Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

Benj2112

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I have dino's visibly NOT present at the moment. I have a UV attached to my main display tank as well. I tested my Nitrate and it is coming in at 40, which has me worried. I want to do a water change, but I am afraid that will cause another outbreak. Any recommendations? I looked at NitratR, but found a post that Randy Holmes-Farley said it's claims are garbage.
 

ScottB

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I have dino's visibly NOT present at the moment. I have a UV attached to my main display tank as well. I tested my Nitrate and it is coming in at 40, which has me worried. I want to do a water change, but I am afraid that will cause another outbreak. Any recommendations? I looked at NitratR, but found a post that Randy Holmes-Farley said it's claims are garbage.

Two questions:
Were you battling ostreopsis with the UV?
Is your PO4 .1 or higher?

If yes and yes, IMO you should be able to do a 20% change. Keep the UV running after the change. Those buggers are still in there though, trust me. Don't work at "cleaning"; just WC to replenish elements.
 

Benj2112

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Two questions:
Were you battling ostreopsis with the UV?
Is your PO4 .1 or higher?

If yes and yes, IMO you should be able to do a 20% change. Keep the UV running after the change. Those buggers are still in there though, trust me. Don't work at "cleaning"; just WC to replenish elements.

I am kind of embarrassed to say I am not sure what kind I am battling at the moment. I added the UV just to help, even if it doesn't help that much. I have been dosing P04 to get from 0.0 to above .1 and obviously I have plenty of Nitrate. The dinos where all over my rock and sand, everything. I am now getting some green on my white rocks instead of the brown, which I am actually happy to see as I never had it (I might finally be able to get a clean-up crew.. I was worried the Dinos would just kill them). I used DinoX to get rid of the Dinos, which I see isn't expressly recommended, but it seems to have worked. I then added bacteria and a 4 day blackout mentioned in a 5 min. BRS video.
 

ScottB

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I am kind of embarrassed to say I am not sure what kind I am battling at the moment. I added the UV just to help, even if it doesn't help that much. I have been dosing P04 to get from 0.0 to above .1 and obviously I have plenty of Nitrate. The dinos where all over my rock and sand, everything. I am now getting some green on my white rocks instead of the brown, which I am actually happy to see as I never had it (I might finally be able to get a clean-up crew.. I was worried the Dinos would just kill them). I used DinoX to get rid of the Dinos, which I see isn't expressly recommended, but it seems to have worked. I then added bacteria and a 4 day blackout mentioned in a 5 min. BRS video.

I am guessing you don't yet have SPS in your tank so maybe the Dino-X is OK. If you have SPS in the future, Dino-X is a demonstrably bad idea based on many experiences here.

Keep nutrient up and UV on. For four out of five species it will work to limit them. It is the sand based amphidinium that resist and remain in the sand and don't release into the water column to be controlled by UV that are the toughest.

You have some good odds to win without ID if you stay the course. If it fails, you need to confirm the ID and treat for amphidinium.
 
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NeonRabbit221B

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Vacation is looking to be slightly more stressful than normal this year. Here was my tank last night before I got started on it. I need some direction on steps to take tonight to prevent corals and snails from dying off...

Dinos.jpg


So when the issue took hold I found my nitrates and phosphates at zero. I had completely forgot that I put in a PhosGuard about a couple weeks ago due to what I suspected was high silicates and phosphates around .45 so I was continuously unable to get phosphates out of the 0 range. Well Dinos took hold (used the peroxide and paper towel test method) and have gotten pretty bad. My nitrates are now 5 and phosphates are .04 and my corals have been peroxide dipped to remove the buildup. Based on what I was reading manual removal was key so I used a gravel vacuum and return pump to filter about a disgusting amount of slime. The tank is now looking significantly better but without an ability to ID the dinos I am dealing with in the next 24 hours I am wondering what corrective actions are common among all species.

I can do a proper ID when I get back but in the meantime not sure what I can do for prep. Swap my calcium doser for peroxide? Do an additional auto-feeder cycle to keep feeding heavier? Additional powerheads to keep them suspended?

Any help would be appreciated!

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that I put about 100 ml worth of sand from my more established tank and a few hunks of live rock to diversify and introduce copepods. Tank was started with dry rock so I realized it was pretty barren
 

ScottB

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I would not dose hp without supervision personally, and would only consider it for maybe amphidinium, the sand based species.
more likely you are dealing with a variety that will respond to UV. Does it seem to like high light and flow areas? Does the bloom worsen as the day light progresses? If so:
1 UV at 1 watt per three gallons into and out of display. As slow as manufacturer allows.
2 Dose phosphates and nitrates. No aminos or phyto
3 hang a bunch of filter floss on the glass in high flow and light areas. Clamp it. Suction cups whatever. Use a lot. Dino’s love to hang there
4 as you have done, add more diversity as much as you can. Media filter pads anything with some bacterial slime coat.
5 run a lot of fresh carbon and no gfo.

how long are you gone?
 

NeonRabbit221B

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Tomorrow morning until christmas night and I will have about 3 hours to test/adjust/vacuum and then traveling again until the 30th.

Definitely gets worse during the day and in the early morning I am tricked into thinking they have receded. I find a decent layer at the surface and a huge buildup in the front of the tank where I have higher flow. I do have a Green Machine (24W version?) so I hope it still runs well. It didn't do much the first time I encountered them but likely a different variety as a blackout didn't fix the last bout in a different tank.

Thank you!
 

ScottB

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Tomorrow morning until christmas night and I will have about 3 hours to test/adjust/vacuum and then traveling again until the 30th.

Definitely gets worse during the day and in the early morning I am tricked into thinking they have receded. I find a decent layer at the surface and a huge buildup in the front of the tank where I have higher flow. I do have a Green Machine (24W version?) so I hope it still runs well. It didn't do much the first time I encountered them but likely a different variety as a blackout didn't fix the last bout in a different tank.

Thank you!

You are welcome. Sorry about the poor timing. I had similar last spring break. It wasn't pretty but got through it OK.

Two more things:
1 Hang a bunch of floss where it seems to be blooming best. They will be SO GROSS when you get back, but better there than on corals.
2 If you have a smartphone app for your lights, you could consider blacking out for a few of the days you are away. It will slow the growth and likely also will have the dinos spend more time in the water and therefor UV can accomplish more.
 

joseph scott

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Battling Dino’s in two tanks right now, both have long brown strings of Dino’s. Both use cheato for nutrient export very successfully, of course now were told to raise nutrients to battle Dino’s. What I don’t understand about this concept is here on the gulf coast of Florida red tide Dino’s are blamed on excess nutrients from various human caused runoff.
 

nick9one1

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Can anyone identify these? Looks like there are some coolia, but also prorocentrum?

 

Pennywise the Clown

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Any thoughts on feeding Reef Roids and the potential to fuel dinos?
I have stopped dosing Red Sea Reef Energy but would still like to give my corals some food.
Sorry to quote myself but any thoughts on Reef Roids?
I currently have some cyano in the display, confirmed with a microscope and a small patch of brown on the sand that seems to be cyano and mostly diatoms and maybe the odd small cell amphidinium.
If I syphon this small patch out, it comes back. But slowly over the course of a couple of weeks which doesn't really fit dinos as I remember them.
 

Michael Adam

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Ok I've been lurking for a month and reading the first 200 pages. I have a question. My nitrates are at 5 my phosphates vary between .05 and .1. I'm definitely starting to see green hair algae pop-up in numerous places in the tank. How worried should I be about the outbreak of the hair algae. I added a bottle of doctor Tim's about a week ago. Haven't done a black out yet but I've definitely seen a huge Improvement. I only see it in the sand bed now. And it's getting smaller and smaller in spots. Not near as bad as it was. When do I start letting the phosphate and nitrate start drop? And like I said is the green hair algae a problem? I recently added a lot of Cleanup Crew once the dinos started to subside. Thanks
 

ScottB

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Honestly answering the question of "when is the battle really over?" has been a tough one for me. I don't have a high conviction answer to this good question. Hopefully someone can chime in as I would like to know.

I have had 2 small "relapses" after declaring victory against ostreopsis. Both coincided with me letting PO4 dip below .05.

However I never got to the green algae stage now that I think about it. Some cyano and brown film was as far as I got with NO3 staying in the mid-teens and PO4 at .05 to .12.
 

Tompickles

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I hope this is the right place to post this I’ve been battling what I think is Dino’s for a few weeks now and finally got a microscope off amazon. Can anyone I’d this for me please. It’s a brown dusting all over the rocks and sand and when blown with a turkey baster comes off very easy.
8E63FA2C-5E62-40BE-B429-9F017FD8A296.jpeg
 

Alvaro_Spain

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I hope this is the right place to post this I’ve been battling what I think is Dino’s for a few weeks now and finally got a microscope off amazon. Can anyone I’d this for me please. It’s a brown dusting all over the rocks and sand and when blown with a turkey baster comes off very easy.
ostreopsis: probable
amphidinium: possible
prorocentrum: no
coolia: no
 

ScottB

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I hope this is the right place to post this I’ve been battling what I think is Dino’s for a few weeks now and finally got a microscope off amazon. Can anyone I’d this for me please. It’s a brown dusting all over the rocks and sand and when blown with a turkey baster comes off very easy.
8E63FA2C-5E62-40BE-B429-9F017FD8A296.jpeg

Hmmm. Struggling to pick that one out. I'll include a link to an ID document produced by the ID authority here @taricha .

Not sure I see ostreopsis personally as they have a definitive almond shape. Any chance you could shoot video to show movement as this makes ID easier. Ostreopsis swim around randomly but in a pattern that suggests that they are "tethered" to a fixed spot.
 

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taricha

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Can anyone I’d this for me please. It’s a brown dusting all over the rocks and sand and when blown with a turkey baster comes off very easy.
I think that what we are looking at here is amphidinium that are squished by the microscope slide cover.
 

Shane B.

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Fighting Dinos as we speak. I guess my tank was the poster child for them. N and P at 0 for several weeks, dosing NOPOX, running a fuge, feeding sparingly, tank only a few months old....seems like it wasn't a matter of "if" but "when". Taking things slow, dosing N and P to get things up, and adding Microbacter 7 every other day, and Vibrant once a week. Changing the filter floss daily, and added a UV sterilizer. Showing small improvements after 2 weeks.
 

ScottB

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Fighting Dinos as we speak. I guess my tank was the poster child for them. N and P at 0 for several weeks, dosing NOPOX, running a fuge, feeding sparingly, tank only a few months old....seems like it wasn't a matter of "if" but "when". Taking things slow, dosing N and P to get things up, and adding Microbacter 7 every other day, and Vibrant once a week. Changing the filter floss daily, and added a UV sterilizer. Showing small improvements after 2 weeks.

Don't feel lonely or ashamed. Several hundred more folks are doing/done the same.

Don't have much experience with MB7 but with Vibrant you will be lowering nitrates a bit. Vibrant is a great maintenance tool, but when in dino mode I have seen mixed outcomes.
 

Rob0019

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I've been battling dinos for a few months. Finally bought a microscope. What type do you guys think they are?

20191225_152614.jpg 20191225_152529.jpg
 
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