Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[taricha]

Maybe people are turning on Those house heaters lol !

I wondered about that. More heaters, more indoor CO2? would the seasonal CO2 trend match the dino thread activity better?

I don’t know if anyone read my last post on different Dr Tims bacteria to improve biodiversity and competition for ostreopsis...

But between that and the UV... worked wonders. Highly recommmend doing some reading on the role of bacteria and not just nutrients

yep, the bacteria angle has been interesting from the beginning, hard to observe what's happening so it's been difficult to tease out causality from reports. Despite that, I think probably we've seen enough to say that some bacterial sources can be helpful and ought to be a part of a treatment. Unfortunately we also know some sources of bacterial growth (carbon dosing) keep dinos quite happy.
For sandbed dinos, I feel like the bacteria interactions are even more important than for the stringy water column types.
I think maybe what we need to see is more comparisons of different bacteria sources and their effects vs dino blooms.
And I don't even know with any specificity what is supposed to be different about mechanisms between bacteria that help vs those that hurt a dino bloom.

 

[Gareth elliott]

I have read studies on particular strains of bacteria and the density of vibrio in the water column.

Lactobacillus gg if i remember correctly had the largest benefit. But what effects vibrio populations are probably pretty far from what effects dinos.

 

[Gareth elliott]

How long are you supposed to decrease flow for i see no expulsion into the water column 48 hours later with no wavemakers on. Just uv and return and return with head pressure and its setting is maybe 4x my volume?

 

[Paullawr]

Wanted to see if this was more than just my sense. So I looked at this thread activity over past months. suuuper unscientific. Many reasons for seasonal trends that have more to do with people than protists, but it's interesting anyway.

It looks like the months Aug-Nov have the least activity and Jan-Mar have the most thread activity. Is that a seasonal cycle in our tanks? Or is that a seasonal cycle of hobbyist activity and posting? Or is just a blip caused by a few frequent posters? hmmm.....

Seasonal 100%

 

[taricha]

How long are you supposed to decrease flow for i see no expulsion into the water column 48 hours later with no wavemakers on. Just uv and return and return with head pressure and its setting is maybe 4x my volume?

The ones that do it, take to the water in minutes.
Yours apparently aren't that strain.

 

[Jonreefer]

I have been using the filter floss hanging off my gyre all weekend. I clean it off probably twice a day and it collects alot of Dinos. I am noticing since I started this when i blow them off the corals and rocks they dont seem to come back on that coral nearly as much and it looks like little by little less are collecting on the pad and less are showing in the tank. I have a ton of white stringy looking stuff coming off the rocks that i believe are strains of dead dinos. Hopefully the Vibrant is killing them off along with the DinoX I was dosing before hand.

 

[Clownfishy]

Has anyone had any success blowing the Dinos off the rocks while dosing the DIY Coral Snow?
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-kz-coral-snow-with-97-purity.211722/

Was thinking this would help bind the Dinos together for the skimmer to take out? Not saying this is a cure but could this "help" to reduce them?

 

[ScottB]

Roger that @taricha . Thank you for the timely reply. I have the floss flying like flags from every powerhead now. About to pull the trigger on UV unit. Flourish shipped on the 16th (Amazon Prime) but the USPS horse and buggy broke down somewhere. Ordered food grade TSP today with one-day shipping. Hoping.

GAC reactor 24/7; refugium light reduced to 3 hours (from 6).

No corals fatalities yet, but several sticks are going dangerously pale. Reset my Hydra array to acclimate mode. T5s going down to 4 hours. Setting a frag rack up in my DT (separate, stable system)

Question: I have been dumping fish & coral food in while awaiting the phosphorus. Aminos, phyto, roid blend in hope of keeping some food source available. Am I hurting the cause?

 

[m0jjen]

Changed my pump from 1000 LPH to 2000 LPH for the uv (2000 is recommended by deltec) and dino was pretty much gone after 48 hours. Even the hairalgae is green instead of brown now. Soo... any hairalgae remedies? ;Dead

 

[Neoalchemist]

Changed my pump from 1000 LPH to 2000 LPH for the uv (2000 is recommended by deltec) and dino was pretty much gone after 48 hours. Even the hairalgae is green instead of brown now. Soo... any hairalgae remedies? ;Dead

Urchin time

 

[taricha]

. I have a ton of white stringy looking stuff coming off the rocks that i believe are strains of dead dinos. Hopefully the Vibrant is killing them off along with the DinoX I was dosing before hand.

Vibrant is always killing something. I think dinos are pretty far down its list (gotta kill lots of other things first). When dinos go into the water, they don't always bring all their mucus with them, so if many cells are killed/removed a dino mucus strand can turn lighter.

Has anyone had any success blowing the Dinos off the rocks while dosing the DIY Coral Snow?
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-kz-coral-snow-with-97-purity.211722/

Was thinking this would help bind the Dinos together for the skimmer to take out? Not saying this is a cure but could this "help" to reduce them?

I think dinos would just grab the particles in the mucus - they already bind together. Don't see how that would change dynamics any, but I could be wrong.

Question: I have been dumping fish & coral food in while awaiting the phosphorus. Aminos, phyto, roid blend in hope of keeping some food source available. Am I hurting the cause?

yeah. dinos love that stuff - it'll just make it take longer. If you desperately need PO4 before dosing arrives, read the label on your flake fish foods. Some (look for fish meal, fish bone meal) are high in P.

Even the hairalgae is green instead of brown now. Soo... any hairalgae remedies?

you're in the wrong thread, here we love hair algae.
(but I love my urchins more)

 

[Mykesocalreef]

Just wanted to check back in. Began dosing nitrates on Saturday to get Nitrates from 0 to 4ppm. Also hooked up a 55watt uv sterilizer running in the sump. Began dosing phosphates to get my levels up to .04 ppm minimum. As of last night the Dinos are about 90-95%.

 

[Blue Carbon Reefing]

Update, the UV sterilizer cleared the dinos from all the rocks in the display in a matter of days, however, it remains on the sandbed. I have siphoned the sand with no improvement. The frag tank did look absolutely terrible and I did a 100% water change on that and used a tooth brush on every frag plug and 3 or 4 days later it is still looking good but not 100%. Phosphates readings have been all over the map. I stopped dosing for a couple of weeks because the phosphates rose on their own up to as high a .2 and were not coming down . They have recently come down to .06 and I started dosing phosphate again. I left the fuge off blackout for 10 days and the dinos went away there and my chaeto took off like crazy when the lights came back on which is why I think my phosphates dropped again. However the dinos are back in the fuge full force and smothering the chaeto again. Not sure what is next course of action here. Rocks in display completely clear, sand bed in display is 70% covered. Fuge is covered in dino still.. what should I do?

 

[Felipe Ramos]

Really bad microscope but here are the photos. Please ID

https://m.imgur.com/wRy3o1v

 

[Ernie C]

Really bad microscope but here are the photos. Please ID

https://m.imgur.com/wRy3o1v

Looks tear shaped which would make me think it’s ostreopsis

 

[Gareth elliott]

Well they went away again.
No idea what caused the bloom to end.
Some things i did do, not saying any of this in particular helped or if any of it did anything.
-added over a few days ~7ml of a saturated sodium silicate solution.
-added 1 gallon of water from the refugium of another system (gallon of water chaeto shaken inside of it)
-30ml a day of live phyto to feed whatever i added by doing above.
-3ml of vibrant
-5ml waste away
-5ml mb7
-36 hour partial black out, no dt lights but did not curtain the tank or turn off the 12 hour refugium h80.
-small uv was on, from my observations this species was benthic not free swimming did not enter the water column under no flow or when lights went out.
I did lose 3 mariculture acros during this that were growing before the dinos. Was at this point the vibrant was added as i didnt want to lose any expensive aquacultured acros.

Currently have lights on an acclimation mode so no corals get burnt from suddenyly not covered in algae.

 

[blackizzz]

Some background:
I have a 40 gallon tank, that has been using the Zeovit method since the start a little more than a year ago. It was started with "real" live rock, but "regular dead" aragonite sand. At about the 9-10 month mark I started getting some stringy "algae" and it came and went, mostly in sync with increased or decreased feeding.
Right about this time the tank also experienced a "destabilizing period" when about half way through a months vacation a 2 day power outage caused a return pump to die and both temperature and oxygenation took a hit. Most things survived, but ever since then I've periodically had this "annoyance".

Fast forward to now, as the problem got worse a few weeks ago I decided to get a microscope, and it finally arrived today.



I've positively identified my nuisance "algae" as the dinoflagellate Ostreopsis Ovata. "Luckily", no matter where I check, I can find any other type of dinoflagellates.

(Sorry for the pretty lousy picture, but one can't expect much from a $11 microscope and a phone camera )

What's my course of action? Well, I'm not entirely sure, feeding more seems to "spur them on" and the following day they appear in greater spread.

I think I will do the following:

1. Remove the zeovit media and reactor, turn off dosage of carbon source and bacteria. (at least temporarily) This should let N/P rise "naturally".
2. Stop doing water changes (been doing once or twice a week). Will have to decide on a solution to vacuuming the sandbed without waterchanges.
3. Turn off skimmer (?)
4. Buy and install a 20w (or larger) UVC.

After N/P has increased:
5. Introduce "new" LR, to "seed" the tank with more biodiversity.

If anyone has any input, I'll gladly accept it

Should/could I manually dose Nitrates / Phosphates to battle Ostreopsis? I've read conflicting answers to this.

Thankful for all available help in this war

 

[Ernie C]

If anyone has any input, I'll gladly accept it

Should/could I manually dose Nitrates / Phosphates to battle Ostreopsis? I've read conflicting answers to this.

Thankful for all available help in this war

This was my experience and what I did:

I raised my no3 to above 4ppm and po4 to .4 I then stopped dosing anything. I reduced lighting by 50% intensity and reduced light cycle from 12 to 8 hours. I turned off all the power heads and just left the return pump on and that kept the Dinos in specific spots that I would syphon out through a filter sock nightly. Eventually got them down quite a bit but they would still show up but a lot less. With little flow they would clump in spots so I easily got them out. Then I started using Dino X. After the first two treatments I could barely see any. I did a total of 4 treatments and then installed a UV and plan to leave it there for a few more weeks. I don’t see any anymore but don’t know if they are still there lingering for a chance to strike. Not sure if this would work for you but these are the steps I took. I’ve been dealing with this since mid February so about a month and a half. I haven’t done a water change yet but plan on one now. Good luck

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

So I'm celebrating being dino free for 2 months.
My current battle is with hair algae, the result of my raised nutrients during the dino battle.
Just out if interest I decided to have a look at the hair algae under my scope, and bam, like a knife to the heart, dinos.
Not just prorocentrum that I had been battling, but Ostreopsis and a small celled variety as well.
There's no sign of them in the display, but they are still there.
My UV sterilizer has been reinstalled so hopefully I can stop a major outbreak.

 

[William1034]

What's my course of action? Well, I'm not entirely sure, feeding more seems to "spur them on" and the following day they appear in greater spread.

I think I will do the following:

1. Remove the zeovit media and reactor, turn off dosage of carbon source and bacteria. (at least temporarily) This should let N/P rise "naturally".
2. Stop doing water changes (been doing once or twice a week). Will have to decide on a solution to vacuuming the sandbed without waterchanges.
3. Turn off skimmer (?)
4. Buy and install a 20w (or larger) UVC.

The UV is what moved me from the cycle of them disappearing and reappearing. As for the size of you UV, I have a 300g with a 55w UV, based on the posts here I need 2x the wattage. Get what you can, I got a cheap jabeo so I didn't tick away $500 or more on a quality UV. I will be getting a nice one later this year, probably around MACNA.

Water changes in this process are very bad. I did a water change about a week ago, so far so good. I have found a few strands here and there but they are not spreading.

Feeding did seem to help, you need something to out compete the dino's.

Skimmer on/off I really didn't notice any difference if it was on/off.

Anything from an established tank is great.

Good luck.