Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[saltyhog]

OK So I've been dosing SpongeExcel, although my test results don't seem to reflect the dose im calculating. I'll keep dosing until it gets to 2ppm SiO2.

Can I check though, I'm worried my Ph is climbing as I dose, it's normally rock solid at 8 but has crept up - I suspect due to dosing alkaline Silicate. Should I dose distilled white vinegar to compensate?

I'm going to order water glass as you recommend because this bottle of SpongeExcel wont last more than a week or two. I have a reefer 250 btw.

How much SpongeExcel are you dosing? I recommend dosing 2 ppm DAILY. For your tank and SpongeExcel that would be about 2 ml daily. How are you measuring silicon? None of the test kits we have in the States are helpful/accurate.

Best practice is to dose 2ppm/day and check an ICP in a few weeks to see where you are. Your are correct about it being very alkaline but at such small amounts I never saw it make a change in my pH. Unless your pH gets above 8.5 I wouldn't try to correct. White vinegar is a carbon source and will greatly fuel/worsen dinos!

 

[mikeytrw]

How much SpongeExcel are you dosing? I recommend dosing 2 ppm DAILY. For your tank and SpongeExcel that would be about 2 ml daily. How are you measuring silicon? None of the test kits we have in the States are helpful/accurate.

Best practice is to dose 2ppm/day and check an ICP in a few weeks to see where you are. Your are correct about it being very alkaline but at such small amounts I never saw it make a change in my pH. Unless your pH gets above 8.5 I wouldn't try to correct. White vinegar is a carbon source and will greatly fuel/worsen dinos!

OK, so my calculations were clearly well off.

Looking at the instructions on the bottle it says 1ml raises 1 gal by 4ppm Si (Si not SiO2) so I halved that to get 2ppm (0.5ml per Gal) which for about 60gal water volume is 30ml.

30ml sounded scary so I dosed 15ml the first day then 15ml the next. I've seen a few contradictory posts on this so I've held of dosing since until I got some help with calculations.

Where am I going wrong on my calc?

I'm measuring using a salifert kit, which I've read is useless, however I just did my all my tests, readings are:

NO3 - 6.7ppm (Hanna)
PO4 - 0.06ppm (Hanna HR)
Silicate - 0.25ppm (Salifert)
Alk - 7.6 dKH (Hanna)
Ph - 8.2 (RedSea)

Thank you again for your help.

BTW I installed a UV in the DT yesterday, as I had already it and thought I'd give it a shot. The thing is ugly as sin so I'm not keen on keeping it there if it's only going to hinder biodiversity.

 

[saltyhog]

OK, so my calculations were clearly well off.

Looking at the instructions on the bottle it says 1ml raises 1 gal by 4ppm Si (Si not SiO2) so I halved that to get 2ppm (0.5ml per Gal) which for about 60gal water volume is 30ml.

30ml sounded scary so I dosed 15ml the first day then 15ml the next. I've seen a few contradictory posts on this so I've held of dosing since until I got some help with calculations.

Where am I going wrong on my calc?

I'm measuring using a salifert kit, which I've read is useless, however I just did my all my tests, readings are:

NO3 - 6.7ppm (Hanna)
PO4 - 0.06ppm (Hanna HR)
Silicate - 0.25ppm (Salifert)
Alk - 7.6 dKH (Hanna)
Ph - 8.2 (RedSea)

Thank you again for your help.

BTW I installed a UV in the DT yesterday, as I had already it and thought I'd give it a shot. The thing is ugly as sin so I'm not keen on keeping it there if it's only going to hinder biodiversity.

Ok I'm confused. You're running UV and dosing silicates? Am I misremembering, I thought you had Small Cell Amphidinium?

Running UV really won't help and could reduce diatom numbers to some extent.

For a Reefer 250 you will need to dose about 2 ml of SpongeExcel daily to maintain 2ppm. Don't bother with testing just get an ICP after you've been doing that 2 or 3 weeks and see where you are. If you get water glass you will only need to dose about 0.7-0.8 ml daily (it's about 3 times as concentrated as SpongExcel)

 

[mikeytrw]

Ok I'm confused. You're running UV and dosing silicates? Am I misremembering, I thought you had Small Cell Amphidinium?

Running UV really won't help and could reduce diatom numbers to some extent.

For a Reefer 250 you will need to dose about 2 ml of SpongeExcel daily to maintain 2ppm. Don't bother with testing just get an ICP after you've been doing that 2 or 3 weeks and see where you are. If you get water glass you will only need to dose about 0.7-0.8 ml daily (it's about 3 times as concentrated as SpongExcel)

Yes, SCA, and you're right to be confused - I bought the UV after reading a guide that said to treat SCA as 'one of the swimmers' but it's probably doing more to hinder the solution than help the problem. I'll gladly remove it because it's big and ugly.

OK I'll continue to dose 2ml daily I'd actually already ordered water glass so should be here in a few days. Thank you.

 

[ScottB]

Definitely Small Cell. Unless your tank is really small, I would get reagent grade water glass to dose silicates. Much easier and less expensive. I think most people under dose when trying to treat dinos. I dose 2ppm daily which with water glass is about 0.2 ml/15 gallons of water volume. The good thing is silicate is not toxic at even very high over doses (I've seen over doses of great than 100 ppm with no negative consequences). Dilute the water glass in about 250 cc of RO/DI water and pour it slowly in to a high flow area. It's very alkaline and just dumping it in will result in precipitation on a grand scale.

I'm not a big proponent of UV for SCA. Tried it many times and had no success. UV could have a negative impact on diatoms and phyto if you dose it for SCA (which I recommend).

I would not worry about trying to match silicate levels with NO3 levels. I would aim NO3 at 5-10 and PO4 at 0.05-0.1.2.

This is a good call I think. It is certainly cheaper by far. And in the end, what "eradicates" dinos is healthy surface competitors. Without competition, UV alone is not alone going to get it done -- especially SCA. Good catch Salty.

That all said, UV is an excellent tool to have on hand for a variety of nuisance outbreaks.

 

[mikeytrw]

This is a good call I think. It is certainly cheaper by far. And in the end, what "eradicates" dinos is healthy surface competitors. Without competition, UV alone is not alone going to get it done -- especially SCA. Good catch Salty.

That all said, UV is an excellent tool to have on hand for a variety of nuisance outbreaks.

Thanks, I agree. I've removed the UV and dosed 2ml of SpongeExel today. Will do full test suite again tonight.


BTW I'm kinda addicted to looking at the various crap under the microscope, such weirdness. Am going to have to upgrade from this crappy plastic kids toy.

Out of interest at what point do I stop dosing silica and let the diatoms clear? is it a case of a few weeks, leave it be and see what happens?

 

[ScottB]

Thanks, I agree. I've removed the UV and dosed 2ml of SpongeExel today. Will do full test suite again tonight.


BTW I'm kinda addicted to looking at the various crap under the microscope, such weirdness. Am going to have to upgrade from this crappy plastic kids toy.

Out of interest at what point do I stop dosing silica and let the diatoms clear? is it a case of a few weeks, leave it be and see what happens?

Trying to estimate the time required is hit/miss. So many variables, and the sand-based varieties take MUCH longer than those more prone to swimming. SCA is the second most likely to tenaciously hold on in the sand. I have seen a few folks get them under control with UV but only with an extended blackout period. Still, the end game for all of them is surface competitors.

With a good scope, you will start to see other microorganisms in your samples over time. Many shapes of diatoms, maybe a little cyano too. My son and I use our scope at least 1-2 times a month. I wish I had bought a better one.

 

[mikeytrw]

Trying to estimate the time required is hit/miss. So many variables, and the sand-based varieties take MUCH longer than those more prone to swimming. SCA is the second most likely to tenaciously hold on in the sand. I have seen a few folks get them under control with UV but only with an extended blackout period. Still, the end game for all of them is surface competitors.

With a good scope, you will start to see other microorganisms in your samples over time. Many shapes of diatoms, maybe a little cyano too. My son and I use our scope at least 1-2 times a month. I wish I had bought a better one.

Funnily enough I spent a couple hours earlier today looking at samples of various gunk from sandbed and rocks through my microscope.

I saw a LOT of what I assume is diatoms, pennate looking things, the odd pizza and looooads of these big rectangle things that moved however I also found some Large Cell amphis as well, so...yay for biodiversity I guess. Lots of tiny bacteria buzzing about as well.

 

[saltyhog]

Funnily enough I spent a couple hours earlier today looking at samples of various gunk from sandbed and rocks through my microscope.

I saw a LOT of what I assume is diatoms, pennate looking things, the odd pizza and looooads of these big rectangle things that moved however I also found some Large Cell amphis as well, so...yay for biodiversity I guess. Lots of tiny bacteria buzzing about as well.

Hang in there. Unfortunately SCA/LCA are not as quick a fix as Ostreopsis/Coolia are. The trade off is they are much less toxic (LCA really not toxic at all).

 

[Moonwrassler]

Thanks to Saltyhog for the ID and advice on combatting Ostreopsis. After a week of round-the-clock UV, reduced lighting, and gradual dosing of PO4, the threads are almost completely gone, rocks are cleaner and sand is clear.
How much past the last appearance of brown algae threads should we continue with treatment to be sure we're "done done" with this?
A week? A month?

 

[iLMaRiO]

i've took 3-4-5 samples around the tank, carefully checked at microscope moving the glass around the lens and .................. no dinos found. very strange, but it's difficult that 4 different samples were taken badly ... i did the same exact procedure used before.

i think it was too quick , i don't think it's normal not seeing a single dino cells when 2-3 days ago there was still coolia and LCA....

at naked eyes no sign of dinos from 3 or 4 days. maybe more. Just some diatoms in reduction

 

[ScottB]

Thanks to Saltyhog for the ID and advice on combatting Ostreopsis. After a week of round-the-clock UV, reduced lighting, and gradual dosing of PO4, the threads are almost completely gone, rocks are cleaner and sand is clear.
How much past the last appearance of brown algae threads should we continue with treatment to be sure we're "done done" with this?
A week? A month?

Good update. The dinos are never "gone". The have just retreated back to being the marginal surface competitors they were designed to be. Keep nutrients constantly available/measurable. Don't do any "deep cleaning" where there are a lot of bare surfaces. Don't use chemiclean/vibrant/algaefix that would kill off competitors. If you have any amino acid additives, throw them in your neighbors garbage bin. Then you should be good.

I have not seen ostreos (with naked eye) in my systems for couple years now, but if I were take a scraping of my glass and scope it, I would find a few.

 

[ScottB]

i've took 3-4-5 samples around the tank, carefully checked at microscope moving the glass around the lens and .................. no dinos found. very strange, but it's difficult that 4 different samples were taken badly ... i did the same exact procedure used before.

i think it was too quick , i don't think it's normal not seeing a single dino cells when 2-3 days ago there was still coolia and LCA....

at naked eyes no sign of dinos from 3 or 4 days. maybe more. Just some diatoms in reduction

You have been at this battle for some time, so this is welcome news. It is a bit of a puzzle to have them disappear so quickly -- especially the LCA. Coolia I could see.

Anything else you added or removed in terms of additives or nutrients that is different than before?

 

[kaijor]

Any idea what this might be?

 

[iLMaRiO]

You have been at this battle for some time, so this is welcome news. It is a bit of a puzzle to have them disappear so quickly -- especially the LCA. Coolia I could see.

Anything else you added or removed in terms of additives or nutrients that is different than before?

no, nothing different. just dosing a triton mix (the traces suggested by each ICP) daily with a dosing pump , for about 3 weeks

 

[ScottB]

Any idea what this might be?

Sorry, I cannot make anything out from those images. Maybe some triangle shaped diatoms. Can you get 400X magnification?

 

[keithIHS]

Anyone try a whole house filter with 5 micron filter instead of UV? Something like

Culligan HF-360A Standard Duty 3/4" Inlet/Outlet Whole House Filtration System, Clear​

at Amazon
(sorry, pasting the link isn't working)
and

Culligan SCWH-5 Standard-Duty Whole House Water Filter Replacement Cartridges, 2-Pack, Black​

The cartridge has carbon so should help with toxins.

 

[xiaoxiy]

Can anyone help me ID these dinos?

Long-snotty strands that can get >1 inch. The spinning makes me think Osteo, but unfortunately the digital microscope I have doesn't seen to be able to visualize details further .

These look like the theca in Osteo, but they're not the classic sesame shape...

 

[ScottB]

Can anyone help me ID these dinos?

Long-snotty strands that can get >1 inch. The spinning makes me think Osteo, but unfortunately the digital microscope I have doesn't seen to be able to visualize details further .

These look like the theca in Osteo, but they're not the classic sesame shape...

The shape is confusing but the swim pattern is more convincing, Ostreopsis, @taricha to confirm.

 

[xiaoxiy]

The shape is confusing but the swim pattern is more convincing, Ostreopsis, @taricha to confirm.

Thank Scott. I think the shape was confusing because of how the slide was lit (from above the slide rather than below the slide). It seems that when top lit, the theca and sesame seed-shape is much harder to see. Here are the same cells lit from the bottom.

Here is a video with bottom lighting as well, and the cell shape is much more consistent with Ostreopsis.