Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Paullawr]

Hi thank you danoo to replay,beside the ugly send look slowly they overgrow everything and i can see the corals are not happy.

Generally speaking you can keep on top of them by syphoning sand rinsing thoroughly in fresh water. But they will keep coming back.

 

[Octane13]

Posted in another thread but Can someone help me get a more positive ID please. This was taken directly off the section shown in picture 1

 

[ChelseaPete]

I would keep the uv going (you may need a larger one...) I also have read multiple times that blackouts will likely not work for other than short term. Other than keeping nutrients at levels suggested here, I believe siphoning and ultimately removing most of my sandbed helped the most in my amphidium battle. Also, go back and see some of @taricha posts on likely better alternatives to the pods you are thinking about purchasing. Also, I know it’s very long, but going back and reading much of this thread is a good thing. Good luck and welcome!

Thank you. By way of background, the tank is about 18 months old. I started it with dry rock and a mix of dry and live sand, which I purchased from three different online retailers -- three pounds each from Garf, IPSF, and live-plants.com. I also added some macroalgae from live-plants and pods and other critters from IPSF, plus a bag'o'bugs from Garf. I let that all stew for about two months before I added a CUC. And then another month or so before I started to add fish and coral. The whole tank -- sand, rocks and glass -- was crawling with amphipods, copepods, and various worms by that point. Labor Day was the 10 month mark, and I took this picture:

Shortly after that, the tank started to experience one problem after another. First I started getting GHA. I gave the tank a good cleaning and removed as much of the GHA as I could. This was followed by a cyano outbreak that wound up killing the duncan and purple gorgonian in the front. That's when I got the phosban reactor to try to kick the cyano. This worked, and by March the tank was looking good again. I was getting ready to start adding more stuff to it, and then the dinos came in May. So, I think something happened in the Fall to knock the tank out of balance, and I've been playing catch-up ever since. I currently have nitrates at about 5ppm and my phosphates range from .06-.09ppm. Those numbers have been consistent for a while. I stopped my weekly water changes on July 4th. So maybe that will help.

I still think siphoning out the top inch or so of my sand bed and replacing it with live sand like when I started the tank is the way to go. I'm just not sure how to do that without causing a huge mess in the tank with blowing sand, etc. I suspect the amphidinium has been there from day one and it's just been kept in check all this time. I'm hoping to get back to that state.

 

[mcarroll]

My only concern is the return of a turf algae that I eventually beat with fluconazole last year.

Not really beat then....for a "treatment that works" it's still got it's problems. One of them being that many of the folks pushing it don't like to talk about it's problems.

Get back to basics – hand pulling, scubbing and siphoning. Use your fingers like pincers and grab at the roots....you may have to pull pretty small bits at first if it's established too well.

Algae Cure!! Spot Treating Algae With Peroxide is an option of minimal impact you can use on areas of turf and will help "loosen it up", maybe even kill it. As with anything new, start small as recommended, but also keep in mind that there are multiple ways that you can increase potency of the treatments you apply if they don't seem effective at first. (All in the thread.)

I don't really like the bare bottom look, but waiting another month before adding any just to be 100.00% sure.

Just mind your nutrients – aragonite is very much like GFO and Phosguard in its ability to adsorb phosphates. Anything adsorbed can be desorbed under the right conditions.

So without undue worry, just make sure to test the water after the sand goes in (maybe a few times over the first day) so that in case the sand is very clean that it doesn't bottom out your phosphates again. This isn't the only possible worry, but it's one you have some control over.

That's interesting. When in the dino process (what phase of outbreak) did those bubbly tips show up?
Were they inflated coral tissue, or slimy bubbles on the tips?

Whole coral looked bad, but those tips were completely dead: The dinos typically attached to the tips only since I siphoned them out before they managed to cover the entire corals.

I suspect this was the result of the coral's attempt to grow around the damage as it happened. Tissue is both the thinnest and the most dino-free (Symbiodinium sp.) at the tips, so I wonder what if any effect that had on their susceptibility.

I will update when I get my microscope and answer any questions I can answer because I REALLY need HELP with this!

Im soooooooo tired of this loooooong fight.

You're in the right place.

First, search this thread for amphidinium, read those posts. It'll go faster.

Yes, search links for all types are here on page one:

(Click the link. Then click the SEARCH button at the bottom of the search page.)

• ostreopsis
  • Consider focusing first on posts #86 and #905
• prorocentrum
• amphidinium
  • Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods (they are unique and somewhat more experimental)
• coolia

One thing I did different was to run the exhaust of my uv into a micron filter and change it daily. The idea was to capture and remove the dead dinos.

Genius. Marineland, are you watching?? Anyone?

They are not the end all, be all some think them to be.

This is not that thread – it's the antidote.

You'll like it here.

As the tank is going through the GHA stage, the Ostreopsis dinos are taking full advantage and growing on the GHA. It isn't what I'd call a full bloom but there are more dinos than I'm comfortable with. Small areas of the sandbed have small strings of Dinos growing, but again not quite a bloom. Nutrients have remained stable for this whole period, nitrates between 7.5-10, and phosphates (which I'm dosing) between 0.05 and 0.1. So sadly it appears just having elevated nutrient levels on their own doesn't fully deter the dinos.

Check out the sub-links for Ostreopsis re-posted above.

Also, you want ≥0.10 ppm phosphates. <0.10 ppm has been ineffecitve in tests. There's no harm in >0.10 ppm so don't feel shy about it.

The danger is 100% in letting the dino's continue blooming – nothing we're doing is dangerous.

(Well, dosing nitrates into a system that is without phosphates can be dangerous, but that's a weird scenario and contradicts the general guidance on raising nutrients, which always lists both requirements.)

 

[mcarroll]

I lost the post reference, but someone was talking about seeing dino epiphytes....this might be interesting.

This is kind of a "guiness records" list of macroalgae sorted by the highest-reported rate of epihytism:

(From Macroalgal palatability and the flux of ciguatera toxins through marine food webs)

It's my suspicion that this apparent affinity for chaeto is at least one of the mechanisms behind the success of @taricha's experiments with it on Amphidinium sp.

My guess is that it's weak in defenses (witness its palatability rating) AND densely shaded (we know how it grows DENSE) compared to many other algae.

Dino's pretty much seem to hate bright light – it takes almost no light for them to photosynthesize, and they just don't seem to tolerate much more than that before they have to seek or build shelter from the light.

Most macros are branching in structure or are otherwise self-shading in nature to some extent – so dino's (and other epiphytes like them) find a nice home among them in the shadows.

 

[Dj City]

@mcarroll
Maybe I'm getting old but my eyes are not seeing which dinos I have. Could you or anyone please tell me a positive ID what I have so I can start the fight on a winning footing?

I have pics and video on the page before this one.

 

[Dj City]

What I have done so far since starting to read this thread...

ICP Test!
I am waiting for results but my last test showed very low phosphorous and slightly low phosphates.
I do not have a phosphate test so i'm waiting for the ICP to come back before I start dosing. My plan is to dose Seachem Flourish Phosphorous (if needed).
My nitrates are in a medium to high range.

I purchased an automatic feeder and increased feeding. I feed NLS spectrum and Hakari seaweed extreme pellets.

I reinstated my UV. I have the Pentari Smart 40 UV.
No pump. It is gravity fed from the display to the sump. The outlet is going into my fuge when i'm filtering the water through the UV. I have the outlet going to the filter sock when I directly siphon the sand and dinos through the UV.
The flow rate through the UV is 120GPH

That's it for now until I have a better plan and course of action.

 

[danoo]

Check out the sub-links for Ostreopsis re-posted above.

Also, you want ≥0.10 ppm phosphates. <0.10 ppm has been ineffecitve in tests. There's no harm in >0.10 ppm so don't feel shy about it.

Thanks for the reminder. I have been scratching my head a little bit recently as the Dino populations keep rising and nothing I'm doing is reversing that. I've just increased my phosphate dosing and will get that up to 0.15 or so. As of yesterday phosphate was at 0.075 anyways so I'm not far off. Interestingly enough, as the diatoms made way for the GHA, and the Dinos are starting to grow a little more, Nitrates have been dropping fairly quickly (1-2 ppm per day), while phosphates have been pretty steady or slightly rising (with the small amount of phosphates dosing I was already doing).

I'm still really hopeful the Silica dosing will help the diatoms out and get them to outcompete the Dinos. Right now I'm on day 2 of the elevated Silica levels and don't yet see any changes but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I also did have another thought when re-reading the thread, and that is flow through my UV. I've got 114 watts of UV on this ~350 gallon tank, and I've been doing about 350gph through it. I'm starting to think that just isn't enough flow, especially given it is sump-->display and not display-->display. I read earlier in this thread somebody was mentioning they were running 1200gph through their 114watt until on a comparably sized tank. It is going to require a little bit of re-plumbing to get flow rates that high but I think I'm going to target 1000-12000gph through the unit and see if that helps.

 

[mcarroll]

I read earlier in this thread somebody was mentioning they were running 1200gph through their 114watt until on a comparably sized tank. It is going to require a little bit of re-plumbing to get flow rates that high but I think I'm going to target 1000-12000gph through the unit and see if that helps.

What unit are you using?

 

[danoo]

What unit are you using?

2 57-wall AquaUV units in series, both of which are clean on the inside.

I was pretty hopeful that by having UV the whole time, even though it was sump-->display, that would help prevent the Dinos from growing in population in the first place.

But at this point that is just wrong, there are more dinos today than ever before. I'll have to do manual removal for the first time today.

It is quite sad though the amount of effort and design I've put into this tank expressly to prevent Dinos from blooming, and they are blooming anyways. Very frustrating.

 

[danoo]

Well I've talked myself into more UV. I'm going to double the wattage from 114 --> 228, and re-plumb the whole thing so I can get 1000-1200gph through it. I'm now pretty confident the reason the UV isn't working is because it doesn't have enough flow through it, as currently it has less than 1x tank turnover/hour. More wattage may or may not be necessary but I'd rather be safe than sorry, and with double the UV I'll hit the 0.5/watts per gallon.

I would be interested on some data for people that found a "tipping point" where UV went from being not effective to effective. Given the tank size, what was the wattage and flow rates where the UV was ineffective, and what was the wattage and flow rates that were effective. I wonder if there is some useful data there. Because reading through this thread there are conflicting thoughts about this... lower flow to make sure the UV is killing the dinos vs higher flow to get tank turnover.

I've also been thinking about plumbing the UV display-->display vs sump-->display. What actually is the difference? The only thing I can think of is that sump-->display means the water is being skimmed from the top, whereas with display-->display it means the water is being sucked in from the middle or the bottom of the water column. Could that really make such a big difference? I guess another thing is with display-->display you can effectively dial in any volume of gph, but if all you need to target is 3x tank turnover than it doesn't seem all that important as you can easily get that from sump-->display.

 

[Dj City]

A little help please?

 

[danoo]

A little help please?

Your dinos look like Amphidinium to me. There is a whole thread about it here.

 

[mcarroll]

2 57-wall AquaUV units in series, both of which are clean on the inside.

I believe this manual covers your unit:

http://www.aquaultraviolet.com/site...tions-Classic-and-Twist-Series-06-25-2015.pdf

From page 9:

​

If you're running the 114 watt unit.

They say for that unit it will give the desired 90,000 µm/cm2 dose at 1300 GPH. But you'd normally want almost 4,000 GPH running through it so it's not running full blast all the time. As the manual says, 30,000-45,000 µm/cm2 is a good normal dosage IF you're gonna keep running it into the future.

That unit is double-sized for your system according to them so you could be doing the same job for half the power and bulb cost. Something to think about....especially in light of that 4,000 GPH number!! 3200 GPH on the 57 watt unit is still a lot of flow!

​

While this appears to be an over-under in-sump deployment, it's actually an in-tank deployment with long hoses and a pre-filter that enable it to be under the tank.

Essentially, the UV is plumbed into the return line of a canister filter.

So if you find that you need more kick (guessing not) then for maximum impact in your case, the "pick up" should be moved to the tank as in the diagram.

Prefiltration and long hoses to facilitate a better-looking deployment are both excellent ideas if you move the pick up to the tank.

They do not recommend doing a return bypass where the UV gets partial flow – nor should you need a bypass with this monster.

That means you may have to re-plumb to get satisfactory results.

(Lots of other tips in that manual.)

 

[danoo]

That is interesting. It still doesn't quite tell me how much tank turnover is necessary for the UV to be effective, but it does confirm that I could be running a ton more flow and still kill the dinos. I'll re-plumb it and shoot for ~1300-1500gph and see what happens.

Will have to wait a couple days for some replacement unions in the mail.

 

[mcarroll]

A little help please?

I think you may have missed the initial reply.....sometimes happens when a lot of posts come through after your Thread Alert gets flagged on your profile. (Which happens a lot when this thread gets busy.)

Check out Post #4643

Make sure you check both sets of links....the one I added will be a shortcut to searches for past dino ID photos on this thread....the other set is the links the the Ampidinium treatment thread (needed since they're substrate-bound and not susectible to UV/micron filtration like most).

 

[mcarroll]

That is interesting. It still doesn't quite tell me how much tank turnover is necessary for the UV to be effective, but it does confirm that I could be running a ton more flow and still kill the dinos. I'll re-plumb it and shoot for ~1300-1500gph and see what happens.

Will have to wait a couple days for some replacement unions in the mail.

The UV is effective based on the flow rate through it.

We want the 90,000 µm/cm2 dose, so that means for a 355 gallon tank (row 5) you want a 57 watt unit running at 1,066 GPH.

For a 350 gallon tank, 1066/350 = 3x turnover per hour. Still plenty for the skimmer, etc to function.

When dino's are off the radar, a much lower dose (≤45,000 µm/cm2) will be acceptable allowing you to increase flow to >2,100 GPH.

I don't think you even need the 114 watt unit, let along do you need another one. I'd suggest calling AquaUV if there's still any question: 1-800-454-2725

Using row 7 of the table (700 gallon marine system, 114 watt UV), you need ≥1,300 GPH to get the needed 90,000 µm/cm2 dose. When you're post-dino's you'll need ≥2,600 GPH to get that dosage down to 45,000 µm/cm2....2600 is 7x turnover – a lot, but maybe not too much – as long as your pump/plumbing can do it.

AquaUV don't recommend higher than 45,000 µm/cm2 on an ongoing basis.

 

[Dj City]

Thank you.
I guess my question after reading quie a lot and hearing different things regarding UV is this..
Do amphidinium go into the water column at night when they are not visible on the sandbed?
Will using my UV like a vacuum on the sandbed to get them into the UV help me and hurt them at all?
Into im gathering in ther thread is conflicting.

 

[Dj City]

What I wrote earlier..

@mcarroll
Maybe I'm getting old but my eyes are not seeing which

What I have done so far since starting to read this thread...

ICP Test!
I am waiting for results but my last test showed very low phosphorous and slightly low phosphates.
I do not have a phosphate test so i'm waiting for the ICP to come back before I start dosing. My plan is to dose Seachem Flourish Phosphorous (if needed).
My nitrates are in a medium to high range.

I purchased an automatic feeder and increased feeding. I feed NLS spectrum and Hakari seaweed extreme pellets.

I reinstated my UV. I have the Pentari Smart 40 UV.
No pump. It is gravity fed from the display to the sump. The outlet is going into my fuge when i'm filtering the water through the UV. I have the outlet going to the filter sock when I directly siphon the sand and dinos through the UV.
The flow rate through the UV is 120GPH

That's it for now until I have a better plan and course of action.

 

[mcarroll]

What I wrote earlier..

Amphidinium tend to stay on the sand. Matting is a form of photo-protection, so they only do it during the day. Mats usually break up/disappear at night, but the dino's still don't leave the substrate.

You'll need a phosphate test kit, BTW. Nitrates too, most likely. You're not gonna be able to manage nutrient dosing without them.