Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

zachxlutz · Mar 8, 2018

Re: Silica Dosing @taricha

I've been dosing SpongExcel by Brightwell for a few weeks now at a rate of .57 ppm silicates added daily (20ml in 140gals). Never saw them register on the Salifert test kit. No matter how much I dosed. Didn't see any reduction in LCA dinos in the sandbed. Sponge growth increased, slight brown dusting on rocks, but never an impact on the LCA on the sandbed. Not sure it's worth buying a Hanna colorimeter to check silica levels. I've stopped dosing as of a few days ago. I'll report back in again with how things look once the silica gets all used up. Over the last few weeks, without looking at my notes, I must have added 7-8ppm of Si to the system.

kecked · Mar 8, 2018

Just curious. Has anyone used a diatom filter on dinos? Thinking to run it over night(4 hours or so after lights out) when they detach and after I blow them off the rocks.
Wonder if this would drop the population so the other measures like increasing p and n can work faster. Probably strip my good bacteria too though so add Tims one and only after the run. My other idea of a hydrocyclone is looking like a bust. Guess I better save my pennies for a UV unit.

g5flier · Mar 8, 2018

Want to extend a HUGE thank you to all that participate in this thread! On February 10th I returned from a week long dive trip to find my 3.5 month old system full of Dino's. Followed the advice that was made; stop feeding coral, run UV 24/7, dose nutrients to 5ppm Nitrate and 0.1ppm Phosphate and get rid of as much of the dino's as possible. This became a daily chore and between the cleaning and testing but I prevailed. Just returned from a 4 day business trip to find ZERO evidence of dinos in this system. YES they can be beat!!!

Mike S · Mar 8, 2018

Can't thank you guys enough! Battled dinos several years ago it took several months to rid my tank trying blackouts, peroxide... tradional approaches. Lost lots of corals along the way. Last week I got my PO4 and NO3 up and as of tonight I have to look hard to find any visible evidence of them. Only lost two frags. Will go searchibg with my microscope but I think I've turned the corner.

Bob Lauson · Mar 8, 2018

kecked said:
Just curious. Has anyone used a diatom filter on dinos? Thinking to run it over night(4 hours or so after lights out) when they detach and after I blow them off the rocks.
Wonder if this would drop the population so the other measures like increasing p and n can work faster. Probably strip my good bacteria too though so add Tims one and only after the run. My other idea of a hydrocyclone is looking like a bust. Guess I better save my pennies for a UV unit.

I used a 10 micron filter on my vacuum system which should be fine enough to catch all the dinos I could vacuum out. It was pretty clean after I ran the water/dinos through it but they all came back the next morning

kecked · Mar 9, 2018

I give up. UV filter on order.

reeferfoxx · Mar 9, 2018

kecked said:
I give up. UV filter on order.

Have faith in us. We know whats up.

Jaysin13 · Mar 9, 2018

Hey guys. New here. I've been reading this thread for 2 days and I think I have amphidinium dinoflagellate. It's not snotty or bubbly. My tank is 8 months old and been at 0 N and 0 P for probably 6 months. I always read you wanted to eliminate them which I now see is not the case.

May initial plan is to raise my P and N to the appropriate level and go from there.

Jaysin13 · Mar 9, 2018

Jaysin13 said:
Hey guys. New here. I've been reading this thread for 2 days and I think I have amphidinium dinoflagellate. It's not snotty or bubbly. My tank is 8 months old and been at 0 N and 0 P for probably 6 months. I always read you wanted to eliminate them which I now see is not the case.

May initial plan is to raise my P and N to the appropriate level and go from there.

Here are some pics.

Jeremy Gibbs · Mar 9, 2018

kecked said:
Just curious. Has anyone used a diatom filter on dinos? Thinking to run it over night(4 hours or so after lights out) when they detach and after I blow them off the rocks.
Wonder if this would drop the population so the other measures like increasing p and n can work faster. Probably strip my good bacteria too though so add Tims one and only after the run. My other idea of a hydrocyclone is looking like a bust. Guess I better save my pennies for a UV unit.

Dinoflagellates reproduce predominantly through binary or multiple fission. They can divide as fast as once per day. Many are cyst forming meaning they go into an armored shell when conditions become unfavorable for a continued bloom. They can exist as dormant cysts for years. Physical removal may make you feel better but aside from blowing them off of corals to prevent smothering it doesn't really help much with treatment. Get half of them in the system and 12-24 hours later their numbers are right back up. For that same reason UV isn't a very good answer either. Especially when you consider that some dinos are almost entirely benthic and even the free living varieties usually have a benthic aggregate form. If they didn't, how would you notice them in the first place? UV only kills things in the water column. It's important to identify what type you have with a microscope because what type they are may impact your choice of treatment method. But, regardless, most of the success stories you find involve increasing biodiversity at the microfauna level and making sure your nitrate and phosphate levels aren't zero as this limits other organisms that will potentially outcompete the dinos. Most of the successes don't involve UV.

Jeremy Gibbs · Mar 9, 2018

Jaysin13 said:
Here are some pics.

That does appear to be Amphidinium. There's a separate thread for them started by Taricha.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/amphidinium-dinoflagellate-treatment-methods.365850/

Jaysin13 · Mar 9, 2018

Sweet! Thank you.

RedneckReefer68 · Mar 10, 2018

It's been a little over a week and a half since I added a cheap on tank UV. The night I added it I turned off all flow and watched the bubble stands float to the top. I used a big plastic baking spoon to kind of guide them in the intake for close to an hr. The next day saw maybe a couple strands but wasn't sure. It's been a little over a week and a half and they haven't came back even after a couple big water changes. BTW UV is still running when lights are off.

saltwaterpicaso · Mar 10, 2018

I have the kind in the sand uv has helped adding phosphate has not it made it worst I have noticed the cleaner I keep the tank the slower they come back I'm going to bottom out all nutrients and hope it starves them out. I also want to add to my cleanup crew is there snails that eat it I don't think mine are poisonous I have not lost any clean up crew except my urchins and it was because of dino x

wlittlefield · Mar 10, 2018

Thoughts?

Dino vs Diatom and what to do:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diatoms-vs-dinos.366966/

dwest · Mar 11, 2018

Hey Beardo (or anyone fighting small cell amphidinium), I was wondering how your tank was doing...I saw that after you added UV, you still have amphidinium as I do (small cell). Any progress with those? I also saw that in the past you though Dino-x possibly helped with amphidinium. Do you still believe that (I realize that this isn't the point of this thread, but elevated nutrients, blowing off rocks daily, and properly sized UV aren't helping me)? Any other suggestions? I have not yet removed my sand. Should I?

Beardo · Mar 11, 2018

dwest said:
Hey Beardo (or anyone fighting small cell amphidinium), I was wondering how your tank was doing...I saw that after you added UV, you still have amphidinium as I do (small cell). Any progress with those? I also saw that in the past you though Dino-x possibly helped with amphidinium. Do you still believe that (I realize that this isn't the point of this thread, but elevated nutrients, blowing off rocks daily, and properly sized UV aren't helping me)? Any other suggestions? I have not yet removed my sand. Should I?

Hey dwest,
My tank is progressing very well but it has taken a long time compared to some others. You are correct, I did add the larger UV which took care of some of my dinos (ostreopsis, coolia and prorocentrum) pretty quickly but I continued to battle others including large cell and small cell amphidinium along with what I believe are/were gyrodinium and gymnodinium. Fortunately I didn't see much effect of toxins from these so I felt I could start moving forward with the tank again and started to add some corals in November.

I had removed my sand bend previously and cannot definitively say whether it helped or not.

As far as dino-x; I did some testing with it and added a drop to a slide with the small cell amphidinium and saw an instant impact then followed up by adding 2 drops to the sample cup and checking under the scope and finding the same results. I did 9 doses on the display following the directions. I did see a reduction in the numbers and found dead amphidinium in my samples but plenty of live ones as well. I also found it to be very harsh to the corals, especially the remaining sps pieces. In the end I lost all but 2 pieces of sps and still had dinos. My recommendation from personal experience is not to use it.
I continued with maintaining nutrient levels for many months and ended up with a severe cyano outbreak but had issues with getting any green algae to grow. I believe the length of re-establishing a natural balance is tied to the condition of the tank when you begin battling. I had fought dinos for so long and tried so many different things I feel my microfauna population was pretty much decimated.

I continued to siphon the cyano and dinos out with water changes. I also purchased some 1 micron filter socks and would siphon the water through them to cut down on the amount of water changes I was doing, salt gets expensive. I felt I needed to try something else as I believe the cyano was consuming the nutrients and preventing green algae from growing and some of the dinos were heavily tied to the cyano. I went ahead a did a 3 day lights out and would blast the rocks in the morning and night with the 1 micron socks installed. I only left the 1 micron socks in for maybe an hour after blasting the rocks then went back to my standard filter socks. This helped to knock the cyano way back and I finally started to get some green algae growth shortly after. Cyano started to slowly creep back in and I did one more two day lights out with the same routine of blasting the rocks I did previously.

It has been about a month since I did the second lights out. I sit today with some minimal cyano growth along with small amounts of green algae on a few rocks. The tangs and snails keep the green algae pretty well under control though. I see very limited signs of any dino growth at this point as well. I do need to put a sample under the scope to see what it what though. I'm sure there are still a few dinos still lurking but they are well controlled at this point. I have let my nutrient levels fall naturally. Nitrate levels are in the 5 - 10 range though phosphates are pretty low again. I do add small doses of phosphates but am comfortable with the lower levels since I do have some green algae which I know is consuming it. Adding larger doses of phosphates at this point just fuels the cyano growth. the amphipod population has exploded and the rocks are crawling with them after lights out. I also see copepods on the glass at night when the glass is dirty.

I plan to add a sand bed back soon but will go with live sand from TBS to increase the tank diversity along with about 25 pounds of new live rock from TBS as well. I don't want to add dry sand at this point as I am afraid it would give any remaining dinos a blank slate on which to populate. The corals I have added are all doing great and growing. Will soon be adding more fish as well as I lost some during earlier treatment attempts (metro proved very destructive for me).

Sorry for such a long response but wanted to be a clear as possible on everything I have done. It can be a long battle but in this case slow and steady wins the race.
Don't hesitate to shoot me a PM if you have any questions.

Edit: I did want to add that I continue to run the UV and will permanently

saltyhog · Mar 11, 2018

My battle continues. Started having problems a couple of months ago. This was a video from 1/19 and appears to be ostreopsis

I've been dosing nitrate and phosphate since then with nitrate never falling below 5, phosphate running from 0.08 to 0.19 during that time. I thought I was doing well. No bubbles or snot for a few weeks, only a light dusting of biofilm on the sand (takes a few days to reappear after siphoning) and a moderate biofilm on the glass. Nothing visible on the rock.

This is a video from today. Sample taken from the biofilm on the glass. First video same power as the video above, second is on low power.

These guys are much smaller, much faster and swim pretty randomly, no spinning. It appears I still have a dino problem but a new species predominating now? What species? What next?

dwest · Mar 11, 2018

Thanks very much Beardo. I cant tell you how helpful your posts have been to me. I will follow your advice on not using Dino-x. I have very good pod population and will try to keep my sand in place for now. I can keep my rock relatively clean with daily blasting. Strangely, I'm getting most of my growth now on the back and sides of the glass (180 gallon). I've read that I may want to leave that, but I'm starting to siphon that as well just to reduce the dino population. Thanks again.