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No, I don't think you have. Unless I missed something that doesn't pertain to ID, treatment, fixes, or any other information pertaining to the eradication of dinoflagellates??
Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?
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No man , hang out please, we're all learning together.
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The only caveat I see in this chart vs home aquaria is environmental circumstances. Oceans see a larger array of environmental changes through seasons. Guanabara Bay may pose increased tropical storms, temperature swings, low tides, high tides, water run off and human waste. The shift in protists from one month to another is sort of fascinating though. However, understanding the correlation between seasons, increase nutrients, water run off and temperature swings and the effects of each protist might make more sense. I somewhat understand most of them due to light research for each so the findings to me don't seem significant in our artificial tanks.@mcarroll Yes, I think maybe a good script is to observe the proportions in which these microorganisms present themselves in a balanced natural environment and, from there, try to reach those proportions in our aquariums ... Sometimes, when we try to correct some parameter, it occurs unbalance another, beyond what is necessary. It seems to me that it occurs with silicate, which is also removed by the GFO when it is desired to remove phosphate, but by also removing silicates, we are limiting the growth of diatoms and favoring other organisms that the diatoms limited.
It's my hypothesis, in this case.
Studies like this may prove to be useful, to later define a target:
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1679-87592015000300239
Best regards
Hey guys, long time reader, first time poster. Just want to check that my strategy makes sense.
Dealing with a dino infestation that has been about 2 months. The tank is a 1.5 year old 120 gallon SPS tank where everything was going great, but dosed fluconazole to deal with some nuisance derbesia and I messed up my whole wonderful ecosystem. First came the cyano, then the dinos.
Anyways, here are microscope photos of the dinos + tank: https://imgur.com/a/ih9mc
Pretty sure it is Ostreopsis ovata (or at least Ostreopsis sp.), but would love confirmation on that. They form strands on the powerheads, aquarium walls, hair algae, SPS corals, but not really on the sand.
Anyways, the plan of attack...
Added a 57w UV sterilizer about a month ago. Maybe it is helping somewhat but certainly not a cure. I've been doing tons of manual removal everyday but they basically come back just as strong everyday.
I started getting serious about nitrates and phosphates based on this thread a few weeks ago. In mid-november my readings were 0 nitrates with low phosphates (0.01 - 0.02). I started dosing Nitrates via stump remover and got Nitrates up to a consistent 5-10, but then phosphates went down to 0. Now I started dosing phosphates and nitrates, and I'm trying to work it up so my phosphates read 0.1 and my nitrates stay from 5-10.
Skimmer running at normal.
I manually siphon out as many as I can everyday, but as of yet there has been no day to day reduction. Probably 25% of my SPS have bleached/died, but the rest are holding on. Most of the remaining SPS are quite pale and stressed, but still alive. It seems like some corals can't deal with the strands of dinos attaching to them, and others can, but clearly they aren't happy.
So basically, the plan of attack is: Get phosphates up to 0.1 and nitrates up to 5-10 consistently, keep doing manual removal, and hope for the best?
Dealing with a dino infestation that has been about 2 months. The tank is a 1.5 year old 120 gallon SPS tank where everything was going great, but dosed fluconazole to deal with some nuisance derbesia and I messed up my whole wonderful ecosystem. First came the cyano, then the dinos.
Anyways, here are microscope photos of the dinos + tank: https://imgur.com/a/ih9mc
Pretty sure it is Ostreopsis ovata (or at least Ostreopsis sp.), but would love confirmation on that. They form strands on the powerheads, aquarium walls, hair algae, SPS corals, but not really on the sand.
Anyways, the plan of attack...
Added a 57w UV sterilizer about a month ago. Maybe it is helping somewhat but certainly not a cure. I've been doing tons of manual removal everyday but they basically come back just as strong everyday.
I started getting serious about nitrates and phosphates based on this thread a few weeks ago. In mid-november my readings were 0 nitrates with low phosphates (0.01 - 0.02). I started dosing Nitrates via stump remover and got Nitrates up to a consistent 5-10, but then phosphates went down to 0. Now I started dosing phosphates and nitrates, and I'm trying to work it up so my phosphates read 0.1 and my nitrates stay from 5-10.
Skimmer running at normal.
I manually siphon out as many as I can everyday, but as of yet there has been no day to day reduction. Probably 25% of my SPS have bleached/died, but the rest are holding on. Most of the remaining SPS are quite pale and stressed, but still alive. It seems like some corals can't deal with the strands of dinos attaching to them, and others can, but clearly they aren't happy.
So basically, the plan of attack is: Get phosphates up to 0.1 and nitrates up to 5-10 consistently, keep doing manual removal, and hope for the best?
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Make sure you've removed all nutrient export media including bio-pellets, matrix, marine pure, gfo, etc. The meticulous dosing and testing should start in morning(before lights) and night(after lights). Eventually you should get the hang of what needs to be dosed and how long. Completely stop doing water changes if you haven't done so and just try to turkey baste as often as possible. GAC(carbon) will help with any toxins.
I do normally test about an hour or so after the lights come on. I just changed the schedule so the lights will come on after I'm done testing/dosing.
I have no nutrient export media. I run chaeto in a small refugium and also have a small ATS. The chaeto and GHA in the ATS are both growing fine, though sometimes dinos will grow on the chaeto that I'll shake off at the end of the day. I run GAC, which I used to change every month but now I've switched to changing every week.
And yes, I do lots of turkey basting.
Beardo
Well-Known Member
The majority are Ostreopsis sp. but possibly a second species (the darker colored round ones), maybe Coolia.
57 watt UV should be a good size to help deal with these species. How is your UV setup and what is the flow rate through it?
The UV sterilizer goes from the return section of my sump, through my ATS and then back to the sump. Flow rate is ~150 gph.
I could re-route the UV sterilizer so it goes back to the main tank, but I wasn't sure how much that would improve the efficiency.
Beardo
Well-Known Member
You may not be hitting enough of the dinos to be effective. On a temporary basis you could connect it directly to your display (pump in your display to your UV and discharging back to your display) or connect to your return for a permanent installation (not sure what your your return flow is). You can have a higher flow rate and still be effective. I'm assuming this is the AquaUV unit?
Yeah it is AquaUV. What do you think is the max flow rate that I can run through it which will still be effective at the killing the dinos?
I guess I've done so many things, I should re-route my plumbing to have this go through one of my returns back to the main tank.
Beardo
Well-Known Member
I'm running 1,000ish gpm (probably more, just estimating) through a 114 watt unit. I would think 500 gpm on yours would be fine.
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If you find you're struggling with nutrients, you could turn off the ats and just keep the cheato. The cheato might benefit more not because of the nutrient uptake but the reduction in co2 helping keep pH more stable. ATS's don't help as much in that regard.
OP
OP
mcarroll
10K Club member
@danoo If there's algae growing in the ATS and chaeto is still growing, that makes this a pretty interesting case. How actively are they growing now since PO4 hit zero? Other than any dino's does the algae growing in the ATS seem to be the expected type(s)?
Not the first time we've seen that sequence from that particular treatment and I'm pretty sure it's an avoidable outcome.
(I'm pretty sure it's an avoidable scenario altogether, but that's another matter.)
This could be from dino toxin, but you said you've been running carbon on an accelerated replacement schedule.
They may have been tweaked by treatment, but I'm going with the likelihood that they're just starving to death. PO4 deprivation is very very not good...for lots of reasons. (Some already on the first post, but browse through the Nutrients and/or Coral section on my blog if you wanna get more info.)
I would personally shut down the ATS and restart it later when the tank nutrient levels can support it.
I would probably remove the chaeto as well since it's obviously not helping. Again, resume it when it makes more sense.
I might even consider slowing down or stopping on the nitrate dosing until you can get phosphates to register.
You won't really be able to make any progress on the tank until PO4 ≥ 0.10 ppm happens anyway.
Also...
Instead of making dose after dose of phosphates and not seeing a result, I'd add a mL to every phosphate dose until you see a residual in the next day's test.
For example, say your calculated phosphate dose to reach 0.10 ppm is 2 mL, but you get 0.00 ppm on your test the next day every time. In that case, make the next dose 3 mL and the next one after that 4 mL, etc. until your testing sees some PO4 left in the water. Once that happens you can resume calculated doses based on your current phosphate levels. You can also resume calculated NO3 doses as well.
Once this happens you might not have to do anything different with your UV.
We've found that hitting ≥ 0.10 ppm PO4 is a crucial measure in suppression. Lower levels allow various levels of bloom to continue.
If you still don't see progress on the tank after you've had PO4 in the water for a few days, then you may have to move the UV's intake up to the display.
Driving it by the return pump down in the sump is the limiting factor, if there turns out to be a limit. Location of the discharge is not so important to the UV treatment...whatever makes sense for the installation.
FYI, co-blooms of dino's plus another algae are not uncommon, but in our tanks it's usually dino's + cyano. I've seen one or two cases of turf + dino's. Not too many dino's+macro...I think with your case, maybe just one or two.
Not the first time we've seen that sequence from that particular treatment and I'm pretty sure it's an avoidable outcome.
(I'm pretty sure it's an avoidable scenario altogether, but that's another matter.)This could be from dino toxin, but you said you've been running carbon on an accelerated replacement schedule.
They may have been tweaked by treatment, but I'm going with the likelihood that they're just starving to death. PO4 deprivation is very very not good...for lots of reasons. (Some already on the first post, but browse through the Nutrients and/or Coral section on my blog if you wanna get more info.)
I would personally shut down the ATS and restart it later when the tank nutrient levels can support it.
I would probably remove the chaeto as well since it's obviously not helping. Again, resume it when it makes more sense.
I might even consider slowing down or stopping on the nitrate dosing until you can get phosphates to register.
You won't really be able to make any progress on the tank until PO4 ≥ 0.10 ppm happens anyway.
Also...
Instead of making dose after dose of phosphates and not seeing a result, I'd add a mL to every phosphate dose until you see a residual in the next day's test.
For example, say your calculated phosphate dose to reach 0.10 ppm is 2 mL, but you get 0.00 ppm on your test the next day every time. In that case, make the next dose 3 mL and the next one after that 4 mL, etc. until your testing sees some PO4 left in the water. Once that happens you can resume calculated doses based on your current phosphate levels. You can also resume calculated NO3 doses as well.
Once this happens you might not have to do anything different with your UV.
We've found that hitting ≥ 0.10 ppm PO4 is a crucial measure in suppression. Lower levels allow various levels of bloom to continue.
If you still don't see progress on the tank after you've had PO4 in the water for a few days, then you may have to move the UV's intake up to the display.
Driving it by the return pump down in the sump is the limiting factor, if there turns out to be a limit. Location of the discharge is not so important to the UV treatment...whatever makes sense for the installation.
FYI, co-blooms of dino's plus another algae are not uncommon, but in our tanks it's usually dino's + cyano. I've seen one or two cases of turf + dino's. Not too many dino's+macro...I think with your case, maybe just one or two.
Bret Brinkmann
Well-Known Member
From what I have been reading, the manuals for the UV units will list what size tanks they are good for and have flow rate recommendations based off of your intentions. Basically if the flow is too fast, then there isn't enough exposure time to kill off what you want. But if the flow rate is too small then you don't cycle the water through the tank fast enough before they reproduce and replenish themselves. Thus you need a larger unit.
I usually read people having better luck hooking it up to their DT. The sizing guide is a minimum recommendation. You can go bigger without ill effects if you can swing the money for a larger unit and cycle the water in your tank faster while still getting the proper exposure time.
I personally am not a fan of the shotgun approach due to the potential for purchasing equipment and products that may not actually be effective. For someone such as myself who prefers the nicer equipment but has to wait to save up for it, I prefer to know how instrumental it will be first. But if nutrients are the better approach from my particular species, then I don't have to worry about the equipment research and purchase.
I usually read people having better luck hooking it up to their DT. The sizing guide is a minimum recommendation. You can go bigger without ill effects if you can swing the money for a larger unit and cycle the water in your tank faster while still getting the proper exposure time.
I personally am not a fan of the shotgun approach due to the potential for purchasing equipment and products that may not actually be effective. For someone such as myself who prefers the nicer equipment but has to wait to save up for it, I prefer to know how instrumental it will be first. But if nutrients are the better approach from my particular species, then I don't have to worry about the equipment research and purchase.
I never had any issues with low nutrients before (I don't run a particularly low nutrient system), so is the idea that the nutrient levels were all good (whatever they were, I never tested them), then the dinos came in and sucked up all the nutrients which is starving everything else?
I don't think the phosphate hit 0 until I started nitrate dosing, so that has only been about a week. I actually got the Seachem phosphorus in the mail 3 days ago, so it is very early days for phosphate dosing. But when I had phosphate > 0, the nitrates were at 0, so I haven't had them both registering at the proper levels yet at the same time. I've started the phosphate dose slowly and I'm ramping it up 50% more everyday until it starts to register. I've already been cutting back the nitrate dosing as it seems to be staying put between 5-10 without the dosing I was doing last week.
Starting tomorrow I'm going to do the testing before the lights come on, because as of now I'm testing a little bit after the lights come on and some dinos are already there, which maybe is causing inconsistencies in the testing.
The chaeto is not growing fast (and never has in my system), but it is growing. GHA is the predominant algae in my system that is growing to a healthy degree in the ATS and the main tank itself. The dinos happily grow on the GHA. I want to keep the ATS plugged in because that is what I want the long term nutrient export to be in the tank, the chaeto I'd happily remove but I read elsewhere in the thread maybe the chaeto helps with some chemical warfare against the dinos.
As of now I think I'll just ramp up the doses of phosphate and nitrate (if necessary) and see what happens. I don't want to change too much too fast.
I did temporarily re-plumb my UV to go from the sump to the display tank and ramped up the GPH so I'll see if that helps anything.
I don't think the phosphate hit 0 until I started nitrate dosing, so that has only been about a week. I actually got the Seachem phosphorus in the mail 3 days ago, so it is very early days for phosphate dosing. But when I had phosphate > 0, the nitrates were at 0, so I haven't had them both registering at the proper levels yet at the same time. I've started the phosphate dose slowly and I'm ramping it up 50% more everyday until it starts to register. I've already been cutting back the nitrate dosing as it seems to be staying put between 5-10 without the dosing I was doing last week.
Starting tomorrow I'm going to do the testing before the lights come on, because as of now I'm testing a little bit after the lights come on and some dinos are already there, which maybe is causing inconsistencies in the testing.
The chaeto is not growing fast (and never has in my system), but it is growing. GHA is the predominant algae in my system that is growing to a healthy degree in the ATS and the main tank itself. The dinos happily grow on the GHA. I want to keep the ATS plugged in because that is what I want the long term nutrient export to be in the tank, the chaeto I'd happily remove but I read elsewhere in the thread maybe the chaeto helps with some chemical warfare against the dinos.
As of now I think I'll just ramp up the doses of phosphate and nitrate (if necessary) and see what happens. I don't want to change too much too fast.
I did temporarily re-plumb my UV to go from the sump to the display tank and ramped up the GPH so I'll see if that helps anything.
OP
OP
mcarroll
10K Club member
No apologies needed!
Each of your posts has been very interesting and is probably worthy of it's own thread. This thread proably does have a different focus – the problem is that your posts are gonna end up kinda lost in the mass of comments here.It's up to you if you want to post them here, but if I were you I think I'd start collecting them into a thread of your own. Posting a link to that thread here when you post updates would make perfect sense! No less visibility – and your posts get to stand on their own!
OP
OP
mcarroll
10K Club member
In general, most algae die off when they starve – very convenient of them for the vast most of us who don't manage nutrients on the front end.
Dino's are not on that plan – they want to survive!
The irony about these tough little buggers is that they are terrible at everything, including swimming, resisting light damage, and absorbing dissolved nutrients at low levels.
When they begin to starve due to nutrient limitation, they re-gear their internal machinery away from fixing carbon by photosynthsis and using dissolved nutrients and they switch to eating things that are still prevalent in the environment like bacteria.
When they do this, they also start generating toxins. This has a tendency to kill off every other microbe in the vicinity – heterotrophs first. Convenient to them, the makes more dissolved nutrients for bacteria, which makes more bacteria for the dino's to eat.
And if your dino bloom has progressed over the whole tank, that may mean you have no significant levels of other microbes left. We've actually seen one or two tanks where after a while, nothing at all but cyano and dino's would seem to grow.
One other thing that our kind of dino's do as they bloom is leave behind a lot of skeletons called thecal plates, or theca. Bacteria go to work breaking these down too. But interestingly, these thecal plates have something like a 3000:1 carbon to nitrogen ratio – it takes a large amount of N and P for bacteria to successfully break these down.
This "legacy" of carbon-loading the tank virtually assures that their environment will be perpetually N and P depleted and because of that, dino's will keep blooming.
With that carbon load in the tank and very low PO4, your nitrate dosing allowed the bacteria to seriously deplete PO4 levels. Due to high surface area to volume ratio, bacteria are able to scavenge dissolved nutrients down to a much much lower level than most/all other microbes.
I would just make sure you test the same time of day every time, and sample your water from the same place every time.
I would also shoot straight for 0.10 ppm. There are no bad side effects from getting to that level, or even from overshooting a little – there are only bad side-effects from letting the dino's remain established for longer.
I would still probably take both offline for now if it were me. Every N and P ion consumed by either one should be looked at as being robbed from your corals and from the display tank.
I think I agree on keeping the ATS in the long term though. I just wouldn't worry about keeping it running through this. Just re-establish it when things get back to normal. No biggie.
As far as chem. warfare and chaeto, I'd say absolutely none. If anything chaeto is the most dino-friendly macro aglae....I've seen counts comparing it's hosting rate compared with other common macro's and chaeto hosted orders of magnitude more epiphytic dino's than any other. Chaeto is a good and useful macroalgae, but not for this reason.
Are you sure what you're calling GHA isn't a bryopsis bloom? Any chance you can look at that under a scope and PM me pics? ....kinda outside the scope here.)
This is definitely Job #1 right now. See what happens for at least a few days once you have detectable PO4....give it a few weeks if you can.
This is all so interesting. Thank you for all the details, the whole situation is starting to make sense!
I have been generally testing at the same time every day, but I admit some of the results are a little confusing to me.
The first day I put in enough to raise my system to ~0.03 ppm to see what would happen (2.5ml of seachem phosphorus). Next day it was 0 (testing with hanna ULR phosphate tester btw). Ok, makes sense.
So then day 2 I put in enough to raise it to ~0.1 ppm (8 ml). Just to sanity check myself I tested the water 15 minutes later and it came back 0. This was really confusing, so I made up a sample solution of 1000ml fresh saltwater + 0.1ml of seachem phosphorus (4500 ppm) to see if the test would register it, and the test came back ~.45 PPM, which means the test kit is working. So I guess the tank used up all the phosphates in 15 minutes?
So anyways today was day 3 and I dosed enough to get the tank to 0.15 ppm (12 ml). I'll see what it registers at tomorrow morning. I was just going to keep progressively increasing the dose by 50% (or maybe 8ml/day) until it registered. And if nitrates start going down I'll dose those too. I assume there is going to be some steady state dose of X ml of phosphate and Y ml of nitrate per day to maintain the levels and end the bloom?
I think the predominant algae growing in the DT is derbesia, which fluconazole also kills. Anyways I took a little sample under the microscope and will PM you the images. When I clean my ATS I'll take a sample of that algae and see if it is the same.
The big plan was to put the ATS online, kill all the derbesia with fluconazole and set the stage for some non-derbesia GHA to grow on the ATS and outcompete everything else and I'd live happily ever after. But things did not go as planned.
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Beardo
Well-Known Member
I experienced the same when I started dosing phosphates. It took very heavy dosing initially to even see a residual. Dosing twice a day, morning and evening, may help. Once it turned the corner though the dosing decreased significantly.
Came close to a steady state dose of phosphates but still required tweaking to maintain levels. Nitrates dosing has been more intermittent as levels fall.
Zephrant
Active Member
I wanted to document my experiences for the thread. Tank is a 60g tank, setup for about 15 years, but no additions for several years until last summer. LEDs were failing, so I was down to only a few tiny leathers, some mushrooms and two fish, so mostly a FOWL. And the LR had been fresh water washed and scrubbed to get rid of Aiptasia, so not much life.
Got re-interested in the hobby, so did some cleanup and bought some fish, snails, hermits, and a live rock to re-seed. Of course, got Dinos too. Did the paper towel test, and they re-generated, so I strained them again just to be sure. Still regenerated into a snot ring in the flask. Unfortunately no microscope ID, that's on the xmas list this year.
Nitrate and Phosphate were undetectable, so I started dosing stump remover and SeaChem Flourish. I upped daily doses until I got to 2ppm Nitrate, and 0.2ppm Phosphate.
I scrubbed with a toothbrush and power head every night, and after the Nitrate and Phosphate came up, I saw a definite improvement. Still snot strings every evening, but clear areas in-between them. Stayed at that level for 3-4 weeks without much change.
I did add a packet of pods, and unfortunately I can't remember where I bought them, so don't know which breed I got. I'll continue looking for that information.
Filtration- I run about a liter of carbon in the second chamber of my calcium reactor, and have a 6"x6"x1" poly filter pad I was changing daily. I have a very strong skimmer too, 8" column, ReefFlow recirc. pump.
After keeping Nitrate and Phosphate up for several weeks, I went full dark for 24 hours, then blue channel only at minimum (20%ish) for three days, then started ramping the lights back up over two weeks. That gave me the final push to get past this, and they have been gone for well over a month now.
I've added more fish, and now feed heavily so no longer need to dose anything to keep levels up.
I don't see a lot of pods in the system, but did take a rock out to start a 10g frag Q tank, and pods have exploded in that tank, so they are definitely there.
So for me, it appears that raising Nitrate and Phosphate, scrubbing, and a lights out cycle licked it, with the possible addition of microfauna helping too.
HTH-
Got re-interested in the hobby, so did some cleanup and bought some fish, snails, hermits, and a live rock to re-seed. Of course, got Dinos too. Did the paper towel test, and they re-generated, so I strained them again just to be sure. Still regenerated into a snot ring in the flask. Unfortunately no microscope ID, that's on the xmas list this year.
Nitrate and Phosphate were undetectable, so I started dosing stump remover and SeaChem Flourish. I upped daily doses until I got to 2ppm Nitrate, and 0.2ppm Phosphate.
I scrubbed with a toothbrush and power head every night, and after the Nitrate and Phosphate came up, I saw a definite improvement. Still snot strings every evening, but clear areas in-between them. Stayed at that level for 3-4 weeks without much change.
I did add a packet of pods, and unfortunately I can't remember where I bought them, so don't know which breed I got. I'll continue looking for that information.
Filtration- I run about a liter of carbon in the second chamber of my calcium reactor, and have a 6"x6"x1" poly filter pad I was changing daily. I have a very strong skimmer too, 8" column, ReefFlow recirc. pump.
After keeping Nitrate and Phosphate up for several weeks, I went full dark for 24 hours, then blue channel only at minimum (20%ish) for three days, then started ramping the lights back up over two weeks. That gave me the final push to get past this, and they have been gone for well over a month now.
I've added more fish, and now feed heavily so no longer need to dose anything to keep levels up.
I don't see a lot of pods in the system, but did take a rock out to start a 10g frag Q tank, and pods have exploded in that tank, so they are definitely there.
So for me, it appears that raising Nitrate and Phosphate, scrubbing, and a lights out cycle licked it, with the possible addition of microfauna helping too.
HTH-
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