Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[kinetic]

For ostreopsis, it is pretty straightforward.
a) Elevate nutrients to 10/.1
b) Run UV at 1 watt per 3 gallons with SLOW flow
c) Run some GAC to knock down toxins

While I am a fan of MB7 under normal or high nutrient conditions, it is cross purpose when you are trying to elevate nutrients. The purpose of nutrient elevation is encourage competitors to hold space -- like film algae.

Ah, I guess I should throw some activated carbon into my system. Everything looks bad (total RTN on my acros, shriveled anemones).

 

[Tuffloud1]

When can you definitively say that you have won the battle with dinos?

Is it when you just don’t see anymore with your eyes alone or when you don’t see any under a microscope?

My tank is doing much better in terms of my acros, but the dinos are still visible under a scope. They are far lesser than before I started dosing live phytoplankton and running UV at night.

Before, the sludge from the side glass of my tank showed almost all dinos. Now, it shows mostly other algae with random scattered dinos. (See picture)

Is it reasonable to see no dinos at all under a scope or is it likely you would find some in all tanks?

 

[taricha]

Before, the sludge from the side glass of my tank showed almost all dinos. Now, it shows mostly other algae with random scattered dinos. (See picture)

Is it reasonable to see no dinos at all under a scope or is it likely you would find some in all tanks?

This is what a microscope shot looks like after successfully beating back dinos.
BUT...
if you restarted the conditions that brought on the dino outbreak, they would be back very quickly. They are not gone. It might be months before you could get away with some of the things that helped trigger dinos in the first place.

 

[ScottB]

When can you definitively say that you have won the battle with dinos?

Is it when you just don’t see anymore with your eyes alone or when you don’t see any under a microscope?

My tank is doing much better in terms of my acros, but the dinos are still visible under a scope. They are far lesser than before I started dosing live phytoplankton and running UV at night.

Before, the sludge from the side glass of my tank showed almost all dinos. Now, it shows mostly other algae with random scattered dinos. (See picture)

Is it reasonable to see no dinos at all under a scope or is it likely you would find some in all tanks?

Totally agree with @taricha , this is a healthy looking photo. A lot of competition taking place.

With the naked eye, I have not seen ostreopsis in my system for a year or more. But I can take a scrape and find some under the scope every time. They are just waiting for me to do something stupid. For instance: losing my patience with some cyano and dosing Chemiclean. Or thinking it would be cool to dose aminos instead of fish poop.

 

[Tuffloud1]

This is what a microscope shot looks like after successfully beating back dinos.
BUT...
if you restarted the conditions that brought on the dino outbreak, they would be back very quickly. They are not gone. It might be months before you could get away with some of the things that helped trigger dinos in the first place.

This is great to hear, thank you.

My strategy for my 300 gallon system was -

1. Keep PO4 at .1. For me, this meant dosing mono potassium phosphate daily until I reached .1, now requires less frequent dosing to keep at this level. I dry dosed 1/64 teaspoon at a time directly into overflow. Easy. My NO3 has always been stable at 25 so this has remained the same.

2. Dosed bacteria once per week at half recommended dose. I used Eco-Balance.

3. Installed a 90 watt and 25 watt UV sterilizer and run during lights off. 90 watt running to the display, 25 running to my attached frag tank. So all water returning to the tanks pass through UV.

4. Dose 30ml Live Phytofeast twice per day during photoperiod. Turned off UV sterilizers during this time, turn back on in the evening.

5. Scrape clean as much of the glass as possible to allow film algae to start growing and occupy the space. I found that other algae cannot get a foothold on the real estate until you scrape the dinos off and the glass is entirely clean. When you start to see green algae covering the glass, you are on the right track. I believe the phytoplankton contributes to this.

6. Started running Chaeto in my sump. I’ve never run it before and considering I have a high bio load as well as 25 ppm of NO3, I thought I would add in some nutrient export competition. I believe that my Dino issue spawned from my system being PO4 limited. Now that I dosed to elevate, I will continue a level of .1.

6. After a few weeks of this, I performed a series of auto water changes, changing out 150 gallons. I did this based on an ICP test that shows I was low in iodine and a couple other elements were high. I did this over about a week and the tank is looking very good. My acros and lps look MUCH better. I am testing PO4 and NO3 daily to ensure I keep the same level of .1.

In addition to my corals looking better, coralline has started to grow again, which stopped when the Dino issue started.

I will continue to dose Phyto daily as well as bacteria weekly.

 

[ReefMan692]

Thank you!

I added Live Reef Rubble from AquaBiomics, but not sure if anything took. I'm thinking of getting ECOPODS and OceanMagic from AlgaeBarn next. Just hoping my low flow through the UV won't just cook everything.

Look around for a cheap "pod hotel" to put in the fuge. Kill pumps/uv etc when add to fuge, Wait like 20 minutes before turning pumps back on.

Live is best if you got a microscope put some under take a peak!

I don't like running it this high, but after fighting my dinos, my SPS tank is at 50 NO3, 0.4 PO4. Haven't noticed any ill-effect other than one STN on an acro that was getting covered in dino's. Stick has no flesh, but polyps are fully extended.

Well that might be taking dirty tank method a little too far! I aimed to get it up to 0.1/10 based on advice in this thread. I started out at 0/2

If I were you Id work on getting it down to 0.1/10 over the course of the next few weeks which should be high enough to help increase the competition!

How has your fight been going?

 

[ScottB]

This is great to hear, thank you.

My strategy for my 300 gallon system was -

1. Keep PO4 at .1. For me, this meant dosing mono potassium phosphate daily until I reached .1, now requires less frequent dosing to keep at this level. I dry dosed 1/64 teaspoon at a time directly into overflow. Easy. My NO3 has always been stable at 25 so this has remained the same.

2. Dosed bacteria once per week at half recommended dose. I used Eco-Balance.

3. Installed a 90 watt and 25 watt UV sterilizer and run during lights off. 90 watt running to the display, 25 running to my attached frag tank. So all water returning to the tanks pass through UV.

4. Dose 30ml Live Phytofeast twice per day during photoperiod. Turned off UV sterilizers during this time, turn back on in the evening.

5. Scrape clean as much of the glass as possible to allow film algae to start growing and occupy the space. I found that other algae cannot get a foothold on the real estate until you scrape the dinos off and the glass is entirely clean. When you start to see green algae covering the glass, you are on the right track. I believe the phytoplankton contributes to this.

6. Started running Chaeto in my sump. I’ve never run it before and considering I have a high bio load as well as 25 ppm of NO3, I thought I would add in some nutrient export competition. I believe that my Dino issue spawned from my system being PO4 limited. Now that I dosed to elevate, I will continue a level of .1.

6. After a few weeks of this, I performed a series of auto water changes, changing out 150 gallons. I did this based on an ICP test that shows I was low in iodine and a couple other elements were high. I did this over about a week and the tank is looking very good. My acros and lps look MUCH better. I am testing PO4 and NO3 daily to ensure I keep the same level of .1.

In addition to my corals looking better, coralline has started to grow again, which stopped when the Dino issue started.

I will continue to dose Phyto daily as well as bacteria weekly.

Thank you for the details; I second each step. Remind the crowd (and sadly the hundreds more that will follow) which species this detailed process was effective for please.

Dinos are becoming so fashionable lately it is astonishing. There should be a Badge for resolving dinos. @revhtree must have an algorithm that substantiates my intuition on this. It should similarly find @taricha worthy of a "Dino Oracle" designation.

 

[Tuffloud1]

Thank you for the details; I second each step. Remind the crowd (and sadly the hundreds more that will follow) which species this detailed process was effective for please.

Dinos are becoming so fashionable lately it is astonishing. There should be a Badge for resolving dinos. @revhtree must have an algorithm that substantiates my intuition on this. It should similarly find @taricha worthy of a "Dino Oracle" designation.

Good point Scott, I had/have prorocentrum and coolia.

 

[ScottB]

Good point Scott, I had/have prorocentrum and coolia.

Yikes! Tough combo although SC amphidinium are no picnic.

 

[Siberwulf]

Alright... add me into the Dino camp

Here's a couple shots of things at the end of the day

Same spot, the next morning:

Gross- Sump with Chaeto - laced with Dinos.

And finally, the definitive proof: Under the microscope:

Some parameters:

1. Total Water Volume: 90 gal
2. Tank Age: About 1 month (seriously, not a fun way to start things off).
3. Salinity: 1.026
4. PO4 - .12 (Red Sea) (Have a GFO reactor, have not set it up yet, as I didn't want to strip to 0)
5. NO3 - 25 (Red Sea) (Trying to manage with weekly WCs, but not stressing too hard about it)
6. Lights
   1. DT - AI Prime 16 - 12 hours on, 12 hours off
   2. Sump - AI Fuge 16 - 12 hours on, 12 hours off, offset to DT
7. Added Pods about a week ago. Been dosing Phyto ever since (25ml to start)
8. Sump has a good chunk of Chaeto growing in it...really exploding with growth, even in face of Dinos.
9. Have a basic CUC in there, was hoping to get them to snag on any hair algae that grows, but...here we are.
10. No livestock yet, was hoping to get through the ugly phase before I did that. Unfortunately, Ugly Phase had turned into very ugly phase.

What should I be doing to treat this? Would love to not kill my snails off (they have names and are too young to die!)

Thanks in advance!

 

[taricha]

@Siberwulf This is ostreopsis and will get knocked out with a good UV (plumbed into display). Other than that, let the very young system mature.

 

[Siberwulf]

@Siberwulf This is ostreopsis and will get knocked out with a good UV (plumbed into display). Other than that, let the very young system mature.

So I'm not sure I can run UV in my return pump. I'm doing Triton on a 90g, which is about 900gph flow (yes, it's a lot). That seems way too fast to be effective. Is the only other option for UV to put a closed loop in the DT?

 

[BostonReefer300]

@Siberwulf I told you @taricha knows what he's talking about! My UV is in a closed loop in my sump which isn't ideal for dinos but unless I plumb a temporary closed loop in my DT, that's my only option. If you can do a temporary UV closed loop in your DT with low flow, I'd do it. It'll look like crap for a while, but you should be able to kill off the ostreopsis by doing that along with siphoning it out.

 

[Siberwulf]

I'm not opposed to that. The wife is very much a "This should look self-contained. And hanging a temp UV off the side is not that. " But I can work on here.

In the interim, I'm wondering if I could just do some physical removal, cut back on the DT lights, keep dosing Phyto (Tons of pods in here), stop cleaning the glass, which is growing light green algae, and let the rest of the tank mature and take over the Dinos. In no rush, just don't want it to get *worse* is all.

 

[ScottB]

I'm not opposed to that. The wife is very much a "This should look self-contained. And hanging a temp UV off the side is not that. " But I can work on here.

In the interim, I'm wondering if I could just do some physical removal, cut back on the DT lights, keep dosing Phyto (Tons of pods in here), stop cleaning the glass, which is growing light green algae, and let the rest of the tank mature and take over the Dinos. In no rush, just don't want it to get *worse* is all.

Hopefully you have a few spare inches (4-5) behind the tank and can fab up a quick PVC contraption like this to make your own HOB UV. This is a 25w aqua UV. I just slap it on and plug it in.

 

[Siberwulf]

Hopefully you have a few spare inches (4-5) behind the tank and can fab up a quick PVC contraption like this to make your own HOB UV. This is a 25w aqua UV. I just slap it on and plug it in.

I really wanna say I planned the ability to do this....but dag nabbit...I didn't. I'm thinking I can hang it off the side though, as it faces a corner...

 

[dwest]

I had mine hung off the back for 2 years after dinos. I finally just got around to removing (some of) the plumbing.

 

[ReefMan692]

Its been a few weeks now since the dinos disappeared... tank seems to be getting better and better.

Thanks to everyone in this thread for the insights and valuable information.

 

[kalebos]

I think I have dinos and a took a video with a cheap microscope. It looks like amphidinium to me but I'm a fish out of water here. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[saltyhog]

Hopefully you have a few spare inches (4-5) behind the tank and can fab up a quick PVC contraption like this to make your own HOB UV. This is a 25w aqua UV. I just slap it on and plug it in.

Very similar to my solution. 57 watt Aqua UV.