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

[Lowefx]

Sorry if this was already asked in previous post but....

Does anyone run Cheato with their tank and still have dinos?

 

[gojk]

I have Cheato and have dinos. The dinos consume the nutrients so fast that the chaeto starts to die off.

 

[Lowefx]

Shoot. Whats a good phosphate and nitrate dosing supplement brand?

 

[TechnicalFisher]

I've been dealing with a snotty brown coating on my rocks that's now moving to the sand bed. Looks from what I've seen in this thread like dinos. Don't have a microscope but here's a pic. Any help on ID?

Going to start metroplex- may have missed it in my review of the thread but should not be OK on my chaeto fuge?

And thanks @twillard for this great resource!!

 

[mcarroll]

I've been dealing with a snotty brown coating on my rocks that's now moving to the sand bed. Looks from what I've seen in this thread like dinos. Don't have a microscope but here's a pic. Any help on ID?

Going to start metroplex

You missed that metro doesn't work.

Try the search of this thread I put at the end of this line and look at more than 500 posts worth of metro attempts, not one of which ended in a dino-free, side-effect free tank at the end: metro

IMO, make your current metro dose your last and keep reading!

To make the current strategy even worse...

Your bloom looks more like chrysophytes than dino's to me.

But maybe another pic might look different. BTW, you can get a $12 toy microscope (what I have!) and get some great cell phone pics with it if you don't mind holding off further "treatment" until you get a more positive ID.

In the mean time, I'd suggest starting to search on #chrysophytes. @taricha , @reeferfoxx what's your take? Dino's, or...?

Also even though your stuff doesn't look like dino's IMO there's a good chance the treatment situation will be the same or similar.

Check out:

• Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether? and
• A Nitrate Dosing Calculator For Better Tank Health (And Better Coral Color!)

If you have a thread for your tank already, link it in that Dino thread or PM me if you want. (Make a thread, if you don't have one! )

 

[TechnicalFisher]

Wow, talk about missing the punch line! My apologies, I posted after reading the first 30 posts and seeing they had June/July dates. Didn't see that they were from 2016[emoji33]. Fortunately I've done nothing so far in terms of treatment and won't until I have a handle on what I'm dealing with.

Thanks so much for the reply @mcarroll. Searching for info as you suggest now. Also tried the paper towel trick yesterday and didn't see Dino's regrouping though not convinced I did it right and will re-do this morning.

A thread I started on the issue a couple days ago is here: https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/Need-Help-With-ID--Dinos?.317234/. Will try to get additional/better pics today.

Thanks again.

 

[m0jjen]

After having a having battled dinoflagellates for about 4-5 months i seem to have won that battle. This is mainly determed by what i see, how corals have reacted during the last two months and so on.

My corals have finally started coloring up and growing, my consumption of the 3 major elements (ca, kh and mg) has increased significantly and im starting to get quite happy about my tank.

I currently have some algea. Im realting this to the fact that i dosed KNO3 and KH2PO4 during my fight with dinos.

My nutrientlevels are 2.5 ppm (salifert) no3 today and 0.058 PO4 (Hanna ULR), some phosphate is obviously bound in the algae.

I can identify 4 different things at the moment, one brown hairtype algae, pretty sure, about 3-4 millimeters on the bottom glas, it has started to reced recently and a green film algae has taken over more and more. Apart from this i have some spots with a greener hairalgae, noting much, just small small patches here and there. And last but not least diatoms, probably from and exhausted DI media along with me messing with my siporax.

I also started a small fuge in my reefer RO tank just a couple of days ago. Its not a huge fuge but it will probably contribute as a whole to my filtration along with a Nyos quantum 160 and 3 litres of siporax, 1.5 litres of those are placed in a low flow reactor and 1.5 litres in a eggcrate container under my filtersocks in abit higher flow.

My question is now, is it safe to re-introduce sand, i have a bag of new dead sand ready to get rinsed and used. I removed my sand late may and from the looks of it defeated dinos early june. After the defeat of dinos the other algaes appeared quite fast and have been established since then.

Some pictures of the mentioned algae

My tritontest conducted mid june:

Also, what elements might get altered by adding sand? If im not misstaken magnesium might get absorbed by adding new sand, others?

Pardon my aiptasia, the peppermints are working on it

 

[taricha]

But maybe another pic might look different. BTW, you can get a $12 toy microscope (what I have!) and get some great cell phone pics with it if you don't mind holding off further "treatment" until you get a more positive ID.

In the mean time, I'd suggest starting to search on #chrysophytes. @taricha , @reeferfoxx what's your take? Dino's, or...?

Also even though your stuff doesn't look like dino's IMO there's a good chance the treatment situation will be the same or similar.

Poster said that they blow off the rocks, which fits.
Also that not much appeared to go through paper towel test. (We need to revise this test. I've done it on confirmed Amphidinium dinos and so few cells made it through, that I couldn't see anything).
If you skip the paper towel filter part, and just shake the sample until it all separates, does it regroup in blobs and strands?
Bubbles and blobs fits for dinos. (That pic doesn't look stringy enough to be ostreopsis, nor dusty like large cell amphidinium, but a single pic on a single rock can fool you)
Does the growth get darker during day, and lighter overnight?

Any clean up crew death, or snails becoming motionless?

I lean towards dinos, but by no means confident. And without microscope pics, I've fooled myself plenty of times.

 

[reeferfoxx]

I've been dealing with a snotty brown coating on my rocks that's now moving to the sand bed. Looks from what I've seen in this thread like dinos. Don't have a microscope but here's a pic. Any help on ID?

Going to start metroplex- may have missed it in my review of the thread but should not be OK on my chaeto fuge?

And thanks @twillard for this great resource!!

Looks more like chrysophytes, to me?

Does it look like this?

 

[landlubber]

@mcarroll is there a good reference you can recommend to identify what strain of dinoflagelletes i have after magnifying it? i'm getting a small microscope today but being it'll be cheap i can't see getting a good enough photo to post a possibility.

 

[taricha]

@mcarroll is there a good reference you can recommend to identify what strain of dinoflagelletes i have after magnifying it? i'm getting a small microscope today but being it'll be cheap i can't see getting a good enough photo to post a possibility.

Algaeid.com especially check videos. Movement helps a bunch.

 

[TechnicalFisher]

Looks more like chrysophytes, to me?

Does it look like this?

Yeah it looks awfully similar. Just posted a vid of it here: Need Help With ID- Dinos?

Shot some video to provide a better look at what it looks like:

https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?posts/3923119/

Thanks very much for the input!

 

[TechnicalFisher]

Poster said that they blow off the rocks, which fits.
Also that not much appeared to go through paper towel test. (We need to revise this test. I've done it on confirmed Amphidinium dinos and so few cells made it through, that I couldn't see anything).
If you skip the paper towel filter part, and just shake the sample until it all separates, does it regroup in blobs and strands?
Bubbles and blobs fits for dinos. (That pic doesn't look stringy enough to be ostreopsis, nor dusty like large cell amphidinium, but a single pic on a single rock can fool you)
Does the growth get darker during day, and lighter overnight?

Any clean up crew death, or snails becoming motionless?

I lean towards dinos, but by no means confident. And without microscope pics, I've fooled myself plenty of times.

Thanks for the help @taricha!

When I shook up the sample it didn't really dissolve and definitely didn't regroup.

It seems to stay pretty much the same color throughout the day/night.

No deaths of CUC and my superman monti isn't bothered by it and is slowly growing and pushing it back.

 

[mcarroll]

Wow, talk about missing the punch line! My apologies, I posted after reading the first 30 posts and seeing they had June/July dates. Didn't see that they were from 2016

. Fortunately I've done nothing so far in terms of treatment and won't until I have a handle on what I'm dealing with.

You're not alone – not too many folks really have the patience or even time to read 4000+ posts and it sounds very promising at the start.

I got my start on this thread WAY back when I was troubleshooting my own little outbreak of "something", but A) I turned out to have chrysophytes and B) I figured out the nutrient angle.

When I circled back to this thread later on and saw that NOTHING HERE WORKED and there were cases where the whole tank turn out to be rather desolate ;Mask it was more than a little disheartening.

In a nutshell, the result for me was this thread: Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

We need to revise this test. I've done it on confirmed Amphidinium dinos and so few cells made it through, that I couldn't see anything

I'm not sure what the "official version" is of which test actually.

I think the shake test is good for dino's, personally....break up a snot-mat, see if they can use their little flagellates to regroup.

Perhaps the paper towel was to isolate cyano or diatoms or something....or perhaps just not needed.

@mcarroll is there a good reference you can recommend to identify what strain of dinoflagelletes i have after magnifying it? i'm getting a small microscope today but being it'll be cheap i can't see getting a good enough photo to post a possibility.

Phytoplankton_key_home_page is a good general resource and organized visually.

We may have something better to offer eventually.

 

[taricha]

Thanks for the help @taricha!

When I shook up the sample it didn't really dissolve and definitely didn't regroup.

It seems to stay pretty much the same color throughout the day/night.

No deaths of CUC and my superman monti isn't bothered by it and is slowly growing and pushing it back.

Ok. 0 for 3.
That makes me doubt it's dinos at all.

Could be chrysophytes as suggested or some benthic diatoms - there have been people with strings that were actually colonial diatoms attached in strands.
I hope we get a look under a microscope to see what those suckers are.

 

[Paullawr]

I'm not convinced on dinos either. Having said that I'm not sure it's chrysos either.

Need better pics and scope.

 

[Paullawr]

Whilst I'm here (to annoy you all as I do well). May as well give tank update after tank nuke month back.

I've literally left tank do its thing. I've not even cleaned glass. Or skimmer (which I did twice a week).

Feed fish top auto toff. That's it.

Lots of hair algae growing which I've not had since ever in this tank.

Going to suck out some more sand tomoz then rest weekend. Then do mega water change and see what's what.

All good otherwise

 

[mwilk19]

Why is it that dinos will kill every coral in your tank EXCEPT green star polyp? I'd be thrilled if it wiped out the GSP in my tank but no, it just keeps growing.

 

[taricha]

I'm not sure what the "official version" is of which test actually.

I think the shake test is good for dino's, personally....break up a snot-mat, see if they can use their little flagellates to regroup.

Perhaps the paper towel was to isolate cyano or diatoms

It's supposed to distinguish algae/cyano from diatoms from dinos.
Yeah the idea is to take a sample, add some tank water, shake the heck out of it, pour it through paper towel into a container and watch for regrouping.
If it gets filtered by paper towel- cyano or filamentous algae, if it goes through but doesn't regroup - diatoms, if it regroups -dinos.
It works great sometimes, but either some paper towels are too fine, or some dinos too big and they don't make it through.
We ought to try coffee filters or media bag or something.

 

[landlubber]

@mcarroll so i managed to pull these out of a cheap children's microscope on an open slide that is scratched as heck and i apologize in advance for my lame attempt at embedding these photos lol.

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/157226770@N03/36237394866/in/dateposted-public/" title="IMG_2017"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4312/36237394866_5c7347b144.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMG_2017"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/157226770@N03/36145014511/in/dateposted-public/" title="IMG_2019"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4319/36145014511_1ac57b9d6f.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="IMG_2019"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

i have my suspicions that its Amphidinium but could be otherwise.