Dinoflagellates.

[jedimasterben]

PART ONE

I'm going to attempt to recount my, uh, battle, with dinoflagellates, which I assume to be Ostreopsis sp. due to significant death of my vast cleanup crew (hundreds upon hundreds of various snails) and all herbivorous fish (save for Siganus doliatus, which are immune to the toxins).

I first noticed these slimy, snotty strings growing in various places in my tank sometime around mid-February of last year.

The only event preceding it was the removal of my broken-in and very well-functioning waterfall algae scrubber for a protein skimmer after reading a lot of data back and forth on phosphate and how it can be removed, etc etc. I honestly think that was the breaking point at which my tank took a sharp turn for the worst.

After not knowing what it was, I started spot treating with peroxide daily, which worked, although the slime would come back within a few hours. Shortly after I figured out I was dealing dinos. For the next year or so, I watched nearly all of my cleanup crew die off, lost every tang I would put into the tank (even after rigorous quarantine procedures, which I eventually gave up on), and SPS corals would get the dinoflagellate mucous on them and would die back wherever it touched, leaving them with patches of flesh that would then shortly thereafter die.

Sometime in March I began dosing peroxide, and I mean extreme dosing. I skipped that piddly '1mL per 10 gallons for a dinos cure' **** that you see regurgitated online and straight to dosing 100mL twice a day with my sump turned off, leaving ~60-65g water in my tank. I spot treated as much as I could, and let it simmer for an hour or so. I did this for a few days, and it seemed to really hit them hard, and for a while it seemed like I was dino free - but, as dinos are wont to do, they returned with a vengeance.

I fought them off and on, proactively and passively, until late December. The sort list of 'treatments' is as follows:

• Large doses of peroxide (up to 300mL twice to three times daily in the 60-65g volume)
• Large doses of Dr. Tim's Eco-Balance (which got expensive very quickly)
• Wet skimming
• Very wet skimming
• No skimming
• No feeding for weeks at a time (which killed a few of my already stressed fish)
• Raising pH using saturated kalkwasser
• Raising pH more using sodalime CO2 absorbent media on the skimmer air intake
• Combinations of all of the above.

Fast forward to December 31st. I'm moving the tank to a different room, and figure that while I'm doing that, I'm gonna see if there is anything I can do about these damn dinos, so I took out the nicest rocks I have (some fresh uncured live rock from KPA) and any rocks that had corals encrusted, and then pulled the other corals out and onto frag plugs, and placed them into a Biocube that had been cleaned out with vinegar, and performed a seven day blackout, in combination with running a new 9w UV sterilizer and dosing ~30mL of peroxide daily.

(light was on there so I could make sure not to squish things)


During day two inspection:

After the lights-out period, I didn't see anything for several weeks. I started feeding the corals again after the initial seven days and they began to recover without any losses. I stopped peroxide dosing somewhere around day 12 or so. All was well, or so it seemed.

By February 15th, dinos had reared their ugly heads again.

It was around this time that I had gotten in contact with user 'Pants' about them. I was to send a sample to him once it stopped being so damn snowy everywhere, but that lasted for far longer than was expected. It was during that waiting time that I learned about dinocysts, aka part of their life cycle where they 'hole up' and form a cyst and can wait years and years and years before bursting to see if conditions are favorable. Disheartened but determined I continue to try and treat, as I know that there has to be some way - but if I don't find any, then I am ok with throwing out all of the coral and acid-washing the rock and starting over.

Pants tells me that one thing that absolutely murder-fies dinoflagellates is a rapid salinity change of 10ppt or more. So I begin prep for doing a freshwater dip. I was not sure how it would affect the maxi mini anemones, sponges, and feather dusters that I have in the tank that I really do not want to lose, so Pants said I could do a half-seawater half-freshwater dip and it will have the same effect, as long as the salinity change is rapid it will do the deed.


Now I'm armed with a DSLR.

This is all that remains of the gorgonian in picture number two above.

(sorry, image limit reached, starting next post now)

 

[jedimasterben]

PART TWO

And despite the neglect this Biocube has seen over the past few months (no water changes, little food, only light and topoff), this tank has had far more coralline growth than my 80g had ever seen.

Anyhoo, so, on April 3rd, I took all my coral, rock, and equipment from their Biocube and performed a dip that consisted of 15ppt saltwater, freshly mixed. The dip lasted a minimum of 15 seconds full exposure (for the porous rocks, the timer started after I had rotated the rock and shaken it to try and get the water into as much of the holes as possible), then all parts were scrubbed with a small brush, swished around in a 35ppt rinse bucket, and then placed into a brand new tank filled with freshly mixed 35ppt water. I also accidentally performed a short blackout - from the time I started dipping to the time I remembered to plug the light back into the timer (oops) was ~36 hours.

I killed hundreds of fireworms.

And I mean hundreds.

This one was several inches long.

I fed the tank every other day with some Golden Pearls to keep some nutrients in the now super-clean water, and dosed KZ Coral Snow to keep particulates down, and any remaining dinos that may have escaped should, in theory, be collected by the clay and caught by the mechanical filtration. From the death of all the fireworms, there was a nutrient explosion. No ammonia, so corals were not harmed, but hair algae simply exploded faster than I'd ever seen before. I don't really care about algae that much, anything that can help outcompete dinos is welcome in my tank.

Well, a few days ago I came home to see a few strings here and there on corals - but I noticed that the HOB filter was pushing bubbles into the tank, and had hoped that that was the cause, so I turned it off and let just the two powerheads in the tank provide flow and aeration. And unfortunately, they're back, and growing on the hair algae I had hoped would keep them at bay.

Currently prepping the corals for dip number two - this time, it's balls to the wall, straight tap water will be used for the dip (which will be 30 seconds this time) and the rinse. I have a private well, the only stuff in the water is sulfur, a crapload of calcium, and a little nitrate, and I have a water system to take out the sulfur, the calcium, and the chlorine injected to get rid of the sulfur lol, so there is nothing necessarily harmful left in the water.


Wish me luck!

 

[Squidmotron]

Holy crap that is a terrible story.

 

[natas]

jedimasterben

Couple of questions for you.

Did you start with Live rock or with base rock?
What salt brand are you using?
What type of lights do you have in your display tank?

I am just asking because the strain I have looks very close to yours but mine is limited to the sand in my display and all over in the sump.

The one thing that makes me think my dino is different is that I have no fish deaths (2 tangs and many other fish). I have seen some snails die but I still have a healthy population.

 

[jedimasterben]

jedimasterben

Couple of questions for you.

Did you start with Live rock or with base rock?

Base rock that was acid washed seeded with live rock and seeded with collected macroalgae from the Indian River Lagoon.

What salt brand are you using?

Instant Ocean. Zero water changes were and are performed on the system except for one when I realized that my refractometer was not calibrated properly. I can attest that if acclimated to it, these dinoflagellates can thrive in a salinity nearing 60ppt.

What type of lights do you have in your display tank?

Custom LED.

I am just asking because the strain I have looks very close to yours but mine is limited to the sand in my display and all over in the sump.

The one thing that makes me think my dino is different is that I have no fish deaths (2 tangs and many other fish). I have seen some snails die but I still have a healthy population.

I had at first thought that my quarantine procedures just weren't going properly (treating with praziquantel and Cupramine for all fish) and that maybe the strain of ich that I battled for over a year was still lingering around, but compounded by the fact that I lost almost every snail I had, that's what I now chalk it up to.

 

[natas]

I went to a lfs today and the owner here swore up and down that a magnesium level of 1600 maintained for 3 weeks will kill it. I said to him that sounds like what I did to kill bryopsis. He told me that's how he discovered it. They were killing off bryopsis in a customer tank that also had dino. Three weeks later both were gone, so they use this same technique for dino on all customer tanks.

Anyone else heard or tried this? I actually have a gallon of tech m left over from my bryopsis battle last year.

 

[Squidmotron]

I went to a lfs today and the owner here swore up and down that a magnesium level of 1600 maintained for 3 weeks will kill it. I said to him that sounds like what I did to kill bryopsis. He told me that's how he discovered it. They were killing off bryopsis in a customer tank that also had dino. Three weeks later both were gone, so they use this same technique for dino on all customer tanks.

Anyone else heard or tried this? I actually have a gallon of tech m left over from my bryopsis battle last year.

Try it. Thing is: 3 weeks is a long time. Lots of stuff can happen in that time.

It also occurs to me that bryopsis could be mistaken for dinos.

 

[jedimasterben]

My magnesium level was maintained right at 1590ish for several months last year. Magnesium doesn't harm dinos - and if it did, it wouldn't kill them, but would probably make them think that 'conditions are unfavorable' and they would encyst and open back up after the conditions fall back into line with what they want.

That, or they are misidentifying dinos. Or they just want to sell magnesium supplements lol

 

[Kieth71]

I am currently at what i hope is the end of a long battle with dino's. I can not be sure because i been through this a couple of time. What worked this time(or hope worked) was that i did a lights out period for 3 days. The fourth day i started treatment with ultra algae x and continued to treat for an additional dose. That is seven full days with no lights. I dont have alot of corals left so i was more concerned with erradication then i was the health of the corals.I have an acan,crocea clam and a few sps frags that went through this. I then turned the lights back on and treated an addidtional 6 treatments or 12 days. I did a 40g water change on a 140g tank and ran carbon. I am on day four since the water change and no signs so far. I have tried to use the algaex in the past without the lights out and it didnt get rid of them.We will see if this works long term buty i am at least at this point hopeful-Kieth

 

[natas]

Well I may give the magnesium thing a try.

However, the strange thing is my theory on a rusting pump causing the dino bloom may actually be right. I still have the pump in my tank (still waiting for a response from manufacture) but I put cuprisorb in my fuge. Its been in the fuge for almost a week now and the dino appears to be shrinking. It is no where close to being gone but man its about half the amount that it was before I started this.

I am not going to get my hopes up tho. Lights out with peroxide had me with high hopes until I turned my lights back on and it came back 2 days later.

 

[DNA]

jedimasterben, that was very informative post and it describes well how resilient dinos can be.
You also mentioned your long term lack of water changes, the regular strenght salt brand and LED lights which I found to be informative.
I had thoughts on skipping water changes for months and then switching salts.

----

Ianshark there is no certain way to rid tanks of dinos.

---

 

[DNA]

I've had so many theories on what could be causing dino outbreaks it would take forever to try them all out.
My current favorite is a far fetched one, but has some sense to it. It's about fighting dinos with dions.

The problem with Reef Central is there are no surveys allowed so mass gathering of information is really hard.
Imagine if we could round up all dino infested reefers and ask them well thought out questions.
Pants has an off site survey, but he does not ask you about bio diversity and coral saturation in your tank.

We know all tanks have dinos of various strains. So if there is lack of competition from wanted strains like the ones in corals anothers have room to step in and bloom.
Right now, the information I need is from reefers with dense and healthy coral growth. I've seen such tanks with dinos, but in very low numbers.
If this and a long term dino bloom can coexist the theory is proven wrong. It's the blooms that cause the problems, not the small numbers that most of the time go unidetified.

Here is an example from a well known youtube reefer. You can see strings of dinos flapping in the current, but they don't seem to be causing any problems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhvcCX27U_k#t=679

The results I'd be expecting is that dino blooms happen more often in tanks that are low in bio diversity and corals.

 

[Squidmotron]

I had this same idea recently. We really need to information gather every single piece of data from the tanks of people with dinos as possible and try to ascertain at least a correlation. It's not hard science, but it's the best we have. We may at some point be able to find a predictable pattern that helps us in the right direction.

 

[jedimasterben]

The issue is that there are several species which are the 'problem' dinoflagellates in our tanks - and what works better against one may not even affect the others.

 

[Squidmotron]

The issue is that there are several species which are the 'problem' dinoflagellates in our tanks - and what works better against one may not even affect the others.

So bet it. Any knowledge is good knowledge. Any correlations at all might give us a tip.

We are also getting better at identifying dinos.

For instance, I know I probably don't have the Ostreopsis that a lot of you have, now, thanks to Pants' magnifications.

What I have looks almost identically like the Amphidinium slides, although it's possible it could be Procentrum I suppose. I'm not exactly an expert.

..

I should also add that I no longer get the dino plagues any more. Occasionally, like this week, I will get an outbreak. It starts in the sand. A couple days lights out and it's gone for awhile. For some reason, it never gets to the old proportions anymore.

Of course I would very much like to eradicate it permanently. It's still very annoying. And ugly.

 

[natas]

Wonder if pants has the time and would be willing to work with us all doing a crowd funding deal to try and come up with a proven way to kill theses guys off. I already have spent money on trying to kill mine off with zero results. I would chip in $100

 

[jedimasterben]

Exposure to water with a salinity that is ~10ppt different will kill any dinoflagellate according to him. Not much can work better than that.

Again, having several different species (with some acting similarly) and with some things working on lightening their attack to doing nothing at all poses a real problem. Next is the problem that every tank is different, with different lighting, different equipment, different filtration, different algal and bacterial inhabitants that would compete, etc etc. There is no 'one size fits all' treatment, and realistically I have doubts that any are actually treating the issue and not just causing the dinos to encyst to pop up at a later date. Luckily for most people, tanks are dismantled and sold fairly often in the hobby so they don't end up dealing with them again, only those that keep their tanks around for several years may see a resurgence.

 

[Squidmotron]

Wonder if pants has the time and would be willing to work with us all doing a crowd funding deal to try and come up with a proven way to kill theses guys off. I already have spent money on trying to kill mine off with zero results. I would chip in $100

Ditto.

 

[gianni gr]

dino flagellati

dino flagellati

hello myself, I have had problems with dino flagellates I tried everything but I've had them for a year.
I was able to delete them with a product called "CLEAR DROPS" SHG
I HAVE TO SAY THAT IN 3 DAYS are gone.
MEOBOOT ENZYMES ARE NOT A MEDICINAL

 

[Squidmotron]

Do they sell that here? I will pay you 6000 dollars for a bottle.