Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[ScottB]

Well folks, seems like Ostreopsis is completely gone!

Yesterday, I still saw some straggling strings in many spots, but I was not getting any new dino growth even after 8 hours of lighting. Today, I've looked and looked and I cannot find any dino anywhere! Gone. That's less than a week after raising No3/Po4 and about 3 days after installing UV.

Not declaring victory yet, and I'll still take some samples from random spots to see if I can spot those buggers with a microscope. I assume AWC should stay off for the next few weeks.

Awesome! That was fast. Well played.

There are still some little buggers swimming around to be sure. I haven't seen my ostreos with the naked eye for a couple years now, but if I let the glass dirty up and take a scrape under the scope I always find some stragglers.

 

[Miami Reef]

You’ll never completely eradicate them which is a good thing! Corals host dinoflagellates. They are required for the survival of corals.

 

[Miami Reef]

It’s only when it’s out of control that it becomes a problem. A job well done @Yodeling.

 

[Smoke-Town]

Finally got to the end of this thread. Unfortunately this book doesn't yet have ending where will live happily ever after yet so I thought I'd pose a new question for those of us still living with active dinos.

What corals have you guys found more resilient to dino outbreaks?

I've been fighting dinos since about March. Had beaten it around July then moved to Nmy new house in September and the new water and tank move brought dinos back that I'm still fighting.

In my experience, my green star polyps are doing well. My acans and lords seem to be unaffected and my brown and yellow leptoseris and green pavona are holding on strong.

My 24k lepto was doing well but is bleaching now and my green Monti digitata was doing well through all of it but is losing its color now. Acros and birdsnest seem to have no hope and my duncan is struggling hard to ever have any polyp extension.

So what corals have been the big survivors for you guys? Maybe we can get a good list together to make our dino experiences less terrible.

 

[ScottB]

Finally got to the end of this thread. Unfortunately this book doesn't yet have ending where will live happily ever after yet so I thought I'd pose a new question for those of us still living with active dinos.

What corals have you guys found more resilient to dino outbreaks?

I've been fighting dinos since about March. Had beaten it around July then moved to Nmy new house in September and the new water and tank move brought dinos back that I'm still fighting.

In my experience, my green star polyps are doing well. My acans and lords seem to be unaffected and my brown and yellow leptoseris and green pavona are holding on strong.

My 24k lepto was doing well but is bleaching now and my green Monti digitata was doing well through all of it but is losing its color now. Acros and birdsnest seem to have no hope and my duncan is struggling hard to ever have any polyp extension.

So what corals have been the big survivors for you guys? Maybe we can get a good list together to make our dino experiences less terrible.

While a few dinos have significant toxins -- ostreopsis in particular -- I don't find that they compete with or kill live coral tissue.

Coral casualties are generally a function of a starving or destabilized biome. Once the flesh is dead, the dinos will attach of course and consume the dead flesh because now they are the dominant surface competitor.

Acros and many SPS are the least efficient corals at processing the limited nutrients available, so they are the first to stress. Unlike LPS, they don't always "show" stress as clearly as a zoa or other large polyp creature. The SPS casualties reefers are witnessing right now were likely caused a week or two ago. If you look closely, the first sign I see is the SPS flesh looks "thin & dry" relative to when it was happy.

Anecdotally, the most common cause of dinos and SPS casualties is a deficiency of available PO4.

 

[56cbr600rr]

In the last 2-3 months I've had several different battles with several different opponents. And learned something along the way. I had some instability several months ago and had somesort of algae or bacteria that was worse with lights on and better at night. I picked up a microscope for my daughters (really for me) and identified Dino Coolia. I used UV, occsional vacuuming of sandbed, daily changing of filter floss, BioSpira, and Nitrates around 5-10 and Phosphates around .08-.1 to eradicate them. It seemed to work as well. Until that is, I guess I opened the door for the next toughest opponent and got a severe case of Cyano and some spots of what I belive are a hair type of algae. Tried several different things to clear Cyano with no luck and went to Chemiclean, which worked amazing. Everything looked fantatstic for a week or so.... Until I got hit with something else. IT was real similar to the Coolia, but longer clumps/strands, and the UV did not seem to help. It seemed to be tougher that Coolia and somewhat affected by photo period. It did get worse in the day, but did not go away as much at night. I microscope ID'd it as Dino Ostreopsis.

I'd had enough of the back and forth and decided to try to go natural. Someone on the forum was selling blue leg hermit crabs very cheap... So I picked up about 80 of them. And put them in my IM Nuvo 25 lagoon. This is an understatement, BUT THEY WENT TO TOWN!!! VERY NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE BY THE NEXT DAY. WIth the crabs, I am dosing occasional BioSpira, running UV, Nitrates up to 8-15, Phosphates around .1, changing filter floss daily and an occasional sand bed vacuuming. Without exagerating, my tank was 85% better in two days, 95% better in 5 days, and now two weeks in 99% perfect. Sandbed and rocks look great.

Not sure if they are actually eating the Dinos are stirring them up. What I do know is my tank has not looked better. maybe someone might have an explanation of how this is helping, and hopefully this helps others.

 

[Reef.]

Finally got to the end of this thread. Unfortunately this book doesn't yet have ending where will live happily ever after yet so I thought I'd pose a new question for those of us still living with active dinos.

What corals have you guys found more resilient to dino outbreaks?

I've been fighting dinos since about March. Had beaten it around July then moved to Nmy new house in September and the new water and tank move brought dinos back that I'm still fighting.

In my experience, my green star polyps are doing well. My acans and lords seem to be unaffected and my brown and yellow leptoseris and green pavona are holding on strong.

My 24k lepto was doing well but is bleaching now and my green Monti digitata was doing well through all of it but is losing its color now. Acros and birdsnest seem to have no hope and my duncan is struggling hard to ever have any polyp extension.

So what corals have been the big survivors for you guys? Maybe we can get a good list together to make our dino experiences less terrible.

what have you tried?

and would you say you put 100% effort into what you did try?

If you can not remove rock to scrub I can see it would take a huge effort to rid the tank of dinos.

 

[Miami Reef]

Perfect. Don't be alarmed if you get a small transition to some cyano once the dinos lose hold. Very normal. Syphon it out and carry on.

Question: do you think it makes sense to assume the reason we get cyano after dinos is because the Dinos killed off most of the competition?

I’m currently dealing with bad cyano that is smothering my GSP. I dosed 2x 10:1 h202. My original plan was to do it for 2 weeks but now I’m regretting it because I’m afraid I’m just kill off my algae which will result in Dino’s coming back?

 

[Reef.]

Question: do you think it makes sense to assume the reason we get cyano after dinos is because the Dinos killed off most of the competition?

I’m currently dealing with bad cyano that is smothering my GSP. I dosed 2x 10:1 h202. My original plan was to do it for 2 weeks but now I’m regretting it because I’m afraid I’m just kill off my algae which will result in Dino’s coming back?

I would say it’s more that the dinos took over the bacteria’s space rather than killed the bacteria, getting rid of the dinos would then leave space for something else to fill it.

 

[ScottB]

Question: do you think it makes sense to assume the reason we get cyano after dinos is because the Dinos killed off most of the competition?

I’m currently dealing with bad cyano that is smothering my GSP. I dosed 2x 10:1 h202. My original plan was to do it for 2 weeks but now I’m regretting it because I’m afraid I’m just kill off my algae which will result in Dino’s coming back?

I think of all the surfaces in our tanks as a microscopic food web of bacterial film, film algae, diatoms, pods, coralline, cyanos and yes, even dinos. When the web is severely disrupted, dinos are the surviving cockroaches that take over that surface. If the biome begins recovery, the cyano is next, then diatoms, then so on. The sequence can vary based on different factors in different tanks (presence of silicates, iron, nitrate...).

I believe we should just provide nutritional support for the recovery of that food web and let nature do its thing. Chemical interventions (to me) are just another disruption. Yes, it is possible we could get lucky and manage to skip over an undesirable competitor this way, but it is a multifactorial gamble.

 

[ScottB]

In the last 2-3 months I've had several different battles with several different opponents. And learned something along the way. I had some instability several months ago and had somesort of algae or bacteria that was worse with lights on and better at night. I picked up a microscope for my daughters (really for me) and identified Dino Coolia. I used UV, occsional vacuuming of sandbed, daily changing of filter floss, BioSpira, and Nitrates around 5-10 and Phosphates around .08-.1 to eradicate them. It seemed to work as well. Until that is, I guess I opened the door for the next toughest opponent and got a severe case of Cyano and some spots of what I belive are a hair type of algae. Tried several different things to clear Cyano with no luck and went to Chemiclean, which worked amazing. Everything looked fantatstic for a week or so.... Until I got hit with something else. IT was real similar to the Coolia, but longer clumps/strands, and the UV did not seem to help. It seemed to be tougher that Coolia and somewhat affected by photo period. It did get worse in the day, but did not go away as much at night. I microscope ID'd it as Dino Ostreopsis.

I'd had enough of the back and forth and decided to try to go natural. Someone on the forum was selling blue leg hermit crabs very cheap... So I picked up about 80 of them. And put them in my IM Nuvo 25 lagoon. This is an understatement, BUT THEY WENT TO TOWN!!! VERY NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE BY THE NEXT DAY. WIth the crabs, I am dosing occasional BioSpira, running UV, Nitrates up to 8-15, Phosphates around .1, changing filter floss daily and an occasional sand bed vacuuming. Without exagerating, my tank was 85% better in two days, 95% better in 5 days, and now two weeks in 99% perfect. Sandbed and rocks look great.

Not sure if they are actually eating the Dinos are stirring them up. What I do know is my tank has not looked better. maybe someone might have an explanation of how this is helping, and hopefully this helps others.

Having a cyano outbreak after dinos (non-LC Amphids anyway) is pretty much a given. They are the "next player up" in taking over the surfaces after dinos. Like Swiss clockwork.

Then we resort to a chemical assault on that competitor that is effective, but our surfaces are once again barren. Queue the next most resilient player. Be glad it was ostreopsis and not LC Amphids! UV is very effective against ostreos.

You fortunately timed things up pretty well with a rising nutrients in the biome at the same time the ostreos were getting cooked. This fed the "surface competitor web". And I guess there was enough residual Chemi around to restrain the cyano.

I don't know the role the crabs played. Ostreos are rather toxic. LC Amphids are somewhat edible if there is nothing else to eat.

Glad to learn your biome is back to a healthy state!

 

[saltyhog]

Finally got to the end of this thread. Unfortunately this book doesn't yet have ending where will live happily ever after yet so I thought I'd pose a new question for those of us still living with active dinos.

What corals have you guys found more resilient to dino outbreaks?

I've been fighting dinos since about March. Had beaten it around July then moved to Nmy new house in September and the new water and tank move brought dinos back that I'm still fighting.

In my experience, my green star polyps are doing well. My acans and lords seem to be unaffected and my brown and yellow leptoseris and green pavona are holding on strong.

My 24k lepto was doing well but is bleaching now and my green Monti digitata was doing well through all of it but is losing its color now. Acros and birdsnest seem to have no hope and my duncan is struggling hard to ever have any polyp extension.

So what corals have been the big survivors for you guys? Maybe we can get a good list together to make our dino experiences less terrible.

As Scott said above ostreopsis is the only dino that is so toxic as to cause widespread coral loss (and that can be mitigated to some extent with running GAC). Coolia is the next most toxic IME but far less than ostreopsis. Some strains of Prorocentrum seem to be very mildly toxic but not enough to cause coral loss. LCA and SCA are generally not toxic at all....just an eye sore.

I have corals that seem to be the canaries in the bird cage for my tank and ostreopsis. My duncans are the first to show effects by retracting much of the time. That doesn't mean they're more sensitive to it necessarily, just that their polyp retraction is more noticeable than SPS. I've found my acans rarely react unless the situation is dire.

 

[ScottB]

As Scott said above ostreopsis is the only dino that is so toxic as to cause widespread coral loss (and that can be mitigated to some extent with running GAC). Coolia is the next most toxic IME but far less than ostreopsis. Some strains of Prorocentrum seem to be very mildly toxic but not enough to cause coral loss. LCA and SCA are generally not toxic at all....just an eye sore.

I have corals that seem to be the canaries in the bird cage for my tank and ostreopsis. My duncans are the first to show effects by retracting much of the time. That doesn't mean they're more sensitive to it necessarily, just that their polyp retraction is more noticeable than SPS. I've found my acans rarely react unless the situation is dire.

Funny you mention Duncans. My Duncans are canaries for depleted Iodine. My ostreopsis coincided with Iodine depletion although I cannot confirm whether that was cause or effect (dinos/Iodine).

 

[saltyhog]

Funny you mention Duncans. My Duncans are canaries for depleted Iodine. My ostreopsis coincided with Iodine depletion although I cannot confirm whether that was cause or effect (dinos/Iodine).

Interesting. My iodine was very low also!

 

[ScottB]

Interesting. My iodine was very low also!

Do you have an Iodine test kit you like? My Salifert is meh. I understand that it is not a trace you want to wing it with in dosing, and I always end up low when my ICP comes back 3 times a year.

 

[56cbr600rr]

Having a cyano outbreak after dinos (non-LC Amphids anyway) is pretty much a given. They are the "next player up" in taking over the surfaces after dinos. Like Swiss clockwork.

Then we resort to a chemical assault on that competitor that is effective, but our surfaces are once again barren. Queue the next most resilient player. Be glad it was ostreopsis and not LC Amphids! UV is very effective against ostreos.

You fortunately timed things up pretty well with a rising nutrients in the biome at the same time the ostreos were getting cooked. This fed the "surface competitor web". And I guess there was enough residual Chemi around to restrain the cyano.

I don't know the role the crabs played. Ostreos are rather toxic. LC Amphids are somewhat edible if there is nothing else to eat.

Glad to learn your biome is back to a healthy state!

The UV didn't seem to help this time around. Which i thought strange. The Ostreo seemed quite a bit more aggressive than the Coolia I had prior. I changed filter floss out every morning, Ran UV consistently, Had nice (high) nutrients with not much luck. Did this for approximately 2 weeks with no luck. It wasn't until I added the blue legged hermit crabs and it was almost instantly better.

Would love to hear of someone else trying the hermits..

 

[Smoke-Town]

what have you tried?

and would you say you put 100% effort into what you did try?

If you can not remove rock to scrub I can see it would take a huge effort to rid the tank of dinos.

I think I'm omw out of it. Blasted the rocks and sand every day for a long time with extra filter pads I replaced twice a day and added neo nitro and phosphates. Up to about 12 nitrates and 1.2 phos. Got some cyano patches and a green brown algae of some type taking over. I don't blast the rocks anymore. Just letting it be. Coraline been growing again too. Thinking about adding some dr tims waste away but not sure of I should.

 

[Miami Reef]

deleted

 

[Just John]

Can someone please help me identify what type of dinos these are. I think they are large cell Amphidinium, but I am not positive. They look a lot like diatoms when covering surfaces and reproduce very rapidly. They stay mostly on the sand, but also grow all over the stems of my zoas. Thin brown layer with no snot and no bubbles. Dusty when brushed off. The video was taken under 250x power. The photo was taken under 1000x, but then zoomed in on my phone. Also, the photo is of the them next to a few diatoms for size comparison.

 

[Just John]

@taricha and @ScottB I saw you discussing this on other posts, so I thought I would ask you to join in with the above ID.