Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[O'l Salty]

I no longer have faith in my original ID. There was never enough detail of the front end to be sure. sorry.
I'm 50/50 on whether it's amphidinium or prorocetrum.
the snotty blobs are not the most common amphidinium presentation. They are more typical of proros. Amphidinium are more dusty.
Amphidinium look lighter after darkness too, because they go down into the sand. Anyway. I think adding UV is worth a try. I'm still unsure on which one we're looking at.

How many watt UV would I need for a 40 breeder?

 

[taricha]

1 watt per 2 gal seems to be sufficient for the dino cases we've seen.

 

[JonJ]

I had some issues with dinos increasing a few weeks after starting dosing of phosphates as well. I still think it's the right way to go for long term control though. Your chaeto may be hurting your battle since it is taking up nutrients and may harbor dinos as they can be found on chaeto in nature.
Coolia was one of the dominant species in my tank. Adding a properly sized UV proved to be a big help for me in the battle. Just something to think about if you continue to struggle with them.
Losing coral is a real concern; I lost the majority of my coral from a combination of the dinos and some of the methods I used trying to combat them. Keeping nutrients up should help keep from starving the corals and using activated carbon helps with the toxins.
Good luck in your fight.

I turned off the refugium light and I am going to leave it off until this is over. I had a thought the other day- I wonder if running a reverse light cycled refugium can cause dinos to explode? You always have dinos getting light. My tank looks perfect in the morning and vaccing the entire sandbed each week is keeping them at bay. There are no bubbles on my sandbed and it looks just like diatoms. Absolutely nothing on the rock and that’s probably because of my flow- I run 4 mp40s on full reef crest mode. Trying no fuge light and sand vaccing for another week and if they aren’t gone, the sand is coming out. I’ll boil it all and add it back once this is behind me.
Thanks for your help!

 

[IKD]

Thank you for the report @IKD
Sorry for coral losses. When did the corals suffer, could you put it in place in the time line of your outbreak, treatments etc?
Doesn't feel entirely like victory until we can keep livestock healthy through the process.

The corals loss really took place over the course of the two weeks. I have some detailed Excel notes, but will try to summarize a timeline here since I don't know how to insert a table.

1/6: Noticed dino accumulation on small monti. Put tarp over tank for 3 days
1/9: Removed tarp
1/10: Re-observed dino's. Started dosing Nitrate (100ml Spectracide Stump Remover) (2.3ppm added)
1/11: Added Carbon Filter
Nitrate = 2.5; Added 50ml Spectracide (1.15ppm more)
1/15: Bloom noted; lasted several days; Hard to see coral die-off due to dino's persistent re-coating
Nitrate = 2.5; Added 50ml Spectracide (1.15ppm more)
1/16: Phosphate = 0.0; Dosing Seachem Flourish (20ml to add 0.1ppm)
Nitrate = 2.5; Added 50ml Spectracide (1.15ppm more)
1/17: Phosphate = 0.0; Dosed Flourish (20ml to add 0.1ppm)
Nitrate = 3.5; Added 50ml Spectracide (1.15ppm more)
1/18: Phosphate = 0.12
Nitrate = ~4
1/19: Phosphate = 0.0; Dosed Flourish (20ml to add 0.1ppm)
Nitrate = ~4
1/20: Added Chaeto, Caulerpa, used Miracle Mud to sump
1/21-1/31: Dosing Phosphate and Nitrate to keep levels sustained at levels of 6-10ppm Nitate; 0.8-.14
2/1: Added 114w AquaUV Sterilizer running 24x7

I would say most of the coral loss was in the past week (1/20-1/26) time frame, but it was a process that started back on 1/15 with the bloom that lasted several days.

I did keep stats on the Phosphate consumption (ppm/hr) which was interesting to see. It was a very high consumption rate at the start (.0082ppm/hr), then leveled off after a few days to about .0027ppm/hr

Hope this helps, but happy to give any more details as well

Thanks,
Ian

 

[taricha]

The corals loss really took place over the course of the two weeks. I have some detailed Excel notes, but will try to summarize a timeline here since I don't know how to insert a table.

Thanks I sent you PM to hopefully get a look at detailed notes. Sounds great.
Did the corals bleach before death?

 

[kinetic]

Struggling a lot with my dinos now. I've been dosing NO3 (using sodium nitrate) to get the levels to 5ppm. PO4 seems to be around 24ppb with amino acid dosing, but I think I'll switch to trisodium phosphate.

The more I dose, the thicker the mat of dinos becomes. I'll manually remove as much as I can one day, and the next day, I have a 1/4" mat of dinos everywhere.

I see more green algae growing underneath the dinos, but just not enough. I have chaeto coming this week, but not sure if that's going to help.

I have a 8watt UV Sterilizer running, but I could add another 9watt to the system (spare).

I also have a bottle of DinoX just sitting on the shelf. Should I just try dosing that to see if I can kill off the dinos and hope the algae will kick in?

 

[mcarroll]

I’ll boil it all and add it back once this is behind me.

Almost never worth the effort – it's sand, let it go!

And in your case might be deadly to boil in your house if your sand does have any toxic dino's in it.

 

[JonJ]

The corals loss really took place over the course of the two weeks. I have some detailed Excel notes, but will try to summarize a timeline here since I don't know how to insert a table.

1/6: Noticed dino accumulation on small monti. Put tarp over tank for 3 days
1/9: Removed tarp
1/10: Re-observed dino's. Started dosing Nitrate (100ml Spectracide Stump Remover) (2.3ppm added)
1/11: Added Carbon Filter
Nitrate = 2.5; Added 50ml Spectracide (1.15ppm more)
1/15: Bloom noted; lasted several days; Hard to see coral die-off due to dino's persistent re-coating
Nitrate = 2.5; Added 50ml Spectracide (1.15ppm more)
1/16: Phosphate = 0.0; Dosing Seachem Flourish (20ml to add 0.1ppm)
Nitrate = 2.5; Added 50ml Spectracide (1.15ppm more)
1/17: Phosphate = 0.0; Dosed Flourish (20ml to add 0.1ppm)
Nitrate = 3.5; Added 50ml Spectracide (1.15ppm more)
1/18: Phosphate = 0.12
Nitrate = ~4
1/19: Phosphate = 0.0; Dosed Flourish (20ml to add 0.1ppm)
Nitrate = ~4
1/20: Added Chaeto, Caulerpa, used Miracle Mud to sump
1/21-1/31: Dosing Phosphate and Nitrate to keep levels sustained at levels of 6-10ppm Nitate; 0.8-.14
2/1: Added 114w AquaUV Sterilizer running 24x7

I would say most of the coral loss was in the past week (1/20-1/26) time frame, but it was a process that started back on 1/15 with the bloom that lasted several days.

I did keep stats on the Phosphate consumption (ppm/hr) which was interesting to see. It was a very high consumption rate at the start (.0082ppm/hr), then leveled off after a few days to about .0027ppm/hr

Hope this helps, but happy to give any more details as well

Thanks,
Ian

This makes me feel ill to read about the losses. I have thousands of dollars in frags happily encrusted and colored up great. I’m wondering if I should frag my frags leaving just the encrusted area behind? I have another tank that I could move them to. If I start seeing losses I guess I will have no choice... I have probably tested my nitrates and phosphates 4 times today already, lol! This stuff sucks!

Almost never worth the effort – it's sand, let it go!

And in your case might be deadly to boil in your house if your sand does have any toxic dino's in it.

Thanks for that warning! I didn’t even think of that. I was thinking of using an outdoor beer burner and huge pot but I will just order more sand.

 

[wopadobop]

Interesting development.!

So after dosing an entire bottle of ocean magic and 40 ml of phosphorous . Checked P on ulr reading of 23 last night.
Tonight at 8 pm i checked again. 8 ppb! Dosed another 40 ml of phosphorus . Ill check again tomorrow .

However. I now have an explosion of flat worms that seem to be eating the Dino’s. See photo.

They are on the glass, rocks and overflows . All of those white specs are flat worms.
I can attempt to capture one and scope it if someone is interested in IDing them . Maybe this is a species that is found in some tanks and not others thus being the reason some tanks have issues and some dont ??? I think its worth looking into.

 

[taricha]

Struggling a lot with my dinos now. I've been dosing NO3 (using sodium nitrate) to get the levels to 5ppm. PO4 seems to be around 24ppb with amino acid dosing, but I think I'll switch to trisodium phosphate.

The more I dose, the thicker the mat of dinos becomes. I'll manually remove as much as I can one day, and the next day, I have a 1/4" mat of dinos everywhere.

I see more green algae growing underneath the dinos, but just not enough. I have chaeto coming this week, but not sure if that's going to help.

I have a 8watt UV Sterilizer running, but I could add another 9watt to the system (spare).

I also have a bottle of DinoX just sitting on the shelf. Should I just try dosing that to see if I can kill off the dinos and hope the algae will kick in?

Amino acid dosing? That's what I use when I'm trying to make dinos really grow. They looove it.
Most amino acids are more of a source of N than P anyway. Definitely any other P source is better.

DinoX has seemed to stress people's systems more not less.

But yeah, add whatever other UV you've got.

 

[taricha]

However. I now have an explosion of flat worms that seem to be eating the Dino’s. See photo.

They are on the glass, rocks and overflows . All of those white specs are flat worms.
I can attempt to capture one and scope it if someone is interested in IDing them .

Well, now you HAVE to!
You can't just post a grainy blue pic and say your tank is full of white dots that eat dinos.
That's a pretty epic tease though, lol. [emoji4]

 

[fishbox]

I had a thought the other day- I wonder if running a reverse light cycled refugium can cause dinos to explode? You always have dinos getting light. My tank looks perfect in the morning !

Interesting question. Anyone got thoughts?

 

[kinetic]

Amino acid dosing? That's what I use when I'm trying to make dinos really grow. They looove it.
Most amino acids are more of a source of N than P anyway. Definitely any other P source is better.

DinoX has seemed to stress people's systems more not less.

But yeah, add whatever other UV you've got.

Well, today I switched to dosing Trisodium Phosphate instead of amino acids. I'll be controlling NO3 and PO4 with dosing the exact amounts to the tank.

My question is, if I try to kill the dinos with DinoX, will that ultimately help the other algae grow in since the dinos are dying, and then that should speed up the outcompeting process?

 

[wopadobop]

Most reports of Dino x use is that its an algaecide. It’s a temporary fix at best.

 

[wopadobop]

Interesting question. Anyone got thoughts?

Not really. I have always run one BUT i can tell you that this last Dino explosion was kicked off when i cleaned the refugium without isolating it from the main display . There was a big kick up of waste from the refugium bed and before i realized the pump was still on it got into the display.

Big nutrient disturbances are one of the main causes of Dino outbreaks. Wether up or down.

 

[Paullawr]

Just a quick update for me. Dealing with Ostreopsis and Coolia; I started raising Nitrates/Phosphate about two weeks ago (levels at 6-10ppm Nitate; 0.8-.14 Phosphate). I added Chaeto, Caulerpa, MicroCater7 and some used miracle mud from my LFS. I saw a dino bloom at first, then it leveled off. But for a week or so, the dino's didn't get worse but nothing significantly improved either (probably just needed time for new competition to get a foothold). With advice/reading from @Paullawr, @taricha, @Jolanta, @Beardo, and others, I finally got my AquaUV 114w sterilizer installed on Thursday for my 265g. That seems to have really turned the corner with this battle with them. I have the pump draw directly from the display as a temp setup and blow the rocks with a turkey baster a few times a day. Looking over the battlefield, I've lost nearly all my monti's and about 75% of my SPS. The LPS corals have done well though. I guess the old monti's will be shelves for new corals to be placed on. I'm optimistic at this point and may do a 20% water change soon.

Good optimism. Yes it's soul destroying losing corals. Howevef that's not half as bad as losing the will to remain in the hobby.

A good fish keeper is one that bounces back after the unexpected and improves on that past failure. Whatever it maybe.

We all gain knowledge in this hobby even if sometimes we choose not to first accept it (me - that's my biggest failing at times).

The skeletons will make excellent shelves for new coral growth and to be honest with you, will look very natural.

 

[O'l Salty]

I no longer have faith in my original ID. There was never enough detail of the front end to be sure. sorry.
I'm 50/50 on whether it's amphidinium or prorocetrum.
the snotty blobs are not the most common amphidinium presentation. They are more typical of proros. Amphidinium are more dusty.
Amphidinium look lighter after darkness too, because they go down into the sand. Anyway. I think adding UV is worth a try. I'm still unsure on which one we're looking at.

A few more pictures. Interesting how the one pictures show's the dino's corralled, maybe an oxygen bubble. The other pictures show a well deformed mass except at the tip where it looks like something is erupting. Finally there is an unorganized mass of small golden objects. Wondering if these are baby Dino's.

Does help better to identify which ones they are?

 

[Cscultho]

I recently added sand back to my system after several months. I removed the sand to help the ostreopsis battle--and it worked. But now that i added sand the dino's are waking up. My N&P are still elevated, 20 & .01 respectively. Bubbles are popping up on rocks and sand for the first time in 3 months. im not adding the UV back just yet because i feel this process kills more than dinos but all good stuff that helps battle dinos. i feel a UV might be a vicious circle similar to adding chemicals. Anyways ive found my dino really increase when my white lights are at a higher intensity BUT when i tone them down and run stronger BLUE's i can keep the dinos at a manageable level. High intensity White light makes them very strong in my tank. My corals still grow very well with high blue lights and for my tank right now this is the balance. I plan to run this way for a couple months and do water changes once a month and see if my tank will balance out and the dino will go to sleep.

 

[CDavmd]

Anyways ive found my dino really increase when my white lights are at a higher intensity BUT when i tone them down and run stronger BLUE's i can keep the dinos at a manageable level. High intensity White light makes them very strong in my tank.

Yes. Photosynthetic organisms both terrestrial and marine are more sensitive to the 400-700 nm range of the spectrum. The antenna complex and photosystem machinery for energy capture uses the lower energy photons in the red part of the spectrum. The higher energy blue photons are not able to be converted into biomass and are given off as heat energy. The zooxanthellae in corals are no different but the corals are not exclusively dependent on them for all there energy needs.

Regardless a blue and shorter photoperiod will contribute in the battle but not win it. Some Dino’s are more sensitive to lack of photoenergy than others. In the end we need to achieve a balanced ecosystem and environment that does not favor one organism over others.

As we discussed yesterday...is this plague of Dino’s really just more awareness and earlier more accurate diagnosis or a product of the last decade of carbon dosing, biopellets, more efficient phosphate removal and the push for Ultra low nutrients which frequently bottom out. Compounded by the hobby moving toward sterile rock infrastructure and limited biodiversity. I for one think it’s the latter. It will be interesting to see where we go over the next 5 years....

 

[taricha]

A few more pictures.
Does help better to identify which ones they are?

Good grief. Those look more like ostreopsis. Not like any of the others posted before.
Definitely get a UV and add that to the system.
Still not confident on IDs but let's run a strong UV and simplify things.
The mass of tiny golden dots were where a Dino was smashed between the slide & cover.