Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[JKenny]

ScottB, thanks again. After all that reading I am probably overthinking it. Appreciate the insight.

 

[Miller535]

I think Reef roids and reef chili is a bad move with dinos. This is the sort of high nutrient, small particulate food that Dinos seem to really take advantage of. They don't seem so good at inorganic forms of P and N (PO4, NO3).

focus isn't clear, video might show small cell amphidinium movement, or similar, but like you say, it seems unlikely to be dionos.

This is a really good question, and it's very hard to know what's actually changing when we add a bottled bacterial product. Their mechanism of action is often mysterious, and their reported effects are rarely consistent.
A lot of times, people don't even agree on what they are supposed to do. Much less if they actually do it, and if that effect is desirable in context of all the other modifications we're making.


Speaking of, the most common things I see people doing while battling dinos that I don't recommend. Not trying to be declaratory about what people should and shouldn't do - these just fall in the category of - I have seen a lot of people do this and it's not clear it helps at all long-term.
Not recommended.

• Phyto and pods
• elevating PO4 with fish/coral foods
• peroxide
• long blackouts (>48hrs)

The first two may make things worse, the last two just seem to slow the process, from what I've seen

I would like to touch on people trying to raise NO3 and PO4 with fish/coral food. IMO, when NO3 and PO4 are bottomed out, trying to raise these with food is one of the worst things you can do. When you dump a lot of food in, you are dumping in a lot of amino acids, organics, and a bunch of other things that all feed the dinos. And this method also seems to imply that all things that put nitrate and phosphate in a tank are the same, and they are not. And when NO3 and PO4 bottom out, it takes a lot of NO3 and PO4 to bring them up. You are basically fowling your water with food for the dinos by dumping this huge amount of food in. I am not sure why so many are opposed to dosing NO3 and PO4. Brightwell sells neonitro and neophos pretty cheap. And it goes a long way. And there are DIY options like the stump remover for Nitrate that Randy has perfected.

 

[Marc2952]

I would like to touch on people trying to raise NO3 and PO4 with fish/coral food. IMO, when NO3 and PO4 are bottomed out, trying to raise these with food is one of the worst things you can do. When you dump a lot of food in, you are dumping in a lot of amino acids, organics, and a bunch of other things that all feed the dinos. And this method also seems to imply that all things that put nitrate and phosphate in a tank are the same, and they are not. And when NO3 and PO4 bottom out, it takes a lot of NO3 and PO4 to bring them up. You are basically fowling your water with food for the dinos by dumping this huge amount of food in. I am not sure why so many are opposed to dosing NO3 and PO4. Brightwell sells neonitro and neophos pretty cheap. And it goes a long way. And there are DIY options like the stump remover for Nitrate that Randy has perfected.

Interesting so maybe ive just been prolonging my problem by feeding more and adding phyto every night.

 

[tkdman]

Boom!! ITS JUST AN ENDLESS FUTILE CURSE!!

Just when I thought things were better......I came home today and the brown which has been mainly diatoms, just had that more golden look to it. I took a sample to the scope and AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! DINO CURSE FROM HELL!!!! NOW ITS A FREAKING PARTY....I HAVE MY EXPECTED DIATOMS, A FEW OSTREOPSIS, AND NOW LARGE CELL AMPHIDINIUM HAS BECOME THE PREDOMINANT SPECIES!!!!! I JUST WANT TO SCREAM!!

My Temps are at 82.5 and have been 82.5-83.3 for close to 3-4 weeks! MY Nitrates are in the 8-10 range, phosphates are .1-.2, I'm siphoning through a 1 micron filter daily, I stopped the H2O2 at day 7....everything looked better and Bam now this garbage.

I just really don't get it and I think all of our theories and ideas are fundamentally flawed at some level. I have green algae, my nutrients in this system never bottom'd out....all I did was add a little extra sand and this scourge has ruined my carefully thought out and executed build.

In the old days, I threw the dang rocks in, corals and fish, no QT, no worries, just let things go and I never dealt with this insanity....and its not just that we're using dead rock. This system was started with real ocean live rock from KP and a mix of dead rock and still this scourge!

Something is fundamentally wrong....this has ruined and plagued the hobby....just look at these threads...they longer than War and Peace and Moby Dick put together!!!!!

I've tried every remedy on the internet....nothing works....things improve for a few days then your back to square one. I might as just get used brown sand in the evenings. Stir it up until its white, enjoy the tank for a few hours and repeat the next day. If I have folks come over I'll stir and make it look pretty....I have basically given up!!

Sorry for the rant but I know many of you are ranting right along with me. AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

What helped me was switching to a fleece roller and doing a 3 day blackout. Also dosed microbacter 7 as if i was cycling the tank for two weeks along with dosing nitrates and phosphates. All of this was with the temp increase. It was a PITA but have been mostly dino free for over a week and a half.
Only drawback is my heater is starting to fail and now temps are dropping im afraid of what will happen, luckily new heater will be here friday.

 

[tymo92]

Apologies in advance for the poor magnification, all I have is a usb microscope. Is this enough to confirm Ostreopsis?

The movement pattern definitely fits from what I've seen, but snails aren't lethargic and corals seem to be mostly ok. It's manifesting itself as slime on the sand and stringy slime which mostly shows up in the afternoon. N and P are 0, ordered some NeoNitro and NeoPhos as well as a UV sterilizer.

 

[ScottB]

Apologies in advance for the poor magnification, all I have is a usb microscope. Is this enough to confirm Ostreopsis?

The movement pattern definitely fits from what I've seen, but snails aren't lethargic and corals seem to be mostly ok. It's manifesting itself as slime on the sand and stringy slime which mostly shows up in the afternoon. N and P are 0, ordered some NeoNitro and NeoPhos as well as a UV sterilizer.

That swim pattern is most certainly ostreopsis. A sesame seed shape that seems tethered at the pointy end swimming around in random circles around the tether.

You have the right things on order. Meanwhile, you can deploy the poor-man's UV:
- fasten some sheets of filter floss in high flow & high light areas of the tank
- ostreos will attach throughout the light period
- rinse each night & replace

A picture of one method:

 

[Marc2952]

That swim pattern is most certainly ostreopsis. A sesame seed shape that seems tethered at the pointy end swimming around in random circles around the tether.

You have the right things on order. Meanwhile, you can deploy the poor-man's UV:
- fasten some sheets of filter floss in high flow & high light areas of the tank
- ostreos will attach throughout the light period
- rinse each night & replace

A picture of one method:

Yup also wanted to add that its better to add the phosphate through a doser as it can constantly keep a level in the tank, i found out that just adding it by hand makes it spike too much throught the day. Also nitrate will stabilize much faster then dinos so he needs to watch that too. This is my chart from the last couple of days on my phosphate levels, ive been dosing by hand and as you can see it spikes ALOT. Sometimes i test twice a day as you can see here. They are slowly going away as im starting to get film algae on the glass.

 

[drawman]

Yup also wanted to add that its better to add the phosphate through a doser as it can constantly keep a level in the tank, i found out that just adding it by hand makes it spike too much throught the day. Also nitrate will stabilize much faster then dinos so he needs to watch that too. This is my chart from the last couple of days on my phosphate levels, ive been dosing by hand and as you can see it spikes ALOT. Sometimes i test twice a day as you can see here. They are slowly going away as im starting to get film algae on the glass.

Or for those on the cheap add it to your ATO water.

 

[tymo92]

Thank you both for the input!

 

[litenyaup]

Great info!

 

[NS Mike D]

Interesting so maybe ive just been prolonging my problem by feeding more and adding phyto every night.

I don't know if that is so. Live phyto is not the same as dead food, and I recall an coral experiment that showed live food (brine shrimp and natural sea water) resulted in solid coral growth while powdered food also lead to algae issues. And of course the anecdotal evidence that the powder coral food has with dinos.

I don't know if live phyto is consumed or consumes dinos, but I think is logical that it would compete with the dinos for the fish waste and itself feed the desired organisms.

Perhaps someone with a bette understanding of this dynamic can provide insight.

 

[taricha]

I don't know if live phyto is consumed or consumes dinos, but I think is logical that it would compete with the dinos for the fish waste and itself feed the desired organisms.

The issue here is that dinos set up shop with mucus mats that have toxins. These mucus mats are good traps for phyto, and the toxins from dinos often will kill the other microalgae. So even if the phyto are good at consuming nutrients in the water, they'll end up re-releasing it locally as they get trapped at the dino mat and fueling dino growth.

 

[NS Mike D]

The issue here is that dinos set up shop with mucus mats that have toxins. These mucus mats are good traps for phyto, and the toxins from dinos often will kill the other microalgae. So even if the phyto are good at consuming nutrients in the water, they'll end up re-releasing it locally as they get trapped at the dino mat and fueling dino growth.

@Marc2952. ^^^^^^

 

[GooseCommander]

Wife got a microscope for professional development she's doing as a STEM teacher. I'd been thinking about getting one to look at this brown cyano matt I've been fighting in my tank for a hot minute. All started when I started dosing Vibrant and later Fluconazole for a bad hair/turf algae outbreak. Tank has been up for a year and honestly was running pretty well until I tried to fight the algae. My nutrient had been running very low (undetectable nitrate) for 4 months. As soon as the algae started dying back, nitrate and phosphate rose and the brown showed up. Always looked like cyano to my research. With the Mrs. new microscope... it's definitely ostreopsis. I guess the fun now begins...

 

[jdubya]

Wife got a microscope for professional development she's doing as a STEM teacher. I'd been thinking about getting one to look at this brown cyano matt I've been fighting in my tank for a hot minute. All started when I started dosing Vibrant and later Fluconazole for a bad hair/turf algae outbreak. Tank has been up for a year and honestly was running pretty well until I tried to fight the algae. My nutrient had been running very low (undetectable nitrate) for 4 months. As soon as the algae started dying back, nitrate and phosphate rose and the brown showed up. Always looked like cyano to my research. With the Mrs. new microscope... it's definitely ostreopsis. I guess the fun now begins...

Wow same exact experience here vibrant then reef flux after about a year. Then dinos everywhere

 

[enb141]

Wife got a microscope for professional development she's doing as a STEM teacher. I'd been thinking about getting one to look at this brown cyano matt I've been fighting in my tank for a hot minute. All started when I started dosing Vibrant and later Fluconazole for a bad hair/turf algae outbreak. Tank has been up for a year and honestly was running pretty well until I tried to fight the algae. My nutrient had been running very low (undetectable nitrate) for 4 months. As soon as the algae started dying back, nitrate and phosphate rose and the brown showed up. Always looked like cyano to my research. With the Mrs. new microscope... it's definitely ostreopsis. I guess the fun now begins...

In my case was coral frenzy / reef roids that activated the dinos (twice), so now there's a third one, in your case Vibrant, so if we can deduce what element(s) have those items in common, at least we can predict what activate them.

By the way I've been 3 years dino free, obviously I never ever again used reef roids /coral frenzy.

 

[Cwentz758]

So an update on my tank. I’m at about a week with the temp elevated above 81.5F. Hits about 83 at the hottest part of the day, and I won’t allow it to get hotter. I stir the sand daily while running a 15w UV in the DT.

Using a Red Sea kit ive been testing Nitrates and they notoriously been 2ppm or less (the lowest scale it’ll read). While phosphates have always fluctuated between .2 to .7 if it gets higher than that I run GFO to knock it down.

2 days ago I started dosing Neo Nitro to elevate nitrates as I fear they’ve been bottomed out.
the first day I dosed 10mL and tested the next day. Same result less than 2ppm.
Yesterday i tested phosphates at .59 usi gab Hanna, I dosed 20ml and testEd this morning. Same result 2ppm or less and phosphate was down to .49
So today I again doesn’t 20ml and will continue to test phosphate.

I’ve also been dosing MB7 at the low nutrient does every few days.

 

[tkdman]

Dinos gone for almost 2 weeks now, but seeing an almost rust colored algae on a few of my rocks. Not sure what it is. Here are some photos, but its really hard to see with the phone lense.
Could it be bacteria?

 

[GooseCommander]

In my case was coral frenzy / reef roids that activated the dinos (twice), so now there's a third one, in your case Vibrant, so if we can deduce what element(s) have those items in common, at least we can predict what activate them.

By the way I've been 3 years dino free, obviously I never ever again used reef roids /coral frenzy.

Interesting as I also use reef roids and coral frenzy to target feed my corals.

 

[enb141]

Interesting as I also use reef roids and coral frenzy to target feed my corals.

Do yourself a favor, don't use them anymore, I've been 3 years dino free, and of course I'll never gonna use coral frenzy, reef roids again.