Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Jolanta]

My UV arrived!

Its so big hahaha now I need to figure out how to instal it.
Red cyano rx definitively didnt work so adding nutrients and UV is my only hope.

 

[Beardo]

I recently added sand back to my system after several months. I removed the sand to help the ostreopsis battle--and it worked. But now that i added sand the dino's are waking up. My N&P are still elevated, 20 & .01 respectively. Bubbles are popping up on rocks and sand for the first time in 3 months. im not adding the UV back just yet because i feel this process kills more than dinos but all good stuff that helps battle dinos. i feel a UV might be a vicious circle similar to adding chemicals. Anyways ive found my dino really increase when my white lights are at a higher intensity BUT when i tone them down and run stronger BLUE's i can keep the dinos at a manageable level. High intensity White light makes them very strong in my tank. My corals still grow very well with high blue lights and for my tank right now this is the balance. I plan to run this way for a couple months and do water changes once a month and see if my tank will balance out and the dino will go to sleep.

Have you verified the dinos showing up on your sandbed now are Ostreopsis? How long did you run the UV for previously?

 

[taricha]

I recently added sand back to my system after several months. I removed the sand to help the ostreopsis battle--and it worked. But now that i added sand the dino's are waking up. My N&P are still elevated, 20 & .01 respectively. Bubbles are popping up on rocks and sand for the first time in 3 months. im not adding the UV back just yet because i feel this process kills more than dinos but all good stuff that helps battle dinos. i feel a UV might be a vicious circle similar to adding chemicals. Anyways ive found my dino really increase when my white lights are at a higher intensity BUT when i tone them down and run stronger BLUE's i can keep the dinos at a manageable level. High intensity White light makes them very strong in my tank. My corals still grow very well with high blue lights and for my tank right now this is the balance. I plan to run this way for a couple months and do water changes once a month and see if my tank will balance out and the dino will go to sleep.

1. you are adding a large amount of attractive real estate that is not already colonized with anything. (I wonder if letting sand sit in a part of a system where dinos can't colonize first - like a fuge or dark zone - would go differently).
2. Could you look at these bubbly masses under the scope to see what they are?
3. PO4=0.01 is not elevated. Typo?
4. In your case, you may be right. With no sand and a UV, you would be removing most any organism that requires either a planktonic or a sand-dwelling phase. That would eliminate a lot of things.
5. I've seen others say the opposite, that running heavy blues kept the dinos happy, but adding red light favored green algae. This would sync well with the advice for algae scrubbers to run reds almost exclusively, and that heavy reds hurt corals (symbiodinium dinos).
Dana riddle has a great speculative thread on "dinoflagellates and spectrum" of light. There's nothing conclusive on this Q yet.

 

[mcarroll]

All of those white specs are flat worms.
I can attempt to capture one and scope it if someone is interested in IDing them .

I'll second (or third) this!

Most amino acids are more of a source of N than P anyway.

N+C, even....totally not what we want. Lysine, for example:

High intensity White light

Are you doing anything to control lux/PAR levels when you're reconfiguring your lights? You'd have to do this in order to say whether the changes you see are color- or intensity-related. (I'm pretty sure. )

 

[taricha]

Awesome detailed data from @IKD incoming...
1/6-1/20...

1/20-1/29...

1/30-2/2...

Phosphate consumption over treatment time.

 

[Paullawr]

Awesome detailed data from @IKD incoming...
1/6-1/20...

1/20-1/29...

1/30-2/2...

Phosphate consumption over treatment time.

Very good. Top stuff @IKD

 

[wopadobop]

That’s a great post. Very detailed.
I am also noticing the same consumption rates of p04. At day 3 they start to level off and additions seems to be less. Is this biomass uptake saturation? Or the initial bloom consumption of p04 with a leveling off as they hit critical mass? So much interesting stuff we can do with modern test kits.

Flat worm scope shots incoming shortly i just need coffee first.

 

[wopadobop]

This is the front of the worm as far as i can tell. I’d say they are about 1mm long and swim very fast. This guy was hard to catch and sample for scoping. I had to use a q tip to limit his swimming space by drying out the slide.

 

[O'l Salty]

Do Dino's grow on glass? My glass has been unusually clean over the last week but now something is beginning to grow on it again. Normally I had to clean it every day but very minimal algae other than that.

 

[reefwiser]

It sure does

 

[Jolanta]

So its on, it was a hard work but its on

I really dont have a lot of dinoflagellates now, its only in two rocks, something in my tank wont let them bloom as much, maybe becouse I dont have any kind of filtration, only filter sock, but its still there and some corals like cloves are afected

I hope I can give you some positive update soon.
I had 1800l\h pump I hope its slow enought to kill ostreopsis.

 

[Paullawr]

This is the front of the worm as far as i can tell. I’d say they are about 1mm long and swim very fast. This guy was hard to catch and sample for scoping. I had to use a q tip to limit his swimming space by drying out the slide.

You better start breeding these and selling them. Dino eating flatworm. You could retire by Easter. $20 x 5 flatworm

 

[Oberst Oswald]

I think you have the UV upside down. The way you have it allows an air space at the top of the tube. The hose barbs should be point up.

 

[Jolanta]

I think you have the UV upside down. The way you have it allows an air space at the top of the tube. The hose barbs should be point up.

Really? I cant find any instruction I made it as a video on youtube.

 

[Oberst Oswald]

https://media.cdn.bulkreefsupply.com/media/wysiwyg/PDFs/SMARTUV_Instructions_07.pdf This is the UV unit I bought which I will receive tomorrow. About half into the instructions you will find a picture to how to set up a long tube type UV.

 

[Jolanta]

https://media.cdn.bulkreefsupply.com/media/wysiwyg/PDFs/SMARTUV_Instructions_07.pdf This is the UV unit I bought which I will receive tomorrow. About half into the instructions you will find a picture to how to set up a long tube type UV.

You have other kind of UV mine is Jebao and I instaled it as in this video , I hope somebody with Jebao unit will let me know how it should be instaled.

 

[Oberst Oswald]

If that guy is not rep from the Jebao manufacturer I wouldn't trust that he is right. Maybe safer if you tilted the outlet up about an inch it should be OK to run. That way if there is a air space it will be at the very end and not expose the UV light.

 

[Jolanta]

If that guy is not rep from the Jebao manufacturer I wouldn't trust that he is right. Maybe safer if you tilted the outlet up about an inch it should be OK to run. That way if there is a air space it will be at the very end and not expose the UV light.

Thank you, I will maybe try to rise the outlet, its really dificult to me to move the plastic hoses couse they are really hard to squeze and manipulate, if I need to instal it upside down so I would need maybe two meters of hose to manage to conect it and return the hoses to the water with out bending the hose.

 

[taricha]

This is the front of the worm as far as i can tell. I’d say they are about 1mm long and swim very fast. This guy was hard to catch and sample for scoping.

video? as low power as possible.
not looking like stuff I've seen under scope before.

Do Dino's grow on glass? My glass has been unusually clean over the last week but now something is beginning to grow on it again. Normally I had to clean it every day but very minimal algae other than that.

algae, diatoms, bacterial films, cyano, ciliates, and dinos can all show up on glass. Usually the dinos have to attach to something else to do it though. And glass doesn't really suit their style.

 

[Oberst Oswald]

Allow some time to wait till somebody who has a unit like yours, and is knowledgeable & experienced, to answer just in case I am wrong. Your UV might be designed with the air space issue to be taken into consideration.