Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[dwest]

Kecked did your Jebao UV help your coolia? I've been running 2 UV units (one 55W Jebao and one 57W) on my 180 gallon and my pods are still very evident. No noticeable drop in number. Unfortunately, no drop in my small cell amphidiuium either, which is to be expected. Similar to you, I had my old reef tank for over 20 years. Unfortunately, I did have a dino breakout about at year 18. Strangely, adding GFO and replacing half of my sand did the trick. So I thought continuous GFO on my new tank would keep them away. Wrong!

 

[kecked]

Best I could do with my scope and phone. It’s on paper towel. I’ll try with better scope at work.

 

[dwest]

Kecked, OK, I see they are still present. Just verifying that you did hook up your sterilizer. What pump or flowrate did you end up using and did you hook it to display?

 

[kecked]

Those are from my little tank. No uv there yet. The big tank has 55w 200gph from display to display flow.
No perm connection yet. The pump is just in the tank and the unit just above the water dumping back in. I gave it a slight up angle to keep air out. Looked better today actually but it’s still morning....

I started removing my one of sand yesterday. It was just decorative so I can add it later. It’s soaking in peroxide at the moment

 

[Crashjack]

Been following for a while but admit, I haven't read all 175 pages. I started my fight against dinos a few months ago after letting the problem ride for a month or two. When I was in the hobby early-90's - early 2000's (7 or 8 years total), I never dealt with or heard of such a thing. I also never had to worry about nutrients being too low. Yes, I started with live rock when I was in the hobby before, and this go-r0und started with all dry pukani. After curing the rock for a couple of months, I set the tank up in June 2017. During curing, I ran Phosguard due to all of the phosphate horror stories with Pukani and saw phosphates go down. After setting the tank up, I figured my nitrates and phosphates would be high, but I was quarantining and adding fish to the DT slowly and only adding zoas and hearty LPS pretty slowly. I also added the normal CUC and purchased pods for my refugium where I was growing chaeto. At first, my chaeto grew like crazy so everything seemed normal. After a while, I tested nitrates and phosphates. I got 0 Nitrates (NYOS) and 0 phosphates (API). I knew the resolution on my API kit was terrible but hated using my Hanna ULR, which I used while I was curing my rock. I figured my phosphates were probably kind of high but at least lower than .25 ppm, which is the lowest measurable ppm with the API kit. During the next month or two, I noticed my chaeto just wasn't growing and hadn't been growing for a while. Just for grins, I measured nitrate and phosphate again (this time with the Hanna ULR) and again got 0 nitrate, but got 2 ppb phosphate with the ULR. I thought to myself, "This is great!" I was also noticing some brown slimy stuff growing in spots on the sand. I thought it was cyano and tried to treat. It mostly went away for a day or two but came back with a vengeance. I had noticed for a while (pretty much since I added my first corals), that with the exception of two gorgonians that were growing, my corals were not growing at all though they looked ok. As the brown stuff got worse, my fish started acting different. They still fed, but exhibited different behavior... some more skittish, some less skittish when typically they are more skittish, just weird stuff. I started researching, found this thread and figured out my problem. Unfortunately, I wasn't nearly aggressive enough with nutrient additions and wasted 6 weeks or more with additions too small to raise nutrient levels. I am now at good nitrate and phosphate levels and am seeing improvement with that and vacuuming rock and sand every two weeks with water changes.

Sorry about the long-winded story, but I wanted to say "Thanks!" for this information! Though I understand the nutrients and UV, I don't quite understand the significance of the "mud". Since I got my nutrients right, my chaeto is growing, and I'm getting algae on my glass and hair algae in the tank. I'm seeing a lot more pods, which had gotten beaten down because I wasn't seeing any when the algae initially started growing on the glass, where now, even though I don't see much algae on the glass with the naked eye (cleaned glass 2 days ago), pods are everywhere. My question is, should I really add a mud product or just purchase a variety of pods, or just let what I've got continue to populate?

 

[Drs2140]

Wow, US sterilizer in the display worked substantially better than in the sump. I had it hooked up to the return for a week and noticed about a 30% reduction in Dino’s. I rigged it up last night in the display and so far today since the lights have been on I don’t see a SINGLE Dino! I have been battling these for over six months and have literally tried everything with little to no effect.

less than 24 hour difference

 

[kecked]

Here are some better pics from an actual scope. Had no coverslip and iPhone is hard to line up. I’m thinking coolia based on other pictures but really don’t know. Is this even Dino? The scale is 400 and 600 power if you want size. The grid is in the pictures.

 

[Samina]

So I got my pentair 25w. I want to hook it up to the display but have to rig something like a shelf behind the tank for that first and I don’t know if I’ll be able to. Anyhow, so I was putting it together but I could not for the life of me get the barbed fitting flush to the white ring. There’s like 3 rings still left but I cannot turn it anymore. For both the input and output. Will that be ok, or will it eventually leak? Do you guys think it’s ok for use?

Seems like everyone that’s running the UV in the display have better luck and results. If I run it in the sump, would you guys say it’s pointless to use it that way? Thanks for the advice!!

 

[taricha]

Hello everyone. I too have been part of this club for about 6 months now. Hoping someone can i.d. my dinos, so I can establish a better plan of attack. Here is what I got with my $20 microscope. my video would not upload. They seem to have a fast paced, irregular swimming pattern.

Really hard to say. try posting video to youtube and post link here.

Here are some better pics from an actual scope. Had no coverslip and iPhone is hard to line up. I’m thinking coolia based on other pictures but really don’t know. Is this even Dino? The scale is 400 and 600 power if you want size. The grid is in the pictures.

Were they moving around? These are unfamiliar formations - look glued together. Sample taken from sand?

Seems like everyone that’s running the UV in the display have better luck and results. If I run it in the sump, would you guys say it’s pointless to use it that way?

You can hook it up in the sump them move it later, but yeah. Seems to be big difference between plumbing directly into the display. Even for those who feel like they have lots of tank turnover into the sump.

 

[kecked]

Yes the clumps are because I filtered them to concentrate. Individual cells but they clumped in the plastic I used for a slide. They spin around. I’ll try a better scope with camera but yea they don’t look like any Dino’s I’ve seen. Act like it. Could it be cyano?

 

[taricha]

Yes the clumps are because I filtered them to concentrate. Individual cells but they clumped in the plastic I used for a slide. They spin around. I’ll try a better scope with camera but yea they don’t look like any Dino’s I’ve seen. Act like it. Could it be cyano?

Actually the uneven surface you mounted it on may explain the entire unusual appearance. I think you may be right with the coolia.
Do they normally move like this (see vids)? Or do they just spin motionless in place?

 

[kecked]

Yes those are exactly them. Coolia it is. Is that good or bad?
Have any illness been reported from exposure to tanks with Dino outbreaks
Reading about the toxin I wonder if paly like illness is possible. I sure don’t plan on sticking my arm in there again. I’ve had vertigo since about July and that’s about the time my tank started having issues. Lots of carbon going in.

 

[mcarroll]

Take resulting plug and do a grid count? Doubt I’d try it but was fun to think about.

Most journal articles have a section where they describe their "methods of procedure", so if you do a little digging in scholar.google.com you might be able to get the exact procedure they use to do assessments like this.

 

[mcarroll]

I am raising n and p like the other tank and adding cocapods. This is a few months old tank that I’m rebuilding from a total crash. It’s just a 29gallon.

what caused the crash? what did you re-use and what (if anything) did you buy new for the restart?

 

[FloatinBy]

Ok i have this brown algea crap. No idea what it is heres some pics with a cheao microscope. I did not see any movement under scopr.

 

[taricha]

Ok i have this brown algea crap. No idea what it is heres some pics with a cheao microscope...

I lean diatoms, but would like to see how they grow in the tank. Any pics of the brown stuff in the tank?
In any case, definitely not dinos.

 

[FloatinBy]

I lean diatoms, but would like to see how they grow in the tank. Any pics of the brown stuff in the tank?
In any case, definitely not dinos.

Heres a few pics. I just didnt want to dose no3 po4 if could make worse. Not on sand bed but on rock and back glass

 

[taricha]

Heres a few pics.

Yep, I'd say a filamentous green algae with diatoms on it.
Definitely not dinos, so congratulations - methods in this thread not for you.

 

[FloatinBy]

Yep, I'd say a filamentous green algae with diatoms on it.
Definitely not dinos, so congratulations - methods in this thread not for you.

Reading thru this thread im very happy its not. Good luck all in your battles and thank you for helping me ID this algea (as well as the anxiety ive had for last week waiting for good ID)

 

[kecked]

I took rock from my display to the small tank. That was before I knew about dinos. It’s real light right now so I pumped n and p. 5ppm 0.15ppm. I had a clam die last summer too. What caused the small tank to crash is unknown. I blew it all out and started over...then added rock from display!

I will look for the papers. I want some way of o quantify what is working. Myskimmer is going crazy with the uv. I think I’m killing a lot. In fact I find a lot of damaged cells when I look under the scope. Started to see some wedge shaped diatoms too.

How do you see thenitrifing bacteria? Need a stain for that? Tried blue food color but can’t see anything.
Using an Olympus bh-2 scope now. I really see nothing but dinos and diatoms. Tried to see coralline algae but nothing living shows. Have to learn to use scope.