Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[saltyhog]

Sorry. I’m not really a micro guy, but your dinos don’t move at all like what I believe are my amphidinium. They almost have tails like flatworms or something. Hopefully a micro person can help here. Sounds like things are going well!

I agree, I'm not even sure they are dinos. They are smaller than any I've seen previously.

 

[dwest]

And a video

I’m not a great ID person. They don’t have the shape of ostreopsis. They don’t move like my amphidinium. Guessing prorocentrum. For some reason I cannot find the link I used to use from algaeid.com...

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

I find myself with a bit of a conundrum.
My phosphates and nitrates have been slowly dropping. As of now, they are reading zero.
I do have a small GHA problem but I would be surprised if that is consuming all my nutrients. It's not taking over the entire tank, just in patches.
I also have started with sps and to my surprise, they are growing and doing well.
I feel as though I am asking for trouble with such low nutrient levels, but as I also have algae I don't really want to dose nitrates and phosphates.
Any thoughts ?

 

[dwest]

I find myself with a bit of a conundrum.
My phosphates and nitrates have been slowly dropping. As of now, they are reading zero.
I do have a small GHA problem but I would be surprised if that is consuming all my nutrients. It's not taking over the entire tank, just in patches.
I also have started with sps and to my surprise, they are growing and doing well.
I feel as though I am asking for trouble with such low nutrient levels, but as I also have algae I don't really want to dose nitrates and phosphates.
Any thoughts ?

I’d be concerned also. I make sure my nutrients are measurable. However, unless you are using nutrient reducers like nopox, strong refugium lighting, etc., you SHOULD be ok.

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

I’d be concerned also. I make sure my nutrients are measurable. However, unless you are using nutrient reducers like nopox, strong refugium lighting, etc., you SHOULD be ok.

Thanks.
The fact that I have algae growing and my sps seem to be growing like weeds means that there must be nutrients. Maybe they are getting used up before I can measure them.
I've refitted my UV as a precaution. I will do my best to rid the display of GHA and go from there.

 

[saltyhog]

I find myself with a bit of a conundrum.
My phosphates and nitrates have been slowly dropping. As of now, they are reading zero.
I do have a small GHA problem but I would be surprised if that is consuming all my nutrients. It's not taking over the entire tank, just in patches.
I also have started with sps and to my surprise, they are growing and doing well.
I feel as though I am asking for trouble with such low nutrient levels, but as I also have algae I don't really want to dose nitrates and phosphates.
Any thoughts ?

I would do it. It's not worth the risk IMO. I also think that dosing inorganic NO3 and PO4 seems to have much less on GHA and similar green algae than increasing feeding/organic forms. I have nitrates of 15-20 and PO4 of 0.13(letting it come down some) and zero green algae other than the biofilm on the glass.

 

[AaronFReef]

Thanks.
The fact that I have algae growing and my sps seem to be growing like weeds means that there must be nutrients. Maybe they are getting used up before I can measure them.
I've refitted my UV as a precaution. I will do my best to rid the display of GHA and go from there.

As a person in the same boat three months ago and now fighting the scourge of Dinos I would just dose and fight the algae until it stabilizes. You need detectable nutrients to reduce the risk of dinos from what little I know reading here. GHA is beatable without major effort. Dinos are hard work. My poor little tank now has a bazooka hanging off of it [emoji23]

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

My bazooka is back hanging over my display.
My lfs recommended vibrant so I have just dosed for the second time (my nutrients were already reading zero before starting this)
I don't know how Vibrant works, or even if it will work but I am finding GHA actually more frustrating to deal with than dinos were.
After a good look around the back of the display there is a lot more algae than I thought so maybe it is using up all the nutrients before the test kits can measure it.

 

[taricha]

There were several of a much smaller dino(I think it's a dino) at the edge of the mat. First part of the video is 100x, the second is at 400x


There is also some large mats of clear round green structures that don't appear to have nuclei. These are at 400x

Cryptomonas / rhodomonas

The green round cells I don’t know, but would guess a type of cyano from context.

And a video

Coolia dinos

I find myself with a bit of a conundrum.
My phosphates and nitrates have been slowly dropping. As of now, they are reading zero.
I do have a small GHA problem but I would be surprised if that is consuming all my nutrients. It's not taking over the entire tank, just in patches.
I also have started with sps and to my surprise, they are growing and doing well.
I feel as though I am asking for trouble with such low nutrient levels, but as I also have algae I don't really want to dose nitrates and phosphates.
Any thoughts ?

Healthy coral reefs grow algae quite quickly. They just have herbivores to eat it equally quickly.
Starving out algae leads to difficult problems. I’d use ATS/fuge or upgrade herbivores.

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

Cryptomonas / rhodomonas

The green round cells I don’t know, but would guess a type of cyano from context.

Coolia dinos


Healthy coral reefs grow algae quite quickly. They just have herbivores to eat it equally quickly.
Starving out algae leads to difficult problems. I’d use ATS/fuge or upgrade herbivores.

I've tried every snail imaginable plus a sea hare and an algae blenny. Non touch it.
I'd love a fox face or a kole tang but a reefer 250 just isn't big enough.
I will manually remove as much of the algae as possible and then dose to a reasonable level of phosphates and nitrates.

 

[taricha]

I've tried every snail imaginable plus a sea hare and an algae blenny. Non touch it.
I'd love a fox face or a kole tang but a reefer 250 just isn't big enough.
I will manually remove as much of the algae as possible and then dose to a reasonable level of phosphates and nitrates.

Understand. I went with fox face for my derbesia. It's possible that small amounts of spot treated peroxide could be helpful here.
An index of herbivores for specific algaes would be a very helpful reference.

 

[RevMH]

@taricha
I appreciate the confirmation. This thread has been immensely helpful with figuring out what happened (to avoid it in the future) and how to resolve the issue. I hope I'll be able to pay it forward in the future!
Thank you, again.

 

[Neoalchemist]

I've tried every snail imaginable plus a sea hare and an algae blenny. Non touch it.
I'd love a fox face or a kole tang but a reefer 250 just isn't big enough.
I will manually remove as much of the algae as possible and then dose to a reasonable level of phosphates and nitrates.

Are you sure your hair algea isn't bryopsis? Which can also be a low nutrient nightmare.

 

[saltyhog]

Cryptomonas / rhodomonas

The green round cells I don’t know, but would guess a type of cyano from context

Thanks @taricha . I take it those are fairly normal part of the phytoplankton?

 

[Ernie C]

Interested to hear peoples take on fragging stuff. Personally I think they've always been in my tank....for years but who knows.

No one ever chimed in on my concern/question about fragging when you know dinos are lurking in your tank. I have some Zoas that grow like weeds and I’ll soon have to start removing them before they get to my rocks so wanted some input from you all?

 

[dwest]

No one ever chimed in on my concern/question about fragging when you know dinos are lurking in your tank. I have some Zoas that grow like weeds and I’ll soon have to start removing them before they get to my rocks so wanted some input from you all?

I believe it’s fine to frag, sell, or trade frags because I think the tank they are going in will also have them. Dinos exploded in my tank because conditions were right for them and not their competitors. I believe I’ve always had some.

Tank is looking nice BTW!

 

[taricha]

Thanks @taricha . I take it those are fairly normal part of the phytoplankton?

Yep. They pop up in samples occasionally, but never cause problems.

 

[taricha]

No one ever chimed in on my concern/question about fragging when you know dinos are lurking in your tank. I have some Zoas that grow like weeds and I’ll soon have to start removing them before they get to my rocks so wanted some input from you all?

I’d do a quick (few seconds) shake off in low salinity or freshwater.
If you were feeling really aggressive, then you could dip in tank water with peroxide. Then you can feel sure that they are getting fewer dinos from you than they would with any order of live rock or macro algae.
Dinos are like diatoms or cyano. Cells exist in all systems.

 

[Victoria M]

No one ever chimed in on my concern/question about fragging when you know dinos are lurking in your tank. I have some Zoas that grow like weeds and I’ll soon have to start removing them before they get to my rocks so wanted some input from you all?

Send them to me, since I have dinos already!

 

[ScottB]

I moved mine to the sump for a while. I had some problems so I moved it back to the DT. I believe some have gotten away with leaving in the sump, but I think most of us keep in DT. That would be an interesting poll question however...

TBH, this was the one facet of recommended ostreopsis treatment I deviated from. I pumped from the sump (post sock) to the return section. It was just too easy to do it that way. But it still worked. Maybe it took a little longer to kill the b^^^^^^s off, but by the end of light cycle, I had most of the snot in the socks anyway.