Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

[BurgerFish]

I beat Dinos in my nano.

Key to succes is UV sterilizer 12h at night for 8 months...

UV was 9w for 12g tank.

If after 1-2 monts you don't see any dinos, continue to use UV for at least 6 months or dinos will be back.

 

[Zoajohn]

I do think dry rock vs live rock and bacteria diversity has something to do with it.

My nano was started with dry and seeded with a small piece of LR. My first bout of Dino’s was everywhere, sandbed and rocks. Beat it with blackout and h202 the first time. Now that it’s back, it’s only on the sandbed, since I presume the rock now being a year old is more “live”

In my 30, same deal. Dry rock and 5lbs of live to seed it. Dinos appeared after massacring asparagopsis with fluconazole since there was nothing to compete against. The dinos are mild still, but they are on the dry rock and sand. Not a speck of it is on the piece of LR that’s covered in coralline.

 

[Marc2952]

So ive been hit with everything at the same time to the point where im thinking of just redoing everything, about a month ago i rescaped my tank and did the mistake of taking out half my rocks to cement with the e marco 400 kit. Idk if thats what caused the dinos but not even a week after that i got hit with this. I also got ich on my system which wiped out my tang and 3 Lyrwtail anthias so im working on getting my two clowns out to put on QT. My parameters are
Alk:8.6
Cal:480
Mag:1400
Nitrate: 5
Po:0.05
Prior to the rescape my nitrate and phosphate did bottom out to 0 but as of the last week ive been dosing to keep them up ( phosphates are dropping fast so something is consuming it). After i started dosing its just been getting worst since now its also getting on all my corals. Ive also noticed ive been getting a TON of white sponges all over the place idk if its because of the dosing.

 

[j.falk]

Did you remove it all at once?

Yes I did.

 

[Ratsinmyhead]

Any idea on an id? Sorry it’s blurry old microscope

 

[Surfzone]

This is what I have been dealing with. Can someone tell me what kind they are

 

[Ratsinmyhead]

This is what I have been dealing with. Can someone tell me what kind they are

check this out. It looks to me as we both have ostreopsis. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellate-identification-guide.671466/

 

[Lithoman]

Can anyone tell me what I might be dealing with here.. and a good course of action. DINO'S?

 

[Jcraven]

What has been everyones best approach to ridding amphididium? I had small cell and beat it with raising nitrate and dosing silicates. The GHA was a battle afterwards to get rid of but my 15 waterbox was good for months and BAM , it is back. This time I believe it is large cell. I lost a ton of zoas threw the battle . I have a 3 to 4 " deep sandbed . I really dont want to remove my sand bed . And dosing to get GHA again really sucks as well. I started vibrant to see if it will work. Should I go the route of outcompeting again then add pods , phytoplankton and more biodeversity? Dont wanna give up and nuke it but I have to beat it and find a way to keep it at bay.

 

[CoralManz]

Does this look like Osteropsis to guys?

 

[trmiv]

Well hell. After dealing with dinos in my last tank two years ago that wiped out all my corals, I was hoping to avoid them in my new tank. Been noticing a minor amount of brown algae on the sand lately so I got a microscope.



Looks like Coolia? Any advice?

In my last tank it was early days in our Dino understanding and I beat them with increased feeding, a blackout and a 24w green killing machine. This current tank has been a nightmare to keep nutrients up in with my phosphate going to zero every day after dosing .06ppm and heavy feeding. only nutrient export I even have is a skimmer. No carbon dosing, no refugium, no socks.

Now there isn’t many of these jerks yet. I’ve only found a few small patches, but I’m not taking any chances. My plan for this is:

-Begin daily phosphate dosing to stay at .1ppm
-Run my green killing machine UV in the display (worked great in my 120 previously)
-3 day black out to weaken them

Does that sound like a decent plan for Coolia?

 

[Qasimja]

I started running a uv sterilizer wednesday been keeping the lights off only turning them on to feed the fish also using a turkey baster and stirring the sand bed to get them suspended ill know in a few days how well this is working

 

[Qasimja]

well today would be 4th day of running UV still only turning the lights on for feeding and stirring the sand bed and blowing the rocks off to suspend it in the water to go through the uv i can only see a very small amount of dinos the rest are gone that could be because of the black out i will do a full light cycle starting tomorrow and see if they return

on a side note i dont run carbon yet i have a reactor never hooked it up on this tank and the uv has made the tank crystal clear before i started uv the water had a brown/yellow tinge to it i guess because of the dinos

 

[phatduckk]

I just bought a microscope to ID my own dinos.... where's the reference pics people are using to try and do an ID match?

FWIW here's mine if anyone can ID them:

 

[ScottB]

Thanks for the heads-up about the returned unit—I just ordered it.

Sorry I seem to have fallen off this thread; I am not getting notifications. Good move on the 57 watt. Catching up now.

 

[Lithoman]

Starting to see a pattern.. Less chance years ago getting Dino's.....maybe the culprit is the improved skimmers..
no more nutrients in our tanks..

 

[ScottB]

I wonder the same thing. I've also been fighting these things over the past year. Only in one of my 3 tanks though. The one that was started with only dry rock and sand has them.

How can I transfer live stock to another tank without transferring the dinos? I'm going to take down the tank with the infestation as I'm fed up with dealing with these things.

You already have dinos in every tank you have, I promise. The other two tanks are just not a sufficiently friendly environment for them to take hold.

I have 260G basement frag system composed of 3 tanks and two sumps. They are all connected, sharing the same water. The "older" tanks are visibly dino free; only the "new" tank has/had them.

You can move livestock all you want. Just keep the tanks dirty enough so that you maintain sufficient film algae, film bacteria, coralline etc.

 

[ScottB]

I just bought a microscope to ID my own dinos.... where's the reference pics people are using to try and do an ID match?

FWIW here's mine if anyone can ID them:

Amphidinium.

Good news/bad news: They are not toxic which is good. On their own, they will not kill your coral if you can keep enough nutrient available. Bad news is they don't release into the water; instead they burrow into the sand at lights out so it is hard/impossible to kill them with UV.

Here is the ID sheet if you wish to confirm.

 

[phatduckk]

Amphidinium.

Good news/bad news: They are not toxic which is good. On their own, they will not kill your coral if you can keep enough nutrient available. Bad news is they don't release into the water; instead they burrow into the sand at lights out so it is hard/impossible to kill them with UV.

Here is the ID sheet if you wish to confirm.

thanks for chiming in!

Gonna check out this thread and see what peoples' experience is.

thanks!

 

[ScottB]

Starting to see a pattern.. Less chance years ago getting Dino's.....maybe the culprit is the improved skimmers..
no more nutrients in our tanks..

Yes better skimmers. Actually better (and MORE) nutrient reduction tools in general: refugiums, GFO, carbon dosing, filtration, lanthanum chloride, Hanna Checkers (so we can measure starvation down to 1 part per billion!)...etc.

Now, compound that with so many folks starting with dry rock. Presto. Dino heaven.