Interesting observation: dinos completely wiped out

[chris_pull]

Right. This is why I'm quite interested in what is collecting onto the filter. Your pic below shows quite a bit of brown, I do wonder what photosynthetic cells are attached there.




I love the pic, and have no idea what the red is, but Randy has strong objections to the Red = aluminum interpretation.

see here...
"On the polyfilter issue, before making the assertion that aluminum will not turn it red, I did two things to add to my longstanding knowledge of how such polymers work, and how color is generated in metal ions.

I took my huge copy of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (which I won for being an expert chemist years ago) and looked through the long list of every aluminum chemical, both organic and inorganic. There are NO forms of aluminum that are red, aside from a few cases of aluminum attached to something else that is red whether aluminum is attached to it or not.

I secondly googled a number of search terms involving aluminum and red and also found no cases where aluminum is red.

Since there is no mechanism for aluminum to be colored (unlike most transition metals that have d electrons) and there is no case apparently known to science where aluminum causes a red color, and a polyfilter is not itself red, I conclude that company is mistaken.

If the company indeed saw a red color by mixing aluminum with a polyfilter, it was from an impurity present, and not the aluminum itself."

Yes I read that too, so I’m skeptical of being aluminium. I don’t think there’s necessarily any cells in there. I’m not saying the polyfilter itself has trapped the Dinos, but rather that it’s removed some element that they were utilising. Still, I’ll wring it out and take a look under the ‘scope.

 

[ReefDreamz]

That's funny. You would think it would increase dinos since poly filter removes phosphate.

 

[taricha]

Yes I read that too, so I’m skeptical of being aluminium. I don’t think there’s necessarily any cells in there. I’m not saying the polyfilter itself has trapped the Dinos, but rather that it’s removed some element that they were utilising.

I get what you are saying. I don't think that a lack of some element could have caused the dinos to just self destruct over some short time frame of a couple of days. Blooms usually just stall and the population pleateaus for weeks when something needed is withheld.
If it is the removal of a substance, it's possible that a change like that could have triggered the dinos to create cysts/ go dormant/ dig down into the sand or something that would result in mass disappearance.
It's also plausible that there's enough trait variation across the several species that we lump together as "Large Cell Amphidinium" that it includes some water-going types. We haven't seen that yet, but possible.
Or could just be that while you sampled some dinos from some places, elsewhere in the system a lot of the dinos were actually another type that did go into the water.

Still, I’ll wring it out and take a look under the ‘scope.

Thanks a bunch. Curious what you'll find.

 

[chris_pull]

That's funny. You would think it would increase dinos since poly filter removes phosphate.

It supp

I get what you are saying. I don't think that a lack of some element could have caused the dinos to just self destruct over some short time frame of a couple of days. Blooms usually just stall and the population pleateaus for weeks when something needed is withheld.
If it is the removal of a substance, it's possible that a change like that could have triggered the dinos to create cysts/ go dormant/ dig down into the sand or something that would result in mass disappearance.
It's also plausible that there's enough trait variation across the several species that we lump together as "Large Cell Amphidinium" that it includes some water-going types. We haven't seen that yet, but possible.
Or could just be that while you sampled some dinos from some places, elsewhere in the system a lot of the dinos were actually another type that did go into the water.


Thanks a bunch. Curious what you'll find

I get what you are saying. I don't think that a lack of some element could have caused the dinos to just self destruct over some short time frame of a couple of days. Blooms usually just stall and the population pleateaus for weeks when something needed is withheld.
If it is the removal of a substance, it's possible that a change like that could have triggered the dinos to create cysts/ go dormant/ dig down into the sand or something that would result in mass disappearance.
It's also plausible that there's enough trait variation across the several species that we lump together as "Large Cell Amphidinium" that it includes some water-going types. We haven't seen that yet, but possible.
Or could just be that while you sampled some dinos from some places, elsewhere in the system a lot of the dinos were actually another type that did go into the water.


Thanks a bunch. Curious what you'll find.

Hmmm, but even if they were water borne, there’s no way that they’ve been filtered out by the polyfilter given the way my sump is set up. There’s plenty of bypass, the polypad was just “loose” in the sump. Moreover, I had them for almost a year, samples regularly, and they were always LCA. I really don’t think anyone knows enough about their biology in aquariums to discount anything being possible.

 

[taricha]

I really don’t think anyone knows enough about their biology in aquariums to discount anything being possible.

right. I just have some guesses for things that sound more and less likely based on what I've seen from dinos in systems.
Whatever happened is an unlikely outcome of some kind! Would love to know more about it. Thanks for your info and observations.

 

[ReefingIsMyTherapy]

I'm seriously thinking about giving this a try.

I had a very mild case of LCA when I set up my tank about 8 months ago, but they went away with zero intervention from my side (there were diatoms as well, as usually goes during "the ugglies"). Back then, I was using poly-fil in my sump (I never used filter socks), and turned brown like the picture provided in a previous post (never got the purple thing, though) but I got lazy after a few months and didn't want to keep changing the filter every 5 days, so decided to switch to the Reefmat about 1 month ago. 10 days or so after I installed the Reefmat, and stopped using filter, I started seeing dinos in my tank, and this time they are everywhere in my sandbend and I can even see some in the rock as well, and confirmed under the microscope that I'm dealing with LCA. I'm sure many will say it's because NO3 and PO4 dropped to zero because the Reefmat depleted the PO4 and NO3 from my tank, but according to the Hanna checkers, that never happened. The lowest the PO4 checker ever reported was 0.02 (but I'm totally aware of the accuracy and it could've very well been zero), and NO3 never dropped below 5. That said, I believe, and won't argue with anyone that thinks, that I have dinos because the NO3 and PO4 levels dropped close to zero. But some folks have dinos even with hight nutrients levels, right? So...

Also, I noticed someone mentioned about aluminum. I've order 4 or 5 ICP tests and all have reported what I believe are high levels of aluminum (37.74 µg/l reported in the last test from 10 days ago). I'm pretty new to the hobby, and have asked for comments or recommendations on what to do to address this, and I've been told that the MarinePure cubes in my sump might be the culprit; some folks recommend to remove them while others say it's nothing to worry about.

I'll put back some filter in my sump and see what happens. Hopefully nothing bad I'm testing for NO3 and PO4 daily, so if I see those going down, I can take action immediately.

 

[JulesH]

I set up another tank this year. My last experience from my previous tank was ugly with a capital U. I wanted to avoid that if possible with my new setup. This time I used live sand, lots of copepods and did not switch my lights on for the first two months. The outcome so far has been very positive. Normally I have used AIO tanks but this was is my first separate sump tank.

I also jettisoned the filter socks pretty rapidly and replaced them with a roller mat which IMO is fantastic. What I found with my previous tank in the butt ugly phase was the more I tweaked it the worse it got.

 

[The Opinionated Reefer]

Does poly filter affect your skimmer? I added a sheet of poly filter to my sump earlier today and now my skimmer seems unable to form a decent foam head and is behaving like there is nothing to skim.

 

[MikeTheNewbie]

This is what the poly filter looks like today. I think it’s been in about a week or so. They say red means there was aluminium, which is normally a bit high on my ICPs, but I don’t know whether dinos utilises Al in anyway. I’ve removed it today so I’m hoping they don’t come back!

Could you share your ICP results?
Have you done another ICP now that the dinos are gone?

 

[chris_pull]

Does poly filter affect your skimmer? I added a sheet of poly filter to my sump earlier today and now my skimmer seems unable to form a decent foam head and is behaving like there is nothing to skim.

Yes I noticed the same thing. I think it binds dissolved organics, which is supposedly what turns the polypad brown. Once removed my skimmer has gone back to normal.

 

[chris_pull]

Could you share your ICP results?
Have you done another ICP now that the dinos are gone?

I haven’t done one since June, but I’ll try and get one done soon, as I’d also be curious. These are my June results and bare in mind I had plenty of dino at this time.

 

[chris_pull]

As an update, I’m still dino free though I live in fear every day that they’ll come back this is a quick shot of the tank - all I’ve done is clean the glass. I still get a brown film on wave makers/glass but whatever it is it’s not dinos under the ‘scope.

 

[TheDuude]

Did your dinos ever come back?

 

[chris_pull]

Did your dinos ever come back?

Nope and tank is thriving!

 

[The Opinionated Reefer]

I tried it and it did nothing for my dinos. The only thing that had any effect was installing a powerful UV sterilizer in a display-to-display loop.

 

[chris_pull]

I tried it and it did nothing for my dinos. The only thing that had any effect was installing a powerful UV sterilizer in a display-to-display loop.

If you have the water borne ones that should be all you need. This was LCA so much harder. I'm still not sure if it's that solved the issue or not but as I've said before, my suspicion is it was the nail in the coffin.

 

[TheDuude]

Nope and tank is thriving!

Looking great! I think ill give polyfilter a try as well. I have been battling dinos for almost 2 years. Never very bad, just small patches on my sand by the end of the day.

Maybe the polyfilter can give me that last gain I need