's looking better today, doesn't seem as much 'dust', no3 about 6ppm and po4 up to 0.04.

Another thing was going to ask, I know I need to halt of any fatty's and aminos etc but was about to go over to ati essentials once my current salt is gone, so all this has happened at an inconvenient time, am I safe to use yet? I'm still dosing my alk cal and mag with seachem atm.