dino experiment

[brandon429]

Man that's terrible if these guys ever hit my bowl i'm going to run for the hills screaming

In my opinion the battle does not lie in nutrient control it lies in direct control of the pest since these are obligate hitchhikers

That's one benefit of having an aged tank that is already fully stocked...no more additions means my pest wars will be centered around gha, cyano, things we can catch from the air. In the rare times I shoe horn in another frag i'm pre dipping the heck out of it as preventative (usually at least the frag plug base)

 

[burnah]

hey there, thanks for the read, good to hear that at least some of you managed to win the battle. ive lost it once, did a restart of the tank after 4 weeks of darkness...

now ive got them again, hopefully this time my tank is better in shape to cope with it and i will drive them away.

greetings

 

[Aquaman101]

hey there, thanks for the read, good to hear that at least some of you managed to win the battle. ive lost it once, did a restart of the tank after 4 weeks of darkness...

now ive got them again, hopefully this time my tank is better in shape to cope with it and i will drive them away.

greetings

Can you give me an idea of how you restarted your tank? I've been considering trying to restart it, but I don't know what to do with all my corals, clams & other inhabitants.

 

[burnah]

well, some of my corals survived the long blackout. ive never thought this possible, but now i believe my green montipora digitata would even survive a nuclear catastrophe. i did not light the tank and then i put new corals and fish in it. it was not a total restart, as i kept my sand and rock.

hard to say how to do that with saving the corals. setting up a holding tank for the time of the blackout might be an idea. i am already starting to think about what to do as they get worse and worse and i do not want to do anything like that

 

[Pants]

sudden salinity changes are pretty bad for dinos so a freshwater dip of corals you remove to do your restart should lyse the dinos. I've lost some of the dinos in seconds of exposure to salinity differences of just ~5ppt.

 

[HighlandReefer]

Pants,

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Most of the pests that hobbyists are identifying (without the use of a microscope) as dinos may very well be cyanobacteria with some dinos mixed in (perhaps some algae as well).

Cyanobacteria are tough to get rid of in many cases. Lots of elbow grease, increased filtrations and keeping at it is the best way to erradicate any of these algalg, cyanobacgterial and dino pests IMHO. Keep the tank spick and span and you will eventually erradicate the pest, while maintaining low nutrient levels.

 

[HighlandReefer]

Be careful and properly quarantine any rock or organisms you introduce into a system. Use a good light to quarantine with to allow pests to grow. If pests show up in quarantine it is much easier to erradicate them in quarantine than in a reef tank with losts of organisms and live rock. Be careful to not overfeed your system and let the nutrient levels get out of hand. Keep the tank clean of debris including sand beds if not deep.

If you see a strange growth on rock, I would get rid of it quickly unless you are positive of what it is. Introduce new organisms slowly in number, adding to many at one time is asking for problems.

 

[HighlandReefer]

This is what natural reef rock looks like in the wild, covered with many organisms which you don't want in your tank. Then they clean up the rock because some of the growth dies off, but not all of it and then you put it into your tank where these organisms start growing again. The algae & cyanobacteria can survive quite harsh conditions. The dead and dieing things on & in the rock crevises will break down and drive nutrient levels up and the pests will feed on this material directly.

FWIW, algae & cyano can survive much better than most coral can & both algae and cyano produce some nasty toxins to keep other things away. Some of these toxins can cause problem with coral as well. The ocean is a dog eat dog world with chemical warfare allowed. GAC will help out with the chemical warfare, but these toxins have already done their damages with neighboring coral before they a cycled to the GAC. The same applied to the toxic dinos that may get into your tank.

 

[HighlandReefer]

Pants,

It's nice having aN expert like you in the Chem Forum.

 

[Pants]

Pants,

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Most of the pests that hobbyists are identifying (without the use of a microscope) as dinos may very well be cyanobacteria with some dinos mixed in (perhaps some algae as well).

This is what I and my colleagues expected when I decided to get people to mail me their dino blooms. We were wrong. It seems hobbyists who respond to us (so these are people who probably spent time reading the various threads on online forums and related websites) are getting their ID right most of the time.

The really astonishing thing about this is that dinoflagellates are an incredibly diverse group of organisms (about half are photosynthetic, many are mixotrophic, many are predators or parasites, some are benthic others are planktonic, etc) and yet people are correctly identifying dinoflagellates with great accuracy. The dinoflagellates that people are identifying are in wildly different taxonomic groups with very different biology, and yet at the macroscopic scale they are growing similar enough to each other and different enough from other algae that hobbyists can identify them as dinoflagellates. My advisor is beside himself. He thought this whole exercise was going to be a huge waste of time and I think he is now growing excited about it.

The few samples where I can't identify the dino have all been samples that were badly damaged in transit, so it is hard to know if they were dinoflagellate blooms or something else. Every sample I have received in good condition has been a dinoflagellate and has been totally dominated by the one species of dinoflagellate (rather than a community of algae).

It's nice having aN expert like you in the Chem Forum.

Thanks. My brother is a chemical oceanographer from Caltech so I can also pass on more chemistry related questions his way.

 

[burnah]

thanks alot for your expertise! do you still need dinoflagellates ?

 

[sahin]

This is what I and my colleagues expected when I decided to get people to mail me their dino blooms. We were wrong. It seems hobbyists who respond to us (so these are people who probably spent time reading the various threads on online forums and related websites) are getting their ID right most of the time.

The really astonishing thing about this is that dinoflagellates are an incredibly diverse group of organisms (about half are photosynthetic, many are mixotrophic, many are predators or parasites, some are benthic others are planktonic, etc) and yet people are correctly identifying dinoflagellates with great accuracy. The dinoflagellates that people are identifying are in wildly different taxonomic groups with very different biology, and yet at the macroscopic scale they are growing similar enough to each other and different enough from other algae that hobbyists can identify them as dinoflagellates. My advisor is beside himself. He thought this whole exercise was going to be a huge waste of time and I think he is now growing excited about it.

The few samples where I can't identify the dino have all been samples that were badly damaged in transit, so it is hard to know if they were dinoflagellate blooms or something else. Every sample I have received in good condition has been a dinoflagellate and has been totally dominated by the one species of dinoflagellate (rather than a community of algae).



Thanks. My brother is a chemical oceanographer from Caltech so I can also pass on more chemistry related questions his way.

Pants, I completely reset my tank. Bleached the tank and all equipment etc. Lost most of my corals to a seperate incident. So everything in my tank is new.

Its been nearly 4 months and so far so good.

But I must say a big thank you to you for doing this work for us. Honestly its good to have you on our side. The information you pass our way is extremely useful and serves to further the hobby. :thumbsup:

 

[HighlandReefer]

This is what I and my colleagues expected when I decided to get people to mail me their dino blooms. We were wrong. It seems hobbyists who respond to us (so these are people who probably spent time reading the various threads on online forums and related websites) are getting their ID right most of the time.

The really astonishing thing about this is that dinoflagellates are an incredibly diverse group of organisms (about half are photosynthetic, many are mixotrophic, many are predators or parasites, some are benthic others are planktonic, etc) and yet people are correctly identifying dinoflagellates with great accuracy. The dinoflagellates that people are identifying are in wildly different taxonomic groups with very different biology, and yet at the macroscopic scale they are growing similar enough to each other and different enough from other algae that hobbyists can identify them as dinoflagellates. My advisor is beside himself. He thought this whole exercise was going to be a huge waste of time and I think he is now growing excited about it.

The few samples where I can't identify the dino have all been samples that were badly damaged in transit, so it is hard to know if they were dinoflagellate blooms or something else. Every sample I have received in good condition has been a dinoflagellate and has been totally dominated by the one species of dinoflagellate (rather than a community of algae).



Thanks. My brother is a chemical oceanographer from Caltech so I can also pass on more chemistry related questions his way.

Thanks for the info, this opened my eyes as well.

 

[Pants]

thanks alot for your expertise! do you still need dinoflagellates ?

I do still need dinos. The only thing I've really changed is that I am asking people to only mail them if the weather does not reach freezing. I think most of the die off in shipment has been the result of repeated freeze-thaw cycles. I can grow up the sample when it comes in and identify hundreds of species, but its impossible to tell what was the organism that was the problem.

Pants, I completely reset my tank. Bleached the tank and all equipment etc. Lost most of my corals to a seperate incident. So everything in my tank is new.

Its been nearly 4 months and so far so good.

Good luck!

Thanks for the info, this opened my eyes as well.

My best guess is that people are identifying based on color (dinos have a distinctive color) and the growth in mucosal mats. I don't think any other aquarium pest tends to grow like that. It is surprising though that hobbyists have been so accurate. I think it is also a testament to the wonderful information already available on the net. The reefcleaners algae guide seems expecially good.

 

[arom]

How do I go about sending a dinoflagellate sample to Pants?

 

[Pants]

Replied via PM but just so the info is also out here:

If you send me an address I will mail you a packet that includes tubes, instructions, packing material, and a self addressed postage paid envelope.

Its basically some screw cap tubes a small plastic bag and absorbent pads some card stock so the envelope doesn't get stuck in USPS machines and a business reply envelope. The tubes tend to take about a week to get to me though some have taken up to 2 months. If they take much more than a week stuff has died back enough that I can't tell what was the pest and some get treated roughly enough that even if I get them in less than a week enough has died that I can't tell what was the pest. We just have to hope it gets handled well. If it doesn't go well and you still have the algae I can send another package and we can try again.

I might start adding a short questionnaire about tank parameters, QT habits, and eradication methods attempted.

 

[Pants]

I got another interesting sample today I wanted to share. This was another Ostreopsis sp/Gambierodiscus group member. I am definitely still looking for more samples. I mailed off another collection package today.

Of the samples I have received all dinoflagellate blooms have fallen into one of 3 categories:
1) Prorocentrum spp.
2) Ostreopsis spp./Gambierodiscus spp.
3) A small dino that may be Symbiodinium spp. (waiting on DNA analysis to confirm)

I haven't asked everyone what extermination techniques have worked for them but of those I have asked it does seem like some methods work better with some types of dinos than others (black out, H2O2, pH, etc).

I've also found a few people with high salinity due (both people using refractometers and hydrometers). It might just be a coincidence but make sure your salinity is in the normal reef range.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I

I haven't asked everyone what extermination techniques have worked for them but of those I have asked it does seem like some methods work better with some types of dinos than others (black out, H2O2, pH, etc).

.

It would be very interesting to know if the variability in treatment results did relate to different species being involved.

 

[burnah]

hey there. thank you for your work and information! do you need some samples from europe too?

will you post pictures of the species and their respective eradication methods? that would be outstanding!

 

[Pants]

As I gather good information I'll be posting it to algaeid.com. There isn't really enough there to be useful to hobbyists yet. I currently just have a cyanobacteria up there and 2 types of Prorocentrum. I should be able to get a picture of the small Symbiodinium-like species soon but I'd like to wait until I have a name for it. The ostreopsis/gambierdiscus species I am having trouble keeping alive and so I haven't been able to capture good pictures yet.

I'd definitely need more samples but I don't know how I would get a sample from Europe to Maryland without it being dead or being very expensive to ship. Depending on weather they seem to be able to last about a week in the mail.