dino experiment

When I dosed peroxide, I had it really bad. It took all the way up until the 9th day IIRC - BUT - there were a lot of other factors involved too. I siphoned out the top 1/4" to 1/2" of the sand (since this is where mine was most abundant) into a doubled up pair of filter socks and re-used the water. I ran carbon, I skimmed as wet as I possibly could and I ran a UV. All of this was after a 3 day blackout.

The only time I ever see it come back is for some reason, it will grow on the tips of my gorgs on occasion when they shed. After a week or so, it goes away on it's own.
 
Does anyone have any experience/thoughts on dosing H2O2 in a tank with a neme? I've been wanting to try it but I'm a scared it will hurt/**** off my RBTA.
 
I don't know how much help I can be in helping you folks figure out how to kill dinos, but I am getting my PhD studying them and might have some useful insights. The descriptions of these pest blooms sound a lot like a group of dinoflagellates I study from the genus Prorocentrum. Many of these are toxic (Diarrhetic shellfish poisoning) and some non-toxic ones cause harmful blooms in the wild simply by using up all the available oxygen (Mahogany tide).

These dinos and most others like low light levels (less than 90 PAR), and low flow.

If anyone has a microscope they can put their dinos under I might be able to ID at least to the genus level. Ideally, as I request in this thread, we could find a way to get me a sample of your bloom. If it turns out to be a Prorocentrum I could show you some electron micrographs of your dinos.
 
My dinos returned, again, and I started thinking that maybe the water quality I used for top-off weren't as good as I thought. My RO/DI was starting to get old. So I changed some of the tankwater, and bought a new RO/DI. I still have dinos, but it is spreading MUCH slower than earlier. So I am going to siphon out as much as I can, and do a BIG waterchange, and hopefully, thats where the solution lays;-) I guess earlier my top-off was feeding into the problem by adding stuff from my tapwater that dinos seem to love:-P I'll keep you posted...

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Ahh, sry, I thought you were joking. I can see now from other posts
That you weren't.

I live in Norway, so I'm guessing it too far away... :-/
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Well, this is my third blackout-try. This time I went the.whole nine.yards and kept i totally covered up for a full 10 days... Tomorrow I am going to change 80l of total 290l, while vacuuming the sandbed. Wish me luck;-)

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Envelopes are in the mail. I'll post pictures here of people's dino blooms if people here are interested and things survive the mail.
 
I was afraid to say anything before, since I could jinx it, but the ten day blackout really worked:-D The dinos went away and never came back. I did loose some SPS though. But they were already weakened from earlier attempts...

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Glad to hear the good news Jaris! I'm currently dealing with a little of the Dyno again, but I'm pretty sure I re-infected my tank from some new frags this fall 'cause I was Dyno free for a few months. This time the color is different and it's much slower growing so I'm keeping it under control with targeted syphoning and good nutrient control. It hasn't bothered me enough to declare war on them with the black-out but we'll see!
 
So far I have received 3 samples that arrived in good enough condition to ID the pest. The others I received must have been frozen and thawed a few times in transit which killed off most of the algae and made it hard to identify the one species the aquarist was having trouble with.
Of the 3 that arrived in good condition all 3 were actually dinoflagellates. The unusual thing though is that all 3 were wildly different species of dinoflagellate.

Below is a photo at 630X magnification of a species of Prorocentrum from SerpentSlick's aquarium. This is similar to species like Prorocentrum lima, Prorocentrum hoffmanianum, Prorocentrum levis, and Prorocentrum arenarium, but it isn't any of those species. This is the group I work on. Their genomes can be 100X bigger than yours and they are responsible for diarrhetic shellfish poisoning..
img_2763_595.jpg



Here is a photo at 630X magnification of a species of Ostreopsis from Potsy's aquarium. Ostreopsis does not have many named species but this is similar to the unnamed species causing harmful blooms in Italy and similar to Ostreopsis siamensis. The toxins these produce aren't widely studied but are pretty nasty. Said to be similar to ciguatera toxins produced by the dinoflagellate Gambierdiscus which these are closely related to..
img_2785-copy_595.jpg


I don't have a photo of the third because it is so small that it wouldn't look like much. I've been using the third species to train an undergraduate student and she is currently sequencing its DNA to get a better species ID.

Since every sample has given me a new species I'd love to get some more from folks who are still suffering. I think temperatures have risen enough in many states for us to avoid freezing so hopefully I'll get a higher percentage of samples surviving shipment.
 
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Pants that's great. So in string diatoms, its those little organism linked together? And how are they motile, I though cilia would be apparent at that magnification

Are they amoeboid movers?
 
I thought dinoflagellates had a flagella. hence the name. I have dino's, how would I go about sending a sample?
 
Pants I wish you could get video at that res and post up what happens when a drop of peroxide is added to the slide

Seeing the organelles/structure react would be very unique footage. I for one would enjoy seeing the manner of death, whether or not one could see damage or if its at the molecular level only with a slow dieoff

Even just a few after pics to get a general idea
 
I can capture HD video at that magnification. I might be able to find time to take some video for you guys.

Most dinoflagellates and diatoms are single celled (not filaments). Google Alexandrium catenella for pictures of filamentous dinoflagellates.

Your dinos look like filaments because they are suspended in mucous.

These do have flagella, but flagella really can't be seen well under the microscope. Dinoflagellates all have 2 flagella actually. Most of these pests do not move much though. But most other dinoflagellates are very fast swimmers.

If you'd like to send me a sample PM or email me an address and I'll USPS a collection kit with a return envelope. And by collection kit I mean some tubes and a pipet.
 
Very great thread guys. I had an issue with dino not too long ago. It was so bad that it clogged up my overflow vents on my tank. I did the 3 day blackout of my lights (250W MH, 12k bulb on a 40b) with elevated PH at 8.5.

I thought I got rid of them completely until yesterday, when I noticed the bubbles forming in my sand bed. This afternoon, mucus strands and bubbles covered all my rock, sand, and overflow box. I am deciding to use the 10 day blackout method with elevated pH to try to completely eradicate this pest. My question is how do you guys keep the tank temp down while you have your tank covered. During the 3 day black out, my tank temperature kept on climbing. I am worried a 10 day blackout will cook my tank.

Background on my tank when my first outbreak hit: The tank is a 40b, 10g sump. I run an in sump Pro Clear Aquatics skimmer. Nitrates are zero according to my API test kit. I have very little to no phosphate as I cannot even get any kind of macro algae (caulerpa, chaeto, halimeda, codium) to stay alive in my system and my LPS corals are basically exploding with growth.
 
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