Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?
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Jolanta
Active Member
Nop, cant see any movement.
Beardo
Well-Known Member
I am still running UV. There were 2 periods of time when I had taken the UV offline. During those times I did find an active Coolia. Before installation of the new UV I had found a number encysted Coolia and Osteoporosis. I believe the active Coolia were from these cysts. I believe you need to run UV for a long enough period of time for these cysts to "hatch" and then be killed.
I also still have active small cell amphidinium, large cell amphidinium (though lately I have not seen many of these), gymnodinium, gyrodinium and another unidentified dino. UV has not proven effective, at least for me, on any of these species. The gyrodinium and gymnodinium are mostly tied to the cyano I have battled with the phosphate dosing.
Over the last few weeks I am seeing a pretty good reduction in the numbers found but they are still present. On the plus side, none of the dinos present are impacting coral or livestock health.
For full disclosure; The gymnodinium and gyrodinium ID is my best guess from pictures and not verified by anyone else.
I also still have active small cell amphidinium, large cell amphidinium (though lately I have not seen many of these), gymnodinium, gyrodinium and another unidentified dino. UV has not proven effective, at least for me, on any of these species. The gyrodinium and gymnodinium are mostly tied to the cyano I have battled with the phosphate dosing.
Over the last few weeks I am seeing a pretty good reduction in the numbers found but they are still present. On the plus side, none of the dinos present are impacting coral or livestock health.
For full disclosure; The gymnodinium and gyrodinium ID is my best guess from pictures and not verified by anyone else.
Oberst Oswald
Active Member
Fell for the BRS hype and bought the UV they sell. Two of the corals I lost cost just as much as the UV unit so the money spent is OK as long as the dinos in the microscope picture I posted are free swimming (does everybody agree that these are prorocentrum?) this should do it. If it does work I'll have to buy new fish & coral to restock my 67 gallon tank. Maybe it will help to prevent future problems. If I do get a bigger tank (Red Sea Reefer 525 XL or ELOS 120) this will be piped in permanent. I so hope this works out and finality ends this issue with dinos.
Beardo
Well-Known Member
I
I agree that they are Prorocentrum. After I installed the UV, I blasted the rocks each night after lights out and early each morning to help force them into the water column. I had also removed my sandbed previously.
Samina
Valuable Member
Do you guys think that if I just leave a mild Dino outbreak alone, that it will eventually subside on its own? I have been battling an outbreak for a bit but haven’t been able to eradicate it trying a couple of techniques.
I’m wondering if it is a sort of phase that they will eventually die back itself. Otherwise, I guess I will rinse out my sandbed or possibly just eliminate the sandbed it completely.
I’m wondering if it is a sort of phase that they will eventually die back itself. Otherwise, I guess I will rinse out my sandbed or possibly just eliminate the sandbed it completely.
Bebow
Active Member
Started dosing sodium silicate solution last Friday evening, over the course of 4 days I achieved a 2-3 ppm level. Reading thr Salifert test kit is a challenge. Also hit the sandbed hard with a sand vac Saturday and Sunday. By Monday Dino’s where back in the exact same places which leads me to believe they somehow attach to the sand. I was hitting them with enough suction that I was getting sand with the water. Strange! Next time I’m just sucking then out sand and all with a hose. Still keeping up with N and P. N is around 8ppm, P is close to 1ppm.
By Monday I started seeing a brown haze on the glass, pictures where taken Tuesday of a glass scrape. Looks like diatoms and algae with some Dino’s. I didn’t expect to see Dino’s on glass also looks like I have a picture of a cell splitting.
So far my Dino population has not changed much. They are in several distinct areas which could make removal of the sand a little easier.
Started dosing sodium silicate solution last Friday evening, over the course of 4 days I achieved a 2-3 ppm level. Reading thr Salifert test kit is a challenge. Also hit the sandbed hard with a sand vac Saturday and Sunday. By Monday Dino’s where back in the exact same places which leads me to believe they somehow attach to the sand. I was hitting them with enough suction that I was getting sand with the water. Strange! Next time I’m just sucking then out sand and all with a hose. Still keeping up with N and P. N is around 8ppm, P is close to 1ppm.
By Monday I started seeing a brown haze on the glass, pictures where taken Tuesday of a glass scrape. Looks like diatoms and algae with some Dino’s. I didn’t expect to see Dino’s on glass also looks like I have a picture of a cell splitting.
So far my Dino population has not changed much. They are in several distinct areas which could make removal of the sand a little easier.
Keep us up to date. I can’t help but wonder how this plays out. Seems like the tank is responding like it’s suspected it would.
Bret Brinkmann
Well-Known Member
I don't think it will if you have dealt with it for a bit. Exactly how long is a bit anyway? Which techniques have you tried so far? People haven't had luck with cleaning the sand bed, they just come back. You could eliminate the sand but you may get another type of dino to show up in its place. Plus you wouldn't have a sand bed anymore, which is probably something you wanted if you spent money on it in the first place. Which type of dino do you have? Have you had a chance to go through the first post yet? There is some useful info for ID and treatment. Let us know and we'll be glad to help.
When is it most beneficial to siphon dinos off the sand bed? At the end of the lighting schedule when they are most visible?
Iamchadster
New Member
Hi,
Tank specs, 120 gallon tank, 40 gallon sump, SPS dominated high flow tank, plenty of Dino's on sandbed, rock and back tank glass. I don't have the microscope, I can't tell for sure which species it is, but I could start to just look at pics on the threads here and tell that the culprit is without a doubt a dinoflagellate.
I don't even know how to begin but all I can stay is that I will start by saying that I can feel all of your pain. I've been battling this as well for over a year. I have a fairly extensive background in biology and chemistry so I understand the majority of the chemical fixes that never worked and have run experiments myself to see if I could solve this horrible plague in some way. Nope, no luck as I still have the dreaded bubble-filled snot all over the tank. I have spent hundreds on solutions from equipment (Zeovit system, algae scrubber) to Algae-X, Dino-X, Metronidazole, you name it.
After researching for hours and hours on the forums and talking to my LFS nobody has come up with a solid answer. Everyone always will say "this is what worked for me", but it never does. We all get some new product and I think I can speak to most of us as how upsetting it is to try it only to find these blasted critters return. Again, I have tried every physical fix too there is from lights out to elevated pH for over a month and the darned buggers always would come back.
In fact, thinking back I have always blamed the start of my problem when I switched to dosing NOPOX over a year ago. I always thought that there was something in the product that set off the whole issue. Was it my Mysis or a food or I stopped dosing the NOPOX after patiently waiting for things to get better but they never did. Then someone I met on the Neptune Systems Forum suggested I try the Zeovit system. I tried it only to find that the tank looked a little better but the fuzzy little snotty dinos remained.
As I stated above, I have read almost every thread out there on this and would desperately grasp onto any solution that seemed to work. Then about three hours later after reading one hundred additional posts, someone would come back on and say that the fix didn't work. I got smart and started jumping ahead to the end of the thread to see what would happen to save time lol.
That is what is so exciting to me about this thread. I found as I continued to read it that the majority of the folks that changed their methods were reporting success and not coming back and saying that they had failed. My observation is that the folks that seem to struggle are the ones that didn't get to what the recommended levels were. It makes sense though because let's be honest, for ever we've been told that P and N are bad and low nutrients are the holy grail. It seems like we are dosing poison into our tanks by putting in P and N.
It was so amazing to read all of the posts on here and how similar they are to eachother in how this all began. Things like ULNS and beginning with dry rock or breaking the tank down and bleaching the rock to start over. The biodiversity aspect of this whole premise makes so much sense that it angers me that I didn't recognize and understand it sooner. But again, we've told the opposite for so long. Pics of beautiful Zeovit ULNS tanks were so desirable and all it took was a couple pumps on a reactor and some drops of a magic tincture or two. It didn't work that way for me.
So I finished reading this thread about a week ago and pulled the Zeovit system off of the tank. I added a little more live rock(dead, I know) to my sump and a softball size piece of chaeto. Simple things I had done years ago when I got into the hobby. In the sump now to keep it simple I just have the skimmer, filter socks, live rock and the chaeto, with an echotech radion as my fuge light.
I have to say that as of today, my wife agrees, the tank is looking so much better. The Dino's have definitely started to recede. I plan on adding more macro algae and have ordered the N and P dosing products, but as of now as things are getting better I am going to keep an eye on it as hopefully my tank is expanding in biodiversity and will keep the dinos under control. I have all needed test kits but haven't tested to see where I am. I simply am just seeing the changes in the tank so the numbers may not mean a lot right now. The health of the system to my eye is what I'm going by. I do test, but I have always had NandP read around undetectable to very low so it wasn't really that necessary.
Nonetheless, I want to say thank you so much for opening up our eyes to what is going on and providing the most promising information out there that I have found.
Chad
Tank specs, 120 gallon tank, 40 gallon sump, SPS dominated high flow tank, plenty of Dino's on sandbed, rock and back tank glass. I don't have the microscope, I can't tell for sure which species it is, but I could start to just look at pics on the threads here and tell that the culprit is without a doubt a dinoflagellate.
I don't even know how to begin but all I can stay is that I will start by saying that I can feel all of your pain. I've been battling this as well for over a year. I have a fairly extensive background in biology and chemistry so I understand the majority of the chemical fixes that never worked and have run experiments myself to see if I could solve this horrible plague in some way. Nope, no luck as I still have the dreaded bubble-filled snot all over the tank. I have spent hundreds on solutions from equipment (Zeovit system, algae scrubber) to Algae-X, Dino-X, Metronidazole, you name it.
After researching for hours and hours on the forums and talking to my LFS nobody has come up with a solid answer. Everyone always will say "this is what worked for me", but it never does. We all get some new product and I think I can speak to most of us as how upsetting it is to try it only to find these blasted critters return. Again, I have tried every physical fix too there is from lights out to elevated pH for over a month and the darned buggers always would come back.
In fact, thinking back I have always blamed the start of my problem when I switched to dosing NOPOX over a year ago. I always thought that there was something in the product that set off the whole issue. Was it my Mysis or a food or I stopped dosing the NOPOX after patiently waiting for things to get better but they never did. Then someone I met on the Neptune Systems Forum suggested I try the Zeovit system. I tried it only to find that the tank looked a little better but the fuzzy little snotty dinos remained.
As I stated above, I have read almost every thread out there on this and would desperately grasp onto any solution that seemed to work. Then about three hours later after reading one hundred additional posts, someone would come back on and say that the fix didn't work. I got smart and started jumping ahead to the end of the thread to see what would happen to save time lol.
That is what is so exciting to me about this thread. I found as I continued to read it that the majority of the folks that changed their methods were reporting success and not coming back and saying that they had failed. My observation is that the folks that seem to struggle are the ones that didn't get to what the recommended levels were. It makes sense though because let's be honest, for ever we've been told that P and N are bad and low nutrients are the holy grail. It seems like we are dosing poison into our tanks by putting in P and N.
It was so amazing to read all of the posts on here and how similar they are to eachother in how this all began. Things like ULNS and beginning with dry rock or breaking the tank down and bleaching the rock to start over. The biodiversity aspect of this whole premise makes so much sense that it angers me that I didn't recognize and understand it sooner. But again, we've told the opposite for so long. Pics of beautiful Zeovit ULNS tanks were so desirable and all it took was a couple pumps on a reactor and some drops of a magic tincture or two. It didn't work that way for me.
So I finished reading this thread about a week ago and pulled the Zeovit system off of the tank. I added a little more live rock(dead, I know) to my sump and a softball size piece of chaeto. Simple things I had done years ago when I got into the hobby. In the sump now to keep it simple I just have the skimmer, filter socks, live rock and the chaeto, with an echotech radion as my fuge light.
I have to say that as of today, my wife agrees, the tank is looking so much better. The Dino's have definitely started to recede. I plan on adding more macro algae and have ordered the N and P dosing products, but as of now as things are getting better I am going to keep an eye on it as hopefully my tank is expanding in biodiversity and will keep the dinos under control. I have all needed test kits but haven't tested to see where I am. I simply am just seeing the changes in the tank so the numbers may not mean a lot right now. The health of the system to my eye is what I'm going by. I do test, but I have always had NandP read around undetectable to very low so it wasn't really that necessary.
Nonetheless, I want to say thank you so much for opening up our eyes to what is going on and providing the most promising information out there that I have found.
Chad
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Look at the diatoms! I don't think you'll see a quick change but with all that food for organisms, it might help speed things up. I would maybe keep the influx of diatoms slow and steady. When they look like they are going away, just dose again. If there is one common element to nature, we all (try to) multiply in times of stress or danger.Started dosing sodium silicate solution last Friday evening, over the course of 4 days I achieved a 2-3 ppm level. Reading thr Salifert test kit is a challenge. Also hit the sandbed hard with a sand vac Saturday and Sunday. By Monday Dino’s where back in the exact same places which leads me to believe they somehow attach to the sand. I was hitting them with enough suction that I was getting sand with the water. Strange! Next time I’m just sucking then out sand and all with a hose. Still keeping up with N and P. N is around 8ppm, P is close to 1ppm.
By Monday I started seeing a brown haze on the glass, pictures where taken Tuesday of a glass scrape. Looks like diatoms and algae with some Dino’s. I didn’t expect to see Dino’s on glass also looks like I have a picture of a cell splitting.
So far my Dino population has not changed much. They are in several distinct areas which could make removal of the sand a little easier.
Or an hour before lights out. I heard someone once talk about how they, somehow(?), forgot to turn their lights off one night and the dinos still retreated as if they were on a schedule. That's just what I heard.
Great story! I'll agree, the trials and tribulations we all go through is the most frustrating. I applaud you for sticking to it and keeping up with the battle. I will say your new beginning of keeping things simple is the best approach. I myself have battled different strains of dinos and they all have their only little niche for survival. Though things seem to improve, keep in mind they will pounce any chance they get. I'm at the point now where I don't see dinos but my goal is to diversify my "dry rock" tank as much as possible. I've added live rock, walt smiths fiji mud, pods, gone without water changes, let the tank get 'dirty', fed heavily. I don't expect you to do exactly what Ive done but consider ways to feed the microbial communities the best you can. I also dose Dr. Tims one and only bacteria once a week with Dr. Tims Eco-Balance(probiotic) to fight off bad bacteria. I will say the down fall to my approach brought on a small patch of bubble algae with some spots that grow green hair algae. To be honest, the tank wouldn't be as natural without it. My snails and pods benefit from it and for once in almost two years I'm getting crazy sponge growth. The fiji mud has cause my coralline algae to explode and SPS polyps are always out.
Good luck with your battle!
Iamchadster
New Member
I am not sure if it contributed to the current recession, but I decided about 2 weeks ago to remove all of the aragonite and leave it in a couple of 5 gallon buckets in the garage. I didn't wash it then and just let it sit dry and ran my tank BB for about a week. It was a royal pain to get it all out, but I couldn't take the look of it any longer and I figured BB would be easier to keep the dinos in suspension as I tried to remove them. Either chemically or physically as at that time I hadn't found this thread yet. I am not sure whether it was diatoms or dinos that appeared on the bottom but I suspect diatoms just based on how evenly it grew on the newly exposed glass bottom. Needless to say I hated the way the BB tank looked. The fear of a small rock on my reef falling off and hitting the glass was something I constantly worried about as well. So with the info from this thread and the knowledge of how important a sandbed is to supporting that diversity I decided to return the aragonite to the tank.
I don't know if it was a mistake or not, but I took little by little and washed the aragonite in my garage sink. We have pretty good water where I live, in fact it shows about 35-50 TDS IIRC out of the tap and pretty mild amounts of other elements based on the Water Board's analysis so I didn't even rinse it off with RODI first before returning to the tank. Maybe the small amount of chlorine helped lol.. I then returned about half of the original washed aragonite back to the tank. So far now on day three with it back it is still as white as ever without any growth.
So my current plan is to continue steady as she goes and watch for any decline or improvements based on any other changes I make and report. @reeferfoxx I'd be interested to here more about the macros if any you have growing in your mud. I've been tempted to add a couple of trays to the system, but I'm not sure how they would compare to the chaeto. I forgot to add something about my regimen. As I already had it, I have been dosing 6 drops of Zeobak (bacteria tincture) to the tank every day to try and help colonize whatever bacteria I can. I tossed all of the other products such as Zeostart(carbon source), Coral Vitalizer (aminos), and any other thing that could be contributing unneeded carbon sources to the tank as suggest in this thread.
I don't know if it was a mistake or not, but I took little by little and washed the aragonite in my garage sink. We have pretty good water where I live, in fact it shows about 35-50 TDS IIRC out of the tap and pretty mild amounts of other elements based on the Water Board's analysis so I didn't even rinse it off with RODI first before returning to the tank. Maybe the small amount of chlorine helped lol.. I then returned about half of the original washed aragonite back to the tank. So far now on day three with it back it is still as white as ever without any growth.
So my current plan is to continue steady as she goes and watch for any decline or improvements based on any other changes I make and report. @reeferfoxx I'd be interested to here more about the macros if any you have growing in your mud. I've been tempted to add a couple of trays to the system, but I'm not sure how they would compare to the chaeto. I forgot to add something about my regimen. As I already had it, I have been dosing 6 drops of Zeobak (bacteria tincture) to the tank every day to try and help colonize whatever bacteria I can. I tossed all of the other products such as Zeostart(carbon source), Coral Vitalizer (aminos), and any other thing that could be contributing unneeded carbon sources to the tank as suggest in this thread.
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I'm not running any macros(yet). The use of fiji mud vs miracle mud are two different metas. Yes fiji mud can be added to a tray and put in the refugium similar to miracle mud. However, fiji mud is wet and is literally pulled from the ocean. It contains trace elements but also microorganisms. I use it for the latter. There are instruction on how to broadcast it which is what I do. For my tank size I add half a tablespoon of mud to a cup of tank water. Swirl it around and then pour it into the tank. It takes a few hours to clear up. Has no negative effects on fish or coral. I do this twice a week.
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Make sure it is. It grows in fern like patterns with a group of stems coming from a point. I say this because my hair algae looked like bryopsis at first but wasnt.
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