Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Dj City]

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.

Im probably going to order ther hanna phosphors checker.
Im deciding between that and salifert.

Will my method of using the intake of the UV as a sand (dino) vac be effective at all?

 

[mcarroll]

Hard to say for sure since you might be the first to try it.

There are folks who've done sorta similar things that generally involve blasting the sand bed with flow from something. Also not sure how effective that is tho.

As long as it's not too hard to try, I'd say definitely try. Maybe try monitoring before/after with samples under a scope?

 

[Dj City]

110gal Mixed Reef
Wednesday 07/04 11:49 AM
Temperature: 77.7 °F
pH: 7.8
Salinity: 1.023 SG
Alkalinity: 11 dKH
Calcium: 480 ppm
Magnesium: 1455 ppm
Notes: Silicate between 0.1 and 0.25 per salifert test
Phosphate 0.0 per API test
Nitrates about 20 per API test

 

[dwest]

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.

Search beardo. He had a similar situation with uv I believe.

 

[dwest]

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.

If I had to fight amphidium all over again, I would remove most of my sand bed much faster than I did the first time.

 

[dwest]

Im probably going to order ther hanna phosphors checker.
Im deciding between that and salifert.

Will my method of using the intake of the UV as a sand (dino) vac be effective at all?

Many of us use Hanna. It’s worked for me. No experience with the other. It might have been kecked that did something like you are thinking.

 

[dwest]

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.

Nice tank... I agree about siphoning some ( I removed most) of the sand out. That helped me. I have yet to replace what I removed . Your live sand idea is good, but I personally am waiting for a while to do that. There’s no mess removing sand. Just siphon out into a bucket and dump into the yard of the neighbor you like the least. When I add sand back, I will put some in a bowl, cover the top with my had, set the bowl on the bottom of the tank, then dump slowly. There’s probably better ways. That’s my way.

 

[taricha]

Hard to say for sure since you might be the first to try it.

There are folks who've done sorta similar things that generally involve blasting the sand bed with flow from something. Also not sure how effective that is tho.

As long as it's not too hard to try, I'd say definitely try. Maybe try monitoring before/after with samples under a scope?

Right. As MCarroll is saying here, amphidinium generally do not go into the water. The post a few days ago with the setup to hook up a gravel vac, a small pump, and a UV is definitely brilliant new territory. For amphidinium it's big and needs testing.
It sounds like the actual flow rate would be very critical for this, to pull the amphidinium up, and leave most of the sand in place and not just send your entire sand bed into a UV unit. I think the addition of a ball valve from Home Depot Etc would really help dial in the flow rate. It could also allow this method to use gravity fed instead of a pump.

 

[Dj City]

I'm testing and will post what I find.
I'm using gravity only. No pump.
My follow rate gravity fed is 120gph.
While vacuuming, the outlet drains into my 100 micron filter sock. I have been thinking about possibly moving the outlet to the skimmer section while vacuuming in the hopes of the skimmer grabbing the dead / dying / damaged dinos.
The other idea is doubling up the filter sock. putting one sock inside the other in the hopes of catching more of whatever goes through.

I might even use both ideas together by putting the doubled up filter sock in the skimmer section while vacuuming.

Im wondering what time is best to vacuum them through the UV. During the day when they can be seen or at night when they can't be seen?

What makes them disappear at night?

 

[Dj City]

I also need to add diverse life to the tank.
Exactly what do I purchase for this?
If someone could provide a link for the best pod crew, I would be grateful.

I want to get a foothold on the problem before adding more life to the tank but I know more life is needed.

 

[dwest]

I also need to add diverse life to the tank.
Exactly what do I purchase for this?
If someone could provide a link for the best pod crew, I would be grateful.

I want to get a foothold on the problem before adding more life to the tank but I know more life is needed.

Taricha suggested https://floridapets.com/

 

[mcarroll]

@Dj City Sustainable Aquatics appears to have some good options too: SA Feeds

Retail link: https://www.coralreeftn.com/shop.php

 

[danoo]

Search beardo. He had a similar situation with uv I believe.

His posts were actually the ones I was reading earlier, and made me suspicious my flow rates were too low. The parts are coming in a couple days which will allow me to hopefully ramp up the flow.

In unrelated news, on Day 3 of the great silica dosing experiment, I can say for sure more diatoms are growing than they were before. Right now both the patches of GHA and the streaks of Dinos look like they've been dusted, and under the scope I can see the dust is diatoms. I'll see how this progresses.

 

[Dj City]

Anyone know why the amphidinium dinos disappear at night?

I am trying to figure out the best time to hit them with the UV vac. While they are visible or when they disappear.

Any ideas?

 

[taricha]

Anyone know why the amphidinium dinos disappear at night?

I am trying to figure out the best time to hit them with the UV vac. While they are visible or when they disappear.

Any ideas?

They don't so much leave the sand like other types, they instead go down into the sand. It's probably more accurate from what I've seen to think about them crawling to the undersides of individual sand grains rather than burrowing down centimeters into the sand.
Why? Well several possible reasons. First, they may be seeking nutrients down in the sand. Porewater (between the grains) is known to contain higher levels of nutrients like ammonia, organics, iron and other goodies.
Or maybe they are trying to get away from something. Grazers like pods are more active at night when there are no fish around. Sand also seems to provide them some chemical protection, certainly provides a level of protection against most of the chemical means that people have tried against them. So perhaps going into the sand can relieve some chemical stresses from the environment.

To answer your Q. Afternoon daylight hours when sand surface is darkest should be the best time to manually remove them by siphoning.

 

[Dj City]

I have only UV vacuumed the sand/dinos twice so far but it is too early to tell if there is any difference.
I did it on Sunday and today. Both times were with lights on and dinos visible.
The dang things disappear as soon as they are touched so I can't confirm I'm getting them. Especially since the flow is so low at only 120gph through the UV.

That being said, the dinos "may" be coming back a little slower than they have in the past but that could just be because of the sandbed being disturbed.

I have not raised phosphate yet because I don't have the phosphate test yet.

Time will tell if the UV vac is working and I will keep both threads updated.

 

[mcarroll]

To answer your Q. Afternoon daylight hours when sand surface is darkest should be the best time to manually remove them by siphoning.

If they're "snotted up" (and thus sticky?) during the day like other dino's, do you think it's possible that removal during lights-out might actually be more productive?

Might be interesting to test both ways.

 

[Dj City]

If they're "snotted up" (and thus sticky?) during the day like other dino's, do you think it's possible that removal during lights-out might actually be more productive?

Might be interesting to test both ways.

My dinos don't really get snotty. They don't develop air bubbles either.
Honestly, to the eye that look more like diatoms than dinos but the microscopic says otherwise.

I'm going to keep vacuuming during lights on for a couple weeks to see if anything good happens.

 

[dwest]

My dinos don't really get snotty. They don't develop air bubbles either.
Honestly, to the eye that look more like diatoms than dinos but the microscopic says otherwise.

I'm going to keep vacuuming during lights on for a couple weeks to see if anything good happens.

I’ve probably said this before, but don’t be afraid to remove some sand if you are not getting results. Good luck.

 

[Dj City]

I’ve probably said this before, but don’t be afraid to remove some sand if you are not getting results. Good luck.

If I end up removing sand, When would I be able to add more sand? I don't like the bare bottom look.

Hopefully I will have success with this method of vacuuming through the UV along with nutrient balance.
I'm going to keep testing for the sake of the community.