Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[._Z_.]

Don't forget while we're adding nutrients we also need to be exporting somehow. The purpose is competition for scarce resources other than P and N.
In order for resources to become scarce, we need to export.
Otherwise, how will the dinos ever run out of what they need, if we never export?

Good advice. I’m running into this now. I have GHA, cyano, dinos, and diatoms all mixed around and the tank just looks a different shade of ugly. Still no clear end in sight

 

[Ernie C]

For what it’s worth, with ostreopsis, I turned off my power heads and they stopped spreading onto everything and as I sucked them out through a filter sock they stayed in specific spots and were easier to remove. Plus the skimmer was pulling some out too. Helped me get them under control. I’ve kept my no3 at 4 and po4 at .4

 

[dwest]

I haven’t yet. I have a microscope on the way. It’s a 90 gallon with 20 gallon fuge. Half is a Refugium, skimmer then return. I’m running carbon and skimming well.

My nutrients, I suspect, were low before I took the skimmer offline. It was getting very hard to keep any macro algae Alive. I had a mix of five or six species and they were all failing. I decided to take the skimmer offline to allow them some nutrients to grow. I thought that stirring up the sandbed and adding some circulation to the display would also help with the nutrients.

When the Dino explosion happened I began dosing nitrates. User error on my nitrate testing had me thinking that the levels weren’t rising. I kept dosing the. Same amount for a week or two and then double checked with another test. That was when I realized my testing error and found my nitrates were at 80.

I’ve left the nitrates there and switched to more po4 heavy foods. My new macro algae is growing well, I’ve even harvested some today. I have to shake it out three times a day because it’s covered in Dinos. I decided to go dark on the fuge as I dose peroxide.

I’m just at a loss. Oh, the uv is the 24 watt green machine ran in tank.

Interesting. Dinos hit me hard last year. My first clue was chaeto not growing in my fuge.

I’ve gone through dinos twice in my 25 ish years of reefkeeping. So you going 30 without them is pretty good! If I were you, I would not dose peroxide, but keep phosphates above 0.1 ppm and nitrates above 10. In your case, I’d let nitrates fall naturally to about that level. When you get an ID on them we can figure out where to go from there. I would also siphon them out and replace GAC weekly for now so the toxins don’t build as much.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

I’ve left the nitrates there and switched to more po4 heavy foods

I think this could be part of your problem. We can't feed our way out of a Dino outbreak. Dinos are the organisms that utilize organic nutrients. If you need to raise PO4 you need to add it inorganically. That means dosing something like NaPO4. If you have the cash try a N-DOC test from Triton to see how much organic nitrogen is floating around your tank.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Just because we have low NO3 and PO4 we can't say we have good feeding habits. We still may be overfeeding our tanks. The problem is we can't tell anymore because NO3 and PO4 export has become easy. Why Dinos bloom is due to an abundance of organic pollution. They love it!

The food we put in our tanks doesn't just go from say a mysis shrimp directly into NO3 and PO4. A fish eats it and reduces it to poop and urine then say a hermit crab eats the poop and breaks it down even further then bacteria start to break it down further still. But at no time in this process is the Nitrogen and Phosphorus testable as NO3 and PO4. So what happens when we overload the healthy process of breaking down these organics? We get Dinos and Cyanobacteria outbreaks.

Everyone here needs to re-evaluate their feeding habits. Just because we can dump food into our tanks and see no NO3 or PO4 doesn't mean it's healthy.

 

[Fritzhamer]

Just because we have low NO3 and PO4 we can't say we have good feeding habits. We still may be overfeeding our tanks. The problem is we can't tell anymore because NO3 and PO4 export has become easy. Why Dinos bloom is due to an abundance of organic pollution. They love it!

The food we put in our tanks doesn't just go from say a mysis shrimp directly into NO3 and PO4. A fish eats it and reduces it to poop and urine then say a hermit crab eats the poop and breaks it down even further then bacteria start to break it down further still. But at no time in this process is the Nitrogen and Phosphorus testable as NO3 and PO4. So what happens when we overload the healthy process of breaking down these organics? We get Dinos and Cyanobacteria outbreaks.

Everyone here needs to re-evaluate their feeding habits. Just because we can dump food into our tanks and see no NO3 or PO4 doesn't mean it's healthy.

That is a great point. I may just take this back to old school and ditch my fuge and sand.

 

[saltyhog]

I am currently battling ostreopsis as well. Lost alot of my frags in the last few weeks. However, i've tried a lot of the recommendations but things seemed to have gone unchanged or gotten worse. Last thing i've done that seems to have made a big difference, for me at least, was to shut off my wavemakers and leave only the return pump going with the skimmer going 24/7. I sucked out as much as a could through a filter sock daily and without the wavemakers the dinos haven't been able to recover and have been dwindling. they used to cover my bare bottom and after i stopped the wavemakers nothing on the bottom. I did raise my no3 and po4 up the past few weeks with no water changes and dosing. I also placed some polyfilter in the sump but not sure that had anything to do with it. NO3 is at 4 now and PO4 is at .04. My corals look way happier with out all the flow, not sure if i had too much or they are just happy they aren't getting bombarded by dinos. Good luck

If you have ostreopsis you definitely want to follow @dwest recommendation regarding UV. It literally will only take a day or two to see a huge difference. In my case it was from a moderately bad case to zero over night. I second the Jaebo unit. Big, ugly and very effective.

 

[Chad_P]

Need another ID here. Was battling ostreopsis. Those seem to be gone. This sample was taken from the sand. Is this amphidinium? No movement

 

[dwest]

Need another ID here. Was battling ostreopsis. Those seem to be gone. This sample was taken from the sand. Is this amphidinium? No movement

I don’t think they are dinos. @taricha

 

[Chad_P]

I don’t think they are dinos. @taricha

Gosh that would really make my day. Kind of thought they looked a little different than last time I had aphidinium but that was a while ago.

 

[dwest]

Gosh that would really make my day. Kind of thought they looked a little different than last time I had aphidinium but that was a while ago.

Need more eyes to check.

 

[taricha]

Gosh that would really make my day. Kind of thought they looked a little different than last time I had aphidinium but that was a while ago.

What's the magnification, can you shoot a video through the scope, and can we get a pic of the affected area that sample comes from?
The pics are good, but those cells are puzzling.

 

[Chad_P]

What's the magnification, can you shoot a video through the scope, and can we get a pic of the affected area that sample comes from?
The pics are good, but those cells are puzzling.

That was at 1200x. There was no movement but I’ll take another sample tonight. I have patches on the sandbed that look like diatoms, rusty colored. Not snotty or stringy or any bubbles. I’ll take a pic of the tank tonight when I’m back home.

 

[Wxguy23]

cyano, and the last pics look like spirulina - although it's a type of cyano, I'm unsure if chemiclean kills it.


more confirmation. chunks = not dinos.
you have so much bio mass of this stuff, you really ought to take 5 minutes and suck or scoop out what you can, rather than trying to kill it all in-tank.

if you microscope the long stringy strands by the pump in the last pic, I'd be curious if thats just spirulina going stringy or something else.


coolia, likely.

Thanks. I was able to remove a lot of the cyno stuff and my tanked looked great! Then about 4 hours later, I had bubbles growing every where. Blew some off. This AM woke up to slimy strings again and coats of brown/purple slime over several rocks. So the red slime remover helped for a day.

On to fight some more but 3 months now...

 

[Chris Villalobos]

That is a great point. I may just take this back to old school and ditch my fuge and sand.

Could it be that everyone is ditching their sand these days just because they are overfeeding and getting ugly cyano and dinos in their sand bed?

 

[Paullawr]

Thanks. I was able to remove a lot of the cyno stuff and my tanked looked great! Then about 4 hours later, I had bubbles growing every where. Blew some off. This AM woke up to slimy strings again and coats of brown/purple slime over several rocks. So the red slime remover helped for a day.

On to fight some more but 3 months now...

Fauna marin have dino red x out now. Which contains sodium chloride. Aka bleach.
This was used very successfully in trials on reef2reef. So a dialed in formula is good news. I suspect it will make a great coral dip or use in quarantine tanks.

Ive picked up a bottle and will test it on a small amphidium outbreak since introduction of a hammer coral on saturday. Doesnt take the little blighters long does it. Spoted a faint light brown patch about the size of a grain of crushed coral sunday and new what it was without IDing.

I actually dont mind dinos any more as i can sort them out in a couple of days. Would like to try a less harsh treatment so will report back.

 

[Fritzhamer]

Could it be that everyone is ditching their sand these days just because they are overfeeding and getting ugly cyano and dinos in their sand bed?

Interesting thought, I think I feed less now than in my “old school” setups.

 

[Paullawr]

Interesting thought, I think I feed less now than in my “old school” setups.

Sand plays a natural part in their life cycle. They do survive without it but can massively help.

 

[Paullawr]

For what it’s worth, with ostreopsis, I turned off my power heads and they stopped spreading onto everything and as I sucked them out through a filter sock they stayed in specific spots and were easier to remove. Plus the skimmer was pulling some out too. Helped me get them under control. I’ve kept my no3 at 4 and po4 at .4

They love strong flow. What you dont realise is the vale in your tank. You water column will be super saturated with them including rock that looks clear.

My go to method of getting rid of them for good is a super saturated kalkwasser solution. Its not for all there will be casualties but long term messing about also has. Drop a couple of hundred ml of white solution and observe.

Need another ID here. Was battling ostreopsis. Those seem to be gone. This sample was taken from the sand. Is this amphidinium? No movement

Not moving isnt a sign they are 'resting in peace'. They are very much alive based on colouration.

Looks to be protist size, definitely a form of dinoflagellate. Strain couldn't tell you. Is it a nuisance? If not dont fret but keep an eye on it.

Basically you have to have something living in tank.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Need another ID here. Was battling ostreopsis. Those seem to be gone. This sample was taken from the sand. Is this amphidinium? No movement

These look like dino cysts to me.