Alright Guys & Girls, like the title says I have encountered a new roadblock in the hobby.
This thread will show you guys every step I take to battle this annoying pest and hopefully after I win this war you guys could look back to this thread to follow my steps and not make all the mistakes I might make along the way.
The first phase of this was identification of the threat. I knew it was Dinoflagellates because it fit the bill visually but I needed to know what strain of Dinos it was.
This link is not mine but it’s to illustrate what I mean by the visual characteristics.
Dinoflagellates Example
Now what I did is I asked @Ernie Crucet If he could check some samples under the microscope and since he has already been through dinos and knows the nightmare they’re he drove to me at 9pm to pick up the samples and looked at them under the microscope.
after getting the images we ID it on google but to make sure we checked the Dinos thread here In R2R and asked @taricha for an ID. He confirmed it was Amphidinium Dinoflagellates. You can check his thread HERE and my question HERE
He recommended I let it run it’s cycle since Amphidinium isn’t toxic or very little and it isn’t entirely considered a pest. So I decided to do following.
Plan of Action 1.0:
I will follow this 100% for 2 weeks and if this doesn’t work I will transition to plan 2.0 but let’s hope this works out.
This thread will show you guys every step I take to battle this annoying pest and hopefully after I win this war you guys could look back to this thread to follow my steps and not make all the mistakes I might make along the way.
The first phase of this was identification of the threat. I knew it was Dinoflagellates because it fit the bill visually but I needed to know what strain of Dinos it was.
This link is not mine but it’s to illustrate what I mean by the visual characteristics.
Dinoflagellates Example
Now what I did is I asked @Ernie Crucet If he could check some samples under the microscope and since he has already been through dinos and knows the nightmare they’re he drove to me at 9pm to pick up the samples and looked at them under the microscope.
after getting the images we ID it on google but to make sure we checked the Dinos thread here In R2R and asked @taricha for an ID. He confirmed it was Amphidinium Dinoflagellates. You can check his thread HERE and my question HERE
He recommended I let it run it’s cycle since Amphidinium isn’t toxic or very little and it isn’t entirely considered a pest. So I decided to do following.
Plan of Action 1.0:
I will follow this 100% for 2 weeks and if this doesn’t work I will transition to plan 2.0 but let’s hope this works out.
- Daily substrate syphoning (through 50 micron polishing pad back into the sump).
- No water changes.
- Scrub the rocks daily with a toothbrush.
- Shorten the light schedule from 12hrs to 9hrs slowly to not shock corals.
- Add copepod
- Add Phytoplankton.
- Nitrifying bacteria.