Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

Xavier434

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Worried that I might have Dinos again. They do not look anything like Dinos though until I put them under a microscope. No snotty mess. No bubbles.

I'd like to ask for an ID if possible.

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YankeeTankee

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Hmmm. That is not a correlation I've thought of before. I probably should have. My display system has all live rock (some very very old) and has never had dinos even though nutrients ran low for months and months.

My frag system only has some old rock in the sump -- and not much of it relative to water volume. And I just completed my third round with dinos (ostreopsis) there. Anecdotally supports your thesis.

So as just a thought exercise... the potential dino countering benefits of old live rock:
a) A potential store of PO4 that can release it into the water when nutrients get low
b) bacterial diversity score
c) microfauna diversity
d) a potential store of all kinds of competitive spore, cysts, critters, pods...
e) living algae

Other?
Counter arguments?
Agree with @drawman , I think you nailed it on the likely contributing factors.

While some folks who began with LR have had dinos, after reading post after post on several of the threads, then searching those members posts to see if they began with LR or dry rock, I definitely saw a correlation. A lot of the guys battling started with dry and many of the "never had them" guys started with LR. Anecdotal yes but I read quite a few!
 

DesertReefT4r

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Do the people here agree that generally live rock is better than dry rock for preventing dinos in the first place?
IMO and IME yeah 100% absolutely. I have never had a reef that had dino issues when started with all live rock. In fact 5-10 years ago dinoflagellates where almost completely unheard of. It wasnt until using dry rock to prevent pest introduction that the word dinoflagellates started to circulate in the reefing hobby. I think its the large lack of bio diversity that is missing from dry rock, there is just something that comes with the live rock that you can never introduce otherwise. This lack of diversity leaves a large biological nitch that will be filled by something and most likely something fast growing and nasty. Now with adding in wild caught fish, wild or maricultured corals on small pieces of rock, on frag plugs from a mature live rock system or seeding with some live rock in time that biodiversity will start to colonize the system. This can take 1-2 years or more even. I have been buying small pieces of live rock to add to my reef, which has been hard to find locally or online. As well as buying corals that are on a piece of rock like wild collected mushrooms and zoas. Hopefully with Indo opening back up we will be getting maricultured sps on rock like we used too. Maybe even see real live rock coming back in again, I can wish. Pic of mushroom that came on live rock from the ocean for an example.
20200122_172719_resized.jpg
 

ScottB

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Your cinematography skills are about as good as mine. ;)

I cannot make them out at this image detail but maybe you have better eyes. Here is the best ID document available today courtesy of @taricha . If you can get a video at 400X it would be clear.
 

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ScottB

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Worried that I might have Dinos again. They do not look anything like Dinos though until I put them under a microscope. No snotty mess. No bubbles.

I'd like to ask for an ID if possible.

zoom.png

zoom2.png
I cannot confirm either way. Clearly a mix of organisms. A few of those cells MIGHT look like procentrum (the ones with circles in the middle). You wrote "dinos again" so I will share my experience (and opinion) with you. Once you have had them, they will likely remain present (but submissive) for a LONG time. In a balanced system, they just cannot compete so well to be visually present and dominating. I am probably 2 months clean now (frag system) but if I take a scrape off the glass I will find ostreopsis.

Keep your UV in good shape and close by. Shake it at them, curse at them, threaten them and keep your nutrients balanced.
 

JCOLE

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I have two pumps. One pump is my return for my display and the other pump supplies my fuge, GAC reactor, frag tank, and UV. I have my 55w Jebao UV plumbed in with the second pump which comes back to beginning of my sump. I have read that the UV should be on the inlet and outlet to the display.

Will my setup still have good results?
 

taricha

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Dino's have hit hard after installing the 50 gallon low boy but they are only in the low boy and I cannot get rid of them. I have no Dinos in the fuge, sump, and display tank.

Is this just cause the low boy tank is new? If so, what would be the suggestion?
good answer below
You gave them some space with the low boy where no bacterial film, film algae, coralline, or other algae existed. You also (by 50 gallon dilution) reduced nutrient for the aforementioned competitors to compete or displace the opportunistic dinos.
I hold same reasoning as Scott here.


c) If adding capacity, run separate if you can to allow bacterial film, film algae, coralline, or other algae to get a grip.
d) Otherwise dirty up the system immediately to confuse the dino b******s.
Live rock (actual real live rock. not the purple painted stuff that has no pores in it.) may be a simpler path to the same.
A few years ago, I did however start a small tank to culture a dino free sandbed. Dumped in all kinds of fish food etc. Grew a ton of stuff, but not dinos. Dinos added to it after it was established could not grow. Was thinking of doing a (partial) sandbed transplant, but in the meantime my sandbed dinos went away. The reality check is that If I had tested the nutrients in that tank, there's no way anyone would add stuff from it into their system.

Kinda like a Dino Fuge.
Someone posted about using their actual fuge this way. Run 3 day blackout on display, lights on in the fuge. Collect dinos in the fuge. Then he cut off flow to the rest of the system, suck dinos out of fuge, and pour in a bunch of peroxide. Empty fuge and refill. I don't know that it's better than other ways of using blackout to force dinos into more vulnerable state and get UV'd, but maybe it's personally satisfying to obliterate a big mass of them in your fuge :)


Do the people here agree that generally live rock is better than dry rock for preventing dinos in the first place?
This was a long time hypothesis with anecdotal support. Eli at @AquaBiomics has recently put the idea on a much firmer basis with detailed microbiome testing.
See article here: Establishing a healthy microbiome...using live rock

a) A potential store of PO4 that can release it into the water when nutrients get low
b) bacterial diversity score
c) microfauna diversity
d) a potential store of all kinds of competitive spore, cysts, critters, pods...
e) living algae
It must be mentioned that a potential drawback is the introduction of dino cells and cysts. But live rock from ocean or a healthy system comes from a place where the balance has already been established in a way that disfavors dinos, so I'd take it any day.

I have read that the UV should be on the inlet and outlet to the display.
UV should draw in from display, and for simplicity many return it to display as well. As previous discussions highlights, cells don't go everywhere uniformly.
 

ScottB

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The UV will hit more of the fee swimming protists if run directly to/from the affected display. At least I had a faster result when I moved it up at the recommendation of folks here. It is quite the eyesore, but in my case it is in the basement so only I have to look at it.

You can give it a try. During the photoperiod, stir/baste them strongly to encourage more to reach the overflow.
 

Xavier434

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I cannot confirm either way. Clearly a mix of organisms. A few of those cells MIGHT look like procentrum (the ones with circles in the middle). You wrote "dinos again" so I will share my experience (and opinion) with you. Once you have had them, they will likely remain present (but submissive) for a LONG time. In a balanced system, they just cannot compete so well to be visually present and dominating. I am probably 2 months clean now (frag system) but if I take a scrape off the glass I will find ostreopsis.

Keep your UV in good shape and close by. Shake it at them, curse at them, threaten them and keep your nutrients balanced.

My first experience with Dinos ended after an accident that required me to remove 100% of the water and sand. I also RO dipped all of my rock except for 1 of them for over an hour. Since then, my parameters have been pretty stable. I am just really paranoid after my last Dino experience so I have been periodically taking samples of algae and looking at them in the microscope.
 

ScottB

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My first experience with Dinos ended after an accident that required me to remove 100% of the water and sand. I also RO dipped all of my rock except for 1 of them for over an hour. Since then, my parameters have been pretty stable. I am just really paranoid after my last Dino experience so I have been periodically taking samples of algae and looking at them in the microscope.

Sorry about the need to restart. And believe me, while my frag system is finally maturing, I am familiar with your dino paranoia.
 

drawman

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So I was posing this question in another thread. I'm curious if anyone has used an oxydator to help combat dinos. I realize peroxide dosing is marginally effective but I wonder if an oxdator would be more beneficial. Just a thought because I have yet to see it mentioned in this thread.
 

taricha

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So I was posing this question in another thread. I'm curious if anyone has used an oxydator to help combat dinos. I realize peroxide dosing is marginally effective but I wonder if an oxdator would be more beneficial.
Really good Q. Peroxide marginally effective as you say, but ozone was much better. I don't know if that's due to ozone being a stronger oxidizer than h2o2 (which it is), or if it's the 24/7 nature of ozone, or if it was the ease of simply "turning up" the ozone dose until it "worked" that made it more effective.
I also don't know if the levels needed to eradicate dinos were sensible ones for a reef system.
Would the oxydator be more like ozone, or more like peroxide? I can't answer that either! But it seems worth considering.
 

DesertReefT4r

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So I was posing this question in another thread. I'm curious if anyone has used an oxydator to help combat dinos. I realize peroxide dosing is marginally effective but I wonder if an oxdator would be more beneficial. Just a thought because I have yet to see it mentioned in this thread.
j
Yes some have reported Ozone to be effective at killing the dino cells.
 

Stephers

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Can someone confirm this species for me?? I cant decide... I have one patch left in the corner... 20200127_213026.jpg 20200127_212728.jpg
 

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