Dinoflagellates - dinos a possible cure!? Follow along and see!

[RMS18]

Twilliard, I can send a sample again if you need. I have tried everything from blackouts, uv, removing half of my sand, dino-x. Nothing is working. I have the toxic dino as 90% of my snails have died. The dino since my last sample I sent you have really gotten bad. Thick carpets of the bubbles and gooey strings. It is only on my sand bed and bottom of glass. Even with lights out at night the sand in the bad areas stays brown that's how thick it is. Pods and snails don't stand a chance in the system, even lost a fire shrimp but that may have been due to the dino-x.

I can also do testing and report back with the metroplex.

 

[twilliard]

Twilliard, I can send a sample again if you need. I have tried everything from blackouts, uv, removing half of my sand, dino-x. Nothing is working. I have the toxic dino as 90% of my snails have died. The dino since my last sample I sent you have really gotten bad. Thick carpets of the bubbles and gooey strings. It is only on my sand bed and bottom of glass. Even with lights out at night the sand in the bad areas stays brown that's how thick it is. Pods and snails don't stand a chance in the system, even lost a fire shrimp but that may have been due to the dino-x.

I can also do testing and report back with the metroplex.

Yes let's document this here.
This time throughout this thread I will be posting pictures of the dinoflagellates to try to start a database.
If you are willing shoot me some over again and let's all figure this out
Thank you!

 

[FL_Reefer]

Twilliard, i am very confident in your process as we have discussed before. The one thing I am really curious about is how it will effect the Dinoflagellates contained within the coral itself as you mentioned before? Have you ever taken a sample of coral under the microscope and been able to even see them in the coral themselves? I wounder if it has the same cell structure as you are seeing from the samples. I'm sorry to hear that you now have it in the DT, at least your ahead of the curve on how to now treat them. I think that is how they got introduced into my tank as well at the time that I had them. I also know that we all have them in our tanks, what I don't know is how are they triggered to show themselves.

 

[twilliard]

Twilliard, i am very confident in your process as we have discussed before. The one thing I am really curious about is how it will effect the Dinoflagellates contained within the coral itself as you mentioned before? Have you ever taken a sample of coral under the microscope and been able to even see them in the coral themselves? I wounder if it has the same cell structure as you are seeing from the samples. I'm sorry to hear that you now have it in the DT, at least your ahead of the curve on how to now treat them. I think that is how they got introduced into my tank as well at the time that I had them. I also know that we all have them in our tanks, what I don't know is how are they triggered to show themselves.

Thank you these are some excellent questions and I will add the "trigger" to the list of questions.
Yes I can see the zooanthelle from coral under the microscope, I have an image I may post up of a test from an STN acro invaded by bacteria that shows the zooanthelle.
Similar cell shape as expected.
I was floored to find them in my DT and mad at myself the same time. You can't see them in the tank by looking but the scope showed my human error of introduction.

 

[puffy127]

So an interesting question will be what QT/dip/transfer practices will prevent introduction of dinos into the DT.

 

[mmw64]

Following. Thanks for doing math-not my strength.

 

[twilliard]

So an interesting question will be what QT/dip/transfer practices will prevent introduction of dinos into the DT.

Yes another great question that adds a lot over value to this
Thank you all for chiming in!

 

[cowboy]

@twilliard and @Alanc425 that is one of the beautiful things about metronidazole so for it shows no effect on inverts. The only effect that I have seen is if you introduce to your corals in dry form with out dissolving first it will effect LPS for a day or so. This is actually a method I have been using for years but for other issues it was not until here recently that I started paying attention to the dinos and it's effects on the dino clusters it's actually very interesting how it affects the dinos cell structure.

 

[twilliard]

Update for my frag tank

Cell reproduction has come to a standstill that I can see based on daily inspection.
I am still catching the cells at night in the hang on filter being used.
I am having to clean this daily


Now remember when you see these physically in your tank your talking about possibly millions of cells. So cleanup may be tedious.

 

[cowboy]

For future reference if you will find the small container labeled metronidazole it is actually 100% metronidazole. Metroplex is 70% 30% inactive ingredients.

 

[cowboy]

 

[RMS18]

I sent twilliard a sample last week and he identified it as dinos. I started dosing seachem metroplex on Friday and just did the 3rd dose today. I have a 75g DT and ~25g in the sump, so total volume of around 100g. I have been dosing 1,250 mg per day (125 mg per 10g). According to seachem, the included scoop is 125 mg, so I just dosed 10 scoops per day. (Seachem's dosing on the label is 1-2 scoops per 10g, but they also tell you to remove inverts). So far no visible effects on the corals (mainly euphyllia and a few monti caps) or anemone.

Have you noticed any signs of it dying off?

 

[twilliard]

Dinoflagellates will not die from this.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Following!

 

[twilliard]

Following!

Thank you for joining in!

 

[RMS18]

Dinoflagellates will not die from this.

Then how is it a possible cure?

 

[twilliard]

Then how is it a possible cure?

Cause they are unable to reproduce and also loose the bond from one cell to another holding them together. IE become free floating.
Emagine this...

Being able to stop the reproduction of the millions of dinoflagellate cells in the tank. Never to come back in force.
Using simple mechanical filtration means to remove them.
This is where it is headed

 

[RMS18]

Cause they are unable to reproduce and also loose the bond from one cell to another holding them together. IE become free floating.

Ahhh... so removal will be through filter media and skimmer I'm guessing? I think this weekend I will pick this stuff is, remove top half of my sand again and dose this stuff. Maybe that will do the trick.

 

[puffy127]

I did a huge cleaning tonight - scrubbing the rocks, stirring up the sand. I'll post an update tomorrow. Usually when I do this, they come back right away.

twilliard, what is the lifecycle of dinos? If I left them alone and they cannot reproduce, how long before they die off on their own? Or are they feeding off something in the tank and can stay alive for a while?

 

[twilliard]

Ahhh... so removal will be through filter media and skimmer I'm guessing? I think this weekend I will pick this stuff is, remove top half of my sand again and dose this stuff. Maybe that will do the trick.

Sorry I had a break in information above. Yes you are correct on this!