Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[taricha]

Does it work if you click on the image? It should take you to flickr, and the video works there. Otherwise, I will upload to youtube..

Thanks.

Works now.
The spherical ones are likely Coolia and are probably the majority of the brown, and I saw one amphidinium cell.
Normal Dino protocol for the Coolia.

 

[taricha]

Here's a fun vid of a tiny oddball crustacean in my tank eating some amphidinium.
it's called a Tanaid (almost a shrimp) and the adult and its young are harvesting hunks of amphidinium cells - individual cells visible as brown dots. He harvests hunks of dinos around 0:30 and 0:54 seconds into the video.

werdly, the population of tanaids last became noticeable in my tank when I had sandbed dinos the first time.
here's a video from that go round, better view of the tanaid, and its tunnel architecture. The dense network of tunnels are what tipped me off to look for them again.

 

[Orangutran]

Works now.
The spherical ones are likely Coolia and are probably the majority of the brown, and I saw one amphidinium cell.
Normal Dino protocol for the Coolia.

Thank you taricha!!! I do have a lot of brown, at least it's not stringy. I will continue the nutrient route and be patient. I'll put my UV (15watt for 50 gal total water volume) back online in the basement sump. When it was in my display, I lived in constant fear of any hose leak and draining my entire tank into the living room. That would spell the end of my reefing career, forced retirement by the wife. Lol

Thanks again, appreciate your time in helping!

 

[mcarroll]

Updated some of the main text on post #1 to hopefully make this thread more useful to us and to folks just showing up.

There are new links to the "new papertowel test" that @taricha posted, as well as search-links to help with ID for specific dino types.

This is the section I updated:

• Phosphate Control

• DO NOT let your phosphates hit or stay at zero.
• See: Bacterivory in algae: A survival strategy during nutrient limitation

• Nitrate Control

• Do not let your nitrates hit or stay at zero.
• See: Putting the N in dinoflagellates

• Starvation should be avoided. Remember that a wide variety of micoorganisms depend on dissolved N and P...and so do corals and healthy algae.

• Confirming the ID of your dinoflagellate is important if possible.

• To begin with, make sure you have Dinos
• Use @taricha's ID Guide on posts #986-987.

• Once you know it's dino's you should ideally figure out what type(s) your tank is hosting.

• Specifically for Ostreopsis, consider skipping ahead to post #86 and #905 as the information is still developing.
• Compare your dino's with photos where @taricha's has already made ID's:
  • ostreopsis
  • prorocentrum
  • amphidinium
  • coolia
  • (other searches coming)

 

[tsav87]

Update. Still dino free. PO4 has been maintained at 0.08ppm and NO3 at 8-12ppm. Keep up the fight friends.

 

[ImpossibleKid]

After lurking in this thread for about a month now, I think it's time to join in on the conversation.

It's been nearly two years that I have been battling dinoflagellates. I have tried nearly every "cure" that is out there except for dino-x and metro.

I'll start with my tank history. My first tank had a dinoflagellate bloom after over a year of healthy operation, and I can't pinpoint exactly what caused it. If I had to guess based on what I've read in this thread, they started rearing their ugly heads when I cut way back on feeding my fish and stopped feeding corals based on things I had read online, and general laziness. Had a healthy refugium and an ATS. I never used GFO or did any carbon dosing. I tried to keep my tank as natural as I could, but I think a drastic reduction in organic nutrients may have caused the dino bloom. I fought it heavily for a while using hydrogen peroxide and manual removal, messing with pH and other parameters, blackouts of up to a week, etc. They always came back quickly and I would feel defeated and give up for a while.

My final hope was a total tank reset. I think this was also my biggest mistake, and if I had found this thread before then I know I could have saved my tank. I bleached all the live rock I had, gave it a vinegar bath, cycled it from scratch, got rid of any coral I had (all that was left was GSP which I'm sure could survive the apocalypse) and freshwater dipped my four fish before allowing them into my "clean" tank.

And what a surprise, the dinos returned. Went through a normal diatom phase, then a cyano phase, and then came the dinos. They smothered the chaeto in my refugium and took over the tank, suffocating any frag I tried to add.

Finally I found this thread and it restored a bit of hope. I agreed with the basic premise and remembered that what I enjoyed about this hobby was the animal husbandry aspect, not testing the latest chemicals out on my tank's inhabitants.

Of course from reading every post here I knew that I was about to have to spend a lot of money here and I couldn't do it all at once. I started with the equipment needed for the basis of this thread: tools to accurately measure and dose inorganic phosphate and nitrate.

• This meant buying a lot of testing equipment, which I wrote off as a cost I should have paid long ago instead of just settling for the API kits.
• I used Salifert for nitrate, Hanna ULR Phosphorous (make sure to buy extra reagents as it only comes with enough for 6 tests), and then I bought the Red Sea Foundation kit just to have on hand.
• For the source of nitrate I used stump remover and for phosphate I used SeaChem Flourish Phosphorous.
• I dosed to get above 0.10ppm phosphate and 5-10ppm nitrate. I also was still heavily feeding and saw these parameters go all over the place, but eventually they stabilized nicely.

For a while there it was a weird mix of cyanobacteria and dinos, but I could see that under the dinos there was some hair algae growth, so I thought it was time to move onto the next step: establishing fauna. I decided not to fight the dinos directly yet.

• I bought copepods and phytoplankton from Algae Barn, used that phyto to culture my own, and saw lots of pods on the glass after a few weeks.
• I knew pods weren't enough, so I ordered some GARF Grunge to get some life back in the tank.
• Continued to add chaeto to the refugium even though it was getting snuffed out. Increased flow in the fuge with a powerhead and upgraded the fuge light to an LED plant grow light.

Once I finally started to see some amphipods I decided it was time to combat the dinoflagellates directly. This stage, of course, required more purchases.

• Bought the $12 toy microscope on Amazon. Definitely should have done this earlier because it's useful and just plain fun.
• I had been on the fence about a UV sterilizer due to price but decided it would be my final weapon against this scourge. Though I hadn't confirmed via microscope, I was fairly certain I was dealing with Ostreopsis.
• I ended up purchasing the 55-watt Jebao UV Sterilizer. For reference, my tank is 55-gallons with two 10-gallon sump/refugiums below. It might be overkill, but I don't think that word is applicable to dinos.
• While waiting for everything to arrive I decided on a 48-hour blackout over the weekend to at least knock the dinos back.
• By this point I had also cut back on feeding and had stopped dosing phytoplankton based on advice from @taricha and for anyone concerned about this, it doesn't seem to have affected anything adversely as I still have lots of pods in my tank.

Now for some visual aids. First pictures I have in this most recent battle show the tank with the mix of dinos and cyano. These were taken on September 18th:

Next is the microscope video of what I believe are Ostreopsis, but I would love confirmation. Don't know why but mine have never looked very active. When they move they sort of tumble sideways.

Here is the tank on September 26th after the blackout period. This marks the beginning of the real battle:

I didn't end up hooking up the UV until October 3rd, and in that time the tank got to this point:

This is after installing the UV and blasting the tank with a baster:

The UV is powered by an old Rio Plus 1400 pump, which is rated for 367gph at 1ft head. It's very old though, and I have it choked down to almost half the flow, so I'd estimate it at somewhere around 200gph.

The next day, October 4th:

Cyano is taking hold with a vengeance and you can see patches of green algae on the rocks and hair algae as well.

October 6th:

All that brown is not actually dinos, but appears to be diatoms under the microscope. Cyano continues to grow.

And that brings us to today, October 7th:

As you can see, it's all cyanobacteria and diatoms. Here's a sample from scraping the glass:

I can't find any trace of dinos under the microscope, even on the brown patches in areas where they used to dominate. Instead I find this:

Would love to know what those worm-like things are if anyone has an ID.

So that's where I'm at, and I don't really know where to go from here. I stopped dosing N and P and am currently just letting those numbers fall. I'm not scraping the glass or agitating the sandbed per advice in here, but am still blasting the rocks once a day. Chaeto is in the fuge, critters all over the fuge as well. It's almost like the tank is undergoing a mini-cycle with the diatoms and cyano. I know the tank is ugly as sin but I don't want to try to get rid of cyano just to bring back the dinos. Anything is better than them.

What's the plan from here?

 

[Beardo]

After lurking in this thread for about a month now, I think it's time to join in on the conversation.

It's been nearly two years that I have been battling dinoflagellates. I have tried nearly every "cure" that is out there except for dino-x and metro.

I'll start with my tank history. My first tank had a dinoflagellate bloom after over a year of healthy operation, and I can't pinpoint exactly what caused it. If I had to guess based on what I've read in this thread, they started rearing their ugly heads when I cut way back on feeding my fish and stopped feeding corals based on things I had read online, and general laziness. Had a healthy refugium and an ATS. I never used GFO or did any carbon dosing. I tried to keep my tank as natural as I could, but I think a drastic reduction in organic nutrients may have caused the dino bloom. I fought it heavily for a while using hydrogen peroxide and manual removal, messing with pH and other parameters, blackouts of up to a week, etc. They always came back quickly and I would feel defeated and give up for a while.

My final hope was a total tank reset. I think this was also my biggest mistake, and if I had found this thread before then I know I could have saved my tank. I bleached all the live rock I had, gave it a vinegar bath, cycled it from scratch, got rid of any coral I had (all that was left was GSP which I'm sure could survive the apocalypse) and freshwater dipped my four fish before allowing them into my "clean" tank.

And what a surprise, the dinos returned. Went through a normal diatom phase, then a cyano phase, and then came the dinos. They smothered the chaeto in my refugium and took over the tank, suffocating any frag I tried to add.

Finally I found this thread and it restored a bit of hope. I agreed with the basic premise and remembered that what I enjoyed about this hobby was the animal husbandry aspect, not testing the latest chemicals out on my tank's inhabitants.

Of course from reading every post here I knew that I was about to have to spend a lot of money here and I couldn't do it all at once. I started with the equipment needed for the basis of this thread: tools to accurately measure and dose inorganic phosphate and nitrate.

• This meant buying a lot of testing equipment, which I wrote off as a cost I should have paid long ago instead of just settling for the API kits.
• I used Salifert for nitrate, Hanna ULR Phosphorous (make sure to buy extra reagents as it only comes with enough for 6 tests), and then I bought the Red Sea Foundation kit just to have on hand.
• For the source of nitrate I used stump remover and for phosphate I used SeaChem Flourish Phosphorous.
• I dosed to get above 0.10ppm phosphate and 5-10ppm nitrate. I also was still heavily feeding and saw these parameters go all over the place, but eventually they stabilized nicely.

For a while there it was a weird mix of cyanobacteria and dinos, but I could see that under the dinos there was some hair algae growth, so I thought it was time to move onto the next step: establishing fauna. I decided not to fight the dinos directly yet.

• I bought copepods and phytoplankton from Algae Barn, used that phyto to culture my own, and saw lots of pods on the glass after a few weeks.
• I knew pods weren't enough, so I ordered some GARF Grunge to get some life back in the tank.
• Continued to add chaeto to the refugium even though it was getting snuffed out. Increased flow in the fuge with a powerhead and upgraded the fuge light to an LED plant grow light.

Once I finally started to see some amphipods I decided it was time to combat the dinoflagellates directly. This stage, of course, required more purchases.

• Bought the $12 toy microscope on Amazon. Definitely should have done this earlier because it's useful and just plain fun.
• I had been on the fence about a UV sterilizer due to price but decided it would be my final weapon against this scourge. Though I hadn't confirmed via microscope, I was fairly certain I was dealing with Ostreopsis.
• I ended up purchasing the 55-watt Jebao UV Sterilizer. For reference, my tank is 55-gallons with two 10-gallon sump/refugiums below. It might be overkill, but I don't think that word is applicable to dinos.
• While waiting for everything to arrive I decided on a 48-hour blackout over the weekend to at least knock the dinos back.
• By this point I had also cut back on feeding and had stopped dosing phytoplankton based on advice from @taricha and for anyone concerned about this, it doesn't seem to have affected anything adversely as I still have lots of pods in my tank.

Now for some visual aids. First pictures I have in this most recent battle show the tank with the mix of dinos and cyano. These were taken on September 18th:

Next is the microscope video of what I believe are Ostreopsis, but I would love confirmation. Don't know why but mine have never looked very active. When they move they sort of tumble sideways.

Here is the tank on September 26th after the blackout period. This marks the beginning of the real battle:

I didn't end up hooking up the UV until October 3rd, and in that time the tank got to this point:

This is after installing the UV and blasting the tank with a baster:

The UV is powered by an old Rio Plus 1400 pump, which is rated for 367gph at 1ft head. It's very old though, and I have it choked down to almost half the flow, so I'd estimate it at somewhere around 200gph.

The next day, October 4th:

Cyano is taking hold with a vengeance and you can see patches of green algae on the rocks and hair algae as well.

October 6th:

All that brown is not actually dinos, but appears to be diatoms under the microscope. Cyano continues to grow.

And that brings us to today, October 7th:

As you can see, it's all cyanobacteria and diatoms. Here's a sample from scraping the glass:

I can't find any trace of dinos under the microscope, even on the brown patches in areas where they used to dominate. Instead I find this:

Would love to know what those worm-like things are if anyone has an ID.

So that's where I'm at, and I don't really know where to go from here. I stopped dosing N and P and am currently just letting those numbers fall. I'm not scraping the glass or agitating the sandbed per advice in here, but am still blasting the rocks once a day. Chaeto is in the fuge, critters all over the fuge as well. It's almost like the tank is undergoing a mini-cycle with the diatoms and cyano. I know the tank is ugly as sin but I don't want to try to get rid of cyano just to bring back the dinos. Anything is better than them.

What's the plan from here?

Those are Ostreopsis.

 

[mcarroll]

@ImpossibleKid It seems like you're on the right track – it's going to be ugly before it gets pretty!!

Keep things growing and as stable as you can, but declining nutrient levels do have a negative effect on an established Ostreopsis bloom. Keep everything going and DO NOT let nutrients go all the way to zero again. It's OK to dose them to a minimum level. Using an auto-feeder might help with this in the long term. Feeding by hand can be hard to do consistently.

If it's been a while since you first tuned into the thread, check out the update that I just posted about as there's more Ostreopsis info linked than there used to be.

 

[taricha]

Ostreopsis, like beardo said.

I can't find any trace of dinos under the microscope, even on the brown patches in areas where they used to dominate. Instead I find this:

Would love to know what those worm-like things are if anyone has an ID.

These are ciliates. Great little hunter guys. Haven't seen a firm species ID on these large red ones, but most things I've seen place them as holosticha ciliate.

Cyano is taking hold with a vengeance and you can see patches of green algae on the rocks and hair algae as well.

October 6th:

All that brown is not actually dinos, but appears to be diatoms under the microscope. Cyano continues to grow.

So that's where I'm at, and I don't really know where to go from here. I stopped dosing N and P and am currently just letting those numbers fall. I'm not scraping the glass or agitating the sandbed per advice in here, but am still blasting the rocks once a day. Chaeto is in the fuge, critters all over the fuge as well. It's almost like the tank is undergoing a mini-cycle with the diatoms and cyano. I know the tank is ugly as sin but I don't want to try to get rid of cyano just to bring back the dinos. Anything is better than them.

What's the plan from here?

See mcarroll's comments on the nutrients and avoiding letting them fall because you are nervous about the algae growth. Check the path that the snails are making on the diatom patches on the glass. Let grazers handle the diatoms, and for the cyano, I'd siphon it directly, and make sure N isn't low. Cyano loves that.
See my comments a few posts back (post #1099) on What is the End Game - rather than trying to go back to starving out algae, getting grazers to scale up to the algae production of the tank.
Your comments about the bloom of tiny life and feeling like it's a minicycle say you're on the right track.

 

[mcarroll]

Added What is the End Game to the first post as well.

 

[sfin52]

I've been increasing po4 to five mil a day and the Dino are on the run. Sand bed is clearing up. Never thought I say that.

 

[ImpossibleKid]

@ImpossibleKid It seems like you're on the right track – it's going to be ugly before it gets pretty!!

Keep things growing and as stable as you can, but declining nutrient levels do have a negative effect on an established Ostreopsis bloom. Keep everything going and DO NOT let nutrients go all the way to zero again. It's OK to dose them to a minimum level. Using an auto-feeder might help with this in the long term. Feeding by hand can be hard to do consistently.

If it's been a while since you first tuned into the thread, check out the update that I just posted about as there's more Ostreopsis info linked than there used to be.

Oh don't worry this is the one thread I've been watching like a hawk since I found it. Can't even count how many times I've gone back and re-read it. Such is the madness these dinoflagellates bring.

Good call on the autofeeder, I remember you recommending that but I didn't get around to purchasing one yet. Will do.

Ostreopsis, like beardo said.


These are ciliates. Great little hunter guys. Haven't seen a firm species ID on these large red ones, but most things I've seen place them as holosticha ciliate.



See mcarroll's comments on the nutrients and avoiding letting them fall because you are nervous about the algae growth. Check the path that the snails are making on the diatom patches on the glass. Let grazers handle the diatoms, and for the cyano, I'd siphon it directly, and make sure N isn't low. Cyano loves that.
See my comments a few posts back (post #1099) on What is the End Game - rather than trying to go back to starving out algae, getting grazers to scale up to the algae production of the tank.
Your comments about the bloom of tiny life and feeling like it's a minicycle say you're on the right track.

That bloom of tiny life just keeps going. Hundreds of amphipods and copepods on just the front glass panel in the fuge. I know they'll regulate their population it's just weird to see so many when I scaled back or eliminated organic nutrients (feeding and phyto respectively). Still cool though, and they probably came in on the GARF grunge.

I finally have some time today to devote to the tank so I'll be siphoning the cyano and getting some more grazers. I'm definitely not one of those reefers who tries to starve out all traces of algae, and back when my tank was healthy I was running both a refugium with chaeto and an ATS. I still have a refugium but I'm finding it a bit difficult to get the chaeto established in the presence of the cyano. Once it stabilizes however I would love to get the ATS back up and running.

There's hair algae sprouting up all over in the display though so I think things are looking up. I'll scale up my grazer population now. My friend has some trochus that have been breeding like crazy in his tank and he said I could snag some.

How long should I keep the UV sterilizer running? It hasn't even been up a full week yet, but the thing is absolutely huge and I am looking forward to the point where I can remove it. I'm absolutely thankful for it though. It has been the single most effective tool for actively battling Ostreopsis.

Also, I know you advocate against phytoplankton during a bloom. In your opinion, is it okay to dose once the tank is stable again? I only ask because I have a couple 2 liter bottles of it sitting in the fridge...

 

[mcarroll]

I only ask because I have a couple 2 liter bottles of it sitting in the fridge...

Culture some brine shrimp or copepods on it and (hence) feed it to your fish!

 

[chefjpaul]

Finally get to join the club after many years of dino avoidance.

I had to pull the fish and go fallow on my new tank, (only 7 months old).

The tank was set with dry rock etc., which I never had issues before with doing so, but I also never QT fish, nor gone fallow before. Always ran a bit heavy on nutrients until now.

I was keeping the nutrients pretty low to begin with, not ULN, but low like; PO4 @ .01 / NO3 @ >5. Light C. dosing, siporax and a big skimmer.

I thought I was getting cyano bloom from nutrient drop....then.....
.....
Vacation.... nutrients bottom out hard core, while ghost feeding just wasn't keeping up. I pulled the refugium out completely & siporax & turned off skimmer, but when I came back yesterday. BOOM!
Tank is devoured in Dinos.

PO4 @ 0
NO3 @ >1

Ill be picking up flourish phosphorus, I do have flourish nitrogen on hand and will be dosing tonight.

I did turn off my T5's to lower the par, prior to pulling the fish in worrying this could be a possible outcome, I kept the AI hydras on, SPS seem ok for now, but sure they'll go.

Guess I need to buy a microscope.

What is your take on the UV @mcarroll ?

 

[sfin52]

@chefjpaul its a tool. I recommend reading page one and all the pages if you can.

 

[sfin52]

Culture some brine shrimp or copepods on it and (hence) feed it to your fish!

I think I just read this in the nutrition forum from you.

 

[chefjpaul]

@chefjpaul its a tool. I recommend reading page one and all the pages if you can.

I have, more than once.
I've followed this page since it took over for the other thread.

I won't go out and buy a tool, just because either, I basically know where I need to go with this tank.

 

[sfin52]

I understand. I don't like spending money if I don't have too. @mcarroll is a wealth of knowledge.

 

[chefjpaul]

I understand. I don't like spending money if I don't have too. @mcarroll is a wealth of knowledge.

Definitely.
Love the blog too.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Finally get to join the club after many years of dino avoidance.

I had to pull the fish and go fallow on my new tank, (only 7 months old).

The tank was set with dry rock etc., which I never had issues before with doing so, but I also never QT fish, nor gone fallow before. Always ran a bit heavy on nutrients until now.

I was keeping the nutrients pretty low to begin with, not ULN, but low like; PO4 @ .01 / NO3 @ >5. Light C. dosing, siporax and a big skimmer.

I thought I was getting cyano bloom from nutrient drop....then.....
.....
Vacation.... nutrients bottom out hard core, while ghost feeding just wasn't keeping up. I pulled the refugium out completely & siporax & turned off skimmer, but when I came back yesterday. BOOM!
Tank is devoured in Dinos.

PO4 @ 0
NO3 @ >1

Ill be picking up flourish phosphorus, I do have flourish nitrogen on hand and will be dosing tonight.

I did turn off my T5's to lower the par, prior to pulling the fish in worrying this could be a possible outcome, I kept the AI hydras on, SPS seem ok for now, but sure they'll go.

Guess I need to buy a microscope.

What is your take on the UV @mcarroll ?

I had a tri-color valida STN prior to my dino outbreak. The increase in nutrients actually brought it back! Even now, with dinos running the tank, it's growing like a boss. Now my green and stellar stylophora STN'd and are now growing hair algae.... I can't explain that. But good luck to your battle! If you can keep alk stable and calcium up, you shouldn't have any SPS issues. Shouldn't.;Oldman