Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[cchomistek]

I have removed a bunch of my sand. Still have some patches and now seeing some on on my rocks. If these are sand dwelling how come they are moving to the rocks and will blowing the rocks off help or will this just spread the problem out. I am going to try and remove the majority of the rest of my sand through a 5 micron filter socks tonight.

 

[OpenOcean33]

I have removed a bunch of my sand. Still have some patches and now seeing some on on my rocks. If these are sand dwelling how come they are moving to the rocks and will blowing the rocks off help or will this just spread the problem out. I am going to try and remove the majority of the rest of my sand through a 5 micron filter socks tonight.

You may have two types of dinos, I believe thats what I had. I would blast the rocks with a turkey baster. Im sure a uv sterilizer would help you with this kind. I couldn't afford one so I tried vibrant cleaner and this worked for me, just not the ones on the sand.

 

[cchomistek]

You may have two types of dinos, I believe thats what I had. I would blast the rocks with a turkey baster. Im sure a uv sterilizer would help you with this kind. I couldn't afford one so I tried vibrant cleaner and this worked for me, just not the ones on the sand.

I had ostreopsis as well as amphidinium. But yeah these mats are only amphidinium. Confirmed via microscope.

 

[Bteq]

I rarely post but wanted to chime in and report my success in battling amphidinium or at least bringing them back into balance. I had significant dino matting/streaming across my sandbed (~75%), and it was also covering 25% of my live rock. Yes, I did confirm with a scope and monitored it throughout my treatment. It was around 2 weeks before I noticed a significant reduction in the tank. At the 3-week mark, I could confirm under scope that diatoms were outcompeting dinos.

I run a 58gal mixed reef with LPS/SPS that has been established for over 10 years. Unfortunately, I was forcing too low (undetectable) nutrients with ZeoVit -- N and P tested at 0 for at least a year. I did dose various aminos and Sponge Power, but SPS color wasn't the best. My intervention and treatment involved: 1) adding a 36w UV running 24/7 via a cannister filter with 5 micron floss changed on regular intervals [note: UV is utilized on output], 2) removing Zeolite and stopped dosing ALL Zeo additives, 3) siphoned just the top layer of sandbed into a strainer over my sump using a 5 micron filter pad once a week, 4) turkey basting the rockwork each night right before lights out, 5) dosing Brightwell to slowly increase N & P to 2.5 and .01 respectively, 4) dosing Vibrant at 50% but 3x/week over 2 weeks, and 5) slowly increasing feeding of both frozen food and pellets. Luckily, this combination for me was a huge success, and at the 1-month mark I have no visible patches. TBH I haven't seen my rockwork and gravel look so clean and healthy in years. The coralline has colored up again and even shows growth. In retrospect, I hadn't seen any bristleworms, pods, spaghetti worms or even mysis dancing around in the caves for quite awhile. It does seem plausible that the microfauna slowly starved over time, and the opportunistic dinos took over.

Again, this is the outcome under my tank conditions, but I wanted to share the success using multiple approaches.

 

[CMO]

I'm happy to also report some success as well.

About a week ago now my amphidinium situation improved significantly almost over night and has yet to make a come back (knock on wood). Here is my sand today after the full light cycle without any sand stirring compared to just a few weeks back when it reached an all time low the sand was completely brown by the end of the light cycle. Just a few hot spots left in low flow spots near and behind the rocks.

I attribute the improvement to the following steps:

• Removed about half my sand
• Re-homed my wrasse that was eating ALL of my amphipods and added 3k amphipods after he was gone. I also added a bunch of copepods of various types.
• Increased nutrients slowly from near zero to about 4 ppm NO3 and 0.11 PO4 as of yesterday.
• Dosed Microbacter 7 every few days for the past 2 weeks or so now
• Reduced white light cycle by about 2 hours

While I tried other treatment methods including UV and regular sand siphoning through a 10 micron sock I didn't see any sustained improvement until the above were added to the list. Not sure which exactly helped the most, but with any luck I'm on my way to winning the battle with the above. And I might get to keep some sand to boot.

 

[OpenOcean33]

I am here to report some semi success

I rarely post but wanted to chime in and report my success in battling amphidinium or at least bringing them back into balance. I had significant dino matting/streaming across my sandbed (~75%), and it was also covering 25% of my live rock. Yes, I did confirm with a scope and monitored it throughout my treatment. It was around 2 weeks before I noticed a significant reduction in the tank. At the 3-week mark, I could confirm under scope that diatoms were outcompeting dinos.

I run a 58gal mixed reef with LPS/SPS that has been established for over 10 years. Unfortunately, I was forcing too low (undetectable) nutrients with ZeoVit -- N and P tested at 0 for at least a year. I did dose various aminos and Sponge Power, but SPS color wasn't the best. My intervention and treatment involved: 1) adding a 36w UV running 24/7 via a cannister filter with 5 micron floss changed on regular intervals [note: UV is utilized on output], 2) removing Zeolite and stopped dosing ALL Zeo additives, 3) siphoned just the top layer of sandbed into a strainer over my sump using a 5 micron filter pad once a week, 4) turkey basting the rockwork each night right before lights out, 5) dosing Brightwell to slowly increase N & P to 2.5 and .01 respectively, 4) dosing Vibrant at 50% but 3x/week over 2 weeks, and 5) slowly increasing feeding of both frozen food and pellets. Luckily, this combination for me was a huge success, and at the 1-month mark I have no visible patches. TBH I haven't seen my rockwork and gravel look so clean and healthy in years. The coralline has colored up again and even shows growth. In retrospect, I hadn't seen any bristleworms, pods, spaghetti worms or even mysis dancing around in the caves for quite awhile. It does seem plausible that the microfauna slowly starved over time, and the opportunistic dinos took over.

Again, this is the outcome under my tank conditions, but I wanted to share the success using multiple approaches.

what is the name of the product you used to raise your phosphates?

 

[OpenOcean33]

Ok guys, I have a semi success story? Been battling my amphidinium since may. I have tried nearly everything from absent water changes, vibrant reef cleaner, siphoning, h202 dosing, 3day black outs,... and so on. I resorted to trying dino x against all of my instincts and natural approach theory. It worked... I did a 3 day black out to weakened them and stirred the sand bed and after 3 doses it was 100% gone. So i dosed one more just to be safe. I then waited and waited and watched. Nothing, no dinos for 8 days perfect white sand bed and a little green algae on a frag plug. I then decided ok its time to get that dino x out of there so i did a 10 gallon water change on 69 gallon system. Next morning a light brown dusting of dinos seen in my tank. The next day i could see it was getting a little worse. So today I test the water and my nutrients are up phosphates are .12, and nitrates are .4. So i don't feel like i lowered the nutrients from the water change but maybe introduced trace elements for the possible dormant dinos in the tank to feed on... Should i try another round of dino x with no water change for some time or dose this seem like one of those bandied solutions kind of like the black out.

 

[OpenOcean33]

I'm happy to also report some success as well.

About a week ago now my amphidinium situation improved significantly almost over night and has yet to make a come back (knock on wood). Here is my sand today after the full light cycle without any sand stirring compared to just a few weeks back when it reached an all time low the sand was completely brown by the end of the light cycle. Just a few hot spots left in low flow spots near and behind the rocks.

I attribute the improvement to the following steps:

• Removed about half my sand
• Re-homed my wrasse that was eating ALL of my amphipods and added 3k amphipods after he was gone. I also added a bunch of copepods of various types.
• Increased nutrients slowly from near zero to about 4 ppm NO3 and 0.11 PO4 as of yesterday.
• Dosed Microbacter 7 every few days for the past 2 weeks or so now
• Reduced white light cycle by about 2 hours

While I tried other treatment methods including UV and regular sand siphoning through a 10 micron sock I didn't see any sustained improvement until the above were added to the list. Not sure which exactly helped the most, but with any luck I'm on my way to winning the battle with the above. And I might get to keep some sand to boot.

Are you still currently seeing improvement with your dino fight ? I have been debating the microbacter route for some time.

 

[CMO]

Are you still currently seeing improvement with your dino fight ? I have been debating the microbacter route for some time.

It seems to be holding steady at about 80% containment but the last few hot spots still remain. Not spreading though which is good. I'm going to remove some sand in those areas this weekend to see if that will nock it out.

 

[OpenOcean33]

It seems to be holding steady at about 80% containment but the last few hot spots still remain. Not spreading though which is good. I'm going to remove some sand in those areas this weekend to see if that will nock it out.

Keep us updated

 

[Bteq]

I am here to report some semi success


what is the name of the product you used to raise your phosphates?

I originally used Brightwell's NeoPhos but ran out, so I switched to Seachem's Flourish Phosphorus. Both have detailed calculators. My goal was to increase very slowly and dial back when I saw substantial improvement. My N- has remained fairly constant @ 2-2.5ppm and P- is barely detected on Hanna @ .01ppm. I've also seen a dramatic improvement in color with my Hawkins Blue Echinata.

 

[CMO]

I'm also dosing Brightwell NeoPhos. Works well.

 

[CMO]

Um, I just came home to perfectly white sand for the first time ever with this tank. Man that's exciting. I have quite a bit of sand left too. These things are beatable, even while keeping once infested sand!

I attribute the success to weakening the Dinos by partial removal, increasing nutrients coupled with a strong and consistent biodiversity attack (including live phyto and bacteria every few days).

There is hope.

 

[dwest]

Um, I just came home to perfectly white sand for the first time ever with this tank. Man that's exciting. I have quite a bit of sand left too. These things are beatable, even while keeping once infested sand!

I attribute the success to weakening the Dinos by partial removal, increasing nutrients coupled with a strong and consistent biodiversity attack (including live phyto and bacteria every few days).

There is hope.

Great! Keep us updated.

 

[CMO]

Well, I had about a week of nice white dino free sand but they've started to come back the past 2 days now. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Not sure if this is just a coincidence but I added some GFO this week since my PO4 was pushing .20 and within a few days of that they returned. I'm at about .10 PO4 today so not nothing.

I give up. Sand is coming out completely! UGHHH.

 

[OpenOcean33]

Well, I had about a week of nice white dino free sand but they've started to come back the past 2 days now. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Not sure if this is just a coincidence but I added some GFO this week since my PO4 was pushing .20 and within a few days of that they returned. I'm at about .10 PO4 today so not nothing.

I give up. Sand is coming out completely! UGHHH.

Oh man sorry to hear this. hopefully you can beat it. I just found out i may be fighting the wrong dino! so today is just no our day.

 

[Chad_P]

Alright guys I posted a few times on this thread as I have been fighting these guys for a few months and I am happy to say my sand bed is finally white again. I tried water changes through socks, blackout, let tank get dirty, and none of it worked. I started dosing Spongexcel from brightwell heavily for 2 weeks and got my siliacates to .8 ppm and had to leave for a week for work. When I got back my and bed looked worse than when I left. Thought for sure the dinos were getting worse. I started symphoning them out cause it was terrible looking and all I can say it they just have been crazy concentrations of diatoms cause after doing it twice my sand bed is clear and I have noticed diatoms some diatoms on my rockwork where my hermits have all congregated now. I now have a hanna SI checker for sale if anyone would like it that is fighting these things.

Still have the Hanna checker for sale?

 

[leptang]

Well I have been battling with what i believe to be a less toxic amphidinium dino, possibly some others kind also with some progress. I started a new tank with dry rock and sand, decided to seed my tank with some sand and algae from my LFS and then the ugly happened. Its been about a year battling with this and i lost some lps coral and a clam, dinos ate them alive. Its been vary disappointing from my last tank i had for 8 years that was awesome, to this new tank i setup now with Dino's. I sucked out 95% of the sand. I added one 5 pound live rock, dinos got the upper hand on that rock but didn't kill everything on it. I've dosed seachems flourish N and P but i think im going to stop dosing the Flourish Nitrogen because of the unknown levels of urea in it, and go to mixing up some stump remover, potassium nitrate. I think these dinos like urea. I've tried silicate dosing, managed to get some hair algae growing but it was covered with dinos and looked brown with more dinos and diatoms, added some snails and started to siphon out the dinos with filter sock every other day making sure my hair algae gets a good cleaning and looks green not brown. The snails are clearing out spots on the rock. So i am also trying to add more fish in my tank. BRS videos stated algae likes ammonia more than N and P so im giving it a shot with more fish to grow the algae. I have 9 fish in the 40g breeder. Been running UV for months, it maybe keeping other types of dinos at bay but not the amphidinium dino. I have done a couple water changes but far and apart. I wouldn't say it increases the Dino's much but the corals that still remain perk up a little better after. I do clean the glass when i see dinos out compete the green algae on the glass. I turned off my skimmer for a month and got some more hair algae. Now i turned the skimmer back on and started to take the rocks without coral and putting them in the sump for 4 day black outs. It has been getting the other rocks greener with some purple coralline and green calcareous macro growing with hair algae. The hair algae goes away on the rocks that get black outs in the sump. So far the first rock i did the the black out on is showing macro on it but its only two days after the black out back in the DT. Ill see how this plays out and now im in the process of doing one rock at a time running the skimmer because i dont want to much N and P building up and try to out compete the hair algae, that out competed the Dino's and promote the more attractive macro-algae to get a foot hold. So far less brown and more green, with some more greys, greens, and purple macro. Im also dosing DrTim's waste-away and seed bacteria from aquavitro. Hopefully this will work, im still in the battle with the dinos but my progress seems to be getting the upper hand on the dinos. Ill report back here if i can truely establish my tank.

Here was the start of this nasty ive been battling about a year ago.

This is using my old as hell microscope findings.

Me adding more fish letting hair algae build up and cleaning it by a siphoning.

Now im doing the sump black outs.

Hopefully, fingers crossed ill get control of amphidinium dinoflagellates!

Edit: i have aslo been dosing iodine because it has been getting depleted

 

[leptang]

A couple more things, i also added is a lot of water flow, with two gyros one with 1000 gph and another with 3000 gph im trying to make it hard for snotty mats and globs of bubbles to build up. I think strong water flow is a must dealing with this, it doesn't really blow the Dino's away but it keeps them more compact trying to hold on. I previously had low water movement before and it looked its worst. I think whats happing is the water is able to be better oxygenated and gas off the excess CO2 and the hair algae is giving a helping boost of oxygen that promotes beneficial bacteria to also compete with the dinos. What im seeing now is the dinos just grabbing the hair algea trying to consume it, and its not really getting a foot hold on the rock or glass anymore, just more on the algae and gyros, gyros because its close to the light. After i get the hair algae clean from the rocks with a target range of nitrates around 5ppm and phosphate around 0.10ppm ill scrap the bottom glass with a razer blade and filter the water clean.
Just my game plan, hopefully it works.

You can see the dino patches on the turf algae. The turf algea that took a foot hold in high nitrates and phosphates beating out the dinos on the glass bottom. Im just sucking the dinos off of the turf algae for now.

I do see some small globs of dinos on some hair algae in this shot but it maybe hard to see

Only after a see the rocks stay clean of dinos and hair algae ill scrap the bottom clean and see what happens.

 

[CMO]

Well, I had about a week of nice white dino free sand but they've started to come back the past 2 days now. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Not sure if this is just a coincidence but I added some GFO this week since my PO4 was pushing .20 and within a few days of that they returned. I'm at about .10 PO4 today so not nothing.

I give up. Sand is coming out completely! UGHHH.

Update on this. While they did come back the outbreak wasn't that bad. It seems like there is a bit of a cycle when beating these things. They've continued to come and go but continually get better in each cycle. I also never completely removed the sand. I have anywhere from .5-1" of sand left (from ~2" originally) throughout the tank and would consider the dinos pretty much beaten today. They linger in a few spots but are very spars and don't mat up anymore.