Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

kecked · Apr 13, 2018

It just dawned on me the black powder is probably the plastic breaking down from the intense uv. At 80.00 I doubt they chose special uv safe plastic. Yea this things dead in 3-6 months....all it would take is a second glass tube of soda glass to protect the plastic.

Does anyone use a pre or post filter on the uv unit? Why not capture what you can and collect the dead bones while treating. Yes you don’t want to collect the plankton that lives but every Dino dead or out of my tank is a good day

coachb9 · Apr 13, 2018

Hi everyone. Pretty sure I have dino. Been fighting it for what seems like 2 months but I think it’s longer than that. I hoped it was cyano so I treated chemiclean then did a water change, sucking out the sand bed, only to have the brown stuff right back again the next day. Appears to only be in my sand for the most part, but I am seeing some pop up on some rocks. Pics aren’t great but it is my kids microscope. Let me know your thoughts.
Nitrate 5ppm
Phosphate 0.16
Thanks

SDboatguy · Apr 13, 2018

Just got my $15 scope. Having issues finding much movement. About the only thing if gotten so far are clear(ish) wormy critters twisting around. Lots of small multicolored spheres ? Any ideas want the heck I seeing?

shred5 · Apr 13, 2018

SDboatguy said:
Just got my $15 scope. Having issues finding much movement. About the only thing if gotten so far are clear(ish) wormy critters twisting around. Lots of small multicolored spheres ? Any ideas want the heck I seeing?

Which scope?

Which ones are people getting?

kecked · Apr 13, 2018

Clear worms I was told are nematodes. Multicolor spheres sound like possible diatoms but depends what you mean multicolor could also be just about anything else from dinos to algae.

SDboatguy · Apr 13, 2018

Amazon PBOX microscope for kids

shred5 · Apr 13, 2018

SDboatguy said:
Amazon PBOX microscope for kids

Thanks.. This is the one people are using to take the pictures with? I been thinking of getting one for years but was looking at one with usb camera.

SDboatguy · Apr 13, 2018

I also got a cell phone holder $18 ....same as @mcarroll suggested at the beginning of this encyclopedia of Dino info !!

kecked · Apr 14, 2018

The images are pretty bad from what I’m seeing. Hope it looks better in person. I have a microscope from sears from when I was a kid. Still works. Was never great but I use it for kicks.

kecked · Apr 15, 2018

Uv is looking to be much better since I cleaned it and really slowed the flow. Can’t cheat physics.

taricha · Apr 15, 2018

kecked said:
Uv is looking to be much better since I cleaned it and really slowed the flow. Can’t cheat physics.

Yeah, it's hard to quantify exactly, but repeatedly people find that slow flow and plumbing into display directly makes a significant difference. That's part of why I don't 100% take the manufacturer recs as definitive.
To clarify, you had this health affect well after you did the full battery of tests hunting unsuccessfully for the toxins?
So weird.
If you aren't satisfied with the progress, feel free to post up full details of everything going in/ out of tank and what's going on with it (levels and pics etc). We'll see if there's anything that I could think of doing differently.

kecked · Apr 15, 2018

The effect was a few hours after cleaning my sand bed out by hand and cleaning the sand under water. It was purple water and thick with dinos. I likely even got some small drops on my face or in my mouth. Who knows but I wear gloves now and am very careful. I couldn’t find any toxin on the hplc so it’s most likely in my head.

Things look a bit better today. I put a huge amount of carbon on the tank and he uv is running half as fast. I also turned the lights back 20%. Nothing but softies in there. The fish must have died but I don’t see it. Must be lunch.

After seeing the nematodes under the scope and all the rest I like to keep out of the tank. Nasty once you realize what you got in there. The orange colored one was only seen once but pretty impressive. They wipe around at everything.

taricha · Apr 15, 2018

coachb9 said:
Appears to only be in my sand for the most part, but I am seeing some pop up on some rocks. Pics aren’t great but it is my kids microscope. Let me know your thoughts.

amphidinium dinos.

mcarroll · Apr 16, 2018

kecked said:
The effect was a few hours after cleaning my sand bed out by hand and cleaning the sand under water. It was purple water and thick with dinos. I likely even got some small drops on my face or in my mouth. Who knows but I wear gloves now and am very careful. I couldn’t find any toxin on the hplc so it’s most likely in my head.

If only dino toxin was our only worry...

Hydrogen sulfide is nasty stuff even though it's something our bodies make and can tolerate to an extent.

From the the section on Toxicity: (read the whole quote)

Exposure to lower concentrations can result in eye irritation, a sore throat and cough, nausea, shortness of breath, and fluid in the lungs (pulmonary edema).[26] These effects are believed to be due to the fact that hydrogen sulfide combines with alkalipresent in moist surface tissues to form sodium sulfide, a caustic.[31] These symptoms usually go away in a few weeks.

Long-term, low-level exposure may result in fatigue, loss of appetite, headaches, irritability, poor memory, and dizziness. Chronic exposure to low level H
2S (around 2 ppm) has been implicated in increased miscarriage and reproductive health issues among Russian and Finnish wood pulp workers,[32] but the reports have not (as of circa 1995) been replicated.

Short-term, high-level exposure can induce immediate collapse, with loss of breathing and a high probability of death. If death does not occur, high exposure to hydrogen sulfide can lead to cortical pseudolaminar necrosis, degeneration of the basal ganglia and cerebral edema.[26] Although respiratory paralysis may be immediate, it can also be delayed up to 72 hours.[33]

0.00047 ppm or 0.47 ppb is the odor threshold, the point at which 50% of a human panel can detect the presence of an odor without being able to identify it.[34]

10 ppm is the OSHA permissible exposure limit (PEL) (8 hour time-weighted average).[19]

10–20 ppm is the borderline concentration for eye irritation.

20 ppm is the acceptable ceiling concentration established by OSHA.[19]

50 ppm is the acceptable maximum peak above the ceiling concentration for an 8-hour shift, with a maximum duration of 10 minutes.[19]

50–100 ppm leads to eye damage.

At 100–150 ppm the olfactory nerve is paralyzed after a few inhalations, and the sense of smell disappears, often together with awareness of danger.[35][36]

320–530 ppm leads to pulmonary edema with the possibility of death.[26]

530–1000 ppm causes strong stimulation of the central nervous system and rapid breathing, leading to loss of breathing.

800 ppm is the lethal concentration for 50% of humans for 5 minutes' exposure (LC50).

Concentrations over 1000 ppm cause immediate collapse with loss of breathing, even after inhalation of a single breath.

Since we seem fairly certain it wasn't dino toxins, this has my bet.

@kecked glad you're feeling better already!!!

mcarroll · Apr 16, 2018

kecked said:
Ps holding p and n and uv and it’s no better and in someways much worse. Coolia is a B.tch.

How long do I wait it out before I dinox andperoxide it. Next step is tear down for good.

I'm inclined to suggest more patience as long as nothing in the tank such as coral seem to be going down hill....but I'm not totally sure when you got started on this.

When you have a second, can you recap when you started working on this in earnest as well as...

What conditions led up to the bloom?
How long have nutrients consistently been at ≥0.10 ppm PO4 and ≥ 10 ppm NO3?
Including what nutrient and other test results were like before your started taking action?
Did your tank seem to fit the typical set of "dino circumstances" pretty well?
What currently appears to be the worst side-effect of the bloom?

BTW, if you look back through our 3800+ comments, "No quitting" is kind of the unwritten motto of this thread. Several folks have tried to give up, but failed

– don't think you're the one getting a pass to fail out.....OK?????

HomeSlizzice · Apr 16, 2018

HomeSlizzice said:
So I did the following to knock back my dino's.

1. 3 day black out
2. dosed DIY Zeo Coral Snow
3. Ran my ozone. (1 hour on / one hour off (30mg/hr for my tank (around 75 gallons total volume)
4. Did a 15 gallon water change while siphoning as much of the sand bed as possible, and added some Dr Tim's Eco Balance after the water change.

Today is the first day with the lights on after the 3 day black out (only 4 hours of blue/violet), and this is the microscope of some sand and water I collected. Compared to my initial microscope view, I'm pretty pleased with the results. I am going to continue to run ozone, and dose coral snow on the daily, and only run my lights with blues/violets at 50% intensity for the next 2 weeks or so. I am also waiting on some Kalk to be delivered so I can bump up my pH. I haven't tested the water in a few days, so I'm going to do that today and see where my levels are at..

Alright so here is a the update on battle with Dinoflagellates (Prorocentrum). Like I mentioned about a week ago. I did the following protocol after about a 7-10 days of running my Ozone generator (AquaMaxx Tech-O3 UPS300 Ozonizer - 30 mg/hr) with only minimal results on the dinos. I decided to do the following as an all out attack on the dinos. I gleaned my approach from Leonard Ho ( https://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/how-i-beat-dinoflagellates-and-the-lessons-i-learned ) and Sonny Harajly( http://reefsite.com/2015/01/dinoflagellates-and-the-treament-of/ ).

1. 3 day blackout. I didn't cover my tank though, just no lights. (Skimmer, Ozone, and GAC all running during the black out)
2. dosed DIY Zeo Coral Snow daily (Calcium Carbonate https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-kz-coral-snow-with-97-purity.211722/ ) This is a flocculent to help bind and remove the free floating Dino’s.
3. Turkey bast the rocks and sand to get as many dinos free floating as possible so they get bound to the Calcium Carbonate slurry. Turkey Baster combined with the blackout was key to getting the dinos free floating so they could bind to the "Coral Snow".
4. Ran my ozone. (1 hour on / one hour off; 30mg/hr is my unit and my tank is around 75 gallons total volume) Leonard Ho and Sonny in their articles both recommended Hydrogen Peroxide since neither ran Ozone, but the goal is they are doing a similar job.
5. After the 3 day blackout, most of the dinoflagellates appeared to gone. I did a 15 gallon water change at the end of the 3 day blackout while vacuum siphoning as much of the sand bed as possible (not removing the sand, also there was a ton reddish-brown residue (dinos) at the bottom of my water container), and added some Dr Tim's Eco Balance after the water change.
6. Run GAC the entire time because some dinos are toxic and can/will smell (my prorocentrum did)
7. After the 3 day black out, I ran my lights (AI Hydra 26HD's) with only blues and violets at 50% for 4 hours total. So 1 hour ramp up, 2 hour peak, and 1 hour ramp down. Again the peak was only 50% and only blues and violets. I have then increased my peak photo period by 30 minutes to an hour each day, but am keeping the same intensity and still only running blues and violets.
8. After about 5 days or so (Friday) I did another 15 gallon water change while primarily vacuum siphoning of my sandbed again. At this point, there was not really any reddish brown color (dinos) in my waste water, just the more common lighter brown waste water color from vacuuming sand.

I am going to continue to run Ozone daily (for the same 1 hour on / 1 hour off) and dose my DIY Coral Snow every few days. I am also going to continue to slowly increase my photo period (currently at 7 hours total, with a 5 hour peak until I get to my desired 12 hours total, and will then add in my other color LEDs to get my preferred daylight look). Also that $15 microscope was a great investment in figuring out what I was fighting in the first place, thank you for the recommendation.

I tested all my water yesterday and here is my results and notes from my testing.
4/15/2018
Salinity: 1.023 (My refractometer wasn't calibrated properly because I never used calibration solution before, I have since bought some so I'm now slowing raising it to 1.025-1.026. It was at 1.021 when I first checked it after the 1st water change!). I will never go without calibrating my refractometer before every use again.
Temp: 78.4F
pH: 8.1
Ca: 480
Alk: 11.5 dKH
Mg: 1500
Nitrate: 24ppm
Phosphate: 0.08ppm
Action:No signs of Dinos, sand is white.
Lower feeding amount slighty, I also dosed some MB7. I also lowered my 2 part dosing to slowly drop levels to desired parameters, I think they got out of whack because of my salinity issue and having several coral deaths as a result of the dinos.

Check out the pics now about 7 days after the end of my blackout. Now I must rebuild and get some more corals and fish (small wrasses and such) once I have my parameters inline again. P.S. taking photos with only the blues and no filter makes for terrible pics haha, so please excuse the quality.