Thought this was diatoms till I got a closer look

[vetteguy53081]

Its dino. You will need to go blackout or 5% blue and NO white for 5 days. Stop feeding of coral foods and NoPox. At night with lights out , add 1ml of peroxide per 10 gallons for 5 days.

 

[FLReef32043]

Its dino. You will need to go blackout or 5% blue and NO white for 5 days. Stop feeding of coral foods and NoPox. At night with lights out , add 1ml of peroxide per 10 gallons for 5 days.

Thanks we established they were Amphindinium a couple of days ago. These look a bit different than the ones from Tuesday but yes, still dinos. From the link @taricha provided your treatment may not help with these.

 

[FLReef32043]

@taricha another question - if part of the answer is to not let the phosphate or nitrates get to zero - should I remove the Chaeto I have in the sump now and potentially stop nutrient removal while I battle these dinos?

 

[taricha]

From Taricha's identification document Large Amphinidinium has non to mild toxin while Small Cell Amphindinium has low to medium - are my fish in any danger of bad consequences from this stuff?

I'm also very confused why these all seem to be inert and non-mobile. Is it because they are in the mat?

Things have to be really, really toxic to harm fish. toxic effects are seen with herbivore snails most frequently.
The other person I've seen with a dino that looked the most like this - tiny, round mostly not moving amphidinium that sometimes slowly spin - was able to ignore it and just run the tank as normal, so his strain was low toxin.

not moving could mean any of a few different things. Some dinos are immobile during a resting stage until conditions are more favorable. Could mean dying, though that seems unlikely here. Some dinos are immobile when they are getting all their nutritional needs met in the mucus mat, and there is no need to move. Or it could just be the habit of this particular species. Swimming activity varies a lot by dino species.

BTW, have you had snails / herbivores in the tank? it may be worth a try to see if some ceriths, hermits will work on this mat?

another question - if part of the answer is to not let the phosphate or nitrates get to zero - should I remove the Chaeto I have in the sump now and potentially stop nutrient removal while I battle these dinos?

No. the elevated P and N is not the point. the point of elevated P and N is to grow many other organisms and not just dinos. So Chaeto is good in this scheme. If it eats a lot of P and N, great! add more, (or you could choke down the size of the ball of Chaeto if you got sick of constantly adding Nutrient doses.

 

[taricha]

Here is a scraping from my tank. There is much more disorder than when I let them grow on a glass slide left in the aquarium.

Here is a view of the same brown objects at a higher view. These are part of the algae film that appears on my glass. I have assumed they are harmless, maybe chrysophyte algae. They do not move. Is this correct Taricha?

Here is a photo of what I believe are small dinos associated with he brown algae.

So in this hobby, our photosynthetic stuffs almost all fall into just a few categories. Chorophytes and Rhodophytes (greens and red) "algae", then cyano, diatoms, and dinoflagellates. That just about gets it all.
except not quite.
You just posted two that I strongly believe are "None of the above".
The first I believe is a chrysophyte, which is quite a leap since we have no expert evidence or genetic info that these kind ever appear in our systems.
But it's the least-worst match to these things.

[here's a pic I collected of the documentation of what looks the most like these guys that we see in out tank.]

And your second one is what I think is a cryptophyte
Here's a shot of similar bugs from my tank
(first half is moving. second half is zoomed in on some motionless ones.)

 

[FLReef32043]

BTW, have you had snails / herbivores in the tank? it may be worth a try to see if some ceriths, hermits will work on this mat?

Interesting you should ask. I am putting my CUC through its quarantine in the DT while the fish were doing their thing in the QT undergoing copper, etc. It is almost time for them to join up inot one big happy family

Before the snails (Nerites, some ceriths and dwarf ceriths) would sort of wander but as the dinos have started to explode I have noticed them more and more in the rocks where most of the brown is/was. Same with the sand bed, seems the dwarf ceriths tend to migrate to the larger patches. Last night I got the distinct impression they were "grazing" where I had brushed off the larger patches. I'm actually debating getting more to start loading up (if I can keep my hermits from wiping them out).

Today I have notices seeing more / longer strands of brown gunky stuff waving in the flow. Going to pull some this evening and check to see if it is the same stuff.

No. the elevated P and N is not the point. the point of elevated P and N is to grow many other organisms and not just dinos. So Chaeto is good in this scheme. If it eats a lot of P and N, great! add more, (or you could choke down the size of the ball of Chaeto if you got sick of constantly adding Nutrient doses.

I got the increased N and P was to grow more stuff than the dinos, I had a passing thought that perhaps the chaeto was pulling too much.

My plan is to start siphoning this weekend and replacing the water. I gather I don't want to do major water changes but I need to get them out. I have some 1 micron filter socks on order so I can siphon and return the water while catching the diatoms in the sock.

I'm also planning on scrubbing the rocks and other hard parts and get that into the water column with new socks and remove that way.

I have SpongExcel en route as well as a Salifert test kit (although I read they are not reliable and saw something about a Hanna kit - I'll look for one of those). This should let me start growing diatoms to start out competing the diatoms.

Give that a little bit and then reassess.

@taricha if you don't mind - a personal question. What do you do? I read your post above in reply to Wampatom and it is pretty obvious you are well educated about these critters. Wondering if this is part of a job experience or just a love of them.

 

[Cwentz758]

When under the scope do I put water or sand on the test slide?

 

[FLReef32043]

When under the scope do I put water or sand on the test slide?

[edited to add: You can put either but be sure you get a bit of the brown with it. The rest of what I put below is appropriate regarding the size of the water drop.]

Presuming you have a flat scope you would put a small drop of water with the "brown dinos." I am going to presume you do not have any pipettes or anything similar. What I did before I got some was to use a small tweezers (small as I could get) and grab what I wanted to see.

lets presume you have some of the brown mat in a cup and it is clumped together. Put the tweezers into the cup and "grab" a smallish piece of the brown mat. Then gently touch the tweezers to the slide until you see a bit of the brown mat transfer to the slide.

Evaluate your water puddle, if it is pretty large you can soak up some of hte water with a tissue to get it smaller. In this case you don't want it too thick as that is a LOT of water to focus through. But you don't want it too small or gone as that removes any potential movement medium.

Lots of work but they are real TINY and don't need much.

What I use (and I got them for viewing things in water) are slides with cavities.



And if this is going to become a habit )) I'd look into some small plastic pipettes that will pull water up such as this (I bought these over 2 years ago and haven't gone through them yet - but I'm not overly fussy about sterility with what I'm looking at or how often):



Over and above the dinos, first time I saw the microbial world I was hooked. It is literally FASCINATING what lives in our tanks that we never 'see.'

Hopefully this helps a bit (I'm still groggy) and good luck!

 

[Cwentz758]

can we ID these and methods to kill them? They look like the ones that go into the water column at night. I have been running a 15w HOB UV from aqua illumination for almost 2 weeks with no change along with stirring the sand.

here’s my videos of what I found

 

[FLReef32043]

here’s my videos of what I found

I'm not an expert but you have a lot more movement than I do. Can you get a longer video at the higher resolution? I don't think there is enough on either for @taricha to get an identification of what those are. I did see a diatom in the second video and what appeared to be a dino pop out of the upper left mass (sand?) and then circle back in. But overall it is short.

Good job on the video by hand I use a lens/phone adapter otherwise Id' be shaking all around on those videos.

 

[Cwentz758]

You jinxed me lol this one wasn’t as steady

 

[taricha]

Wondering if this is part of a job experience or just a love of them.

Thanks! As a job, mostly I talk about physics. This stuff is all an interest for me, and usually something that frustrated me, so I tried to figure it out.

 

[FLReef32043]

@taricha A look at the little buggers after I siphoned the sand bed. There is movement in this bunch. Just wanted to confirm they are still Amphindinium (and not something else sneaking in). I also saw what I thought was a nematode in this slide but it extended it's "neck" way out and was picking off individuals in the open column. Any idea what that might have been and where I can get a million more

They are getting ugly now - deeper brown, larger patches and starting to get "stringy" on the rocks (and my zoas!). Put in my first dose of silica today so I will hopefully start seeing diatoms and a lessening of the dinos if all goes well in at least she near term.

 

[taricha]

I also saw what I thought was a nematode in this slide but it extended it's "neck" way out and was picking off individuals in the open column. Any idea what that might have been and where I can get a million more

Probably a ciliate, if it looked like these guys who ate some of my dinos.

 

[FLReef32043]

After 4 days of dosing silica, with a Hanna tested value of .91 day before yesterday and .55 this morning I am seeing diatoms start to show up.

 

[FLReef32043]

@taricha for comments on water change.

Well its been about a month or so and I hate to jinx myself but I think I'm making a dent. I stumble a bit over getting my silicate up to 1.0 and keeping it there but I dose every 3-4 days and as of last night I pulled a 24 hour slide out of the tank at a spot where I see brown gunk on the side glass - while the slide dried out pretty quickly and they all "died" where there was water there were obvious diatoms but generally throughout the slide there were (my estimate) 4 diatoms for every 10 dino (maybe close to 50/50 all told). The brown on the sand is nowhere near what it was and is only slight by end of day.

HOWEVER my water parameters are going south. I broke down this weekend and cleaned my sump - it was pretty bad. Ended up with what I guess is a tad less than a 10 gallon water change (on about a 90 gallon total volume).

Did water testing today and Nitrates are 40 (has been pretty solid - but its an API test so the color is a best guess). Where I'm concerned is my alkalinity is down to 8.8 (and has been dropping over the last 2 months from a solid 10 when the tank was started first week of April), calcium is (API test) 340 and Magnesium (Red Sea test) 660. My phosphates today (Hanna test) were 0.3 which is about average.

I feel as if I want to do a could of back to back (week between) 20-25% water changes and try to get the numbers "back up" to where they should be.

In comparison I have a nano tank set up (for my wife) using the same salt Alkalinity is 11.5 and Calcium was 460 (didn't test mag here).

Thoughts?

[edited to add video]

 

[taricha]

Let me put it this way, I don't think avoiding all water changes is that important, unless your dinos have a big response to them.
But if you want to, then you can fix alk/Ca with kalk or 2-part. (Read the label on 2-part. Mine came with trace elements, Fe etc included in the Ca part. That should be avoided. )

 

[FLReef32043]

Let me put it this way, I don't think avoiding all water changes is that important, unless your dinos have a big response to them.
But if you want to, then you can fix alk/Ca with kalk or 2-part. (Read the label on 2-part. Mine came with trace elements, Fe etc included in the Ca part. That should be avoided. )

TY for the input. I had figured that the complete absence was going to bite me Glad ot know it is better. And I had debated dosing as well but now we are getting into territory where I am a little more timid

Tks again for the input.

 

[FLReef32043]

TY for the input. I had figured that the complete absence was going to bite me Glad ot know it is better. And I had debated dosing as well but now we are getting into territory where I am a little more timid

Tks again for the input.

With the relative decline of the dinos I am now seeing what appears to be cyanobacteria growing. Comes off in mats and under the scope looks just like online images of cyano. Still dosing silica (missed a bunch of days this week due to pressing items) but I'm still seeing diatoms in my samples.

Any suggestions on battling dinos and cyano at the same time?