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

[mcarroll]

Interestingly the blog discusses the entire opposite to what many are attempting to do with NP values.

I'm not sure what the dirty water theory is. Maybe related to a "dirty method" that's been mentioned sometimes?

I'm not sure that's related to what we're doing except in a very general way. (But I'm also not totally sure what it even means, so I could be wrong.)

We are troubleshooting and fixing broken tanks or broken processes.

Can you be more specific about which article(s) and which sections you're referring to?

 

[Paullawr]

• Correct ID of Ostreopsis species in the field (distinguishing between them) is “highly problematic” requiring a comparison of precise anatomical measurements and experience comparing strains from different regions. Even genetic ID has been complicated. They are now referring to some Ostreopsis as species-complexes and clades.
• Either P- or N-depletion has been shown to lower Ostreopsis ovata toxicity. (Strain, growth phase and salinity all figure it too.)
• Turbulence affects growth rate/cell-size.
• Cell counts were consistently lower in exposed sites vs sheltered ones.
• Dino’s are easy to dislodge, which is why they show a preference for calm areas
• Turbulence is most effective against them at the peak population levels when they are mat-forming.
• While it appears there is a general preference for higher temperatures during the peak bloom (77ºF+) they tend to range widely and some strains appear to have multiple optimal ranges.
• N around the Redfield ratio and temperatures of at least 77ºF seems necessary to allow cell proliferation.
• Temperatures to stop a bloom were much lower, however – around or under 60ºF.
• Blooms appear to be initiated under low-N/low-P conditions and then spike with a flush of nutrients.
• It’s also suggested that Ostreopsis toxins might be intended for survival under low-N/low-P conditions while waiting for conditions to become ideal. (Which seems to be an elevation in temperature along with a spike in nutrients.)
• At least one strain of Ostreopsis showed a very strong demand for P in depletion tests, which was remarkable among dinoflagellates.
• It’s suggested that Ostreopsis may share the habit known of other dinoflagellates for resorting bacterivory/mixotrophy under low-P/low-nutrient conditions.
• Most Ostreopsis species exhibited lowered growth rates at light intensities around 250 PAR and higher….sometimes only slightly lowered, sometimes significantly.
• Higher light levels may also be related to mucus formation (for photodamage protection) and settling from their planktonic stage.
• However, being motile, they are also capable of migrating from brighter to shadier areas.
• Although recorded in the wild on a variety of substrates, there are many reports that they prefer to be epiphytic on macroalgae, which as an environment is known to have low light availability.
• Interestingly, living substrates like macroalgae support the lowest cell densities of all sampled substrates.
• All investigated seaweed types exhibited a negative effect on Ostreopsis counts: brown, red and green algae. The brown algae Dictyota dichotoma had the strongest effect….a red algae the weakest.

 

[Paullawr]

Dirty method dirty water....just my term on increasing nutrients and stopping water changes.

 

[Jolanta]

Somebody know how long can ostreopsis survive dry? They do some kind of cyst that can survive dry?

 

[mcarroll]

@Paullawr I can tell you that the whole topic can be confusing and not all of the info acquired from the ocean adds up in our tanks. The articles I post (which is where that list is from I think) are interesting to me on their own merits, but there's definitely some interpretation needed to know how the info may or may not apply to us. We're making good progress based on all this info, BTW, but it's far from an issue that's been sorted out – we're surprised all the time.

Further, on a case-by-case basis, it seems like the number and severity of prior treatments a tank has been through might seriously impact the dynamics of how a tank responds later to recovery efforts. For example, it may turn out that some tanks that have gotten to a certain state of "sterilization" may turn out to be unrecoverable without more significant inoculation measures than we've looked at so far.

(We're definitely not just recommending increasing nutrients and stopping water changes here. )

 

[RMS18]

Thinking of starting over in a few weeks. Heres my plan lmk if anyone sees any faults in it.

Since i have 0 corals left i will re home my 8 fish in 2 separate qt tanks.

Will remove all sand, leave the rock. Remove 20 gallons of water and add 20 gallons of bleach and run that ib the main system for 2 days with powerheads on full power along with return pump full power. I think by hour 24 the bleach is almost exhausted. I will then drain the entire system and run water throught it with prime then drain and let dry for a week or two. All equipment will also be cleaned with bleach. Then add new live sand and biospa or dr tims to help cycle. Then add fish back slowly.

Thoughts?

 

[Jolanta]

Thinking of starting over in a few weeks. Heres my plan lmk if anyone sees any faults in it.

Since i have 0 corals left i will re home my 8 fish in 2 separate qt tanks.

Will remove all sand, leave the rock. Remove 20 gallons of water and add 20 gallons of bleach and run that ib the main system for 2 days with powerheads on full power along with return pump full power. I think by hour 24 the bleach is almost exhausted. I will then drain the entire system and run water throught it with prime then drain and let dry for a week or two. All equipment will also be cleaned with bleach. Then add new live sand and biospa or dr tims to help cycle. Then add fish back slowly.

Thoughts?

I gave my fish and corals to a friend and he didnt do nothing special to a fish to avoid dinos, only kind of rinsed them with his tank water to avoid put any water from my tank to his, but do made fresh water bath to all my corals and for now everything is ok, no dinos in his tank, maybe there are no conditions for dinos to survive or maybe its to soon to be happy. I would recomend you make your cuarantine tanks far away from your display tank and fresh water bath to your fish before moving them and be really carefull dont use any tool in cuarantine and new tank to avoid contamination.

 

[Jolanta]

Hi all, a friend told me today about this product http://www.rubyreef.net/#/hydroplex/ its reef save and can be used as dip or in quarantine tank, has anybody tried it? I dont have dinos anymore but if it works would be excelent option for dip.

 

[RMS18]

Hi all, a friend told me today about this product http://www.rubyreef.net/#/hydroplex/ its reef save and can be used as dip or in quarantine tank, has anybody tried it? I dont have dinos anymore but if it works would be excelent option for dip.

Interesting... thus would be good for someone to test who has dinos and a scope. Dip a infected coral and and some sample from there under the scope.

 

[bh750]

After years and years of battling Dinos I think I've finally beaten them once and for all. Last year he "dirty" method (overfeeding and no water changes) worked on my Dinos but caused so many other problems.

So finally I did it right. I purchased a good microscope to identify that I did indeed have Dinos. I had Amph. I had always gone with an ultra low nutrient tank which I'm now learning isn't the best. I had zero Nitrates and zero phosphates. So to beat my Dinos I simply upped these two methodically and not by overfeeding. I also bought two new test kits. Each day I measured and doses if needed. My goal was to keep N between 3ppm and 12ppm. And P between 0.01 and 0.1 ppm. If either number was below I dosed Stump Remover for N and Seachem Phosphorus for P.

In a few short weeks I noticed a big change. And soon they were gone. Still teasing daily to see where the ideal numbers are for my tank. Tank is crystal clear with white sand now.

Oh also increased my refugium space, added a bunch of macroalgae, pods and dosed phyto for a week or so.

I'm the end I'm convinced my problem with Dinos was caused by an imbalance in the system. I know they're still in there but just kept in check by the rest of my system.

 

[mcarroll]

Thinking of starting over in a few weeks. Heres my plan lmk if anyone sees any faults in it.

Since i have 0 corals left i will re home my 8 fish in 2 separate qt tanks.

Will remove all sand, leave the rock. Remove 20 gallons of water and add 20 gallons of bleach and run that ib the main system for 2 days with powerheads on full power along with return pump full power. I think by hour 24 the bleach is almost exhausted. I will then drain the entire system and run water throught it with prime then drain and let dry for a week or two. All equipment will also be cleaned with bleach. Then add new live sand and biospa or dr tims to help cycle. Then add fish back slowly.

Thoughts?

Whether now or after the restart I would suggest getting on a different track forward...

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

 

[Paullawr]

After years and years of battling Dinos I think I've finally beaten them once and for all. Last year he "dirty" method (overfeeding and no water changes) worked on my Dinos but caused so many other problems.

So finally I did it right. I purchased a good microscope to identify that I did indeed have Dinos. I had Amph. I had always gone with an ultra low nutrient tank which I'm now learning isn't the best. I had zero Nitrates and zero phosphates. So to beat my Dinos I simply upped these two methodically and not by overfeeding. I also bought two new test kits. Each day I measured and doses if needed. My goal was to keep N between 3ppm and 12ppm. And P between 0.01 and 0.1 ppm. If either number was below I dosed Stump Remover for N and Seachem Phosphorus for P.

In a few short weeks I noticed a big change. And soon they were gone. Still teasing daily to see where the ideal numbers are for my tank. Tank is crystal clear with white sand now.

Oh also increased my refugium space, added a bunch of macroalgae, pods and dosed phyto for a week or so.

I'm the end I'm convinced my problem with Dinos was caused by an imbalance in the system. I know they're still in there but just kept in check by the rest of my system.

No.

The problem with dinoflagellates is that they are :

Indiscriminate killers.
Balance has sweet FA to do with any of it.
They are as random as the tide they dwell in.
You think you have them beat. You don't. They are there always. Waiting. Not for an imbalance just for when. They choose not your mishap.
They will crop up again.

It's a perfect organism with an evolutionary clade containing over 2000 variants.

Osteo alone has tens if not hundreds of variations making the identification with a scope we do pointless

My tank was clean from a FRESH startup. Nothing introduced. And despite the best husbandry, balance and care. They took off and killed everything in two weeks .

Oh and this my dear friends I've dubbed the godfather strain. You see all the playing we have done has created a strain I've not come across before. It's anhilated the safe dinos in my tank that did slip in. See even with fresh water dips, iodine, coral Rx.....

It's immune to
Dino x

Metroplex (two tubs in three days)

High ph

Light (yes get this....it's adapted to blue light and can happily carry out photosynthesis in the 400nm range). In fact.....it's strings in the dark. Go figure!

Vibrant

He'll even tossed Ina full chemi clean for ***** and giggles.

I feel as we each try to irradiate them. We don't. Just make them harder, more resilient.

Guess what they call it.

Genetic modification. It's evolution if it's over a millennia.

That's right. Not just the mad scientist in us but the mor safe lets try some algae approach.

If this baby gets out there. You can kiss goodnight to everything. It's the most destructive yet, digesting a birds nest in three hours.

So no. Don't talk balance. My tank has been balanced, very nicely.

 

[Paullawr]

Hi all, a friend told me today about this product http://www.rubyreef.net/#/hydroplex/ its reef save and can be used as dip or in quarantine tank, has anybody tried it? I dont have dinos anymore but if it works would be excelent option for dip.

Hey Hun... how are you

Thought you had left the fish scene.

 

[mwilk19]

Hey Hun... how are you

Thought you had left the fish scene.

This is our lives as reefers.

 

[mcarroll]

No.

No-Yes, No.

Post #218 on another thread.

 

[Paullawr]

Donna buddy. Look like osteo and behave that way. Yet not showing any stress despite jolting tank parameters and adding a cocktail.

These have come from nowhere I might add. At least been dormant.

Only thing Ive found to tick them off is a ph down. They are riding happily at oh 8.5. But hit 7.5 they stop dead.

 

[Jolanta]

Hey Hun... how are you

Thought you had left the fish scene.

I just cant leave it

 

[Jolanta]

This is our lives as reefers.

Im just like him

 

[taricha]

A short story on how dinos get around.

Brand new fish shop in town. Nicer than the old one, of course.
SW Tanks have some brown bubbly goodness. Seems to have spread to every tank to some degree. So of course I asked for a sample.
"Why?"
"It's an experiment. I'm weird."
"You want to make your rock into live rock?"
"Umm...sure. We'll see what it'll do."

Actually I just want to see what we are introducing to every reef tank in town, shall we?

Some prorocentrum...

Some Small-Cell Amphidinium and....

??? Ain't ever seen these before. (Lower power)
Turns out those are diatom chains providing most of the brown. stephanopyxis apparently.
http://cfb.unh.edu/phycokey/Choices...HANOPYXIS/Stephanopyxis_Image_page.html#pic02

So in my town, buy anything from the new "awesome" store, get exposure to cells of two bloom forming dinos, and a diatom that looks like dinos.

This shop isn't unique, and my town's no different from yours. Dinos ain't rare. Every system will encounter a few cells at some point.

 

[Paullawr]

What do you reckon @taricha