Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Reeferhigh]

@mcarroll sorry I'm lost, your telling us to dose NO-3 when the article you linked clearly states that dino's use NO-3. It is NH+4 which is toxic to Dino's in elevated concentrations.

This is the true Putting the N in Dinoflaglellates article, which states they use NO3 and should be starved, although they then alter themselves to stay alive anyway.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3849724/

Sorry I'm confused and just want to understand your reasoning.

 

[bif24701]

I added 50 pounds of Pukani to my Sump about a month ago and just moved it all to my display. Been having issues with Dino's for the last several weeks which I attribute to the rock adding nutrients and disturbing the balance of the Force. I've since cranked up my NO4 to about 10-20 and PO4 to .15.
I've got a powerful grow light over my cheato fuge and I'm excited to see how well it performs. I've removed GFO and my ROX carbon and did a 100 gallon water change all prior to dosing of course.
I manually dust/blow off as much as I can and use filter socks. Also reduced my vinegar dosing down to 2ml/hour.

Will be you all updated with frequent posts as to how things progress. I really should have cured the rock for a few weeks in bleach first but whatever. Nothing has been negatively effected other than the look of my display this far.

 

[mcarroll]

@mcarroll sorry I'm lost, your telling us to dose NO-3 when the article you linked clearly states that dino's use NO-3. It is NH+4 which is toxic to Dino's in elevated concentrations.

This is the true Putting the N in Dinoflaglellates article, which states they use NO3 and should be starved, although they then alter themselves to stay alive anyway.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3849724/

Sorry I'm confused and just want to understand your reasoning.

Confusion is understandable! And thanks for reading the whole article!! More eyeballs can only help – and that's the reason they're posted!!

(The main article that's being referenced is always linked in my blog post, BTW. I hope you didn't have to spend time searching for your link. BTW, I try to never use articles that only have an abstract avvailable, but once or twice that may have happened. Even then, there would still be a link to the original abstract. )

It's not so much my reasoning as it is the subject really is complex.

Part of the issue is the idea of "the dirty method" that's been associated with what we're doing. I never said that or made that association.

All I've been doing is following clues, collecting evidence and correcting mistakes in husbandry. Thankfully that seems to help in many cases.

But thinking about that as "the dirty method" short circuits the process, IMO. It obviously doesn't account for all the variables, such as Ostreopsis. (There are even weirder dino's with even more weird environmental preferences.)

Though I will also admit that my reasoning may be suspect too...I'm mostly just a reading aquarist. I'm no dino-scientist! LOL

And for what it's worth, I never stopped reading. There have been some new posts to the blog if you look.

The best idea I can give at this point is that Ostreopsis toxin-production seem to be hampered by low-Carbon environments.....but possible only under low-Nitrogen/replete-Phosphorous conditions. Again, I'm still digesting the reading on this (check the blog), but off the cuff I think kalk-dosing instead of other supplementation and low-NO3+maintain positive PO4...is what I'd try. ...not sure whether I'd also try to starve NO3 though as that's a nick against the any other microbes you'd like to grow, not just dino's. In contrast, a low-Carbon environment should be good overall for everyone.

 

[Vaughn17]

@mcarroll sorry I'm lost, your telling us to dose NO-3 when the article you linked clearly states that dino's use NO-3. It is NH+4 which is toxic to Dino's in elevated concentrations.

This is the true Putting the N in Dinoflaglellates article, which states they use NO3 and should be starved, although they then alter themselves to stay alive anyway.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3849724/

Sorry I'm confused and just want to understand your reasoning.

I think it needs to be stressed that upping NO3 and PO4 to eradicate dinos, only works (IME) if you have fast growing corals (sps, IME) that will out-compete the dinos. At very low nutrient levels, the dinos seem to thrive and out-compete coral for nutrients (again, IME). The addition of nutrients allows the sps corals to take off (providing that all their habitat needs are being met--i.e. lighting, Ca, Alk, temp., etc.). Once sps get fat and happy, they are incredible nutrient suckers.

Now for the downside: If you dose nutrients and lack the corals to utilize those nutrients, the dinos will get worse, much worse.

 

[Abhishek]

Am so glad today that couldn't stop updating the thread .
After a gruesome week , looks like Dinos have finally receded.
Documented all the steps taken :-

Dinos detected last Sunday and with in 1 day tank turned into full blown Dino attack
Lost a prized charlenae anthias , 2 loris and a couple of acros including a Hawkins Echinata

Under microscope, looked like Dinoflagellates Osteropsis .











Steps taken :-

1. Started feeding crazily like 4-5 times a day
2. Phosphates hit bottom 0 and hence fed to bring it up slowly
3. Stopped all bacteria dosing
4. No water changes
5. Ran 10 micron socks and changed everyday
6. Biggest thing that helped is adding 10000 pods and lots of phyto - combination of nano , tet , ISO and thal ..
7. Added more flow with 2 gyres and 2 tunze 6095s
8. Added trochus snails as they seemed unimpacted by Dinos .

For the last 2 days , things looked way better and today it's almost gone



For everyone fighting Dinos , try and feed wayyy more and introduce predators in the form of phyto and pods .

Things should improve ..lots of thanks to @mcarroll for this thread .

Am convinced there's some predators for Dinos hidden among the phyto and zooplankton world .

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[K. Steven]

Am so glad today that couldn't stop updating the thread .
After a gruesome week , looks like Dinos have finally receded.
Documented all the steps taken :-

Dinos detected last Sunday and with in 1 day tank turned into full blown Dino attack
Lost a prized charlenae anthias , 2 loris and a couple of acros including a Hawkins Echinata

Under microscope, looked like Dinoflagellates Osteropsis .











Steps taken :-

1. Started feeding crazily like 4-5 times a day
2. Phosphates hit bottom 0 and hence fed to bring it up slowly
3. Stopped all bacteria dosing
4. No water changes
5. Ran 10 micron socks and changed everyday
6. Biggest thing that helped is adding 10000 pods and lots of phyto - combination of nano , tet , ISO and thal ..
7. Added more flow with 2 gyres and 2 tunze 6095s
8. Added trochus snails as they seemed unimpacted by Dinos .

For the last 2 days , things looked way better and today it's almost gone



For everyone fighting Dinos , try and feed wayyy more and introduce predators in the form of phyto and pods .

Things should improve ..lots of thanks to @mcarroll for this thread .

Am convinced there's some predators for Dinos hidden among the phyto and zooplankton world .

Regards,
Abhishek

I'm doing something similar. I added pods and dose phyto daily (similar strains as you). Feeding heavily as well, though most people are suggesting dosing NO3 and PO4, so I'm hopeful with your approach. Your video doesn't show the same circular motion that I see in my Ostreopsis sp. Are you sure yours aren't Amphidinium? Hopefully this method works for me as well. Thanks.

 

[Abhishek]

I'm doing something similar. I added pods and dose phyto daily (similar strains as you). Feeding heavily as well, though most people are suggesting dosing NO3 and PO4, so I'm hopeful with your approach. Your video doesn't show the same circular motion that I see in my Ostreopsis sp. Are you sure yours aren't Amphidinium? Hopefully this method works for me as well. Thanks.

I have very limited knowledge in IDing these nasty buggers but very few showing spinning movement made me think they are Ostreopsis sp.
May be an mistaken !!!

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[K. Steven]

I found these to be the most helpful for ID:

 

[mcarroll]

I think it needs to be stressed that upping NO3 and PO4 to eradicate dinos, only works (IME) if you have fast growing corals (sps, IME) that will out-compete the dinos. At very low nutrient levels, the dinos seem to thrive and out-compete coral for nutrients (again, IME). The addition of nutrients allows the sps corals to take off (providing that all their habitat needs are being met--i.e. lighting, Ca, Alk, temp., etc.). Once sps get fat and happy, they are incredible nutrient suckers.

Now for the downside: If you dose nutrients and lack the corals to utilize those nutrients, the dinos will get worse, much worse.

I agree it's not so simple as jacking up nutrients – there is some troubleshooting to be done first!

I also agree that a tank full of healthy corals seems to help!

I'm not sure the corals are directly outcompeting dino's, however. I'm sure they do their part, but there are lots of other players in the game. Who's in your periphyton???

In cases where raising nutrients has helped...
A) it's not a case of Ostreopsis and...
B) in all cases I'm aware of, the tank in question had been systematically starved. Often from the tank's inception. Often with carbon-dosing and GFO.

In those cases, ceasing the starvation practices and fixing the immediate nutrient situation with some fertilizer (no3 and/or po4 as needed) has helped. In the longer term, a more stable tank including more stable feeding practices is usually all it takes.

Other cases (including Ostreopsis) can easily be made worse, or a problem created where there was none, by suddenly jacking up NO3 or PO4.

 

[bif24701]

I think it needs to be stressed that upping NO3 and PO4 to eradicate dinos, only works (IME) if you have fast growing corals (sps, IME) that will out-compete the dinos. At very low nutrient levels, the dinos seem to thrive and out-compete coral for nutrients (again, IME). The addition of nutrients allows the sps corals to take off (providing that all their habitat needs are being met--i.e. lighting, Ca, Alk, temp., etc.). Once sps get fat and happy, they are incredible nutrient suckers.

Now for the downside: If you dose nutrients and lack the corals to utilize those nutrients, the dinos will get worse, much worse.

I am currently having very good luck with simply adding PO4.

I've noticed film, turf, and cheato algae started growing and the dinos have reduced over the last week. I've had to dose twice to maintain at least >.05ppm. I've also added another 6105 to my flow and that's helped too.

 

[Vaughn17]

I am currently having very good luck with simply adding PO4.

I made a point of emphasizing IME (In My Experience). And yes, I use that same PO4 product. McCarrol's post above sums up the point I was trying to make.

I've noticed film, turf, and cheato algae started growing and the dinos have reduced over the last week. I've had to dose twice to maintain at least >.05ppm. I've also added another 6105 to my flow and that's helped too.

 

[Vaughn17]

My reply to bif24701 came out in quotes in the preceding post...weird.

 

[Vaughn17]

I agree it's not so simple as jacking up nutrients – there is some troubleshooting to be done first!

I also agree that a tank full of healthy corals seems to help!

I'm not sure the corals are directly outcompeting dino's, however. I'm sure they do their part, but there are lots of other players in the game. Who's in your periphyton???

In cases where raising nutrients has helped...
A) it's not a case of Ostreopsis and...
B) in all cases I'm aware of, the tank in question had been systematically starved. Often from the tank's inception. Often with carbon-dosing and GFO.

In those cases, ceasing the starvation practices and fixing the immediate nutrient situation with some fertilizer (no3 and/or po4 as needed) has helped. In the longer term, a more stable tank including more stable feeding practices is usually all it takes.

Other cases (including Ostreopsis) can easily be made worse, or a problem created where there was none, by suddenly jacking up NO3 or PO4.

Good post, mcarroll (opps, I spelled your name wrong below...sorry). What's in my periphyton, lol, that's a good one. Well, coralline algae, microalgae, some mowed down macroalgae, other protists such as diatoms, probably some bacteria but no visible cyano, and other unknown microbes, etc.

But back to the dinos. I have eliminated two types in three different tanks. I haven't had time to identify them under a scope, but the worse of the two appears to be Ostreopsis sp. It damaged or killed a few sps corals, whereas the other variety of dino (from a different genus) did no harm but appeared to have the potential to smother things. It was in a tank with thriving sps and was gone in a few days after I started dosing NO3. On the other hand, the Ostreopsis was in tanks where the sps were struggling (due to low nutrients and poor lighting). They were eliminated from my new 180 within a week with the addition of NO3 and PO4 (and better lighting, which finally arrived by mule train). A week was also was how long it took my struggling new tank to turnaround and begin thriving (effectively killing the myth that good things in this hobby don't occasionally happen quickly).

My third tank with dinos is my 40 g qt, and it is on the mend right now. I removed a T-5 and added an LED for stronger lighting, began dosing NO3 and PO4, and manually removing the dinos each day. It's been about three weeks and the corals are looking much, much better, and the dinos are almost gone. Bif24701 may have a point about the PO4, because, while I'm usually really disciplined about water testing, I got busy and was a bit careless with my nutrient dosing in this tank. Anyway, my PO4 got as high as almost 3 ppm (unbelievably, none of the corals seemed bothered by this). It is now down to 1 ppm (ugh, still way too high), while NO3 has been about 5 ppm all along. Difficult to say whether the high PO4 has helped out, because the dinos seemed the worst when PO4 was the highest, but it is still high and they (dinos) are almost gone...???????

Bottom line: It is so difficult to make definitive conclusions about anything in this field (or life, for that matter) with so many, many parameters, criteria, etc. to consider.

 

[rog2961]

Im having the same, after raising no3, I stopped that and did po4, now everything is disappearing.

 

[Neptune1707]

Oddly enough I had a break out of Dino's (I think) in both my office tank and home tank. I'm attaching photo if someone can clarify if this is indeed Dino's or cyano? 2 things happened that may have started it: In the office tank water parameters are 100% in check, however I did loose a flame angel over a weekend I think the clean up crew got most of him, but what I didn't find, may have been fuel for this outbreak. Home tank: I had a case of hair algae due to having "to clean of a tank". So I purposely added phosphates, and it got out of control. I started back dosing NoPox to reduce the phosphates. The hair algae started to die off, so I started to take the rock out, scrub the remainder off so it would muck up the tank. Shortly after this big clean up and a water change dino's or brown algae appeared. Assuming the big scrub on home tank was fuel....so weird it happened in both tanks at same time...nothing transferred from tank to tank either. Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[bif24701]

My reply to bif24701 came out in quotes in the preceding post...weird.

Just sharing what I have observed in my system.

 

[K. Steven]

Good post, mcarroll (opps, I spelled your name wrong below...sorry). What's in my periphyton, lol, that's a good one. Well, coralline algae, microalgae, some mowed down macroalgae, other protists such as diatoms, probably some bacteria but no visible cyano, and other unknown microbes, etc.

But back to the dinos. I have eliminated two types in three different tanks. I haven't had time to identify them under a scope, but the worse of the two appears to be Ostreopsis sp. It damaged or killed a few sps corals, whereas the other variety of dino (from a different genus) did no harm but appeared to have the potential to smother things. It was in a tank with thriving sps and was gone in a few days after I started dosing NO3. On the other hand, the Ostreopsis was in tanks where the sps were struggling (due to low nutrients and poor lighting). They were eliminated from my new 180 within a week with the addition of NO3 and PO4 (and better lighting, which finally arrived by mule train). A week was also was how long it took my struggling new tank to turnaround and begin thriving (effectively killing the myth that good things in this hobby don't occasionally happen quickly).

My third tank with dinos is my 40 g qt, and it is on the mend right now. I removed a T-5 and added an LED for stronger lighting, began dosing NO3 and PO4, and manually removing the dinos each day. It's been about three weeks and the corals are looking much, much better, and the dinos are almost gone. Bif24701 may have a point about the PO4, because, while I'm usually really disciplined about water testing, I got busy and was a bit careless with my nutrient dosing in this tank. Anyway, my PO4 got as high as almost 3 ppm (unbelievably, none of the corals seemed bothered by this). It is now down to 1 ppm (ugh, still way too high), while NO3 has been about 5 ppm all along. Difficult to say whether the high PO4 has helped out, because the dinos seemed the worst when PO4 was the highest, but it is still high and they (dinos) are almost gone...???????

Bottom line: It is so difficult to make definitive conclusions about anything in this field (or life, for that matter) with so many, many parameters, criteria, etc. to consider.

Did the 40 QT have Amphidinium? For the first two tanks with Ostreopsis, did you notice a sweet spot with both NO3 and PO4? I'm assuming the PO4 in the first tank was sufficient and only required some NO3 to reach a balance, and the second tank was deprived of both nutrients and needed dosing of both to reach that balance?

 

[Bdog4u2]

My old 75 had dinos and the harder it tried to get rid of them the harder they struck back so I gave up and stopped doing wc's and after a month they were gone. mine started from carbon dosing that's why I won't do it again

 

[Vaughn17]

Just sharing what I have observed in my system.

Yes, I understand that, and it was an excellent observation. I just wanted to make certain that it was clear that my post you referenced was just my observations of my tanks. Didn't mean to be rude...sorry.

 

[Vaughn17]

Did the 40 QT have Amphidinium? For the first two tanks with Ostreopsis, did you notice a sweet spot with both NO3 and PO4? I'm assuming the PO4 in the first tank was sufficient and only required some NO3 to reach a balance, and the second tank was deprived of both nutrients and needed dosing of both to reach that balance?

No, the 40 QT has Ostreopsis, I believe. My new 180 (now at three months, one week since cycling) had Ostreopsis, as well. With the 180, I decided that adding coral before fish made more sense, as nutrients are high after cycling, so why create more nutrients with fish? This was my theory, and after the tank was cycled using dry Pukani rock (which I soaked and soaked before adding but was still full of organic debris), I added a few hearty corals
like gsp, zoas, a couple favites colonies, a bullet proof hammer, etc. Nitrates were between 75 and 100 ppm and PO4 was .5 ppm. All the corals looked really happy, so I just had to add a cheap acro frag. The PE on it was really good, so I added a few more and they looked really happy as well, so before you know it most of my corals were in the tank. FYI, I had been dosing NO3 for about a year and PO4 for about six months, so all the corals were accustomed to high nutrients, although nowhere near as high as the just-cycled 180. Too high for fungia and chalices, which I had to remove. Also, the tank was not fully lit but the lighting was suppose to arrive at any time...except it didn't. After a few weeks I started adding fish. By the end of the first month NO3 had dropped to 20 and PO4 to near zero.

Now my problems started. If I'd just started dosing PO4 like I knew to do, I wouldn't have lost a coral. As it was I lost about ten percent of my acros. I hesitated to dose PO4 because I wasn't sure if corals were browning out from the insufficient lighting or the month long exposure to high nutrients or both. Also, I'd never used a skimmer before, so I was thinking that maybe I was skimming too much. Anyway, now Dinos showed up. For three weeks I blew them off of corals and waited for nitrates to drop, but NO3 hung at 20. Fish finished their quarantine time and I added them and feed heavily. The dinos worsened. Some of my acro colonies started looking like they'd been in a fire, all brown and lifeless (amazingly, most recovered). I dosed a little PO4, but it didn't seem to do any good. I turned off the skimmer, which didn't help so I turned it back on. Finally, my new LED lighting arrived and I hung it. Everything still looked like it was going to die. Now, I decided to listen to what my frequent testing of PO4 was telling me--add more, a lot more. So I added 3 ml and saw the first PE in weeks. I dosed enough each day to raise PO4 to 0.25 ppm. After a week, the dinos started to decrease. After two weeks corals were looking a hundred percent better and NO3 had dropped to 5 ppm (and I began dosing it, as well). Dinos were gone.

The sweet spot for this tank is 5 ppm NO3 and between .1 and .25 PO4.