Dinoflagellates.

[DNA]

Very nice post Squidmotron

I agree the lack of solid information and the fact there are no concrete solutions to the problem is very frustrating.
After all that I have done to minimize them it seems like there is no cure this tank disease.
The theories that pop up are endless and many so far fetched it ridiculous. I did try the overfeeding one too by the way for a few weeks.
I have nothing against algae since it's a big part on healthy reefs. I just prefer most of it to be in the sump.
There is some microalgae in the tank, but the dinos seem to be keeping it down as well as the macroalgae.

We are like cancer patients discussing the symptoms and there are similarities between these two.

- - -

Bertoni I don't know what you mean by the bacterial statement.
The whole picture covers about half square inch and bacteria would be much smaller.
These brown specs can be seen with a naked eye given then right conditions.
The photo was taken with a 100mm macro lens through another 50mm inverted lens as well giving around 25x magnification from life size.
I did cover the tank during the first darkness period, but this last one was only to help out the AlgaeX which only asks you to reduce the light.

- - -

I did try to involve two local cold sea dino experts, but they didn't even bother to reply to my request. I think I may have found knowledgeable people to help me out with a good microscope. Dinos are quite unique and I think they are easily identified as a species, but I'd like mine to be pinpointed.

 

[brandon429]

Well at least pants' large thread here might have pics already in it

Dont know where it is but its here

Pants is the dino guy

 

[Kieth71]

When i used the ultra algae x i did 3 days of no lights prior to it arriving.I believe that is what allowed it to work well for me.I also reduced the lighting period when i was useing it as well and then ramped it up very slowly after the treatment was done HTH-Kieth

 

[bertoni]

I was wondering whether the pest, whatever it is, actually is photosynthetic.

 

[40+]

Guys I feel your pain,

I changed my very sucessful 2x2x2 SPS cube to a 36x24x20, rimless, braceless optiwhite tank last December.

On the new tank I replaced all the live rock with fresh fiji rock and a new sandbed, splashed out and got LED's to replace my T5's and once the initial cycle was finished transfered over all my live stock.

The Dino's started to appear about 6 weeks after the transfer. Water changes, syphon them out, cut back on lighting & feeding, nothing changed.

In April I took by sandbed out and replaced it, they came back in bigger numbers. My Acro's were getting hit hard, dynos on the tips.

I changed my skimmer, pipework, heater, bulbs, nothing worked. I did a 5 day blackout, nothing.

At the start of August having lost almost all my SPS, I broke the tank down, selling off almost all of what was left. I did keep my true percs, I got a 60l tank, transfered live rock and sand from the tank to the holding tank and guess what, no dyno's..... nothing, not a trace.

I got a new custom made cube and as I type this I am mixing up water with the intention of starting the cycle on Sunday.

It beat me... Dyno's 1, Reefer 0

 

[DNA]

I was wondering whether the pest, whatever it is, actually is photosynthetic.

About half of dinoflagellate species are photosynthetic and they are also mixotrophic meaning they can take advantage of environmental conditions and use a mix of different sources of energy.

Evolution has left them with skill sets that are hard to beat.

 

[DNA]

Algae X

I can't edit the opening post anymore so the AlgaeX part is here instead.

I dosed 60ml to a 1400 litre system subtacting 200 lítres for 300 Kg of live rock and equipment displacement.
(60ml was dosed into estimated 1200l of water). This means I used AlgaeX as directed by the manufacturer.

My urchin lost all of it's spines, most of my sps corals are in the process of decay and some of the LPS as well.
The SPS corals that looked good before have lost their ability to shake off the dinos that now manage to get a foothold on the weakened corals.
The dinos (zooxanthally) inside the corals have left from their tips on some while others are mostly white, but not yet quite dead.

The coral death and decay can be traced to either the 3 day dark period after the first week, the hydrogen peroxid right before AlgaeX,
the change in water chemistry due to carbon, GFO and bio pellets to be discontiued, the AlgaeX chemical itself or a combination of the above.
The toxic soup is also very likely to become more toxic without any of these filters.

Right before using AlgaeX I popped most of the the Valonia bubbles I have, thinking the Hydrogen Peroxide and the Algae X would have an easy time hitting it hard.
Not a single bubble has perished, they all look healthy and loads of tiny virgin ones are growing where the bigger ones were burst. Large or small, not a single bubble has perished.

The dinoflagellates this chemical was supposed to take care of are doing just as good as before and there is no change for the better in appearance, growth rate, amount of debris or skimming quantity.
The fact AlgaeX has failed miserably to either push back the dinos or Valonia and to leave any visible difference. Because of this I have serious doubts of this product.
If it was not for the urchin to lose it's spines I'd think I have been dosing a placebo or snake oil.
It could be that the other helping steps reefers are asked to do are really providing the results we read about in the forums.

Conclusion.
AlgaeX is was completely useless for the dinoflagellates I have.
It was also useless for bubble algae.
The corals in the tank look much worse now than before the treatment.

This was the last realistic hope for a cure, I had, for my tank.

 

[bertoni]

Well, I'm sorry to hear that the treatment didn't work. Some dinoflagellates seem to be very resilient.

I can fix the spelling in the thread, if you'd like.

 

[brandon429]

Dang DNA sorry man that stinks. If it was my tank, big water change stat.

 

[DNA]

I can fix the spelling in the thread, if you'd like.

Yes please, there is no harm in improvements.
This was written for fellow reefers to see what they are dealing with.

Now I'll take a while to think what comes next.
The excessive maintenance it takes to keep a dino tank on the right side of the line is not what I have in mind for the future.
I'd estimate it needs 5-10 times the work of a healthy tank.

 

[DNA]

Last weekend I really dived into the dinoflagellate identification I had planned. Earlier I had contacted 5 dino experts asking for help, but none of them even bothered to reply.
This left me with the difficult task of doing my best and after two days of comparing videos, images and reading through descriptions of various dino species I concluded I've got Ostreopsis.
O. heptagona fitted the videos and images perfectly and the discription the best, but O. Ovata came in close second.

This excellent source by Dr. Maria A. Faust was the most valuable information along with various articles, videos and images on the web.
http://botany.si.edu/references/dinoflag/

- - -

I also researched the health issues on humans associated with these toxins.
They are real and I strongly advise in reading up before anything else.

In the case of Ostreopsis there is bound to be palytoxin in the water column.

 

[erock68]

I too, am battling Dino's. I am 6 weeks, into the battle and it looks to be getting better.

I have stopped doing water changes, on my 75g. I have added a GFO reactor and Carbon, in a media sock. I did the 3 days of lights out (which actually ended 2 days ago) so, I am now doing 3 hrs of light per day. Starting with my Actinics and Blue Plus bank.

I have been keeping an eye on my Birdsnest. This is where I see them start to form first. They then string from tip to tip and I'm in there, siphoning out what I can.

I have also cut back on feeding. Once a day, with either pellets or algae sheets.

I have been through everything with this reef: Cyano, diatoms and the like. I will say that, this is almost heartbreaking. I'm hoping that it has been beat!

Has anyone tried using Chemiclean to battle this?

 

[tmz]

I've had sucess with the species that infested in my friends display tank at his reef shop. We raised the pH with kalk to 8.4 and sucked them out with a turkey baster every other day for about 10 days. It took about 15 minutes of work each time. They dept cming back but in less volume. After about 5 times they dtopped coming back.

I don't get them in my tanks, thank goodness. I keep pH in the 8.15 to 8.35 range ,fwiw.
A year or so ago, a new coral presented some on it's base . They disappeared in a few days without infesting the tank.

Whether or not elevated pH will work on a specific species or any at all is still questionable but worth considering along with manual removal,imo.

This article provides information that may be helpful in your casel:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

 

[bertoni]

I'm skeptical about Chemi-Clean helping with dinoflagellates, but if you get desperate, it might be worth a shot. I'd siphon out as much of the dinoflagellate mass as possible just before dosing, to reduce the amount of toxins and decay byproducts release. Also, having plenty of water on hand for changes and fresh carbon might be useful, too.

 

[mussel and hate]

I had a severe dinoflagellate bloom a few years back. I lost almost every coral, some I'd kept for over a decade at the time. Water changes seemed to fuel new growth, 3-5 day blackouts had little effect. Removal via siphon provided temporary relief. Eventually I siphoned out all my sand along with the dinos and didn't bother to replace it. The bloom ended shortly thereafter. I can't attribute cause only correlation.

Prior to the bloom I'd not done a water change in years. I dosed nothing but Kalkwasser and coral growth was glorious. I have no idea what brought on the plague, there were no new animals nor did I change maintenance, salt or anything else.

 

[DNA]

I did a single density test on my water column and counted 30 in 0,2 ml.
There are around 570 000 cells / gallon in my tank. (150 000 / liter)

228 million cells are free swimming in my 400g system. (1500 liter)

I would estimate those are less than 1% of the total number of the dinoflaggellate individuals.
That leads to a minimum of 22 800 000 000 dinos living in my tank.

23 billion dinos. That's way more dinos in my tank than all the people in the world.

 

[DNA]

I'm pulling the plug.

Oh what a joy starting all over.

 

[brandon429]

why do that before we exhaust all options that still preserve the biofilter

 

[brandon429]

the reason I hate to see a tank teardown is because they can come in again, hitchhiking into the brand new tank. we have specific dino cures in the peroxide thread, with pics, it should not be discounted especially when a start over is looming. Thats a tempting option I know, but Id sure take on the challenge if you wanted one last chance before a start over, what would you have to lose>? the way I would battle them in your tank is not like what has been posted here. 1 mil to 10 gallons is not the method I would use at all. with a full tank shot per today I can tell you if your corals can tolerate up to 4 mls per 10 gallons, like other tanks in our thread. the 1:10 is a baseline dosing that 95% of animals can tolerate, you simple need more, and, applied in a different way.


Yep, after rereading the thread, its premature takedown. All options have not been tried. its harmless at this point to let me get a hold of it with our most dedicated techniques, I still only rate the cure potential at 50% chance but thats a better chance including $$ vs a startover. a true startover is not reusing things from the old tank that dont go through total sterilization, I really hate to consider that on a running tank when obvious options are left on the table. lemme do some cpr on yer tank man

your biofilter is astoundingly tolerant of this type of work, the thread shows. we have so much more room to press than what has been tried. there are specific, multiple cures of dinos buried there even though the chances aren't much better than 50% when trying the best way we know to use peroxide. I love these challenges which is why Im pressing to avoid a startover until its truly the only option. Being tired of jacking with things is understandable if thats the reason why you are skipping the last option.

 

[DNA]

Brandon, I appreciate your feedback, but after not having any positive results from a week of using H2O2 I don't think dosing 4 times as much is going to do much good.
I would be willing to do some test tube experiments though if you could be more specific on how it should be used.

There is no way my Ostreopsis dinos can be exterminated with a spot spraying method since they cover most surfaces and are literally in every drop of water.
The same spot would be repopulated with dinos within minutes or as soon as the effect dissipates.
It would have to be a global cure that affects all of the dinos at the same time.

If I got to kill 99.9% of the dinos they would for sure be in full numbers again within a week.