My Battle With Amphidinium Dinos

[BitReef]

BACKGROUND
This thread is a journal of my battle with amphidinium dinoflagellates, just confirmed yesterday by microscope. I have a 29G reef tank with a 10G sump. It has been running for 8 months. Started it with dry rock, live sand and Dr Tims One & Only and Brightwell's Microbacter7. My water parameters are all really good except for PH, which has always been a little low (7.6 - 8.0) and NO3 and PO4. They have never been 0, but have always been low. NO3 runs about 0.5ppm and PO4 0.02ppm. Parameter list:

PH: 7.6 - 8.0
Alk: 9.5
Cal: 475
Mag: 1320
NO3: 0.5
PO4: 0.02
Temp: 79

LIVESTOCK
My tank currently has 6 fish, trochous snails and a cleaner shrimp. So, in my mind it is fairly well stocked for it's size. I want to add some sand sifting snails. I have various small corals from zoas, frogspawn, candy canes and a couple of SPS. Everything in the tank looks very healthy right now. So I want to make changes slowly.

EQUIPMENT
I have a Nano protein skimmer, a 9w Green Killing Machine UV sterilizer, filter floss and an empty refugium. I've been waiting to add macroalgae until my nutrients go up to slightly elevated levels. I didn't want chaeto to consume what little NO3 I have. I think it may be time to start chaeto to try and outcompete the dinos, but not sure it that's a smart move.

FEEDING
I feed half a cube of gut loaded brine shrimp plus some pellet food everyday. Plus recently I've started broadcast feeding Reef Roids. I've been trying to feed pretty heavy to raise my nutrients, especially NO3, but it hasn't made much difference. I don't think my fish can take any more food. They might explode. That's partially why I added the Reef Roids. Next step is to start dosing NO3 directly.

THE PROBLEM
I have a brown dusting of something covering my sand bed. It originally showed up after I went on vacation for a week. I used an automatic feeder with pellet food while I was gone. I figure the change in feeding procedure is what triggered the outbreak. Up until yesterday, I thought the brown stuff was probably diatoms. It's not snotty or slimy. No stringy slime or bubbles. I'd say about 75% of it disappears at night. I've been running a 9w UV sterilizer all along, which doesn't seem to help (now I think it may have actually hurt by killing diatoms).

THE DIAGNOSIS
I did the test where you pour some of the brown stuff through a napkin (I didn't have a coffee filter), shake it up and wait to see if it clumps back up. Mine did not, so I thought that confirmed diatoms. But just to be sure, and because I love sciency stuff, I bought a $20 Smithsonian microscope from Target. It is a super cheap microscope, but it was good enough to positively identify amphidinium dinos. No question. I also watched a youtube video by Inappropriate Reefer and I have exactly what he describes.

THE PLAN
As far as I can tell, the way to beat these dinos is to raise the tank temp, raise NO3 and PO4, and encourage other organisms to outcompete the dinos. Here is my plan to achieve those goals:

1. Turn off UV sterilizer (9W Green Killing Machine)
2. Turn off Protein Skimmer
3. Stop water changes
4 .Slowly raise temp to 82 degrees
5. Start dosing Brightwells NeoNitro and NeoPhos to raise nitrogen and phosphorous.
6. Start dosing Brightwells Microbacter7. This one makes me a little nervous because the last time I added some, right before adding my clown pair, my stylophora started to bleach a little bit. I'm not positive the bleaching was caused by the MB7, but they seemed to coincide.
7. Start dosing Phytoplankton from my LFS.
8. Add some sand sifting snails, cerith and nassarius (I had planned on this anyway)
9? I'm also considering finally adding chaeto to my refugium. I've never added chaeto because my nutrients were so low. But, now that I'll be dosing, it seems like a good time to start macroalgae. Hopefully it will also help to out compete the dinos.

Also researching the use of H2O2.

 

[BitReef]

Here’s a pic of my tank taken yesterday.

 

[BitReef]

And a couple of microscope pics of the dinos. Terrible quality pics, but they were the best I could get with a $20 scope and a phone.

 

[BitReef]

WEEK 1 UPDATE - GOOD PROGRESS
There definitely seems to be progress in my battle with amphidinium dinos after one week. Yesterday (Day 6) was the day I noticed dinos starting to receed. I’ve mostly followed my original plan, with a few tweeks. Here’s what I’ve done so far:

1. Turned of Skimmer, UV Sterilizer. No water changes.
2. Increased NO3 with NeoNitro. Currently at 10ppm and holding.
3. Increasing PO4 with NeoPhos. Currently at .01ppm and rising.
4. Increased temp to 82.5.
5. Dosing Microbacter7 daily (roughly 10ml)
6. Dosing Live Phytoplankton daily (roughly 40ml). This is a locally sourced brew, so I don't know the stregth or how it compares to commerical products. Just guessing with this one.
7. Dosing Vibrant. I started very slowly because Vibrant kind of scares me. Just a few drops a day. However, by day 6 I decied to go ahead and start dosing 2ml every other day.
8. On day 3 I added about a softball size bag of chaeto. It has grown FAST. It has at least doubled in volume this week. So far, I don't see any dinos growing on the chaeto, which I heard might be the case.

So far, it appears to be driving the dinos back. My sand was pretty much completely covered when I started this and now it's only about 50% covered.

 

[BitReef]

DAY 6 TANK SHOT

 

[BitReef]

DAY 7 TANK SHOT

 

[BitReef]

RETURN OF THE CONCH
The strangest thing that has happened during this battle is my fighting conch came back. He was one of the first additions to my cleanup crew and used to be very active. He's a little guy, only an inch. However, he disappeared over 2 months ago and I hadn't seen him since. I thought he died. Yesterday, I looked in my tank, and there he was sitting on top of the sand again. I don't know why. Did the dinos irritate him and he's come back out now that they are on the run? Has something else I've changed brought him back out (temperature, higher nitrates, etc)? I don't know. I hope it's a good sign.

 

[ScottB]

Well two weeks on from your last update... How goes the fight? Dosing phyto is an interesting intervention that makes some sense to me. Odd that I've not heard about this tool for fighting LC Amphids; this is the most difficult to treat of all the dinos we see in the hobby. Really hoping to learn a little more about how to control this species as they are SO common nowadays.

 

[BitReef]

DAY 27 - SECOND WAVE
It's been a rollercoaster. I started this thread almost a month ago, and I'm still fighting the dinos. One week after starting my fight, I had the dinos on the run and down to about 30% coverage on my sandbed. Things were looking really good. However, about a day or two after my "Day 7" picture, the dinos hit a second wave and came back with a vengance. Almost overnight they went from 30% to 95% sandbed coverage and have been holding pretty steady for the last couple of weeks. I'm just starting to see them clear a little and I'd guess I'm at about 80% coverage.

So, the big question is, what caused the second wave. I'm not exactly sure, but here are the things that I'm aware of that changed in concurrance with the second wave.

1. My initial wave of dinos started when I went on vacation and left an autofeeder dropping pellet food for a week. I normally feed frozen brine shrimp. Around Day 8 of my dino fight, I was leaving the house for the day and had to drop in some pellet food because I didn't have time for frozen. The dinos second wave started immediately after that single dose of pellet food. For a long time I was complete convinced the pellet food caused the second wave. Now, I'm not sure. It is curious I've had dino spikes everytime I've fed pellet food. But, I'm not sure how a single pinch of pellet food could carry this second wave for 2 or 3 weeks though now. Also, I have since realized that I made other changes to my battle plan around the same time the second wave started. So, maybe the pellet food, plus letting off the gas in my fight allowed them to come back.

2. Like a moron, about a week into my fight, as things were going great, I started making some changes. One change was that I started running my UV sterilizer at night. I thought, since the dinos were dying, it might help push them over the edge if I run it periodically. I don't know exactly what day I turned it back on, so I can't say for sure, but I think it was very close to the start of the second wave. The UV has been running for 12 hours a day for the past 2 weeks or so. I've only recently turn the UV off completely. I do think the dinos are starting to die again since turning it off. Although mush slower than the first time.

3. I added chaeto in the first week to try as one of my multi-pronged attempt to out compete the dinos. For that first week I was running my fuge light 24 hours a day to try maximize the chaeto growth. Sometime around day 7, I dialed back the fuge light to 12 hours. About the time the second wave started. Again, it didn't occur to me until recently that this change could have helped the dinos regain their dominace. 2 days ago I increased the fuge light back to 24 hours.

In short, I had a plan and it was working. Then I made changes to the plan before the dinos were completely gone, and they surged back. I am now trying to get back to the original plan and undo any changes I made. I'll post a current tank pic tomorrow.

 

[ScottB]

DAY 27 - SECOND WAVE
It's been a rollercoaster. I started this thread almost a month ago, and I'm still fighting the dinos. One week after starting my fight, I had the dinos on the run and down to about 30% coverage on my sandbed. Things were looking really good. However, about a day or two after my "Day 7" picture, the dinos hit a second wave and came back with a vengance. Almost overnight they went from 30% to 95% sandbed coverage and have been holding pretty steady for the last couple of weeks. I'm just starting to see them clear a little and I'd guess I'm at about 80% coverage.

So, the big question is, what caused the second wave. I'm not exactly sure, but here are the things that I'm aware of that changed in concurrance with the second wave.

1. My initial wave of dinos started when I went on vacation and left an autofeeder dropping pellet food for a week. I normally feed frozen brine shrimp. Around Day 8 of my dino fight, I was leaving the house for the day and had to drop in some pellet food because I didn't have time for frozen. The dinos second wave started immediately after that single dose of pellet food. For a long time I was complete convinced the pellet food caused the second wave. Now, I'm not sure. It is curious I've had dino spikes everytime I've fed pellet food. But, I'm not sure how a single pinch of pellet food could carry this second wave for 2 or 3 weeks though now. Also, I have since realized that I made other changes to my battle plan around the same time the second wave started. So, maybe the pellet food, plus letting off the gas in my fight allowed them to come back.

2. Like a moron, about a week into my fight, as things were going great, I started making some changes. One change was that I started running my UV sterilizer at night. I thought, since the dinos were dying, it might help push them over the edge if I run it periodically. I don't know exactly what day I turned it back on, so I can't say for sure, but I think it was very close to the start of the second wave. The UV has been running for 12 hours a day for the past 2 weeks or so. I've only recently turn the UV off completely. I do think the dinos are starting to die again since turning it off. Although mush slower than the first time.

3. I added chaeto in the first week to try as one of my multi-pronged attempt to out compete the dinos. For that first week I was running my fuge light 24 hours a day to try maximize the chaeto growth. Sometime around day 7, I dialed back the fuge light to 12 hours. About the time the second wave started. Again, it didn't occur to me until recently that this change could have helped the dinos regain their dominace. 2 days ago I increased the fuge light back to 24 hours.

In short, I had a plan and it was working. Then I made changes to the plan before the dinos were completely gone, and they surged back. I am now trying to get back to the original plan and undo any changes I made. I'll post a current tank pic tomorrow.

Sorry, but setbacks are not uncommon with this type. Keep tracking your actions in search for patterns. I am not sure how contemporaneous their reactions are and how much lag there is to account for, but more info is always better for inferring a pattern.
What is happening with nutrients?
What is happening with phyto? Using live?

 

[Chrisss]

How is your battle going? I'm currently on the same boat with dinos in my thread. Had them around 30% in first week now during 2nd week currently 80% of the sandbed is covered. I'm hoping they will eventually starve themselves out but at this rate I have no clue....

 

[BitReef]

Same here. Really thought I was going to wipe them out that first week. Then they came surging back. I haven’t been able to get them back below 80%. One thing I haven’t been doing lately is dosing phytoplankton. I ran out and the store that makes it is 45 mins away. I need to go get some more and see if it helps. I had a cleaner shrimp die recently and a couple of snails don’t look too good. Not sure why. So far my fish and coral are good. I’ve been running my fuge light almost 24 hrs a day and it is growing a lot of algae (not just chaeto). Again, doesn’t seem to help. I started dosing silicates this week. I’ve been afraid to try it, but decided to go ahead. We’ll see. If you find anything that works let me know

 

[BitReef]

Here’s a tank shot from a couple of days ago:

 

[Chrisss]

Same here. Really thought I was going to wipe them out that first week. Then they came surging back. I haven’t been able to get them back below 80%. One thing I haven’t been doing lately is dosing phytoplankton. I ran out and the store that makes it is 45 mins away. I need to go get some more and see if it helps. I had a cleaner shrimp die recently and a couple of snails don’t look too good. Not sure why. So far my fish and coral are good. I’ve been running my fuge light almost 24 hrs a day and it is growing a lot of algae (not just chaeto). Again, doesn’t seem to help. I started dosing silicates this week. I’ve been afraid to try it, but decided to go ahead. We’ll see. If you find anything that works let me know

If silica dosing works please let me know. I don't really know what my next plan is. I think I will do another week of what I've been doing to see if that helps at all if not then I'll probably try something else. Hoping that they are starving themselves? Don't really know...

At night there are no dinos at all. As soon the lights kick on that's when they come out. The only thing I've changed it too Kessils from T5HO but even before the new lights I saw them starting.

 

[BitReef]

I’ll let you know. I’ve done about 5 days of dosing SpongeXL (silica). The diatoms are really taking off today. The glass is becoming opaque.
I also bought more phytoplankton from a local store and started it again.

 

[Chrisss]

I’ll let you know. I’ve done about 5 days of dosing SpongeXL (silica). The diatoms are really taking off today. The glass is becoming opaque.
I also bought more phytoplankton from a local store and started it again.

Interesting, that seems very quick too be honest. Have you tested your sandbed yet to see if they are competing with the dinos?

 

[BitReef]

QUICK UPDATE
I’ve been lighly dosing silica, and heavily dosing live phyto. The sand is slowly clearing. I’d say I’m down to 60% dino coverage on the sand. Hard to say what is working, but I feel like the phyto makes a big difference. Seems like most of my gains have been had when I was dosing fresh phyto (this is purely speculation on my part). I’m seriously thinking about culturing my own until this battle is over. Also, I haven’t dosed MB7 in a while. I’m not sure how much good it really does. I am still maintaining higher NO3 and PO4.

 

[dwest]

I fought amphidinium for almost a year. It was devastating to my tank. The turning point for me, unfortunately, was when I removed my sand. Measurable nutrients, UV, and sand removal worked for me. Two years later my tank is great and I’m very slowly adding sand back. Good luck.

 

[BitReef]

I fought amphidinium for almost a year. It was devastating to my tank. The turning point for me, unfortunately, was when I removed my sand. Measurable nutrients, UV, and sand removal worked for me. Two years later my tank is great and I’m very slowly adding sand back. Good luck.

Removing my sand is the last thing I want to do

Did you run the UV all the time? I can’t decide if UV is helpful or harmful. My understanding is these dinos stay in the sand. But UV might kill my phyto and beneficial bacteria. I go back and forth on UV.

 

[dwest]

Removing my sand is the last thing I want to do

Did you run the UV all the time? I can’t decide if UV is helpful or harmful. My understanding is these dinos stay in the sand. But UV might kill my phyto and beneficial bacteria. I go back and forth on UV.

Removing my sand was the last thing I wanted to do too. But I tried everything else.

Amphidinium will stay in the sand. That’s why a UV doesn’t help when you also have sand.

In ran my UV 24/7. But your UV in your sized tank will only help if it’s directly in the tank.

My experience with phyto was that it fueled the dinos. The beneficial bacteria are much more present on rocks than in the water, so using UV is not harmful.

I know this sounds crazy, but why not remove the sand, put the UV directly in the tank and put the sand back in after a few days if it doesn’t work? Just throwing that out.

Either way, I know that dinos suck so good luck to you.