What causes dinos and how to cure

sfdan said:
Hard to tell given the zoom but I can definitely say they are *not* Ostreopsis which do not move like that.

Where are they occurring, on the sandbed, the rocks or both? Are they killing your corals or just being a nuisance?
Click to expand...



They are most noticeable on the sand bed, where I got the samples from. I will need to take some samples from rocks and overflow box to confirm if they are on there too. I believe they are, but not as noticeable.
They are not killing anything as such, but I believe they compromise growth and health in the tank (guessing though)!
I do have some invert fatality, but it is hard to determine the exact reason for that.
Those Dino's disappear into the water column for the most part at night.
I can get more video shots if you need to see more.
I am not running a super low nutrient system.
NO3 : 5ppm
PO4 : 0.01 - 0.03

I do dose life Phyto and run an ATS,
GFO and NO3 reactor




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ReefMX said:
They are most noticeable on the sand bed, where I got the samples from. I will need to take some samples from rocks and overflow box to confirm if they are on there too. I believe they are, but not as noticeable.
They are not killing anything as such, but I believe they compromise growth and health in the tank (guessing though)!
I do have some invert fatality, but it is hard to determine the exact reason for that.
Those Dino's disappear into the water column for the most part at night.
I can get more video shots if you need to see more.
I am not running a super low nutrient system.
NO3 : 5ppm
PO4 : 0.01 - 0.03

I do dose life Phyto and run an ATS,
GFO and NO3 reactor
Click to expand...

Well the dino that *sounds* the most like is Amphidinium dinos, but it is too hard to tell from the video. They spend their time on the sandbed during the day and then at night they'll retreat into the sandbed so UV is not effective at killing them. One that that is effective is a full blackout, as they do not form cysts so if you can wipe them all out then they won't come back.

However, I'll say that I have a sizable population of Amphidinium dinos in my tank, which I can see whenever I take samples of algae growing on the glass and put it under the microscope. As far as I can tell they haven't had any impact on my pod population, my fish or my corals so I really don't bother worrying about them, though for me they are not noticeable to the naked eye so perhaps my population is very small.

Still though the best first step will be to get a definitive ID of them, so if you can somehow get a more zoomed in picture that would be helpful.
 
[
Does this help by any chance?


IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190113/9c589a79bc3ec92a641f4d887f0b4e8f.jpg[/IMG]


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ReefMX said:
[
Does this help by any chance?


IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190113/9c589a79bc3ec92a641f4d887f0b4e8f.jpg[/IMG]


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Click to expand...



IMG_9948.jpg



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top shelf said:
I have had dinos twice now, the first outbreak covered the sand and the second which was worse covered the sand and rocks. It was my understanding it can be a cause of excess nutrients, an imbalance between nitrate and phosphate, and a few other reasons I dont recall. As mentioned with all the different causes there seems to be a lot of confusion so the cure may be a bit of trial and error.

For the first round I cut back on feeding to every other day or every couple days till eventually it receded. No lights out, no siphoning, kept up with my 4g a week wc and in a few weeks it was gone.

The second and most recent happened after a massive clean out of my sump. The tank was almost a year old so I thought I would clean the sump. Personally never again. I think in this case all the algae was out competing for nutrients. Mind you this is only my speculation. I siphoned for a few days then gave up. I cut back on feeding again, hadnt done a wc in almost 3 weeks, I noticed as the algae was slowly growing back in the sump the dinos were receding.

This was only my experience with it and what I did to fix it, your experience may vary. Good luck
Click to expand...

I find this very interesting. My tank was doing great also until I decided to give my sump a big clean out, then the next day the sand was covered in dinos. I'll be doing what you did to fix it, just cutting back on feeding and continuing my weekly water changes.
I also will never clean out my sump again.!
 
Elijahh said:
I find this very interesting. My tank was doing great also until I decided to give my sump a big clean out, then the next day the sand was covered in dinos. I'll be doing what you did to fix it, just cutting back on feeding and continuing my weekly water changes.
I also will never clean out my sump again.!
Click to expand...

I thought maybe it was just a coincidence but could be something to it. I havent had any problems with dinos or much of anything since the last outbreak. I fed I feel fairly heavily for 3 fish, my last wc was on 11/19, and test when my purple stylo looks off. Things seems happy and are doing well so if it isnt broken dont fix it. Keep in mind all tanks respond differently and what works for mine may not work for yours. I hope things work out for you, dinos are very ugly and I know my corals werent happy at all.
 
ReefMX said:
I scraped some stuff off the rock and believe that I got some coralline and dinos in the video here.
I hope this is more helpful.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bxe432kn7rtbog3/Video Jan 14, 16 56 11.mov?dl=0

Here some more showing only the dinos

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6sm0vq0vk0aowwi/Video Jan 14, 17 00 02.mov?dl=0




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Click to expand...

I can't make a positive ID with this level of zoom, but I'm sure whatever steps you are going to take to get rid of them would apply to any non-ostreopsis dino.
 
sfdan said:
I can't make a positive ID with this level of zoom, but I'm sure whatever steps you are going to take to get rid of them would apply to any non-ostreopsis dino.
Click to expand...



What zoom is needed for a clear ID?


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sfdan said:
At least 10x what you have. Maybe 25x. I need to see the cell structure.
Click to expand...



What I am posting is 80x. I will be able to get 120x, but you would need possibly 1000x or more ?
I will try and get some shots from a local LAB.


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Could I perform some other tests?
I tried to keep some samples with substrate in an open 1 liter glass jar, but after 24 hrs, despite light exposure and controlled temp in an AC controlled room, almost all of them were dead. Maybe lack of oxygen? I thought that was strange.
I also dropped some DinoX on some samples, which also seemed to kill them off fairly fast. I have one other jar with a sample in a blackout cupboard, but since they died already without blackout, I assume this is not helping with any conclusions. Fresh water contact killed them instantly, which is expected.


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ReefMX said:
What I am posting is 80x. I will be able to get 120x, but you would need possibly 1000x or more ?
I will try and get some shots from a local LAB.


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Click to expand...

I think it is easier when you are looking through the scope directly than when you have a picture of it. With a focused picture I think 400x would be more than sufficient.
 
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