Dinoflagellates - dinos a possible cure!? Follow along and see!

[JerseyReefer]

Same stuff I have. No tail.. just the covering on the sand. I think your the first person to have exactly what I have. Others always get it on rocks and coral mine only grows on the sand.

I had the same. I removed the sand in batches and thoroughly washed it in the sink until the water ran clear. This cleared mine up. I'm sure it will come back but it's been gone for almost 2 months now.

 

[mandrieu]

I agree with this.

If we're ID-ing because we had proven methods against certain strains it would make sense. As it stands there is no one strain with 100% success rate.

A microscope is only worthwhile to ensure you have Dino's. Though to be honest we are that good at spotting them now it's really a mute point.

After this, it makes the ID seem in vain at this stage.

As I see it there are still people using failed methods with two schools of thought.

Natural methods.

Dirty tank is better than a clean one.

Algae out compete.

Critters (in a loose term) out compete.

3 day darkness.

We then move to the more flamboyant options of chemicals:

H202 dosing
UV
Ozone
Dino x
Sodium hypochlorite
Metroplex

Then we have the combination of chemicals, natural, all of the above.

There are then (myself included) people who are happy to nuke tank and people who are not.

To be fair I've not seen a full nuke test that could be classed as successful.

I've not heard of long term success stories either. Even the OP admitted he still had them after sodium hypochlorite.
As will @Bmwm235i

So are we back to the drawing board?

I spent hours literally hours fighting it.
Huge amounts of money and effort wasted. There was never a successful outcome.

Then we have the issue of how easy it is to introduce them. I'd say it's more common than bryopsis and almost as common as turf algae.

When you look at how many people on here alone have had exposure.
It's staggering.

I think it can be summed up as a cancer to the reef tank. One that consumes all of what you put in to it.

And like all clinicians that diagnose and treat. It's never a cure, only in remission.

Well said. Agree on everything. I think we are back to the drawing board. Or we should be back to the drawing board. We've spent too much time running in circles and although well intentioned, people asking me at this point if I know how to measure PO4, what do I feed my fish and explanations about the dreaded N+P balance just kills me.

We need to handle separately the "introduction" and "treatment" aspects, I think. I also think we can and should keep trying to find a cure or at least some process or treatment that has some level of success rate. But this is clearly complicated so I also think we need help from people with true biology, biochemical or pharmaceutical knowledge.

After all this years fighting this plague, if I had a small tank, pico, nano, I might try a thing or two and if it doesn't work, just restart it, nuke it. Even if they come back, at least you get to enjoy the tank for some months. For larger tanks like mine, 100+ gallons, that's just not feasible. I just can't throw away thousands of dollars every couple of years... I already did it once, can't do it again.

 

[wyattray]

@mcarroll I bought a 10 dollar one from amazon, a pack of slides and covers for 6 bucks and it works great. You can easily see the differences in Dino, it is hard to navigate across the slide though.

https://www.amazon.com/Carson-Micro...TF8&qid=1490877829&sr=8-3&keywords=microscope

 

[taricha]

Also forgot to mention that there's still not enough of us with microscopes ..... I'm still not sure what criteria to look at for in a scope.

These are what I've found to matter to me.
Coarse and fine focus, heavy metal frame for stability, no digital camera hookup - phone at eyepeice performs better, 400 power is plenty (40 is enough to tell what you are looking at), lighting from above is a cool feature to have.
All that is available on $70 scope.
Next feature that I like (totally unnecessary) is available at the $130 scopes. It's a phase contrast/polarizer thingy that gives you more control over light, and highlights different aspects of the cells.
If you were to get 2 scopes... The 2nd would be a binocular stereo dissecting scope in the $90 range. 20x-40x magnification. It's so awesome when hunting for things in a bulk sample of 5ml of algae or sand etc. It's so wide field and so much information with both eyes. This is the best thing for figuring out the full scope of what actually lives in that pile of sand or debris, or on that patch of rock etc. It's not high power enough to be an only scope, though.

 

[mdavis735]

So I've used chemiclean twice to get rid of "cyano". Now I'm thinking this isn't cyano. Can you tell by this crappy pic if it's dinoflagellates? It's using my daughters cheap school microscope and my iPhone camera.

 

[taricha]

Guys. I want to know if you have Dinoflagellate in your sump too. My is perfectly clean. I don't know why

Mine stayed clean because....
1. Most of my dinos were amphidinium that never left the sand
2 . My ostreopsis had to make it past skimmer which was where my overflow dumps
3. Sump is full of algae packed with ciliates and pods that graze on dinos.

 

[Fr4nkthet4nk]

Mine stayed clean because....
1. Most of my dinos were amphidinium that never left the sand
2 . My ostreopsis had to make it past skimmer which was where my overflow dumps
3. Sump is full of algae packed with ciliates and pods that graze on dinos.

Thank you for your answer!
What type of algae do you have?

 

[Fr4nkthet4nk]

So I've used chemiclean twice to get rid of "cyano". Now I'm thinking this isn't cyano. Can you tell by this crappy pic if it's dinoflagellates? It's using my daughters cheap school microscope and my iPhone camera.

That looks like mine. Dinoflagellates

 

[mdavis735]

Now I get to read this entire thread and try every method known to man too get rid of it

 

[RMS18]

My sterlization tabs arrived today along with some Metro. 1 of 3 things will happen..
1 I nuke the tank and kill all fish
2 nothing at all happens
3 dinos die and I save the world

 

[mdavis735]

Oh my.

 

[mandrieu]

My sterlization tabs arrived today along with some Metro. 1 of 3 things will happen..
1 I nuke the tank and kill all fish
2 nothing at all happens
3 dinos die and I save the world

I really hope you succeed and become famous - Good luck!
Just in case, it might come handy to take a few before/after pics

 

[mandrieu]

Now I get to read this entire thread and try every method known to man too get rid of it

yeah... If you allow me to give you a bit of advise, read as much as you can from this thread (and there's another huge one from DNA in reef central), BEFORE you take action and BEFORE you spend money buying crazy stuff, so you can make an educated decision. You will see the "magic" solution in a post, just to find out 10 pages later it didn't work for 99% of people. We just haven't found a reliable treatment or process yet, unfortunately. And don't feel alone, we're all in the same boat (I've been fighting this crap for more than 3 years)

 

[mdavis735]

As long as I can keep it from killing my coral and fish I'll be patient and take however much time is necessary

 

[illumnae]

I declare myself defeated. I've tried every known method to the extreme except bleach and it just keeps coming back in a matter of days. I'm going to do a soft reboot of my tank and hope they don't come back. Please help audit my planned course of action and provide some recommendations.

These are my planned steps:

1. Remove and throw away all sand. Keep the rock work.
2. Remove all fish. I'm splitting them into 2 batches - half will be kept by a friend who owns an lfs, half go into a qt setup
3. Sterilize the tank, rock work and equipment. This is where I need advice: how do I do this? Tapwater? Bleach? Both? Duration? Amount?
4a. Run and cycle the tank with saltwater again with lights at full blast to see if the dinos come back.
4b. Find a way to clean the fish. This is where I need advice: freshwater dip? Copper - how much and how long? My fish are very valuable to me so the safest method would be preferred (but still needs to certainly remove the dinos from the fish)
5. Once the tank is cycled and it doesn't look like dinos are returning, the fish go back in one by one to avoid overloading the system.

Did I miss anything out?

 

[mandrieu]

Sterilize the tank, rock work and equipment. This is where I need advice: how do I do this? Tapwater? Bleach? Both? Duration? Amount?

I tried Bleach alone - didn't work. I would try both now. Fresh water "seems" to be lethal even for cysts based on some readings. How long? - no idea. Several days of freshwater I would say

3. Sterilize the tank, rock work and equipment. This is where I need advice: how do I do this? Tapwater? Bleach? Both? Duration? Amount?

Same as above. I would use bleach first, then use fresh water

4a. Run and cycle the tank with saltwater again with lights at full blast to see if the dinos come back.

I would run the tank with freshwater for a few days, lights on. Then drain and cycle with saltawater

4b. Find a way to clean the fish. This is where I need advice: freshwater dip? Copper - how much and how long? My fish are very valuable to me so the safest method would be preferred (but still needs to certainly remove the dinos from the fish)

Yeah, freshwater dip may help. How long depends on the fish, how long they tolerate it. Some just can't handle FW dip for more than a few seconds, others several minutes. You may need to do some googling for each fish on this

 

[bh750]

I declare myself defeated. I've tried every known method to the extreme except bleach and it just keeps coming back in a matter of days. I'm going to do a soft reboot of my tank and hope they don't come back. Please help audit my planned course of action and provide some recommendations.

These are my planned steps:

1. Remove and throw away all sand. Keep the rock work.
2. Remove all fish. I'm splitting them into 2 batches - half will be kept by a friend who owns an lfs, half go into a qt setup
3. Sterilize the tank, rock work and equipment. This is where I need advice: how do I do this? Tapwater? Bleach? Both? Duration? Amount?
4a. Run and cycle the tank with saltwater again with lights at full blast to see if the dinos come back.
4b. Find a way to clean the fish. This is where I need advice: freshwater dip? Copper - how much and how long? My fish are very valuable to me so the safest method would be preferred (but still needs to certainly remove the dinos from the fish)
5. Once the tank is cycled and it doesn't look like dinos are returning, the fish go back in one by one to avoid overloading the system.

Did I miss anything out?

here's the problem, IMO. And ive been fighting dinos for years and years. I've done the above, twice. and each time they came back. last time my tank was squeaky clean for 6 months and then I put a piece of LR from a very trusted LFS into my tank, to help with biodiversity. A few weeks later, dinos were back. From all of the reading I've done here and RC I believe dinos will always be there. Part of the environment. Its a matter of balance. And still up in the air. So just saying you could do all that they'll still be technically "back" at some point most likely. Mine kept becoming unmanageable, I think, because of my husbandry techniques. I finally learned my dinos LOVED a clean tank. I always strived for zero nutrients. That is/was my problem (still battling them a bit). I've recently learned that nitrates and phosphates are good, at some level. My dinos HATE excess nutrients. I found this out by trying the "dirty" method. I overfed and overfed and dinos disappeared. They were still there, just not visible to the naked eye. But then I dealt with a GHA problem So now learning to balance the right way, starting with dosing nitrate.

Just my 02 cents

 

[mandrieu]

here's the problem, IMO. And ive been fighting dinos for years and years. I've done the above, twice. and each time they came back. last time my tank was squeaky clean for 6 months and then I put a piece of LR from a very trusted LFS into my tank, to help with biodiversity. A few weeks later, dinos were back. From all of the reading I've done here and RC I believe dinos will always be there. Part of the environment. Its a matter of balance. And still up in the air. So just saying you could do all that they'll still be technically "back" at some point most likely. Mine kept becoming unmanageable, I think, because of my husbandry techniques. I finally learned my dinos LOVED a clean tank. I always strived for zero nutrients. That is/was my problem (still battling them a bit). I've recently learned that nitrates and phosphates are good, at some level. My dinos HATE excess nutrients. I found this out by trying the "dirty" method. I overfed and overfed and dinos disappeared. They were still there, just not visible to the naked eye. But then I dealt with a GHA problem So now learning to balance the right way, starting with dosing nitrate.

Just my 02 cents

I agree with what you are saying. Your experience is very similar to mine in all aspects, including the tank reset

 

[m0jjen]

I agree with what you are saying. Your experience is very similar to mine in all aspects, including the tank reset

Im also a beliver of the fact that its a mather of balance. Enough microfauna and whatnot along with proper nutrient export / import and good husbandry and you should be fine. But once dino has a grip im guessing its really hard to promote microfauna and other organism so get the upper hand.

I've read alot of people dosing kh2po4 with succsess

 

[wyattray]

So your telling me all the money I spent on a GFO, Carbon, and now a biopellet reactor may be an issue.