Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

taricha

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Mine was improving and I started amino again. Boom. Dinos back.
Amino acids are very nutritious for corals & dinos, apparently.
 

Gildo

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I have had problems with ostreopsis for over a year now.
rmai thanks to this post, I know how to make them harmless and under control.

my problem is that at the slightest distraction they return, and that in any case the tub does not turn well! I have very low consumptions of kh, (and I must check by buying a new test, but it would seem that there are very high Mg consumption)

Another question that I ask myself, is whether food in granules can favor the dino ??? (it seems to me but I have nothing to verify it) better flakes and live?

I want to ask for experiences on how to return to the ordinary life of the tank!

what to do when 2 months have passed without dino to start again! @taricha
 

ScottB

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so does that means we can never use aminos for our reef? haha

Perhaps when things are going so smoothly for so long and I get bored I will dump in some aminos for laughs. I've never noticed much difference with/without aminos -- except when it comes to growing dinos.
 

taricha

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so does that means we can never use aminos for our reef? haha
Great Q. If your system is dino-friendly, has dinos or used to have them recently, then it's quite possible that aminos will help bring them back, because your system conditions are still not that far off from what supported dinos in the first place.
Some systems are not dino friendly. Have never had dinos in any numbers and can add dino cells to the tank without them growing. These systems are probably the ones that dose aminos with no issues.

Another question that I ask myself, is whether food in granules can favor the dino ??? (it seems to me but I have nothing to verify it) better flakes and live?

I want to ask for experiences on how to return to the ordinary life of the tank!

what to do when 2 months have passed without dino to start again! @taricha
possible that some foods contain nutrients / elements that are supplying an otherwise limited dino bloom. I've seen a couple of people find that feeding seaweed caused a stalled dino bloom to explode. (seaweed is a rich source of all kinds of vitamins and metals)
my thoughts on a long term plan for post-dino stability. Have your tank be happy and stable at the conditions that kept dinos away for a long time - at least a month, add biodiversity - live rock, algae fuge, etc so that every niche in the system is thoroughly colonized and exploited by something that isn't dinos. Then you may be able to make small shifts toward the direction you want the tank without dinos immediately reappearing.
 

ScottB

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Great Q. If your system is dino-friendly, has dinos or used to have them recently, then it's quite possible that aminos will help bring them back, because your system conditions are still not that far off from what supported dinos in the first place.
Some systems are not dino friendly. Have never had dinos in any numbers and can add dino cells to the tank without them growing. These systems are probably the ones that dose aminos with no issues.


possible that some foods contain nutrients / elements that are supplying an otherwise limited dino bloom. I've seen a couple of people find that feeding seaweed caused a stalled dino bloom to explode. (seaweed is a rich source of all kinds of vitamins and metals)
my thoughts on a long term plan for post-dino stability. Have your tank be happy and stable at the conditions that kept dinos away for a long time - at least a month, add biodiversity - live rock, algae fuge, etc so that every niche in the system is thoroughly colonized and exploited by something that isn't dinos. Then you may be able to make small shifts toward the direction you want the tank without dinos immediately reappearing.

So all my dino troubles have been in my frag system. My display(s) have never had them -- even though I ran low nutrient for several years. Similar parameters, bioload, and coral/fish populations across the two separate systems. Plus I move stuff between them all the time.

The big difference IMO? My display has +110 lbs of old live rock. Some of it +10 years in my systems and quite mature when I got it. With my new-found free time, I have removed some, cut it to size with a bandsaw, and crammed it into my frag sumps. Hoping that helps; keep you posted.
 

madweazl

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So all my dino troubles have been in my frag system. My display(s) have never had them -- even though I ran low nutrient for several years. Similar parameters, bioload, and coral/fish populations across the two separate systems. Plus I move stuff between them all the time.

The big difference IMO? My display has +110 lbs of old live rock. Some of it +10 years in my systems and quite mature when I got it. With my new-found free time, I have removed some, cut it to size with a bandsaw, and crammed it into my frag sumps. Hoping that helps; keep you posted.

Our 150g was established using a lot of the live rock from our 75g; it didn't help. The tank had been set up for 7 or 8 months when I started transferring corals but we did have a big jump in fish population (from about 5 to 15). Nutrients were low but not zero. No clue what exactly triggered the outbreak but I'm about to claim victory.
 
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ScottB

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Our 150g was establishing using a lot of the live rock from our 75g; it didn't help. The tank had been set up for 7 or 8 months when I started transferring corals but we did have a big jump in fish population (from about 5 to 15). Nutrients were low but not zero. No clue what exactly triggered the outbreak but I'm about to claim victory.

Glad to hear you're on the cusp of victory. I clearly don't have it all figured out yet for that system. Finally have the UV back in the box (for the third time), aminos in the trash, and the dirtiest nutrient numbers I can stomach; 25 and .15 with one toilet tied into the sump (j/k) and a lot of tangs managing the algae and pooping every hour.
 

abraha

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Has anyone tried OceanMagik from Algae Barn to combat dinos?
They make some good points on the article below but lost me when they mentioned that dinos are caused by excess nutrients...

 

ScottB

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Has anyone tried OceanMagik from Algae Barn to combat dinos?
They make some good points on the article below but lost me when they mentioned that dinos are caused by excess nutrients...


Good read. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, could be confusing. With 1000s of different dinos, some will thrive in different environments. The "Red Tide" variety do indeed thrive in warm, high nutrient waters (like Gulf of Mexico). I have also seen procentrum in one very high nutrient system.

The blanket statement that starving out aquarium dino species with phyto is counter to my experience and that of most folks on this thread. But hey, I never tried it. Phytos could prove a valuable competitor in our systems. Feeding our pod population generally sounds like a good idea. I just don't think of aquarium dinos being caused by high nutrients.
 

taricha

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Has anyone tried OceanMagik from Algae Barn to combat dinos?
They make some good points on the article below but lost me when they mentioned that dinos are caused by excess nutrients...
The blanket statement that starving out aquarium dino species with phyto is counter to my experience and that of most folks on this thread. But hey, I never tried it.
I have tried live phyto additions, and here's what I've written about it before...
..this argument makes total sense, and it really ought to work. But in practice, in my systems and others, it just doesn't. In fact, live phyto seems to have the opposite effect. In fact adding live phyto caused dinos to resurge in my tank better than adding dinos themselves.

To repeat, I've poured straight dinos from an infected system into my display with healthy nutrients and diversity, and the dinos couldn't get a foothold.
But pouring in large amounts of live phyto (nanno and t-iso) and daily infusions of cultured copepods/rotifers caused amphidinium dinos to bloom.
Why? My best guess is that the tank had protective biodiversity, but adding overwhelming amounts of phyto/pods actually pushed other things out, and left less diversity, [edit: I don't buy that argument anymore] majority of my zooplankton now being copepods that don't eat dinos. (Growing pods that eat 5 micron phyto cells are apparently poorly equipped to eat 50 micron Dino cells)

In another tank with an already existing ostreopsis bloom, feeding live phyto grew more dinos and more copepods, but then the copepods succumbed to the dinos and then the tank grew way more dinos.

Do our dinos feed off phyto directly? Probably not. But they don't have to. They can capture phyto and pods in mucus and benefit from the organics released as they die.

So, counter-intuitive to the point of being maddening. When battling dinos, biodiversity is awesome, but the evidence I've seen says do NOT dose live phyto.
I'm curious what the source is advocating pods and phyto vs dinos. If the dinos are toxic, then they kill off the pods at very small Dino cell concentrations.
Secondly the dino mucus mats are very good at trapping small invertebrates such as pods, and also phyto. The mucus mats themselves often contain toxins and most things that come in contact with them die and their decomposition fuels the dino bloom further.
The next objection is size. When we by phyto, we are buying usually 5 Micron cells. Our problem dinos average around 50 microns long. So the things that grow by eating the live phyto, are poorly suited to try to eat the problem Dino cells. The pods that are sold, are typically also the wrong kind for this job. Much larger pods such as munnid isopods and amphipods are actually capable, and are often found in and around problem Dino blooms in our tanks. The pods typically bought, are copepods which again are just too small for the job. See my previous picture of a copepod covered in mucus mat and prorocentrum Dino cells.
I have tried to carefully observe Dino blooms in my systems as they rise and especially fall. Organisms that I have seen grazing on dinos during the phase where the outbreak is receding include isopods, amphipods, tanaid shrimp, some snails for low toxin blooms, multiple different classes of ciliates, but not copepods. I've posted pics/ vids of these before.

If phyto/ pod sellers have upped their game and are selling a better suited offering, than the normal Live 5 to 10 Micron phyto and copepods I'd be interested to know.
 

Markxc

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question for you more experienced people - Im starting to get dinos in a new tank thats been set up for about 2.5 months. I also have another tank thats been up for about 2.5 years that doesnt have any dino issues right now. i have a couple sps frags in the new tank which are getting dinos on the tips so im wondering if i can move these over to my old tank for a little while to see if the dinos will go away? is there any danger of starting an outbreak in my old tank?
 

ScottB

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question for you more experienced people - Im starting to get dinos in a new tank thats been set up for about 2.5 months. I also have another tank thats been up for about 2.5 years that doesnt have any dino issues right now. i have a couple sps frags in the new tank which are getting dinos on the tips so im wondering if i can move these over to my old tank for a little while to see if the dinos will go away? is there any danger of starting an outbreak in my old tank?

Just having this same conversation in another thread. It is my believe that dinos are present in every living body of water. Only some microbiomes are ideal for them to dominate all the other organisms in it.

Your old tank has more live diversity in it. More bacterial film, algae film, microfauna, more stored PO4 in rock/substrate etc. Assuming it also keeps a sufficient nutrient store, I would move the corals and inverts over to avoid damage. You should be fine just keep it steady as it has been.
 

Markxc

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Just having this same conversation in another thread. It is my believe that dinos are present in every living body of water. Only some microbiomes are ideal for them to dominate all the other organisms in it.

Your old tank has more live diversity in it. More bacterial film, algae film, microfauna, more stored PO4 in rock/substrate etc. Assuming it also keeps a sufficient nutrient store, I would move the corals and inverts over to avoid damage. You should be fine just keep it steady as it has been.

heres the update after 15 mins. i took a couple frags and blew off the dinos in a separate container of water and then dropped them into the old tank. dont see any signs of dinos growing again on the frags yet but will report back in a couple hours. normally when i blow them off frags in the new tank they start growing back right away.
 

taricha

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normally when i blow them off frags in the new tank they start growing back right away.
what you are seeing is cells in the water assembling out of the water and collecting on coral branches - a good place for dinos to land, but terrible for us. They aren't growing long strings by cell division, they are assembling strings from the water.
This rapid assembly won't happen in a tank without a dino problem.
 

calgoby

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I've been following this thread while fighting an outbreak of suspected ostreopsis in my 3-month old tank (started from dry rock). Wanted to share my progress after a week of treatment and add another data point to the collection. Simple measures but they've worked dramatically.

About my tank:
  • 3 months old
  • started from dry rock and live sand
  • ammonia/nitrite 0 ppm
  • nitrate 5-10 ppm
  • pH 7.8
  • phosphate close to 0 (now 0.05-0.10 ppm)

Here's my tank at the end of day for the past 3 weeks:
IMG_20200323_164959.jpg


Today:
IMG_20200327_145246.jpg


I originally mistook the outbreak for cyanobacteria and made it worse by feeding less and performing water changes. After following this thread, I started the below daily routine, which I've been doing for the past week:
  • Dosing/testing phosphate to stay between 0.05-0.10 ppm
  • Turkey baster blasting the rocks
  • Siphoning the sandbed surface using air tubing into a filter sock at the end of day
    • I used a woven handkerchief as my "filter sock"
    • Siphoned water was returned to the tank
    • Siphoned sand was washed with tap water, drained, and returned to the tank
  • Generous feeding (about double of usual)
  • Running activated carbon this whole time
Best part is that I didn't have to buy anything special besides the phosphate. Hope the improvement sticks! I know it's only been a week so I will keep you guys updated.
 

gatohoser

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I’ve been battling (mostly coolia) Dinos in my 15 month tank for at least the last 9 months. I’ve tried silicate dosing (which caused a horrendous explosion of pineapple sponges which can reach nuisance level when they’re floating freely and disturbing coral with their spikes), high nutrients around 10 ppm nitrate and 0.15 pm PO4, running UV in the display for around 7 months, siphoning the sand, vibrant, stopping amino acid dosing, disturbing the sand bed, not disturbing the sand bed, blackouts, removing my chaeto fuge, running carbon the whole time... but they still come back within a week of knocking them back.

I’ve done every method for a minimum of a month and many of them concurrently (such as UV). I would love any suggestions for what I might have missed in my attempts.
 

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