Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[Pennywise the Clown]

After having no visual signs of dinos for the last 5 months I decided to do some checks under my microscope.
I tested a few areas, specifically where I had a bit of GHA.
In total I found 2 prorocentrum dinos (this is the strain i had been battling) and 1 solitary osteoporosis dino.
I have heard that you are never fully free of dinos so I'm not unduly concerned.
Is it just a case of making sure my nutrients don't bottom out?
I'm currently at 5 nitrate and 0.1 phosphate.

 

[taricha]

Do dino's glow under uv? I am having trouble separating some goop under the microscope. Made out some diatoms and what looks like strands of Cyano. I put it against a black light and it glows a pinkish color. Just wanted to see if it that was any way of distinguishing if there are Dinos hidden in the goop.

Unfortunately, pink glow in front of black light is what cyano does.
There are ways to confirm dinos with blacklight fluorescence, after freezing then thawing them, but cyano interferes too strongly and would have to be absent first.

Now if I can just get the DT to turn the corner. No evidence of dinos but corals are still not thriving. Only 2 of my acros have survived and they still are not showing signs of recovery yet. I'm going to do an ICP test and start back doing water changes. PO4 has dropped a lot, NO3 is steady at 5.

If dinos are attaching to corals in even small numbers, that would be very negative for their health. A short blackout (under 48hr) supported by UV to force anything that may be on the corals to go elsewhere may be helpful.
Also watch elevated N with very low P. Corals hate that much more than the reverse or any other combo of low or high nutrients.

In need of some help ID dinos.

Excellent microscope work!
Prorocentrum dino cell.
But almost all the pigmentation in that sample is diatoms. One of the weird kinds that forms chains, and can actually appear stringy to the eye.
For curiosity can we get a tank pic of the brown sample area?

 

[yogi03]

Unfortunately, pink glow in front of black light is what cyano does.
There are ways to confirm dinos with blacklight fluorescence, after freezing then thawing them, but cyano interferes too strongly and would have to be absent first.


If dinos are attaching to corals in even small numbers, that would be very negative for their health. A short blackout (under 48hr) supported by UV to force anything that may be on the corals to go elsewhere may be helpful.
Also watch elevated N with very low P. Corals hate that much more than the reverse or any other combo of low or high nutrients.




Excellent microscope work!
Prorocentrum dino cell.
But almost all the pigmentation in that sample is diatoms. One of the weird kinds that forms chains, and can actually appear stringy to the eye.
For curiosity can we get a tank pic of the brown sample area?

Awesome! Thank you for the response! I've been reading a lot of your posts. I have battled dinos a few months ago after a treatment of flucon, had bryopsis recently and did the flucon again. After everything was gone I think i cleaned out the tank again too well and N and P bottomed out and a new dino appeared. I will get a pic in a little bit. The only dinos I can find are all on a montipora cap. I'm wondering if I should just do a freshwater dip for that cap? In the meantime I was thinking it was amphidium so I ordered some silicate and started raising my N and P through Potassium Nitrate and Potassium Phosphate dosing. I think you are correct with your ID because I do not see anything on the sand or rocks as of now. All of my GHA has died off for the most part. I have lost one Turbo in the refugium. One sps shows some recession but that could be an alk swing and me messing with Lighting.

 

[yogi03]

Awesome! Thank you for the response! I've been reading a lot of your posts. I have battled dinos a few months ago after a treatment of flucon, had bryopsis recently and did the flucon again. After everything was gone I think i cleaned out the tank again too well and N and P bottomed out and a new dino appeared. I will get a pic in a little bit. The only dinos I can find are all on a montipora cap. I'm wondering if I should just do a freshwater dip for that cap? In the meantime I was thinking it was amphidium so I ordered some silicate and started raising my N and P through Potassium Nitrate and Potassium Phosphate dosing. I think you are correct with your ID because I do not see anything on the sand or rocks as of now. All of my GHA has died off for the most part. I have lost one Turbo in the refugium. One sps shows some recession but that could be an alk swing and me messing with Lighting.

Pics of affected coral and only place I have positive sample of Dino.

 

[taricha]

Pics of affected coral and only place I have positive sample of Dino.

Gotta get the dinos off the coral.
We go on a lot about running GAC to mitigate toxins in the water, but it doesn't matter if we clean the water if toxic dinos are attaching to corals directly. The corals never last long under those circumstances.
My current thinking is blow off the corals, run UV, and maybe a short blackout to force the dinos to move to new territory (and go into UV).

 

[yogi03]

Gotta get the dinos off the coral.
We go on a lot about running GAC to mitigate toxins in the water, but it doesn't matter if we clean the water if toxic dinos are attaching to corals directly. The corals never last long under those circumstances.
My current thinking is blow off the corals, run UV, and maybe a short blackout to force the dinos to move to new territory (and go into UV).

I went ahead and did a freshwater dip on that monti cap as it seems to be the only place I found dino in sampling. These in particular are stuck on the coral pretty well. I tried to blow them off and couldn't get them to budge. To get the sample for the microscope I had to actually use a pipette and gently scrape the coral to get any off. I gently brushed the coral in the rodi water and then returned him to the dt but on a frag rack with lower light. Will keep monitoring for a bit to see if the dinos come back and if the coral rebounds back to health. What should be my target Nitrate and Phosphate levels and should I hold off on the silicate dosing to see if there are more Dinos lurking around?

 

[saltyhog]

If dinos are attaching to corals in even small numbers, that would be very negative for their health. A short blackout (under 48hr) supported by UV to force anything that may be on the corals to go elsewhere may be helpful.
Also watch elevated N with very low P. Corals hate that much more than the reverse or any other combo of low or high nutrients.

Thanks Taricha! I'm in the middle of 36 hour black out. Blew off the rocks/coral and did a water change today. I haven't been blowing the rocks are coral off because I couldn't see anything to blow off but should have known better. Blowing the corals off worked great for the coolia in my nano.

 

[taricha]

I haven't been blowing the rocks are coral off because I couldn't see anything to blow off but should have known better. Blowing the corals off worked great for the coolia in my nano.

When dinos leave a surface to go into the water, they often leave behind their mucus mats.
That's one reason why the same areas get re-colonized so quickly. And cycle from looking worse to better to worse etc.
The mucus films have been shown to contain their toxins, and not just the cells themselves.
So definitely blow off the coral and other surfaces even when we don't see brown from the cells.

 

[saltyhog]

When dinos leave a surface to go into the water, they often leave behind their mucus mats.
That's one reason why the same areas get re-colonized so quickly. And cycle from looking worse to better to worse etc.
The mucus films have been shown to contain their toxins, and not just the cells themselves.
So definitely blow off the coral and other surfaces even when we don't see brown from the cells.

That makes perfect sense. Would it be wise to cut off the dead tip of the coral to eliminate the mucous mat or would that stress/expose the compromised living coral tissue to attack?

 

[taricha]

That makes perfect sense. Would it be wise to cut off the dead tip of the coral to eliminate the mucous mat or would that stress/expose the compromised living coral tissue to attack?

No idea if that would help. Never thought about "pruning" back to live tissue. Good idea.

 

[Victoria M]

Excellent info. Still love reading this thread.

 

[Stephers]

Ugh. I beat dinos last year, but I let my phosphate go too low and they're back despite all my hair algae... can someone help with species? I had ostreo before, but I think these are different... thanks

 

[saltyhog]

Ugh. I beat dinos last year, but I let my phosphate go too low and they're back despite all my hair algae... can someone help with species? I had ostreo before, but I think these are different... thanks

Coolia I think. @taricha

 

[Stephers]

Thanks. Does coolio tend to like gha?.... it's literally only growing on the gha... which is why it took me a while to realize I had it again.

 

[saltyhog]

Thanks. Does coolio tend to like gha?.... it's literally only growing on the gha... which is why it took me a while to realize I had it again.

Mine did. I manually removed my gha with a brush (not hard for me because my coolia was in my nano tank), dosed silicates, kept my NO3 and PO4 up and blew off the rocks a couple of times a day. I also added a UV which seemed to turn the corner with the above regime. I did remove my sand bed since it was easy to do in such a small tank. I haven't returned the sand bed yet and may keep it as a bare bottom.

 

[taricha]

Thanks. Does coolio tend to like gha?.... it's literally only growing on the gha... which is why it took me a while to realize I had it again.

Ostreopsis, prorocentrum, and coolia are the most common ones (that we see) found as epiphytes on macroalgae.

 

[Stephers]

Thanks guys. I definitely have ostreo again too. I saw it twirling in between the other dinos. Uv got rid of it last time, so I guess I'll be setting up the jebao again.

 

[leokan]

Is these dino? the larger video is under 1200x microscope. They don't move at all.

video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2dh85mB6MhLCD4sJ6

 

[Stephers]

What is the goal level when dosing silicates? I searched the thread but didn't find an answer. So u just go by the dosing by brightwell?

 

[taricha]

What is the goal level when dosing silicates? I searched the thread but didn't find an answer. So u just go by the dosing by brightwell?

For typical dino blooms, Si is unnecessary.
For sandbed only dinos, see the amphidinium thread. There, I think a target of 0.1ppm+ (up to ~1ppm) SiO2 is fine.