Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Neoalchemist]

Hi guys,

I am dealing with these fellows. Can someone confirm these are dino's and perhaps ID them? Thanks!

Coolia I believe.

 

[Clownfishy]

As ostreopsis and amphidinium look so similar, how do we tell one from the other? Here is a video of what I have -
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DpPg4qv9mWbP3ReRA
Are the treatments the same for both?

I have -
Stopped water changes
Removed Rowaphos
Added activated carbon to reactor
Added UV
Dosed Hydrogen Peroxide
Turned off white lights and switched to only blue
Let my Nitrates rise to 10ppm
Let phosphate rise to.06
Also let my hair algae grow
Wet skimmer but now dry skimming

Is there anything else I should be doing?I'm

Many thanks

 

[saltyhog]

As ostreopsis and amphidinium look so similar, how do we tell one from the other? Here is a video of what I have -
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DpPg4qv9mWbP3ReRA
Are the treatments the same for both?

I have -
Stopped water changes
Removed Rowaphos
Added activated carbon to reactor
Added UV
Dosed Hydrogen Peroxide
Turned off white lights and switched to only blue
Let my Nitrates rise to 10ppm
Let phosphate rise to.06
Also let my hair algae grow
Wet skimmer but now dry skimming

Is there anything else I should be doing?I'm

Many thanks

Those are definitely ostreopsis.

How long has your UV been up and running? What size UV and what size tank volume? Most people notice very quick improvement to resolution with appropriately sized UV plumbed from/to the DT.

I think you're doing the right things though I will say peroxide seemed to worsen/bring on my coolia outbreak in my pico tank.

 

[Clownfishy]

Those are definitely ostreopsis.

How long has your UV been up and running? What size UV and what size tank volume? Most people notice very quick improvement to resolution with appropriately sized UV plumbed from/to the DT.

I think you're doing the right things though I will say peroxide seemed to worsen/bring on my coolia outbreak in my pico tank.

Thanks for the confirmation. Can I ask how you tell the difference between the two?
I have a 46-48 gallon water volume and put in a 24watt UV just under a week ago. Can't say I have seen any improvement yet but fingers crossed. I have been dosing Hydrogen Peroxide for about 3 weeks but the fact that the Dino's are still there tells me that is not working so I will stop dosing Peroxide.
The only place I now see the Dino's seems to be on dead coral skeleton. I run a bare bottom aquarium and have notice them on the detritus as well.
Thanks again for the confirmation, I will now read every post related ostreopsis to see what other tips I can find.

 

[Ernie C]

Thanks for the confirmation. Can I ask how you tell the difference between the two?
I have a 46-48 gallon water volume and put in a 24watt UV just under a week ago. Can't say I have seen any improvement yet but fingers crossed. I have been dosing Hydrogen Peroxide for about 3 weeks but the fact that the Dino's are still there tells me that is not working so I will stop dosing Peroxide.
The only place I now see the Dino's seems to be on dead coral skeleton. I run a bare bottom aquarium and have notice them on the detritus as well.
Thanks again for the confirmation, I will now read every post related ostreopsis to see what other tips I can find.

I have ostreopsis and am running a cheap 55 watt UV in and out of the display tank. What helped me get them under control was turning off my wavemakers for a few days. Ostreopsis go into the water column at night so I’m sure they UV processes them. And with the wavemakers off, during the day they didn’t seem to spread and would clump in certain places . I would then siphon them out through a filter sock in my sump at the end of the light cycle. This worked for me. Although I learned if I take the UV off they start to make a come back. I originally used 3 treatments of dinox. Also try to keep my nitrates and phosphates at readable levels and have to dose here and there. I also run a bare bottom tank.

 

[saltyhog]

Thanks for the confirmation. Can I ask how you tell the difference between the two?
I have a 46-48 gallon water volume and put in a 24watt UV just under a week ago. Can't say I have seen any improvement yet but fingers crossed. I have been dosing Hydrogen Peroxide for about 3 weeks but the fact that the Dino's are still there tells me that is not working so I will stop dosing Peroxide.
The only place I now see the Dino's seems to be on dead coral skeleton. I run a bare bottom aquarium and have notice them on the detritus as well.
Thanks again for the confirmation, I will now read every post related ostreopsis to see what other tips I can find.

Ostreopsis are the easiest to identify for me. They have a pointed end and resemble a sesame seed. They also move uniquely. They look like they are tethered to something and rotate around it like yours do your video.

Do you have your UV pumping water directly out of your DT or out of your sump? The former seems to be more effective.

 

[Clownfishy]

Ostreopsis are the easiest to identify for me. They have a pointed end and resemble a sesame seed. They also move uniquely. They look like they are tethered to something and rotate around it like yours do your video.

Do you have your UV pumping water directly out of your DT or out of your sump? The former seems to be more effective.

Thanks for explaining that. I installed an in-tank UV. Its the green killing machine model. Just wondering how good this UV actually is? Will give it another week and see where we are. The Dino's have lost the stringy snot look and now only seem to be on the dead coral skeleton. I took a half dying monti out of the aquarium that had a load of Dino's on it and sprayed the dead bits with hydrogen Peroxide to hopefully kill them. Washed it down with tank water and then put it back into the tank.

 

[saltyhog]

Thanks for explaining that. I installed an in-tank UV. Its the green killing machine model. Just wondering how good this UV actually is? Will give it another week and see where we are. The Dino's have lost the stringy snot look and now only seem to be on the dead coral skeleton. I took a half dying monti out of the aquarium that had a load of Dino's on it and sprayed the dead bits with hydrogen Peroxide to hopefully kill them. Washed it down with tank water and then put it back into the tank.

I don't have any experience with that brand UV but I know I've read other folks using it. Maybe one of them will chime in as to it's effectiveness.

 

[Ernie C]

I used the green machine for a bacterial bloom but when I used it for the Dinos it didn’t seem to work very well. I eventually got the 55 watt Jebao off amazon and it was way more effective. my tank is about 93 total volume.

 

[dwest]

I don't have any experience with that brand UV but I know I've read other folks using it. Maybe one of them will chime in as to it's effectiveness.

I believe @reeferfoxx had success with the green killing machine. A 24 watt UV should help a bunch in your tank. I agree with stopping hydrogen peroxide.

 

[dwest]

I believe @reeferfoxx had success with the green killing machine. A 24 watt UV should help a bunch in your tank. I agree with stopping hydrogen peroxide.

Sorry mean for this to to reply to @Clownfishy

 

[Clownfishy]

Many thanks for the everyone's help. I am going away for just over a week so I will see how well it does over that time. Happy to get another UV if it does not work out as I want to see the the back of these. I do not seem to have suffered as much as many on here but cant believe the damage they do and how many people are now getting them. I guess most of us have driven Nitrates and Phosphates so low, something we could not do a decade ago. This thread is awesome and has helped so much so a big shout out to Reed2Reef and everyone sharing their experiences. I wonder with what we have learnt from over 350 posts, the first page could be updated with clarification on such things as -

• Should we be dosing bacteria?
• Should we be using a powerhead to blow off the dinos to direct them into the UV and skimmer?
• Does something like Coral SNOW help clump the dinos together and lift them off the rocks (see point 2)?
• Does squirting Hydrogen Peroxide on specific parts of the infected areas actually kill the dino (something I will try when I get back)?
• etc.

 

[saltyhog]

Many thanks for the everyone's help. I am going away for just over a week so I will see how well it does over that time. Happy to get another UV if it does not work out as I want to see the the back of these. I do not seem to have suffered as much as many on here but cant believe the damage they do and how many people are now getting them. I guess most of us have driven Nitrates and Phosphates so low, something we could not do a decade ago. This thread is awesome and has helped so much so a big shout out to Reed2Reef and everyone sharing their experiences. I wonder with what we have learnt from over 350 posts, the first page could be updated with clarification on such things as -

• Should we be dosing bacteria? Diversity is good, different bacterial cultures can't do any harm that I can think of. The only down side would be if it lowered nutrients.
• Should we be using a powerhead to blow off the dinos to direct them into the UV and skimmer? I think the general consensus is a resounding yes here....makes UV more effective.
• Does something like Coral SNOW help clump the dinos together and lift them off the rocks (see point 2)? No experience there but I know some people have used it.
• Does squirting Hydrogen Peroxide on specific parts of the infected areas actually kill the dino (something I will try when I get back)? Mixed experiences here it seems. The two times I've used H2O2 it made everything much worse.
• etc.

Great questions, hopefully the guys with more knowledge will weigh in on them! I wrote in my experiences above.

 

[Paullawr]

Great questions, hopefully the guys with more knowledge will weigh in on them! I wrote in my experiences above.

Bacterial strains. Seem to be fine. Some dinoflagellates consume bacteria so might literally food for thought.

Blasting rocks, depends on how you are taking them on. Yes when combined with uv and good water movement to the uv inlet.
Id opt against it if not using UV as will just help distribute or if bottom dweller.

Used coral snow and its its pretty effective in helping clump.

H202. Loaded question. Technically it will kill all but the strength would harm everything else. The cells theca determines how effective it is (the armour plating around the cell). Some have weaker theca which is more prone to damage by, f.ex oxidizing agents.
Others are too tough to crack without large doses.

 

[saltyhog]

Thank you @Paullawr.

I think H2O2 affected some of my dinos competition far more than it did the dinos. Is that a reasonable assumption?

 

[saltyhog]

I think I'm making a little headway. This video is about 24 hours after blowing my sand and rock with a turkey baster. I added that about 5 days ago on top of maintaining nutrients, silicate dosing and UV. In the past it would be completely back in less than 24 hours. Still not seeing any improvement in my SPS but all the zoas, palys and RFA's seem very happy. The euphyllia in the background on the left side is happy as well.

 

[taricha]

Hi guys,

I am dealing with these fellows. Can someone confirm these are dino's and perhaps ID them? Thanks!

I vote prorocentrum here.

Does anyone with an armored dinoflagellate like ostreopsis @Clownfishy or prorocentrum have a nice mass of brown dino they could sample for an experiment and a blacklight bulb (fluorescent, not LED)?
I'm looking into a test to ID dinos and distinguish from diatoms, and it works with symbiotic dinos (zoox from corals and amphidinium from a flatworm) I just need to test it on a microscope-confirmed case of pest dinos.

 

[clown and friends]

Would like to report some success I have had in getting controlling dinos in about a weeks time. I got them due to driving my nitrates and phosphates to 0 for a long period (months) as that was what was drilled in to my head by other reefers when I got started (this needs to change by the way people need stop telling others their nitrates should be 0). Anyways, I took a multi step approach to crushing the dinos:

I began by turning my skimmer off and feeding more heavily.
I started dosing my reef energy A&B 1/day instead of once every other day to start dirtying the water.
I started dosing microbacter 7 5ml/25g every day.
Bought a 9w uv sterilizer made for the IM tanks and ran it 24/7 (which are super cool by the way and fit in the chamber as if they are a filter sock).
Did not scrape the glass at all so some other algae could compete.
Then I decided to try to force them in to the water column so the UV could work and did a 36hr blackout. I ran carbon during this period just in case they released toxins

This was the crushing blow. They were mostly gone after the blackout and have not returned after a week since the blackout. My nitrates are holding at 2ppm and phosphates are detectable again so I may try to keep them at this level. I am hesitant to take off the UV as the corals look so happy again and I am worried they will come back. Does anyone have experience in removing their UV? Did they come back?

 

[dwest]

I think I'm making a little headway. This video is about 24 hours after blowing my sand and rock with a turkey baster. I added that about 5 days ago on top of maintaining nutrients, silicate dosing and UV. In the past it would be completely back in less than 24 hours. Still not seeing any improvement in my SPS but all the zoas, palys and RFA's seem very happy. The euphyllia in the background on the left side is happy as well.

Looks great salty! Nice to hear. I wonder if you are getting amphidinium through the uv or they are truly getting outcompeted...

 

[dwest]

I vote prorocentrum here.

Does anyone with an armored dinoflagellate like ostreopsis @Clownfishy or prorocentrum have a nice mass of brown dino they could sample for an experiment and a blacklight bulb (fluorescent, not LED)?
I'm looking into a test to ID dinos and distinguish from diatoms, and it works with symbiotic dinos (zoox from corals and amphidinium from a flatworm) I just need to test it on a microscope-confirmed case of pest dinos.

I only have what I believe are amphidinium. Certainly someone can help out?