Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[drawman]

Anyone have issues dosing iodine? I just got a bottle that I wanted to start using of TLF iodine. I know there is a general feeling that dinos feed off of "trace elements" with water changes. @ScottB and @dwest thoughts?

 

[tkdman]

day 3 of temp increase day 2 at 82. Dinos are moving from the rocks to the sand.

 

[AaronFReef]

What temp do you keep the tank at?

Very stable 78.5.

 

[jdubya]

Had bubble/turf algae which i destroyed with vibrant and reef flux, however now have a minor case of dinos, gets noticeably bad after feeding reef roids.

Raised my temp to 80 yesterday and will bump up to 82 today to give another data point on high temp

 

[dwest]

Anyone have issues dosing iodine? I just got a bottle that I wanted to start using of TLF iodine. I know there is a general feeling that dinos feed off of "trace elements" with water changes. @ScottB and @dwest thoughts?

I used to dose iodine back in the day, and I never noticed any negatives or positives.

But, you asked specifically about dinos. All I can give you is that my dinos were not impacted in any way with water changes. A lot of people report that water changes fuels dino outbursts. I did not experience that with my small cell amphidium.

 

[Gildo]

82.5 degrees from 4 days + bleach from 6 .... seem to have disappeared, I examined various samples with a microscope ... in the end I found my osteropsis ... they entered "protection mode" much smaller and still, but not I believe they are dead! while the cyan are invading the tank .... for cyano people better to reduce nitrates or phosphates?

 

[Mark]

82.5 degrees from 4 days + bleach from 6 .... seem to have disappeared, I examined various samples with a microscope ... in the end I found my osteropsis ... they entered "protection mode" much smaller and still, but not I believe they are dead! while the cyan are invading the tank .... for cyano people better to reduce nitrates or phosphates?

Cyano are good at scavenging atmospheric nitrogen, so they tend to have a competitive advantage over green algae when phosphates are available but nitrates are low. To be honest, once the Dino's are fully gone, I'd keep the temp at 82 and concurrently treat with chemi-clean for the cyano.

 

[taricha]

Are these dinos?

Do doing a water change today, once water movement stopped I noticed these brown clouds coming off of the sandbed...slowky going up onto water column and staying in little clumps.

I have seen others post pics of a strain of ostreopsis dinos lift off in an orange/brown cloud when pumps turn off. So totally possible, on the other hand...

I am seeing some goo like that in one of my tanks too. I put it under a scope and it is not dinos. It is very small greenish round cells without any movement. Some kind of an algae, but I have yet to ID it.

I started surfing the Amphidinum thread on this forum, and saw what @Mark had posted about raising the tank temperature. I started raising my tank temperature on May 5th, and in 24 hours on May 6th, I was at 82.2F and holding steady. Today, I have checked my glass, rocks, floor of the tank, base of my coal frags under the microscope multiple times today. I have only seen one amphidinum cell so far and no ostreopsis.

Post microscope pics of the dino cells that you had before, if possible.
Trying to keep up with the strains that can be definitively matched with successful reports.

I've just come across this plan of action of raising temp. I normally run at 78.5, I'm going to raise my temp up to 82, does it matter what type of dinos you have or is it just higher temp?

We're trying to figure that out. Everything else with dinos varies somewhat by strain, so why not this too?

But I see many people now who seem to think that raising the temp of their tank as a silver bullet based off of one persons anecdotal evidence. Especially when we know there are many kinds of dinos, and each need treated differently. I am not telling anyone not to try it. I am saying if you choose to try it you MAY make it worse.

Yep, we need careful observations and maybe we can narrow down the mechanism, if it works.

it’s possible that the Dinos we face have deteriorated metabolic function while their competitors possibly even see an increase allowing them to outcompete.

I think it's almost certain that this will not be a case of Dinos hate high temps. We are talking about tropical cells from tropical waters.
Here's small cell amphidinium "Its maximum growth rate was 1 division/day, and it grew well between 20 and 33 °C." (68-91F)
Ostreopsis Ovata "Higher growth rates, 0.74–0.83 d−1, were also recorded by these authors, but for higher temperature (30C)" (86F)
Prorocentrum Lima "Densities and growth rates are both highest in tropical/sub-tropical temperatures (23–28C)" (82F)
So we can eliminate the simplest explanation - they don't do well in heat. This (if it holds up - more than enough are trying it now) is going to be about heat shifting some balance, or decreasing some availability that makes what's already a stress into something they can't handle.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Well I'm nearly 24 hrs into 82⁰ and I'll see how it goes.
I'll report back when I see either improvement or tank breakdown. I'm hoping the heat solves it.

 

[Mark]

Yeah, @taricha 's points need to be emphasized. While it worked for me and some others, we still don't know if it is Dino species specific. If it's a matter of shifting the environment to other competitors, then will it depend on the reef aquarium? We are already seeing bacterial makeups being quite different tank to tank. Maybe the higher temp is making some element less bio-available, and again some tanks are limited enough in that element that the temp just pushes that availability to the right threshold(whereas other tanks may have that element more available).

Nevertheless, I'd be patient, and if you're going to try it, leave it there for a couple of weeks. Maybe temp raising fixes one tank in 7 days, and another tank needs 14 days. Or maybe no amount of days matters for some tanks. Who knows.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Yeah, @taricha 's points need to be emphasized. While it worked for me and some others, we still don't know if it is Dino species specific. If it's a matter of shifting the environment to other competitors, then will it depend on the reef aquarium? We are already seeing bacterial makeups being quite different tank to tank. Maybe the higher temp is making some element less bio-available, and again some tanks are limited enough in that element that the temp just pushes that availability to the right threshold(whereas other tanks may have that element more available).

Nevertheless, I'd be patient, and if you're going to try it, leave it there for a couple of weeks. Maybe temp raising fixes one tank in 7 days, and another tank needs 14 days. Or maybe no amount of days matters for some tanks. Who knows.

I'm going to try 2 weeks minimum and just feeding of the fish and top off water, I'm not even going to clean the glass for now.

 

[drawman]

I have seen others post pics of a strain of ostreopsis dinos lift off in an orange/brown cloud when pumps turn off. So totally possible, on the other hand...



Post microscope pics of the dino cells that you had before, if possible.
Trying to keep up with the strains that can be definitively matched with successful reports.



We're trying to figure that out. Everything else with dinos varies somewhat by strain, so why not this too?

Yep, we need careful observations and maybe we can narrow down the mechanism, if it works.


I think it's almost certain that this will not be a case of Dinos hate high temps. We are talking about tropical cells from tropical waters.
Here's small cell amphidinium "Its maximum growth rate was 1 division/day, and it grew well between 20 and 33 °C." (68-91F)
Ostreopsis Ovata "Higher growth rates, 0.74–0.83 d−1, were also recorded by these authors, but for higher temperature (30C)" (86F)
Prorocentrum Lima "Densities and growth rates are both highest in tropical/sub-tropical temperatures (23–28C)" (82F)
So we can eliminate the simplest explanation - they don't do well in heat. This (if it holds up - more than enough are trying it now) is going to be about heat shifting some balance, or decreasing some availability that makes what's already a stress into something they can't handle.

Yeah, @taricha 's points need to be emphasized. While it worked for me and some others, we still don't know if it is Dino species specific. If it's a matter of shifting the environment to other competitors, then will it depend on the reef aquarium? We are already seeing bacterial makeups being quite different tank to tank. Maybe the higher temp is making some element less bio-available, and again some tanks are limited enough in that element that the temp just pushes that availability to the right threshold(whereas other tanks may have that element more available).

Nevertheless, I'd be patient, and if you're going to try it, leave it there for a couple of weeks. Maybe temp raising fixes one tank in 7 days, and another tank needs 14 days. Or maybe no amount of days matters for some tanks. Who knows.

When I first heard this it made me wonder if this increased temp favors bacterial multiplication just enough to tip the balance. Very hard for hobbyists to test this hypothesis however.

 

[GeoSquid]

Dino's! I've mostly beat them with DIY oversized Algae Turf Scrubbers. Very inexpensive overall. No chemicals or potions, no UV or lights out.

 

[enb141]

Dino's! I've mostly beat them with DIY oversized Algae Turf Scrubbers. Very inexpensive overall. No chemicals or potions, no UV or lights out.

Water temperature?
tank size?
are you/ were you feeding coral frenzy/reef roids before or after you go the dinos?
Type of Dinos?
Days since you are dino free?

 

[GeoSquid]

Water temperature?
tank size?
are you/ were you feeding coral frenzy/reef roids before or after you go the dinos?
Type of Dinos?
Days since you are dino free?

My temp is around 80 deg.
My tank is 180 Gallons
My dino's were caused by Chemiclean - I was fighting cyano for about 3 months and, against my better judgment, used chemiclean. I've had cyano in the past and just let it work itself out but made a mistake this time. About 2 months after chemiclean I got dino's.
I make my own food for fish and coral.
I wouldn't say I'm Dino free and I don't know what kind (long stringy snot).....The dino's are mostly growing on the Turf Scrubbers now. I was blowing dino's off rocks and corals like 3 times a day at the peak....now I have just little spots here and there I blow off about every 3 days or so and almost none on corals and sand.
I don't scrape the scrubber screens like normal, I just rinse them off and rub it with my fingers. The GHA stick well and the dino's just rinse off. I"m getting less and less in the scrubbers and more GHA.

 

[enb141]

My temp is around 80 deg.
My tank is 180 Gallons
My dino's were caused by Chemiclean - I was fighting cyano for about 3 months and, against my better judgment, used chemiclean. I've had cyano in the past and just let it work itself out but made a mistake this time. About 2 months after chemiclean I got dino's.
I make my own food for fish and coral.
I wouldn't say I'm Dino free and I don't know what kind (long stringy snot).....The dino's are mostly growing on the Turf Scrubbers now. I was blowing dino's off rocks and corals like 3 times a day at the peak....now I have just little spots here and there I blow off about every 3 days or so and almost none on corals and sand.
I don't scrape the scrubber screens like normal, I just rinse them off and rub it with my fingers. The GHA stick well and the dino's just rinse off. I"m getting less and less in the scrubbers and more GHA.

I see, you still have dinos but they are not as bad as they used to be, as other guys are doing here, try to rise the temperature of your tank to 82-83 to see if that finally kills them.

 

[GeoSquid]

I see, you still have dinos but they are not as bad as they used to be, as other guys are doing here, try to rise the temperature of your tank to 82-83 to see if that finally kills them.

That's interesting on temperature. I usually run my tank around 76-78 in the winter and ~80 in summer. We had a hot spell here recently and that's why my tank is up to 80 ish. I seemed to be slowly winning the battle on the dino's but did notice a bit more of a decrease in them since the temp went up now that you say something. I hadn't put the two together.

 

[Pyrosteve]

More improvement today. Very little Dinos on the sand and last night at lights out I noticed a Turbo snail and hermit crab in the sand where I had the largest patch. It looked like they were actively eating the dead/dying dinos. I haven't seen that before. My phosphates have shot up from .16 to .22 to .26 (hanna) in the last 4 days. Could that be from die off? Nitrates have stayed around 10. I'm now seeing turf algae in spots.

 

[enb141]

That's interesting on temperature. I usually run my tank around 76-78 in the winter and ~80 in summer. We had a hot spell here recently and that's why my tank is up to 80 ish. I seemed to be slowly winning the battle on the dino's but did notice a bit more of a decrease in them since the temp went up now that you say something. I hadn't put the two together.

If you don't have corals, then you can rise the temperature even further, probably to 84-86

 

[Gildo]

Dino's! I've mostly beat them with DIY oversized Algae Turf Scrubbers. Very inexpensive overall. No chemicals or potions, no UV or lights out.

Please, can i see a picture of the DIY oversized Algae Turf Scrubbers???