Dinos?

[xxjt2oxx]

So I have a new tank, 220g + sump and I'm 99% sure I'm in the middle of dealing with Dinos, from what I can tell possibly Amphidinium and Coolia. Tank has been running for almost 4 months, and has some livestock - blue tang, purple tang, some chromis and some pajama cardinals. A few zoas, a duncan and a hammer. Basic CUC with some snails/hermits/cleaner shrimp. Livestock wise, everything is doing well and I've had no issues. I dosed ammonia to start the cycle, and then most of the fish went in early on. I haven't added anything in 3 weeks since what I originally thought was a diatom bloom started.

Amidst the new tank setup, I got married and was less attentive than I should have been. I added some chaeto to the tank and was running the refugium light for 18 hours - I'm pretty sure I bottomed out on PO4 or NO3 at some point - I'm still having issues keeping it stable. Refugium light is down to 5 hours a day. I started overfeeding, and my PO4 is at .02, NO3 is at 2.7 as of tonight. Both are down slightly from a week ago. I don't have UV set up.

I have some NYOS Phosphate and Nitrate coming to have a failsafe, but figured I'd start out asking for help confirming an ID and any suggestions on what direction to go in.

We were all super excited to see everything under the microscope so cut me some slack on the commentary ;)

 

[xxjt2oxx]

Also just for a view of the full field of movement

 

[xxjt2oxx]

Just checked in, nothing visibly changed in the tank, po4 .06 no3 is 1.7

 

[xxjt2oxx]

Would love some help or direction here, or at least confirmation that I'm doing the right things for now :)

po4 is holding at .06 today, no3 is still dropping at 1.2 - consumption seems to be about 0.5ppm/day.

I dosed NYOS Nitrate+ for a 1ppm increase. planning to keep dosing daily until I break 5. I have a dosing pump I never set up, so I'll probably get that going over the weekend and break the dose into several parts daily and dial it down when I reach 5ppm.

 

[EnterName]

Sorry, I didn't see the post earlier.

You are observing a large ciliate (most likely completely harmless, they are very abundant) and many Amphidinium spp. cells. The little "beak" or "nose" is giving it away.

Treatment seems to be tank dependent. Do you have images from your tank so we can see how severe the issue is?

While experiencing any sort of outbreak, I don't think it's too bad to drop to undetectable nutrient levels. I know people often associate depleting nutrients with dinoflagellates, but adding more will just feed the ongoing bloom. Instead I would try manual removal, water changes, UV sterilization (yes, even for Amphidinium), trace element replenishment, and maybe something like silicate dosing.

I personally think adding bottled bacteria is a quite experimental approach, but you could take a look into it. 3dreefing recommends Tropic Marin Nitribiotic, and at least it contains bacteria that should survive being bottled, so you might give it a try. A far more diverse product would be AF Life Source mud, but I don't know how much of the bacteria in the container will actually survive and grow in a reef tank. Many bottled products may contain a lot of organics and other nutrients which can fuel the outbreak, and the bacteria itself might also be a food source for those dinoflagellates, so if you don't have any success with this approach after a few weeks, try something else.

If cleaning the tank and absolutely depleting nutrients doesn't work, or apparently even makes it worse, I would switch to DIY ammonia and DIY phosphate solutions. It will save you a lot of money.

Another approach would be carbon dosing. Sometimes the measurable nutrients (nitrogen & phosphorus) aren't the issue, but the ones that aren't so easy to measure. This will also boost bacteria growth, so it can drain nitrate and phosphate.

 

[xxjt2oxx]

Thanks for the reply! After 2 doses of NYOS Nitrate+ my po4 @ .04 and my no3 @ 4.9 - on Wednesday I dialed the refugium back to 2 hours a night to try lower consumption. I appreciate the confirmation of the dinos, I had another reef tank almost 13 years ago and never dealt with them before - if for nothing else getting the microscope has been awesome with the kids.

Pic attached is from before I cleaned the tank - that's about 10 days of buildup. It never gets much worse than that, but at the beginning of the bloom it would go from clear to that in about 12 hours. I cleaned the tank for the first time since on Thursday, and it's still pretty decent 2 days later. Interestingly, my trochus have been chugging along the rock work much more in the last 24 hours as well - I'll try and snap a few more pictures tomorrow.

Giving things are improving I think I'm going to try and hold my po4 and no3 stable, and maybe get everything I need to start dosing silicates - I've been reading a lot about that and landed on it as being a solid option for my situation - the confirmation makes me feel like I'm on the right track. Perhaps I'll start planning for UV as well, I wasn't planning on using it on this tank but it would be a nice tool to have in situations like this even if I didn't run it all the time.

The bottled bacteria I'm not sold on either, maybe I'll put that in the last resort category.

I read a little bit about the DIY ammonia/phosphate, and if I end up needing to dose them long term I'll definitely come back to those - the NYOS isn't crazy expensive, but those options are much more economical, thanks for sharing them! I feel like once i have all the fish I plan on keeping in the tank I'll be able to manage nutrients a little better, everything right now is overkill for the bio-load and making my life more difficult rather than helping.

Two new quick questions -

Long term, what changes am I looking for on the miroscopic level? Should I see more diatoms? Should I see less movement? Other than the tank looking better what should I be on the lookout for?

Should I hold off on adding fish/coral/inverts to the tank until I get past this, or would stocking the tank more be helpful?

Thanks for all the information!

 

[EnterName]

Thanks for the reply! After 2 doses of NYOS Nitrate+ my po4 @ .04 and my no3 @ 4.9 - on Wednesday I dialed the refugium back to 2 hours a night to try lower consumption. I appreciate the confirmation of the dinos, I had another reef tank almost 13 years ago and never dealt with them before - if for nothing else getting the microscope has been awesome with the kids.

Pic attached is from before I cleaned the tank - that's about 10 days of buildup. It never gets much worse than that, but at the beginning of the bloom it would go from clear to that in about 12 hours. I cleaned the tank for the first time since on Thursday, and it's still pretty decent 2 days later. Interestingly, my trochus have been chugging along the rock work much more in the last 24 hours as well - I'll try and snap a few more pictures tomorrow.

Giving things are improving I think I'm going to try and hold my po4 and no3 stable, and maybe get everything I need to start dosing silicates - I've been reading a lot about that and landed on it as being a solid option for my situation - the confirmation makes me feel like I'm on the right track. Perhaps I'll start planning for UV as well, I wasn't planning on using it on this tank but it would be a nice tool to have in situations like this even if I didn't run it all the time.

The bottled bacteria I'm not sold on either, maybe I'll put that in the last resort category.

I read a little bit about the DIY ammonia/phosphate, and if I end up needing to dose them long term I'll definitely come back to those - the NYOS isn't crazy expensive, but those options are much more economical, thanks for sharing them! I feel like once i have all the fish I plan on keeping in the tank I'll be able to manage nutrients a little better, everything right now is overkill for the bio-load and making my life more difficult rather than helping.

Two new quick questions -

Long term, what changes am I looking for on the miroscopic level? Should I see more diatoms? Should I see less movement? Other than the tank looking better what should I be on the lookout for?

Should I hold off on adding fish/coral/inverts to the tank until I get past this, or would stocking the tank more be helpful?

Thanks for all the information!

On a microscopic level I would expect a shift from those fast moving dinoflagellate cells to other organisms like diatoms that move very slowly or not at all.
When silicate dosing the sand will probably stay brown but it will look less slimy and instead like dust on the substrate (see page 1, post #16: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/microscopy-thread.1138845/post-14060262 and page 5, post #91: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/microscopy-thread.1138845/post-14434575).

I personally would not add other livestock to the tank for now. It's easier to control nutrients that way, even if dosing turns out to be the better option in your case.

 

[xxjt2oxx]

Awesome - I'm familiar with the diatom look - I went through that on my last tank. This time when the brown starting appearing I just assumed it was the same thing until it started getting thicker than I remember, and now here I am.

My plan for now is to test/maintain/dose if needed with the NYOS stuff I bought for po4 and no3 - I ordered some of the sodium silicate from the thread you recommended, it's supposed to come tomorrow so I'll start that and post back later this week with an update. I also started picking out some UV equipment, I think I'm going to give it a couple weeks before I jump on that one but keep it in the long term plan regardless.

I'm going away Friday-Monday, so hopefully I can get everything stable over the next few days and set up the dosing pumps if needed to carry me through the weekend.

 

[EnterName]

Awesome - I'm familiar with the diatom look - I went through that on my last tank. This time when the brown starting appearing I just assumed it was the same thing until it started getting thicker than I remember, and now here I am.

My plan for now is to test/maintain/dose if needed with the NYOS stuff I bought for po4 and no3 - I ordered some of the sodium silicate from the thread you recommended, it's supposed to come tomorrow so I'll start that and post back later this week with an update. I also started picking out some UV equipment, I think I'm going to give it a couple weeks before I jump on that one but keep it in the long term plan regardless.

I'm going away Friday-Monday, so hopefully I can get everything stable over the next few days and set up the dosing pumps if needed to carry me through the weekend.

If the tank is rather new chances are it will pass on its own. At the 4 month mark it is most likely a case of dinos that will still pass without you doing too much as the tank's microbiology is probably still developing quite a bit. Good luck either way and keep us posted so we can track the progress or steer into another direction if silicate dosing doesn't work out.

 

[xxjt2oxx]

If the tank is rather new chances are it will pass on its own. At the 4 month mark it is most likely a case of dinos that will still pass without you doing too much as the tank's microbiology is probably still developing quite a bit. Good luck either way and keep us posted so we can track the progress or steer into another direction if silicate dosing doesn't work out.

Sure thing, and thank you again for the help! Really appreciate the opinion/recommendations/knowledge. Going to add silicate dosing and maintain course for a week or two - will check in one way or another :)