Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[CoralWealth]

I'm using Seachem Flourish Phosphorus and testing every few days to maintain PO4.

I began with the "feed more" approach as well, but my Ostreopsis got much worse. It wasn't until I tested that I noticed I had high NO3 (25 ppm) and very low PO4 (near zero). Since dosing PO4, no Ostreopsis mucus strings are visible in the display. They used to show up minutes after lights went on, and now they aren't even visible after 10 hours of light.

Hope this helps as it seems you may be experiencing a very similar scenario.

This definitely helps, I appreciate it. How much are you dosing with the seachem and how often are you testing for P04? Also what exports do you use? I only have cheato and a skimmer

 

[K. Steven]

This definitely helps, I appreciate it. How much are you dosing with the seachem and how often are you testing for P04? Also what exports do you use? I only have cheato and a skimmer

5 mL into about a 50 gallon system.

I test PO4 every three days or so. I can see more mucus strings in the sump when PO4 gets low.

I have a skimmer rated for 3x my tank volume (kind of overkill) and a refugium which had chaeto and dragon's breath until the Ostreopsis suffocated it and turned it to mush. Trying to grow some green film algae, GHA, and anything else to grow in there now until I can get some more chaeto.

 

[CoralWealth]

5 mL into about a 50 gallon system.

I test PO4 every three days or so. I can see more mucus strings in the sump when PO4 gets low.

I have a skimmer rated for 3x my tank volume (kind of overkill) and a refugium which had chaeto and dragon's breath until the Ostreopsis suffocated it and turned it to mush. Trying to grow some green film algae, GHA, and anything else to grow in there now until I can get some more chaeto.

That much everyday?

 

[K. Steven]

That much everyday?

I dosed 5 mL each day for the first two days, then every 4-5 days since then.

 

[mcarroll]

Anyone got an answer for my post #133

There's no simple cure. Have you read the beginning of the thread yet? The first post is designed to get you started. If you haven't started up your own thread to troubleshoot your tank yet, I'd do that now. Post a link to your thread here, or you're welcome to PM it to me.

There are several folks here who've had similar-sounding cases to what you describe though – follow their progress and see what you think.

 

[taricha]

Here's a little experiment I'm running.
Nano reef tank. 2.5 gal stocked with bits from my display tank. Managed to get a pretty good Dinoflagellate bloom.
Phosphate - 0.012
Nitrate - 0

And here's microscope ID shots: Ostropsis, Prorocentrum, Small-Cell Amphidinium, and some round likely Coolia
(I strongly suspect there's also some large-cell amphidinium in there too, but I didn't sample the sand to look for them. I'll check later.)

35 second Video below


And my 70 gal display tank, where the water - rocks, corals, macros etc in the nano tank came from is dino free.
Phosphate - 0.092
Nitrate - 10
No dinos, so every couple of days I've been siphoning Dino clumps out of the small tank, shaking them up real good to spread the cells and then pouring them into the display starting on 6/17.

5 days later no signs of Dinos yet....

So that's part 1 of the experiment, will update over a couple of weeks.

Phase 2 of the experiment is to Fix the Dino nano tank. I'll post updates on that part in a few days.

 

[fragit]

@taricha are you purposely trying to repopulate your DT? Or are you just trying to experiment with nutrient levels to see what levels are needed to kill or control this little buggers?

 

[brandon429]

taricha=wow

that test pico reef is gold. I wish so very badly it was mine, id test the beating dinos via manual power washing only method. I put lots of stock in that method for nano and pico battles. we've never had dinos in a pico reef before, ultra rare there. Your 2.5 is testbed gold.

 

[taricha]

@taricha are you purposely trying to repopulate your DT? Or are you just trying to experiment with nutrient levels to see what levels are needed to kill or control this little buggers?

Good Q. It's more of a "demonstration" than an "experiment", because I think I know how it's going to turn out. But always worth testing what you think you know.
My display has had dinos before - that's where all the stuff in the nano cane from, after all. At the nutrient levels and the biodiversity in the display currently, the dinos I'm adding will not get a foothold.

 

[fragit]

Good Q. It's more of a "demonstration" than an "experiment", because I think I know how it's going to turn out. But always worth testing what you think you know.
My display has had dinos before - that's where all the stuff in the nano cane from, after all. At the nutrient levels and the biodiversity in the display currently, the dinos I'm adding will not get a foothold.

I hope your right! Well I'm working on adding some credence to this theory as well.

 

[K. Steven]

Here's a little experiment I'm running.
Nano reef tank. 2.5 gal stocked with bits from my display tank. Managed to get a pretty good Dinoflagellate bloom.
Phosphate - 0.012
Nitrate - 0

And here's microscope ID shots: Ostropsis, Prorocentrum, Small-Cell Amphidinium, and some round likely Coolia
(I strongly suspect there's also some large-cell amphidinium in there too, but I didn't sample the sand to look for them. I'll check later.)

35 second Video below


And my 70 gal display tank, where the water - rocks, corals, macros etc in the nano tank came from is dino free.
Phosphate - 0.092
Nitrate - 10
No dinos, so every couple of days I've been siphoning Dino clumps out of the small tank, shaking them up real good to spread the cells and then pouring them into the display starting on 6/17.

5 days later no signs of Dinos yet....

So that's part 1 of the experiment, will update over a couple of weeks.

Phase 2 of the experiment is to Fix the Dino nano tank. I'll post updates on that part in a few days.

Have you looked at dino response to nitrate, phosphate, and nitrate and phosphate under the scope? I'd be interested to see if there's any visible physiological response. If you haven't, I may do that tomorrow.

 

[Jolanta]

Here's a little experiment I'm running.
Nano reef tank. 2.5 gal stocked with bits from my display tank. Managed to get a pretty good Dinoflagellate bloom.
Phosphate - 0.012
Nitrate - 0

And here's microscope ID shots: Ostropsis, Prorocentrum, Small-Cell Amphidinium, and some round likely Coolia
(I strongly suspect there's also some large-cell amphidinium in there too, but I didn't sample the sand to look for them. I'll check later.)

35 second Video below


And my 70 gal display tank, where the water - rocks, corals, macros etc in the nano tank came from is dino free.
Phosphate - 0.092
Nitrate - 10
No dinos, so every couple of days I've been siphoning Dino clumps out of the small tank, shaking them up real good to spread the cells and then pouring them into the display starting on 6/17.

5 days later no signs of Dinos yet....

So that's part 1 of the experiment, will update over a couple of weeks.

Phase 2 of the experiment is to Fix the Dino nano tank. I'll post updates on that part in a few days.

I think there is something in the display tank that wont let dinos survive, not only the parameters, I rised my nitrate to 30 and phosphate to 0.1 at the end and my ostreopsis seamed to be better then ever. I dont know why it do help to rise nutrients in some thanks but it dont in others, Im doing a test with the sand with ostreopsis in a nano tank also and added actualy at 15 nitrates and 0.2 phosphate and still see dino strings.

 

[taricha]

I think there is something in the display tank that wont let dinos survive, not only the parameters, I rised my nitrate to 30 and phosphate to 0.1 at the end and my ostreopsis seamed to be better then ever. I dont know why it do help to rise nutrients in some thanks but it dont in others,

Agree 100%!
It's not the P and N that's stopping the dinos. Actually one of Mcarroll's links I read the other day mentioned that the standard lab culture for growing ostreopsis is a 1/5 diluted Guillard's F/2 growth media, which is still like 0.6 ppm Phosphate!
So it's got to be that the elevated nutrients in a healthy tank support a biodiverse system that keeps Dinos at bay and an ULNS has low biodiversity and niches that Dinos can dominate, not that Dinos hate P and N.

(I can't prove it, but I suspect the difference is we helped you kill everything in your tank so there's nothing left to compete with the dinos, except a little cyano)

@K. Steven, regarding the tests of P& N under a scope. Published lit can do a much better job here of detecting subtle differences in cell division, size, shape, nutrient storage and behavior under different nutrient conditions than we can.

But if you want a what the heck?!?, get a beaker of like 30mL of dinos and drop a single drop of miracle grow liquid fertilizer. The dinos disappear the next day.
(because you cooked them with crazy high ammonia, heh.)

 

[reeferfoxx]

Hi, my name is ReeferFoxx and I believe I have dinos.

 

[fragit]

Has any body seen any articles about sponges and dinos? Been thinking about the filter capacity and consumption of the free swimmers when lights are out.

 

[Jolanta]

Agree 100%!
It's not the P and N that's stopping the dinos. Actually one of Mcarroll's links I read the other day mentioned that the standard lab culture for growing ostreopsis is a 1/5 diluted Guillard's F/2 growth media, which is still like 0.6 ppm Phosphate!
So it's got to be that the elevated nutrients in a healthy tank support a biodiverse system that keeps Dinos at bay and an ULNS has low biodiversity and niches that Dinos can dominate, not that Dinos hate P and N.

(I can't prove it, but I suspect the difference is we helped you kill everything in your tank so there's nothing left to compete with the dinos, except a little cyano)

@K. Steven, regarding the tests of P& N under a scope. Published lit can do a much better job here of detecting subtle differences in cell division, size, shape, nutrient storage and behavior under different nutrient conditions than we can.

But if you want a what the heck?!?, get a beaker of like 30mL of dinos and drop a single drop of miracle grow liquid fertilizer. The dinos disappear the next day.
(because you cooked them with crazy high ammonia, heh.)

We need to discover this "something". Can you take some samples from your healthy system to see whats going on there. I know it would be dificult to some few ostreopsis survive with nutrient reach healty system but how can we menage to have that mature system, if we can get dinos with every frag or fish we put in, how can we avoid ostreopsis in a new tank ? I think I really scrued it up with my tank adding vibrant, metronidazole, peroxide, blackouts and no water changes, couse it didnt help for ostreopsis and only helped my tank to go downhill with nutrients really up, dirhty tank full of ciano and water of bad quality becouse of chemicals, maybe if I would make my normal routines and maintain my tank stable and only add a little phosphate from the begining it would work. Now my tank dont exist anymore and I say goodbye to a nano with ostreosis in it today, couse I will start to cycle my new tank in the weekend and I wont take a risk to cross contaminate it , so please pray for me for ostreopsis stay away from my new build. Im staing with you here reading and learning even If I dont have dinos anymore.

 

[reeferfoxx]

We need to discover this "something". Can you take some samples from your healthy system to see whats going on there. I know it would be dificult to some few ostreopsis survive with nutrient reach healty system but how can we menage to have that mature system, if we can get dinos with every frag or fish we put in, how can we avoid ostreopsis in a new tank ? I think I really scrued it up with my tank adding vibrant, metronidazole, peroxide, blackouts and no water changes, couse it didnt help for ostreopsis and only helped my tank to go downhill with nutrients really up, dirhty tank full of ciano and water of bad quality becouse of chemicals, maybe if I would make my normal routines and maintain my tank stable and only add a little phosphate from the begining it would work. Now my tank dont exist anymore and I say goodbye to a nano with ostreosis in it today, couse I will start to cycle my new tank in the weekend and I wont take a risk to cross contaminate it , so please pray for me for ostreopsis stay away from my new build. Im staing with you here reading and learning even If I dont have dinos anymore.

Are you cycling dry rock?

 

[Jolanta]

Hi, my name is ReeferFoxx and I believe I have dinos.

It surely looks like dinos dont do the crazy things of peroxide, metro... better listen to Mcarroll and get nutrients in balance and tell us if it helped. Do you have a microscope? You wont need a profesional one, you can use a toy one to identify what king od dinos you have in.

 

[Jolanta]

Are you cycling dry rock?

Yes I will use same rock from my last tank, only I restarted them with bleach bath for a few days.

 

[reeferfoxx]

It surely looks like dinos dont do the crazy things of peroxide, metro... better listen to Mcarroll and get nutrients in balance and tell us if it helped. Do you have a microscope? You wont need a profesional one, you can use a toy one to identify what king od dinos you have in.

Yes, I know all to well the risks of everything posted lol. I know exactly how this bloom started and not sure if it's curable. ;Sorry

@taricha I'm not particularly familiar with dinos? I know the basics. I was curious though, if they shared common traits with different sub-species? I've read that the harmful ones typically spawn naturally in warmer seasons. Which sometimes warmer weather can cause coral bleaching and expulsion of zoox, as well. Assuming you guys have researched the life cycles of the flagellates; is reduction of temperature a possible route to maintaining them? Some researched showed that the Ostreopsis life cycle consists of 2 resting 'cyst' stages. One is non-dormant(2 day) and the other is resting(5 months) cysts.
The double-walled resting cysts were only able to germinate at 25 deg C. (77 deg F).
I was curious if any of this is typical with other species? Also maybe cell structure?