Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[magikfly]

Difficult to tell for sure, but yeah, you can rule out ostreopsis. If that video is shot at 400X, then my GUESS would be small cell amphidinium. Small and fast.

Where do they look the happiest? In the sand or up higher?

They love the sand

 

[ScottB]

They love the sand

Hmmm. Can't rule out large cell amphids then either. They love the sand, and never make it to the UV.

Maybe @taricha can ID them.

 

[magikfly]

Hmmm. Can't rule out large cell amphids then either. They love the sand, and never make it to the UV.

Maybe @taricha can ID them.

The sand does seem to clear up at night if that helps

 

[taricha]

Can anyone help me get an ID on this?

Maybe @taricha can ID them

They move and are vaguely shaped like small cell amphidinium. Not enough detail to be definitive.

 

[taricha]

The sand does seem to clear up at night if that helps

It's funny, but that habit is actually observable in dinos, cyano, and diatoms (to a lesser extent) too!

 

[ScottB]

It's funny, but that habit is actually observable in dinos, cyano, and diatoms (to a lesser extent) too!

You know what else is funny? Before my dino battles, I used to find diatoms annoying. I find that hilarious now.

 

[magikfly]

Ughh. Next up, I'll start ripping out the sandbed. This has been going on for way too long and I'm all out of tricks.

 

[ScottB]

Ughh. Next up, I'll start ripping out the sandbed. This has been going on for way too long and I'm all out of tricks.

Over in the amphidinium thread, there is not a lot of good news for folks. The two "methods" that anecdotally seem to be most effective:
a) Remove the sand.
b) Do nothing. Just ride it out. Let it exhaust itself. Don't disturb the sand.

 

[magikfly]

Over in the amphidinium thread, there is not a lot of good news for folks. The two "methods" that anecdotally seem to be most effective:
a) Remove the sand.
b) Do nothing. Just ride it out. Let it exhaust itself. Don't disturb the sand.

I thought about option b but somehow that doesn't sit well with me. Although the strain in my tank isn't overly toxic, I did loose a bunch of snails and some corals are not yet fully open. So I'm gonna go with (a) rather than have my livestock share space with these mats of pure poison.

 

[Putrescine]

Honestly, after trying everything with amphidinum, I am going with option B. I dealt with Prorocentrum and Ostreopsis first in January this year, then it evolved to Ostreopsis, Amphidinum. I had pulled my sand bed way back in late January. Now I deal with basically Large cell amphidinum only. I spent the last six weeks, making regular water changes again 10% per week, putting filter floss in the high flow areas and manually toothbrushing the dino's off my rocks. The Amphi populates the lower 1/4 of the rocks, and on the surface of the glass on the floor too. Amphi does not cover where coralline grows in my tank, and the coralline completely encrusts the upper 2/3's of my rocks.

My corals aren't bothered by it, so this week i've just resigned myself to changing the water weekly, checking nutrients daily to keep my nitrates at 5, and phosphates at 0.05-0.08 ensuring they don't crash to zero, and my light is fairly blue/purple heavy so I really can't see the brown color of amphi dinos anyway! My tank is a little over 9 months old now, started with dry rock.

 

[ScottB]

Honestly, after trying everything with amphidinum, I am going with option B. I dealt with Prorocentrum and Ostreopsis first in January this year, then it evolved to Ostreopsis, Amphidinum. I had pulled my sand bed way back in late January. Now I deal with basically Large cell amphidinum only. I spent the last six weeks, making regular water changes again 10% per week, putting filter floss in the high flow areas and manually toothbrushing the dino's off my rocks. The Amphi populates the lower 1/4 of the rocks, and on the surface of the glass on the floor too. Amphi does not cover where coralline grows in my tank, and the coralline completely encrusts the upper 2/3's of my rocks.

My corals aren't bothered by it, so this week i've just resigned myself to changing the water weekly, checking nutrients daily to keep my nitrates at 5, and phosphates at 0.05-0.08 ensuring they don't crash to zero, and my light is fairly blue/purple heavy so I really can't see the brown color of amphi dinos anyway! My tank is a little over 9 months old now, started with dry rock.

It is almost as if amphidinium are just becoming a default "uglies" phase with dry rock starts. And I so often find that the treatment is worse than the "disease". So, I like your plan.

 

[Stephers]

@taricha do we know the origins of thinking small cell amphidinium is affected by UV? Is there anyone with this experience? I have had small cell for well over a year now. It seems to only live in filamentous algae in my tank. It is in much smaller numbers than when I started due to starving out hair algae I had, but I do have 2 or 3 corals that seem to be severely affected by their toxins. It's a daily struggle to keep those particular ones alive (a sunset monti cap, bonsai acro, Hollywood stunner). I had a strong UV on my tank (that previously got rid of ostreo) ffor 6 months and noticed no improvement. So that's why i'm wondering where it comes from. It's becoming exhausting fighting these things.

 

[taricha]

do we know the origins of thinking small cell amphidinium is affected by UV? Is there anyone with this experience? I have had small cell for well over a year now. It seems to only live in filamentous algae in my tank.

This post from 2017 was the first.
There have been others. If these less water-going types have a nice situation (in some GHA), they will enter the water reluctantly, and some need to be pushed to get them into contact with UV in enough numbers to make a noticeable difference.

 

[spiffyreefer]

Well,
I am hoping I am not jinxing myself. For the last two months I had been battling Dino’s in my 65g Red Sea E series aquarium. I had lost 3 corals and the others were looking stressed. The fish were fine. The two anemones were fine. But every day all of my rocks and sand would be covered in them along with some of the corals. At night it would disappear
I figured I had several options:
1. “Organic”: go dirty, no water changes, no skimming, carbon only.
2. “nuclear” using Dino X
3. Scorched earth: starting over.
I decided to try the organic approach first figuring I cloud always try the other two as a last resort. I stopped the skimmer and just kept up with the carbon. Didn’t see much of a change. I was getting frustrated and was wondering about doing a blackout. I was willing to lose the corals and anemones but my family grew attached to the fish. Could not lose these.
After several weeks still not much improvement. While reading a thread someone posted info about GARF. I remembering buying their garf grunge years ago when I had been in the hobby. The thread was about increasing biodiversity to combat Dino’s. I figure it would not hurt. So I ordered some garf grunge for the tank. I put in 5lbs of grunge. Then, about a week later garf sent another 5lbs by accident. So I ended up with 10lbs of garf grunge plus.

I was not to impressed by the grunge. It smelled and clouded up the tank but I was getting desperate to avoid chemicals or a complete do over. The silt settled out after a few hours and no one looked worse for wear. I figured the money I spent on the grunge would be a drop in the bucket to my other options. Within days things were looking better. Now it’s been two weeks and I am having a hard time finding any evidence of Dino’s.
The corals look better now and things are going well. I can’t say for sure garf made a difference but nothing else happened until I added that into the tank. Increasing pho4 and nitrates didn’t do anything. The thread I read discussed biodiversity and competing organisms. It also mentioned how 15-20 years ago when harvested/wild live rock was available Dino’s were pretty much unheard of. The theory was live rock provided greater biodiversity to out compete Dino’s.
i know correlation does not equal causation but wanted to share my experience. I will update again if anything changes.
Gerry

Hey! I am battling dinos in a new tank and I'm considering ordering garf grunge to see if it helps because I'm in an early stage of the battle. Did you ID your dinos? How did you order your garf grunge -- through their website/paypal? Thanks for posting!

 

[spiffyreefer]

Sad to say I'm joining this club. Both of my nanos have dino (today looked under a microscope and appear to be amphidinium variety) -- heart sink. What do you all use to dose nitrates?

 

[Stephers]

This post from 2017 was the first.
There have been others. If these less water-going types have a nice situation (in some GHA), they will enter the water reluctantly, and some need to be pushed to get them into contact with UV in enough numbers to make a noticeable difference.

Thanks a bunch for that link. I tried searching everywhere and had a really hard time finding anyone with confirmed small cell having success, but in general it's hard to find people with small cell. I'm almost clear of hair algae by using reef flux. MY nutrients got really high but they are stable now. Maybe I will try the UV again soon and report back. I'll try and blast them into the water column daily too... I do find it interesting that it seems to only be affecting a few corals. I have other montis and acros/sps that are even growing decently well. But those 3 I mentioned earlier are heavily suffering and some other corals are definitely not thriving but not dying (like Zoas.)

There is a small population of large cell living in the algae too. My entire sandbed was covered last year and I got it under control with silicate dosing. My sand bed has been perfectly clear now for a while. I'm not so concerned with them, though. I just want the small cell gone for their toxins...

Unfortunately I've had every type of dino at some point

 

[ScottB]

Sad to say I'm joining this club. Both of my nanos have dino (today looked under a microscope and appear to be amphidinium variety) -- heart sink. What do you all use to dose nitrates?

Neonitro makes a good premix. I went DIY with Loudwolf sodium nitrate and this when that ran out:


Before dosing nitrate, make sure you have ample PO4 first. Once nitrate is no longer limited, some bacterial process kicks in and starts consuming PO4. Zero PO4 is bad place for your corals to be.
NeoPhos, or Seachem Flourish are good premixes. I use real, genuine anhydrous trisodium phosphate. Beware of TSP substitutes.

 

[Biglew11]

Trying to find id of these dinos

Only two in view but they cover the whole sand bed. Tank is about 3.5 year's. I started with dry rock with about 12 pounds liverock from lfs. Used gfo to bring down phosphates, not sure how long they were bottomed out. They are now around .1 ppm, hanna Ulr phosphate checker. I still struggle with high nitrates. 70 ppm. Red sea pro.

 

[ScottB]

Trying to find id of these dinos

Only two in view but they cover the whole sand bed. Tank is about 3.5 year's. I started with dry rock with about 12 pounds liverock from lfs. Used gfo to bring down phosphates, not sure how long they were bottomed out. They are now around .1 ppm, hanna Ulr phosphate checker. I still struggle with high nitrates. 70 ppm. Red sea pro.

Ugh. Sorry but those look like amphidinium. While not toxic, they are tough buggers. A couple of links for you.

a) this for ID to confirm for yourself: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellate-identification-guide.671466/

b) Treatment methods proposed. IMO, experimental. You could do just as well by sitting it out and letting them die. They are not toxic. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/amphidinium-dinoflagellate-treatment-methods.365850/

This species is a visual nuisance and little more. They don't kill inverts or corals. IMO no need to be aggressive.

 

[Deesge]

Hey everyone, please help confirming id. I’m thinking ostreopsis, but not 100% sure. Came across an outbreak when my phosphate/nitrate is undetectable. I got rid of it by dosing nutrients and increasing feeding. Everything cleared out for a month, but now it’s back and I’m left with GHA and a bigger dino problem. Some LPS have started closing up, acros started getting brown stringy stuff and a few are bleaching out. Parameters:
Phosphate: 0.07
Nitrate: 5ppm
Alk: 9
Mg: 1300
Ca: 457 ppm

please help!!