Dinoflagellates.

[DNA]

Montireef and DNA have completed the 200 part survey.
It includes most of the mesureable and observable parts of reefkeeping.

I have to say I found the comparison to be very interesting and to be a huge step forward.
Our tanks had surprisingly little in common and the big picture here shows that Ostreopsis dinos don't care about a lot of things.

We have listed over 50 different things that don't matter much for dinos and dozens of new ones.
We have also listed a handful that do help and we have discussed most of them here in this thread.

I'm off the case for the summer so that's it for now.

 

[EvMiBo]

At the moment abundant and healthy plankton gets my vote.

For what? Eliminating dinos or keeping them away?

Montireef and DNA have completed the 200 part survey.
It includes most of the mesureable and observable parts of reefkeeping.

I have to say I found the comparison to be very interesting and to be a huge step forward.
Our tanks had surprisingly little in common and the big picture here shows that Ostreopsis dinos don't care about a lot of things.

We have listed over 50 different things that don't matter much for dinos and dozens of new ones.
We have also listed a handful that do help and we have discussed most of them here in this thread.

I'm off the case for the summer so that's it for now.

Are you planning on releasing the data??

 

[Mikefromaz]

Yes on the algae treatment. The reef I am keeping now went for a year anf a half with only two very minor cases of cyano. All indicators tell me that all algae were wiped out by the algae treatment. I carefully tested for ammonia during the transition and found none. This tells me that the bio filter was intact. The nitrate climbed from a constant 0ppm to 20ppm with no sign that it was slowimg. Water changes cleaning the sand and sump treating with extra bags of purigen and fresh phosguard started to turn the tank around. What made the most impact has been dosing with vodka. The dinos are well suppressed compared to a week ago however, after seeing the speed at which they conquer territory I am not ready to declare success yet. I bought an extra filter sock so I can rotate them out every teo days and my new UV bulb for my Coralife UV unit will be here Friday. I will run the UV nites only when the dinos are in the water column. Thats my input so far.

 

[bheron]

A coupe weeks ago I found this thread. I tried ID with a kids microscope and it didnt work. Hopeless I simply followed what seems to be one of the general tips here used nutrients to battle my dinos. I did:

1) siphoned off as much as I could into a filter sock
2) stopped water changes
3) turned off skimmer

Its been a couple of weeks. Almost immediately I noticed the dinos stopped getting worse. And now they're almost completely gone. Just some brown spots in some places but no "snot" or "bubbles".

My tank is fairly new and in a gradual startup stage. A little while back I had no dines but encountered an outbreak of green/blue algae all over my sandbed. so I thought, huh, I guess I need to cut down on nutrients and started an aggressive program of water changes. This is when my Dinos outbreak started.

 

[Mikefromaz]

It was proven a long time ago that dinos flouish in an excess of nutrients. Long Island sound has been plagued by red tide (dinos) whixh kill fish and inverts on a scale hard gor most people to visualize. Anyway the culprits have long been known to be nitrate based fertilizers and phosphate based detergents washing from farms and towns into the local watershed and ultimately into the sound. By the way back inthe sixties laws were passed barring phosphate detergents. In less than a year fishing and the shellfish industry were astounded by the recovery of the system. Unfortunatly the big money soap suds producets got the rulings repealed. Look up the state of Long Island fisheries if you need convincing. Any ecosystem is kept in balance by the amount of available food. The only reason dinos would subside is if they ate themselves into starvation. It is a hard way to gp bouncing back and forth between cyano/dino outbreaks trying to cure the problem with a dirty fish tank treatment. It just invites more problems down the line.
n

 

[cal_stir]

It was proven a long time ago that dinos flouish in an excess of nutrients. Long Island sound has been plagued by red tide (dinos) whixh kill fish and inverts on a scale hard gor most people to visualize. Anyway the culprits have long been known to be nitrate based fertilizers and phosphate based detergents washing from farms and towns into the local watershed and ultimately into the sound. By the way back inthe sixties laws were passed barring phosphate detergents. In less than a year fishing and the shellfish industry were astounded by the recovery of the system. Unfortunatly the big money soap suds producets got the rulings repealed. Look up the state of Long Island fisheries if you need convincing. Any ecosystem is kept in balance by the amount of available food. The only reason dinos would subside is if they ate themselves into starvation. It is a hard way to gp bouncing back and forth between cyano/dino outbreaks trying to cure the problem with a dirty fish tank treatment. It just invites more problems down the line.
n

I've been battling Ostreopsis Ovata for a year now and the only thing that has really worked is letting the water dirty up a bit, to the point where I have to clean the micro algae on the glass daily.

 

[bertoni]

There are many species of dinoflagellates, and I would hesitate to make any assumptions about how all the species react to different environments. High-nutrient waters definitely can encourage the blooms of some species, but that doesn't mean that all dinoflagellates require an environment like that. From what I can tell from reading threads here, tanks respond very differently to methods for dinoflagellate removal. Part of the issue could be different species, and other factors might be specific to the tank in question.

 

[Mikefromaz]

Very true

Very true

Jonathan...I agree completely with your observations. I fully expect more of the same. Good days and not so good. The truth is I have done most if not all of the standard push back stuff. I have two packages of eurythromycin for a couple of years now hoping never to need them. The ol' nuclear option huh?

 

[EvMiBo]

There are many species of dinoflagellates, and I would hesitate to make any assumptions about how all the species react to different environments. High-nutrient waters definitely can encourage the blooms of some species, but that doesn't mean that all dinoflagellates require an environment like that. From what I can tell from reading threads here, tanks respond very differently to methods for dinoflagellate removal. Part of the issue could be different species, and other factors might be specific to the tank in question.

Agreed. The species in the North East is Alexandrium fundyense. It seems like what we deal with in aquariums is of the genus Ostreopsis. For the most part it seems like making the water "dirtier" helps to keep Ostreopsis at bay. I've been doing that (no water changes, no carbon, the gfo, etc.) then nuking with FM Ultra Algae X. 7th dose tonight, dinos about 90% gone, corals fine, fish fine. Algae growth on glass has come to a hault. Fingers crossed...

 

[cal_stir]

Agreed. The species in the North East is Alexandrium fundyense. It seems like what we deal with in aquariums is of the genus Ostreopsis. For the most part it seems like making the water "dirtier" helps to keep Ostreopsis at bay. I've been doing that (no water changes, no carbon, the gfo, etc.) then nuking with FM Ultra Algae X. 7th dose tonight, dinos about 90% gone, corals fine, fish fine. Algae growth on glass has come to a hault. Fingers crossed...

Careful with the FM Ultra Algae X, my dinos appeared after using that to try to get rid of bubble algae, and the bubble algae came back to.

 

[Mikefromaz]

Cal_stir. I had the same experience using API Marine Akgaefix. I dosed that stuff for not quite two weeks. I was happy and amazed to see how it cleared the hair algae etc. I had bare live rock again! A day or two more and the dinos hit hard. My best guess is the Algaefix took out macro and micro algae, the net effect being no competition for nitrates and phosphates. My first clue of trouble was my nitrates. For a year and a half my nitrates never read higher than 5ppm. I checked the day the dinos hit and the reading was 20ppm and climbing. An additional check showed zero ammonia which told me the conversion process is ok. Your experience is the third one I heard in the past week.

 

[Mikefromaz]

I find it very interesting that we seem to have two opposite treatment strategies. One involves a considerably dirty tank approach followed up by an algae killer and one approach started with algae killer hoping nutrient reduction and all the regular chemicals and UV treatment will work. I will try any approach if it works. I guess I must be lucky to have reefed for twelve years before catching dinos. The bottom line is I am no dino expert. That being said I will continue to report whatever progress does or doesnt happen in my tank and keep an open mind to other strategies.

 

[mathman7728]

lighting in sump, no lighting in DT

lighting in sump, no lighting in DT

do you turn off the sump light when you are not running lights in the DT?

i removed the dinos in the sand as much as possible and then went lights out for 3 days. i added cleto and other red algae in the sump with a small light in hopes that the cleto would take out any excess nutrients that may have been feeding the dino. but then i wondered if keeping the lights on in the sump would allow the dinos to survive in the sump and just return to the DT when i turned the lights back on"¦..

 

[bertoni]

I agree that keeping the lights on in the sump will defeat a lot of the purpose of doing a lights-out treatment. You might want to try it again.

 

[karimwassef]

You know... That might be the key!

Ok. Just stay with me till the end.

We're trying to remove a disease organism from the body (the reef), right? Most separation mechanisms depend on changing states to remove the offensive material from healthy tissue.

So, if you want to remove iron from dirt, you use a magnet over a conveyor belt.
If you want to remove fats from water, you cool it and skim the surface.

The idea is that, if the material to be removed has a preferential attraction, that can be used against it. That preference can isolate it from the rest of the system.

So how about we use light as a localization binding agent?

We turn all lights off for 24hrs, including the sump. Then we run an outside loop to a holding tank... Maybe a 5 gal bucket? ... That is very brightly lit. The bucket has lots of large opening mesh media (like netting or open weave cloth).

With a slow enough flow, the protozoa should choose to settle to feed off the light. Run this for 24hrs, then throw away the cloth or mesh...

Just thinking in a different box, and this is just crude concept for now, but maybe this allows for a low risk removal method.

Kind of like a hyper fast turf scrubber for dinos...

 

[karimwassef]

I'd run the return through a uv sterilizer and then straight into the skimmer intake for safe measure... LOL!

 

[karimwassef]

Instead of a 5 gal bucket, maybe a shallow tray to give the slowest flow and maximum light exposure? It would need to be covered up completely to avoid any light getting to the tank or sump.

 

[msderganc]

You know... That might be the key!

Ok. Just stay with me till the end.

We're trying to remove a disease organism from the body (the reef), right? Most separation mechanisms depend on changing states to remove the offensive material from healthy tissue.

So, if you want to remove iron from dirt, you use a magnet over a conveyor belt.
If you want to remove fats from water, you cool it and skim the surface.

The idea is that, if the material to be removed has a preferential attraction, that can be used against it. That preference can isolate it from the rest of the system.

So how about we use light as a localization binding agent?

We turn all lights off for 24hrs, including the sump. Then we run an outside loop to a holding tank... Maybe a 5 gal bucket? ... That is very brightly lit. The bucket has lots of large opening mesh media (like netting or open weave cloth).

With a slow enough flow, the protozoa should choose to settle to feed off the light. Run this for 24hrs, then throw away the cloth or mesh...

Just thinking in a different box, and this is just crude concept for now, but maybe this allows for a low risk removal method.

Kind of like a hyper fast turf scrubber for dinos...

Very interesting idea. It may work for cyano as well...

 

[karimwassef]

Well, turf scrubbers have existed for a long time. I'm adapting it to dinos with a lights out mode to drive them out.

A traditional turf scrubber uses algae to bind excess nutrients that can be exported when you scrape the algae off. The point there is to grow the algae - on purpose. The water runs FAST and for a long time (weeks).

This modification doesn't want to cultivate dinos! Just to bind them to a mesh matrix for direct export. The water runs slow and export is very frequent - every 6 hours?

 

[Randyp79]

Pants,

Can you i.d. the type of dino in this video? Sorry for the poor quality, it was the best I could get with my cell phone and my classroom microscope. I have the typical brown snot with O2 bubbles. Not sure if you can see it in the video but the dinos seem to spin as they swim. https://vimeo.com/128820833