Dinoflagellates.

[taricha]

who here uses metal halides and has dinos that do not dissociate into the water column at night?

No MH, but I could put MH on my tank and my amphidinium still wouldn't leave the sand. It's just not their thing apparently.

Just an update for me:

Been feeding heavy for 5 days now, skimmer has also been turned off.

-A small amount of GHA is now growing in my refugium, next to my chaeto - although cheato growth is stagnant...can't get it to grow still...
-Tank glass finally has a haze again to it - hopefully I am getting some phosphates - although the haze is whitish/cloud like, not the typical green or brown dusting...but its something...don't think I've had to clean my glass in weeks, will leave it be for now, as it sounds like anything could help out compete the dinos at this point.

Phosphate and Nitrate still reading 0.

I was dumping in 5x the normal amount of food and exported literally NOTHING for over a month and still had unmeasureably low ("zero") nitrates. My fish were just watching food hit the sand.

My theory surrounds dinos thriving when there is an imbalance between phosphate and nitrate. This tank was plagued with pale sps corals, so I began dosing nitrate, I got them up to 5 ppm, but then noticed the glass was spotless and never needing cleaning, hence my phosphates likely dove down severely - the next day dinos began.

Common theme, I always had somewhat elevated PO4, and "zero" nitrates, so I started dosing N: P dropped, GHA disappeared, and dinos moved in.
By the way, what's your test kit, and what's the lowest detectable limits on it?
because "zero" isn't zero, it's just below the lowest detectable limit.
For instance "0" on my Read Sea Nitrate kit just means significantly less than 2ppm.

 

[nvladik]

Very cool find. What is the net material? Link?
I wonder if it's the unoccupied territory that causes them to prefer it (would they do the same to a dish of new sand?) Or if it's the massive flow they react to.
Is the screen heavily lit?

Have you an ID for your dinos? If not, get them under a scope.

I don't have a name or a link for it, it came with a bunch of pond equipment I picked up a while ago. But I think any tightly packed surface will do - the more surface ares for the dynos the better. It is very well lit, and it is right across from the powerhead, so there's plenty of flow (500 gallons per hour).

I came up with this idea after an observation. I have a purple tang, and added a yellow tang (few months back). Purple went nuts and started killing the poor guy, so I built an eggcrate wall to separate the tank in half. Within 10 minutes dynos were attaching to the eggcrate. Next morning, eggcrate wasn't white color anymore. So the idea was repeat that, but tot be able to take it out daily and wash it - repopulate dynos into the sewer system.

 

[nvladik]

Location - powerheads are on the back wall. one is pointed right at it.

Mesh is pretty clean in the morning, I will try and take a picture in he afternoon.

 

[DNA]

Originally posted by taricha

From what I've seen with the macros in my tank - having looked through the microscope at the sandbed for hours before and after the macroalgae was dropped in. To say there's 10x more benthic fauna of 5x as many species as without the macro likely severely understates the case. And I was going "dirty method" before the macros went in.
side note: weeks ago when the dino outbreak was young, I coudn't find any dino predators in the tank or the fuge, or skimmer or algae sandbed I cultured. Now, everywhere I look, every sample has a handful of different organisms eating dinos.
And the locations of dinos/cyano retreat and reappearance says that proximity to algae is a strong factor.

Quote:
One could speculate the rise in Nitrates and Phosphates could be the effect rather than the cause of the dinos crashing and this instant signs of better tank health is something I've witnessed several times and reported in this thread.
Possible, but it seems really unlikely.
My tank had been holding steady at pre-dose numbers of 10+ NO3 and 0.20+ PO4 - last test on 3/4, with daily doses of 10ppm NO3 and 0.20ppm PO4. I continued this dosing along with feeding every day. I dosed and fed up to and including Friday 3/11,
Here's what my a section of my sandbed looked like on 3/11
https://goo.gl/photos/SgBdove54yMfqApT9
Light brown amphidinium/cyano dusting in the sand. Not mass globs of snot that would nuke a tank in die-off.

on Sat 3/12 and Sun 3/13 I didn't dose. I only had time to throw in 1-2 cubes of food and a couple of pinches of flake both days.
Then Mon 3/14 my sand is clean and my NO3 is 30, and my PO4 tests 0.50.

To put 0.50 PO4 in scale, my system is 245Liters (65 gal) so that's 122mg of PO4 or 40mg of P, which is the equivalent of 50g (dry weight) Caulerpa or 890grams (2.0 pounds!) wet weight. I promise I didn't have a half a pound or a pound or two pounds of caulerpa - or anything else - die in my tank without my noticing.

It seems incredibly unlikely that I added 10 NO3 and 0.20 PO4 doses every day up through Friday, and then over Saturday & Sunday while getting a couple of cubes and several pinches of flakes my tank crashed N or P to zero so violently, it killed off something on the scale of a pound or two of living stuff and broke it down back into N and P in the water column by Mon.

It seems much more plausible, in my opinion, that in some tanks when algae/whatever "outcompetes" dinos into reduction - or more likely, reduction by slowing their growth below predation rate, it might be outcompeting dinos for elements other than N and P. Especially since a lot of the tanks in question are by their own admission trying to keep a "dirty" - high N and P - state.

Maybe we get fixated on N and P because that's what we can measure and control. (just look at my routine for example) There's a fairly common fallacy in science that probably has a name - "whatever I can measure must be the most important factor." But I think it's possible we might be missing that the real action shaping the composition of the algal community is trace elements - at least under "dirty method" conditions.

Like RHF said a short while back - 800 posts ago (!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Randy Holmes-Farley View Post
...I'm not sure that all of the successful treatments (or nontreatments) don't simply work because they take away something important to the particular species of dinos that you have.
People should remember that dinos, like algae and most photosynthetic pests need ALL of a source of N, P, Fe, many other trace metals, light, space to grow on, etc.
Take away any ONE of them and the dinos will be gone.
The trick is to find which of those is easiest to reduce while still permitting an adequate amount for other tank inhabitants (since they too need ALL of these).
Keeping a dirty tank and finding the dinos decline may simply mean high levels of bacteria that are present are out competing the dinos for some trace element.

------------------------------------------------------------

Before I realized my tanks problem I just noticed it to have mad mood swings that I didn't understand.
At that time I was just considered with keeping stability, but still drastic changes took place.
What I'm saying is that we don't need to make an effort to have the tank behaving oddly.

The problem with dinos is that they don't seem to have a weakness.
We have been able to figure out some of their characteristics, but playing with Randy's list of basic needs has not revealed the magic bullet.
In my case with the Ostis adding live rock and corals has produced the best results in tank health so I predict when that day comes, nature will provide the solution rather than chemistry.
Chemicals that are supposed to eradicate something to provide a quick fix or mishaps with similar results seem to be the leading cause to let the dinos in so here we have both a reason and a cure.
e.g. Eradicate herbivores from a reef and the algae with smother the corals then the rest of the life on it goes south as well.

 

[sinful]

Somewhat of an update for my dinos. I added an empower aquatics 18w UV on my 57g tank and have it running slow flow. It's been online for about a week and running 24/7. I can say I don't really see much of a difference thus far. I thought it might be helping a little, but it has went back full swing and by 5pm my sand looks terrible and filled with Dino.

On a side note, the Dino seemed to erupt when I put a sheet of Julian sprungs "Sea veggies" in the tank. Anyone think this could be fueling Dino? Anyone else use this and notice increase in dinos when fed?

 

[karimwassef]

How slow is the flow? Are the dinos invisible at night? Is your skimmer export increasing?

 

[DNA]

I just spent some time on google looking at images of dino infested tanks looking for similarities.
What stood out and most seem to have in common is that they are sparsely populated with corals.

That led me to think about the natural chemical warfare in reef ecosystems.
A local friend has ostis, but his tank has always looked better than mine and he's got much more coral density than I have had since dinos showed up.
I had a hard time finding the dinos, but they were there. Then he built a connected frag tank and it got covered, in the empty tanks, with dinos right away.

I'm no expert in this field, but I can guess that corals constantly give off slime to defend the local territory and it's destined to spread around the tank.
Some species are more toxic than other, but they are used by corals for defense and to gain ground.

I could speculate that the toxins that are quite complex molecules don't do well in the pumps and filters so there is less effect from the coral toxins while the dinos pass due to the small and durable build.

A dangerous experiment could include an irritated green-slimer or a palythoa, but I have neither.

You see were I'm going with this....

 

[Billybatz9]

Would anyone else be interested at attempting to knock dynos back with screen/scrubber as I mentioned in a few posts? It's by no means a cure, an I am doing what's suggested in this thread for a permanent removal, but in my observation it's working to at lease control the population.

Last night, as of day 4, I observed no dynos at all on rock and sandbed, and much less dynos on the screen then prior days. My estimate is that 3/4 to 90% of dynos are gone. Best part, I still have 400 watts of lights over the tank, no dark period required at all.

If anyone's interested, please let me know I can send you some screen, I have a 50ft roll of it. I didn't see responses to my updates, so I didn't post yesterday as I figured no one was interested.

Sounds like you are on to something. WHat kind of screen do you use?

 

[sinful]

How slow is the flow? Are the dinos invisible at night? Is your skimmer export increasing?

I can take a video tonight of the flow, but I'd say it's pretty slow. Yea, dinos completely disappear at night and my sand is spotless. Skimmer wise I could say yes it probably has increased a bit. Without any other changes, it is definitely skimming much wetter than previously too.

The algae food sheet could have nothing to do with it, but they did seem to explode once I added it.

 

[karimwassef]

I just spent some time on google looking at images of dino infested tanks looking for similarities.
What stood out and most seem to have in common is that they are sparsely populated with corals.

That led me to think about the natural chemical warfare in reef ecosystems.
A local friend has ostis, but his tank has always looked better than mine and he's got much more coral density than I have had since dinos showed up.
I had a hard time finding the dinos, but they were there. Then he built a connected frag tank and it got covered, in the empty tanks, with dinos right away.

I'm no expert in this field, but I can guess that corals constantly give off slime to defend the local territory and it's destined to spread around the tank.
Some species are more toxic than other, but they are used by corals for defense and to gain ground.

I could speculate that the toxins that are quite complex molecules don't do well in the pumps and filters so there is less effect from the coral toxins while the dinos pass due to the small and durable build.

A dangerous experiment could include an irritated green-slimer or a palythoa, but I have neither.

You see were I'm going with this....

Interesting observation!! I went through this line of thinking when I was first setting up my tank and got the massive explosion of green hair algae. The very large surface area available for population + intense lighting + availability of nutrients meant that something was going to make use of the unpopulated space.

My desire was to have a coralline covered rockscape. Having a large surface of photosynthetic organisms that consume nutrient is the end goal. It helps pH, keeps the water clean, and establishes the base of the food chain. Unfortunately, while I could see the end state, I couldn't see the path to it. It was like the chicken and the egg. Having a well stocked healthy aquarium created the conditions needed for a well stocked healthy aquarium...

My reaction in using LaCl to kill off the green hair removed all the phosphate, even below what coralline could consume... And the dinos moved in.

When I got my massive rhodactis rocks, I could see them create a zone of death all around them. Partly, this was because they could inflate 10x during the day to cover any exposed rockscape. I could also see the day pH improve a little.

Life definitely created an environment that was more conducive to its own success. I don't know if it's mucus or bacteria but it's war and the more allies you have, the better.

It's like anything else in life... Success breeds success...

I think this is why external chaeto and ATS are so important, they bias the chemistry towards a healthy normal state.

I would say that I strongly agree that a sparsely populated tank is at a higher risk of invasion.

 

[taricha]

Before I realized my tanks problem I just noticed it to have mad mood swings that I didn't understand.
At that time I was just considered with keeping stability, but still drastic changes took place.
What I'm saying is that we don't need to make an effort to have the tank behaving oddly.

You are quite right. And just in case I needed a 2x4 to the head to reinforce the point that a system that looks stable and well understood may actually be on the verge of (or undergoing) large unexpected changes, today I saw a strand of my caulerpa prepping to go sexual. I probably have a greater mass of caulerpa than I do living coral tissue. That would be a massive reshaping of tank chemistry.

The problem with dinos is that they don't seem to have a weakness.
We have been able to figure out some of their characteristics, but playing with Randy's list of basic needs has not revealed the magic bullet.

I agree and disagree. "dinos" as a whole - monolithic group - have no weakness like you say. Some stay in the water, some never leave the sand, some can survive in no light, some need massive light, some only hunt prey when kept in extended total darkness, others hunt even when blasted with light. Some are nearly 100 microns, some less than 5. Some are massively toxic, others quite yummy to most everything. And their traits/behaviors also point to likely large nutritional/element requirement differences.
But I think within a certain species, there are profound weaknesses - except ostis of course: those are immortal - which is why your repeated refrain...
Name your Dinos
...is so crucial.
additionally most of the vehement disagreements in this thread about what "dinos" DO and DON'T DO and what treatments are effective and which are useless can be traced to the same source. Massive variance among "Dinos"

On a side note, the Dino seemed to erupt when I put a sheet of Julian sprungs "Sea veggies" in the tank. Anyone think this could be fueling Dino? Anyone else use this and notice increase in dinos when fed?

which "flavor" do you have, green, red, purple, mix? They are different algae species. But all of them I think are likely strong sources of metals/vitamins, which could be very important in some tanks.
Also what's the time line of dino response to the seaweed? next day I'm assuming?
I wonder if you'd get a similar response by dosing an Iron/trace element mix.

 

[Dfee]

Dino sample on way to Taricha. Thanks again.

I had trouble retrieving and scraping off glass so I wiped all the glass with a piece of towel and wrung it into the sample jar. Did that 4-5 times then put the piece of towel in jar too. Hope it works.

 

[asharerin]

Got rid of mine dosing H202 3% 1 ml per 10 gallon at night for 2 weeks. Dinos gone after 10 days, gave it an extra 5 days to be sure. 4 months later still dino free. The tank water was thick dino soup for a while there but H202 knocked them out.

My dino outbreak started after I removed a massive amount of green hair algae after neglecting the tank for 6 months due to working crazy hours on a business project. I am guessing this threw something out of balance and they took the opportunity to grow like mad.

 

[taricha]

Dino sample on way to Taricha. Thanks again.

I had trouble retrieving and scraping off glass so I wiped all the glass with a piece of towel and wrung it into the sample jar. Did that 4-5 times then put the piece of towel in jar too.

Can't wait. I'll get pics up soon as I get them. Been figuring out how to grow Dinos in a beaker. Managed to grow brown Dino sand in a little beaker from a couple of infested pebbles, so hopefully it'll work on yours too, and I can grow enough to experiment on.

 

[robertifly]

Nvladik, I think that's pretty cool, I mean anything that exports this stuff has to be helping right? BTW, several people have mentioned using air line and a hard air tube as a way to remove dino from the sand bed which seems fairly minuscule to me, not to mention "labor intense" but today I ran in a Petco to look for some hard tube. Well they didn't have any but I did purchase a small gravel vacuum that came with a priming bulb and not least important it had a bucket clip to hold the hose! This got me to thinking I clipped the hose clip so it holds the discharge right into the screen sock on my drain to sump, I vacuum all the sand bed clean, got the big nasty in the sock, return pump kept right up and circulation never stopped. Now if I can just figure how to attach a small brush to the vacuum tube to clean the rocks of dino clusters while I vacuum them out, I can make some real export headway. Still fighting dino!

 

[koral_lover]

Question to the dino experts...been trying the dirty method for a week now...I want to get a little ahead of the dinos so going 72 hour black out...I've done this before and it knocked them back to basically nothing, but they came back...

Question 1: Do I cut the refugium lights too during the 72 hour black out? Or leave them on? I have cheato, GHA, and dinos growing in the fuge....

Question 2: Do I keep feeding heavy during the next 72 hours as well?

I am also turning back on my 2 part dosers...my sps are so far gone at this point, I just want the dinos gone, so trying to raise my ph some...probably won't push alk any higher than 10 though. Worth a shot I suppose...seems multiple approaches are required. Not sure I want to invest in a UV yet...

Thanks.

 

[karimwassef]

I'm no expert- I am a survivor!
I would say you need to keep your allies growing.
The concern with leaving lights on is that the dinos can overwhelm and kill the chaeto and ATS. In theory, if the only light is on the ATS and the flow there is fast and has a large air/water interface (the way a properly designed ATS should), then dinos should have s hard time holding on.

So I would continue dosing to keeping Alk, ca, mg up + feed the ATS and keep lights there on.

And get a UV

 

[nvladik]

Sounds like you are on to something. WHat kind of screen do you use?

The screen I use is pond netting, but I think any tightly packed surface will work. As I mentioned in one of the previous posts - even egg crate. But the more surface area the better.

Nvladik, I think that's pretty cool, I mean anything that exports this stuff has to be helping right? BTW, several people have mentioned using air line and a hard air tube as a way to remove dino from the sand bed which seems fairly minuscule to me, not to mention "labor intense" but today I ran in a Petco to look for some hard tube. Well they didn't have any but I did purchase a small gravel vacuum that came with a priming bulb and not least important it had a bucket clip to hold the hose! This got me to thinking I clipped the hose clip so it holds the discharge right into the screen sock on my drain to sump, I vacuum all the sand bed clean, got the big nasty in the sock, return pump kept right up and circulation never stopped. Now if I can just figure how to attach a small brush to the vacuum tube to clean the rocks of dino clusters while I vacuum them out, I can make some real export headway. Still fighting dino!

I agree, anything to get them out, and then fight what's left. My going theory, if I am going to fight a war, I'd rather do it when I thin the herd.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Question for guys who've done it: My Nitrates are at 25ppm. My phosphates are still undetectable, Salifert test for both. I am dosing Aquavitro Activate daily at this point. 5ml per 180g increases Phosphate by .15mg/l (or .15ppm?). I am estimating my water volume of 120g, and aiming for consistent phosphate level of .01 - 0.02 ppm, so I should be dosing .3ml. I am dosing .6ml, and I still can't get a phosphate reading. At first I thought test kit might not pick up inorganic phosphate, so I added a drop to test tube and it turned blue instantly. Do I continue daily dose? Is it the corals eating it up? Thanks guys!

 

[taricha]

Question for guys who've done it: My Nitrates are at 25ppm. My phosphates are still undetectable, Salifert test for both. I am dosing Aquavitro Activate daily at this point. 5ml per 180g increases Phosphate by .15mg/l (or .15ppm?). I am estimating my water volume of 120g, and aiming for consistent phosphate level of .01 - 0.02 ppm, so I should be dosing .3ml. I am dosing .6ml, and I still can't get a phosphate reading. At first I thought test kit might not pick up inorganic phosphate, so I added a drop to test tube and it turned blue instantly. Do I continue daily dose? Is it the corals eating it up? Thanks guys!

K. First, even Hannah Ultra low has an uncertainty of in the ballpark of .012 so I don't know that your target is consistently measurable.
But that's likely not what's going on...
If you have plenty of available N and normal conditions, light, etc then small amounts of P will be gobbled up quickly.
In my tank I threw a bunch of food in, and exported nothing for weeks and watched P go up while N stayed undetectable. So I dosed N plus food, then of course P went to undetectable.
It took heavy feeding + large doses of N & P to get detectable levels of both.

So what you're seeing is not that strange.
All systems are different. So my results may not follow in your tank.

 

[nvladik]

K. First, even Hannah Ultra low has an uncertainty of in the ballpark of .012 so I don't know that your target is consistently measurable.
But that's likely not what's going on...
If you have plenty of available N and normal conditions, light, etc then small amounts of P will be gobbled up quickly.
In my tank I threw a bunch of food in, and exported nothing for weeks and watched P go up while N stayed undetectable. So I dosed N plus food, then of course P went to undetectable.
It took heavy feeding + large doses of N & P to get detectable levels of both.

So what you're seeing is not that strange.
All systems are different. So my results may not follow in your tank.

Cool, thanks Taricha, glad to hear I am not crazy!