Dinoflagellates.

[karimwassef]

I recommended selling or giving to a robust established tank. That assumes full disclosure and agreement of the buyer.

If you contracted dinos from a coral, then your tank was already susceptible to it. Most biodiversity mature tanks should not be.

I guess I should have been more clear. Established tanks are not the same as old tanks. Sometimes old tanks lose biodiversity as a few organisms win more over time and drive others into extinction. I suspect smaller tanks are more susceptible to this.

It's a fair point to share the history of the tank if you sell or give coral.

 

[reefcentral123]

ah yes i Bought the block version too, the 8x8x4. ill be going to my lfs and buying a piece of rock from there too because i just realized i started out with only dry rock and apparently this is a contributing factor??

 

[iced98lx]

this is a contributing factor??

Speculation, but logically if you have different kinds of bacteria (variety which may be found in the liverock bin at your local LFS, or not) it would be easier to out compete the dinos. If the answer were as simple as "this particular bacteria really overpowers Dino's" we'd probably have a bacteria in a bottle solution labeled as a "Cure" for dinoflagellates.

 

[reefcentral123]

yeah that makes sense.

are those bacteria in a bottle people are adding self sustainable in our aquarium or does it require redosing? do the strains reproduce or they slowly die off?

 

[mathman7728]

another thing i tried was removing the LR that had dinos and basting the dino infested area of the LR with peroxide. i then returned the LR...i think it knocks it back so the dosing of beneficial bacteria can take over...

 

[Billybatz9]

I wonder what would happen if I dumped in the dinoflagellates from dinopet into my reef tank. How sick would that be? Also, maybe these dinos could out compete the dinos we have? They aren't brown and ugly like ours is. Just a thought.

 

[bertoni]

yeah that makes sense.
are those bacteria in a bottle people are adding self sustainable in our aquarium or does it require redosing? do the strains reproduce or they slowly die off?

I suspect that they generally last a fairly short time period due to competition from strains already in the tank. Bacteria tend to be highly specialized.

 

[Billybatz9]

Bottle of dino-x ordered. Let's see what this does.

 

[iced98lx]

I suspect that they generally last a fairly short time period due to competition from strains already in the tank. Bacteria tend to be highly specialized.

I would tend to agree. Is it possible they last long enough to keep the bacteria we don't want from keeping a foothold? I don't know.

 

[mannyhernz]

Bottle of dino-x ordered. Let's see what this does.

If you can..cancel it
Im sitting on a full bottle of it

 

[Dfee]

Do Dino outbreaks only exist in tanks with coral?

 

[Billybatz9]

If you can..cancel it
Im sitting on a full bottle of it

Did it work for you?

Edit: nvm I forgot we are in same boat. Lol

 

[Jewilson83]

Bottle of dino-x ordered. Let's see what this does.

It worked during dosing, but they came back after 2 weeks. It definitely killed all that I can see of them. Just have a plan after the treatment to keep them from coming back permanently.

 

[nvladik]

How do you manual remove them? With filter socks? I bought filter socks online for 6.50 each but they aren't washable, so I use them once and throw them away. Can get quite expensive.

Which filter socks are not washable?

 

[iced98lx]

This is why I went block, though plates and balls would have been easier to fit in places.

I've dosed about 1.5x the suggested bacteria in a bottle amounts, no cloudy tank this morning (I've had cloudy water WITHOUT dosing bottles though I couldn't absolutely be certain they were bacteria blooms) No appreciable change, though clearly 1 day in I'm not expecting one.

Slightly cloudy tank this morning. Running no filter sock and super low lights today to see how it goes. LPS look annoyed, SPS look happy as ever.

 

[Billybatz9]

Slightly cloudy tank this morning. Running no filter sock and super low lights today to see how it goes. LPS look annoyed, SPS look happy as ever.

Did you dose all bacteria at once or are you ttying one at a time?

 

[iced98lx]

Did you dose all bacteria at once or are you ttying one at a time?

I mixed them all together and dosed 150% of the lowest suggested dose for the last couple days. It would seem to the naked eye that there are less dinos in the usual places this morning but I don't take that as anything other than the lights still being low for now.

 

[justthewife]

Those bad boys look like my bad boys. hahaha

We have been running the UV for almost two weeks now I think. It has not completely gotten rid of the dino's mostly because they are not all going through the UV light. They have backed down a bit though. The sand is now speckled with them instead of covered. We have added more Macro algae, pods, have been siphoning the sandbed, adding phytoplankton and the tank has improved a lot. We are still doing water changes. There are actually times when the sand is white again. The dino's are no longer on the rocks, only the sandbed. The water is clear, the fish are more active and the corals are looking much much much better than they have in a long time so we are happier with the changes and hope for more. We have not added any bacteria supplement thus far due to lack of it being in this area and not knowing which one to go with.

 

[taricha]

Here's some shots on 400x

I took a series of this view shifting focal plane slightly on each shot, animated.
Here https://goo.gl/photos/qS1dc3C3uzCpbmvZ8

Working my way through this link http://botany.si.edu/references/dinoflag/

In case anyone else gets these, I'm fairly comfortable with thinking it's a Coolia.
Images here http://eol.org/pages/91075/media?page=12

For others trying to ID something that isn't the most common 2 or 3 families, two sources in addition to my link from above that I found helpful.

http://planktonnet.awi.de
Search "dinoflagellate" or any more specific term. It has lots of light microscope photos. Electron scope pics don't really look much like what we see through our scopes.

And finally Encyclopedia of Life. eol.org Couldn't find any other source with more than a couple pics of Coolia. EOL had 20+ pages of pics.

One issue with photo IDs. You think you have a match, then find out it doesn't hang out in the sand and prefers arctic waters.

3 days in, Operation: Grow Algae has so far, not shown any signs of increasing algae, but the dinos have intensified very noticeably. Still no harmful livestock effects that I can see, so that's good.

The patch at the front of the tank with the species I haven't ID yet has gotten thick enough I could siphon a hunk of pure dinos.
Here's some shots on 400x

I took a series of this view shifting focal plane slightly on each shot, Google photos stitched it into an animation.
Can see it here https://goo.gl/photos/qS1dc3C3uzCpbmvZ8

I think I let the sample dry, then added water back, seemed to separate the armor off the dinos.

I'll stop spamming thread with pics for ID, since this is about the best I can do. Working my way through this link http://botany.si.edu/references/dinoflag/ to see what I come up with.

 

[bertoni]

Do Dino outbreaks only exist in tanks with coral?

I suspect they can be a problem whether there are corals or not.