Microscope pic...dino?

linuxgangster

New member
ok I have been trying to get rid of this for about 5 months now. Its brown and slimy. When it is bad it does get air bubbles. Right now it just covers the sand. These are the best pics I could get with the toy microscope. This is at 400x i believe.
 

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I can't quite tell from those photos. It could be. You probably can see them better than the camera can. How do they compare to the ones on my youtube list?
 
Yes they look like some in your video. Mine are clustered more together tho...but this maybe from me just putting a large blob of them on the slide. When they were wet some were moving.

So how the heck do I beat these? I have very low nitrates and phosphates. Lights out for three days helped but they just multiplied back to where they were in a week. I siphoned them out daily but again they are back the next day. Reduced feedings no change. I also noticed water changes make them stronger.
 
I wish I could give you a simple answer. I can ID them pretty easily down to genus just from photos, and can go to species if you send me a sample. But telling you how to kill them without killing everything in your tank... no easy answers yet.

Which dino from my videos did yours look more like? The way they move will probably be the easiest way to distinguish. Are they spinning like a tether ball or scooting along the bottom of your petri dish / slide? Amphidinium sp. scoots while Ostreopsis sp. spins. I have found two other genera so if you don't think either looks like yours I could make some other guesses. Both of these are toxic but Ostreopsis makes the more dangerous toxin, palytoxin. Research it. It can kill not just everything in your tank but you too. Once you start killing them the toxin will be released. Much like when killing an infestation of flatworms, having carbon ready might be a good idea.

Knowing which genus you are working with will give you size info. Ostreopsis and Gambierdiscus are big (40-60 microns). Amphidnium is smaller (~20 microns). The biggest pore size filter sock that will still capture your dino should be used.

These benthic dinos that are aquarium pests migrate up into the water column when the lights go out. That is when a filter sock, wet skimming, UZ or ozone might be useful. You can also take advantage of this if you do an extended lights out period. They move toward light so a light trap at night or during a lights out will also be an easy way to physically remove some.

They lyse when exposed to a sudden salinity change. So fresh water dips will be very effective at killing them. This gets hard though when dealing with a sand bed.

Things like hydrogen peroxide dosing and raising pH seem to work for some people and not others. I'd hoped to connect these successes and failures to specific genera but I don't have much data and so I can't advise when those techniques will work.

They need nitrates and phosphates just like any other photosynthetic organism, but at higher nutrient levels they get outcompeted by other types of algae. This results in the frustrating situation you are in where your nutrient levels are low and yet you are getting dinos. If you raise your nutrient levels cyano and green algae will wipe out your dinos. If you add silica diatoms will outcompete them. You probably won't have luck trying to lower your nutrient levels enough to kill off the dinos, but theoretically it could be done.

Some people have had luck with algae killer products like Algae X, while for others it hasn't helped. I have no idea what is in those products (and wouldn't be surprised to find out they are just bottling peroxide).
 
If I had to choose from your video list it would be Amphidinium but the focus on that toy microscope was horrible. I also could not get a good video of them in water so I practically had to wipe a blob on the side so seeing the movement was very tough.

I would love to send you a sample if you don't mind. Can you PM me information on how I can do this? I really want to get a positive ID that this is dino and if it helps you then thats a bonus :)

BTW my coral, fish and hermit crabs are all doing well. I have had a few snails die but not all. In fact it only seems to be affecting Astrea Turbo snails, all my other snails are fine. So far its only stays on my sandbed...it sometimes will creep up on rock (very bottom) but I have not seen it spread badly on rock or power heads. If anything this stuff is just plain ugly and annoying.
 
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