Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[Zbryant]

Yeah, I wasn't ever testing any readable P or N so I decided to stop doing water changes and start dosing b-ionic.... Idk if that's hurting anything. I did it to save time and money. If I want to have readable P and N then water changes seem counter productive.

I guess my plan is to keep dosing. Start dosing P and N to get to .03 and 5ppm. Then add more pods and feed some phyto. Start siphoning them off ever couple days.

I hope that sounds like a good plan. Still don't know about the algae scrubber or skimmer.

I would think the scrubber is stripping the P and N if that’s the only export method you have. The skimmer will remove organically before they break down into P and N. Smaller water changes can only remove the % of P and N of water that is removed. For example, if you have 10 ppm nitrate, and do a 10% water change, theoretically you should have 9 ppm nitrate. Maybe lowering the photo period of the scrubber would help elevate the N and P numbers to the desired levels.

 

[Jaysin13]

I would think the scrubber is stripping the P and N if that’s the only export method you have. The skimmer will remove organically before they break down into P and N. Smaller water changes can only remove the % of P and N of water that is removed. For example, if you have 10 ppm nitrate, and do a 10% water change, theoretically you should have 9 ppm nitrate. Maybe lowering the photo period of the scrubber would help elevate the N and P numbers to the desired levels.

That's what I was thinking. Still running skimmer 24hrs. Lowered the scrubber photo period a lot. I don't want to eliminate it. I guess I just need to find that balance where it holds my numbers at goal range.

Ordered seachem flourish phosphate, seachem flourish nitrogen, and a 10 micron sock for siphoning them off the sand.

 

[Zbryant]

That's what I was thinking. Still running skimmer 24hrs. Lowered the scrubber photo period a lot. I don't want to eliminate it. I guess I just need to find that balance where it holds my numbers at goal range.

Ordered seachem flourish phosphate, seachem flourish nitrogen, and a 10 micron sock for siphoning them off the sand.

Perfect. It takes time. Be patient.

 

[taricha]

Thank you. I will confirm if I can. I am confused about a few things.

First, I have tested 0 N & P for about 6 months but I do have a green haze on the glass after 2-3 days and algae growing on a scrubber. There must be N & P in the system right? I guess I'm nervous to dose these 2 things if I'm not in the same position as everyone else.

Second, should I stop running my algae scrubber? Skimmer?

Third, I recently started dosing b-ionic in small doses to try to stabilize my alk and cal. Is this bad? Or making something worse?

Last, I see vacuuming them out frequently is a good idea but that would cause me to do more water changes perpetuating my low N & P. How do you handle this?

Yeah, honestly most of this is same idea as other thread. Nutrient concepts are same.
Dose P and N. You don't have enough.
Keep skimming. It's fine. Those who stopped haven't showed faster progress from what I've seen.
Keep scrubber, unless it makes it impossible to raise nutrients.
Keep your Ca/Alk/Mg up as normal.
Water changes aren't a concern I would bother to avoid. Getting nutrients right and exporting dinos is more important.

 

[Jaysin13]

Yeah, honestly most of this is same idea as other thread. Nutrient concepts are same.
Dose P and N. You don't have enough.
Keep skimming. It's fine. Those who stopped haven't showed faster progress from what I've seen.
Keep scrubber, unless it makes it impossible to raise nutrients.
Keep your Ca/Alk/Mg up as normal.
Water changes aren't a concern I would bother to avoid. Getting nutrients right and exporting dinos is more important.

Great. I think I got it. Will boosting pods help at all? I read about more biodiversity are pods what are being referred too?

 

[Jaysin13]

In regards to the siphoning through a 10 micron sock.... I was talking to a girl who had these and is a zoologist. She said she used a spare canister filter packed with diatomaceous earth.... Anyone else? Kinda like a dino vacuum. Lol.

 

[Javamahn]

In regards to the siphoning through a 10 micron sock.... I was talking to a girl who had these and is a zoologist. She said she used a spare canister filter packed with diatomaceous earth.... Anyone else? Kinda like a dino vacuum. Lol.

Yep I saw someone using a canister that also has UV builtin the same way.

 

[CDavmd]

Just an update.....after the power outage and tank at 64 degrees for almost a couple days. Remarkably Dino's have not regained a foothold. When I inspect carefully- the areas toward the front of my tank where they were quite extensive (especially during the first few hours of no power) have no sign of them. In the back of my tank behind the rock work there is just a slight indication they are there adjacent to the rocks where they meet the sand. Its now been almost two weeks.

I'm wondering if the significant die-back or encapsulation has knocked down the population such that the algae, which was making a comeback these past few weeks, has regained the upper hand. My nutrients continue on the high side and the algae on the glass and rocks continues to grow while the dino's are barely visible as I mentioned above.

 

[taricha]

@Jaysin13 Amphidinium tend to be lower toxin than most, so if you see no signs of toxins then large tough pods like amphipods and isopods may help. Copepods tend to be too small and delicate to do well in a dino bloom.
I know of no one who has beaten dinos by primarily adding pods, but if you create a habitat for pods to grow and thrive... I've found it very effective. See my post linked in the OP on using chaeto blobs. The last pic shows tons of amphipods occupying the space that had been amphidinium dinos.

@CDavmd that's very interesting. I'm very curious to see if there's a re-bloom (after a dormant period) or if they stay gone.

 

[dwest]

I'm currently at week 6 of proper phosphate (dosing daily to .13 ppm) and nitrate (adding at W/C to keep at 5-10 ppm) levels. My small cell amphidinium are still present. Just lost a 25 year-old clarki clownfish this week, but at his age, he may have lived a full life. I believe my water is still relatively toxic because of the clownfish death and the fact that my BTA's are closed up (even with running GAC pretty heavy). My SPS are long gone, but most of my LPS are hanging on. I still have about 110watts of UV running in my display. This doesn't seem to help. Should I keep running it? Only thing I haven't done that I can think of is remove my 2" sand bed. Anyone have thought of what I should do? Also, ran 5-10 micron filter socks for a couple of weeks. I stopped that as I only noticed lots of trapped pods....

 

[taricha]

I'm currently at week 6 of proper phosphate (dosing daily to .13 ppm) and nitrate (adding at W/C to keep at 5-10 ppm) levels. My small cell amphidinium are still present. Just lost a 25 year-old clarki clownfish this week, but at his age, he may have lived a full life. I believe my water is still relatively toxic because of the clownfish death and the fact that my BTA's are closed up (even with running GAC pretty heavy). My SPS are long gone, but most of my LPS are hanging on. I still have about 110watts of UV running in my display. This doesn't seem to help. Should I keep running it? Only thing I haven't done that I can think of is remove my 2" sand bed. Anyone have thought of what I should do? Also, ran 5-10 micron filter socks for a couple of weeks. I stopped that as I only noticed lots of trapped pods....

Post a tank shot showing affected areas? can you give a sense of where your tank is - in terms of microfauna, green algae growth etc. have you been doing water changes? That's a long time for things to stay locked in place without progress.
One thing you can do to try to push more of these Small Cell Amphidinium guys into the water - and most people report these do indeed go into the water, if that's still what you have - is to drop the lighting period by several hours and blast all surfaces especially during extended dark period. Ought to create more opportunity for contact with UV.

 

[taricha]

Wanted to add a comment on possible mechanisms for Silica dosing ending Amphidinium bloom.
Two possible methods that I can see: One is nutrient competition, much like green algae competition, however diatoms multiply by splitting and so can undergo exponential growth whereas benthic algae does not, so the potential for quicker competition exists. In the coastal ocean, Diatoms typically are dominant over Dinos, so perhaps with the addition of Si - the same will be true in our tanks. The final stage of this victory may be slow. We would see Silica (and other nutrients) consumed as diatoms grow, then level off. P, N, and Si would all remain present in abundance, but the growth would plateau because some other trace element that the dinos and diatoms need has become scarce. Under these conditions, dinos should gradually wane as diatoms with available Si, may be a better consumer of whatever the dinos need.

The second possible mechanism is that diatoms will create chemicals that suppress the dino growth directly. This is called allelopathy, and has been demonstrated in a few diatoms versus ostreopsis dinos, as flagged in this post

...Benthic diatom produce allelochemicals that inhibit benthic dinoflagellates, perhaps the imbalance that promotes dinoflagellate bloom is related to the suppression of diatomaceous by limiting silicate...

Allelopathic effects of diatom filtrates on the toxic benthic dinoflagellate Ostreopsis cf. ovata
...

"Proschkinia and Navicula filtrates exerted the highest inhibitions....
The highest inhibitions were observed for exposures to P. complanatoides and Navicula sp. filtrates (92.5% and 80%, respectively) and increased with the age of diatom culture."

Proschkinia is not commonly found in aquariums as far as I can tell, but Navicula may be common. I've seen it in a few systems.
Be on the lookout for Navicula. Check PhycoKey here for pics. It's a benthic diatom, so it's a prime contender to compete with amphidinium.
And furthermore, Navicula diatom was also one of the diatoms that showed up in the paper discussed in the first post where they dosed Si to stop an amphidinium bloom in the shrimp farm.
They outcompeted the amphidinium with 2 diff diatoms: Navicula sp., and Amphora sp.
At Si to N ratio of 1 to 2 the - Navicula outcompeted the dino.
At Si to N ratio of 1 to 1 both Navicula and Amphora diatoms dominated the dino, and the dino was nearly eradicated from the samples.

It is possible that this suggests as Silica levels increase, different diatoms will begin to grow.
This would fit with what I've seen so far in my dosing (tiny amounts) of Si. I'll ramp up further when my Si test kit I can trust arrives.
At first I only basically had the one kind of diatom as seen in post #4.
Now - continuing to ramp up with very slight doses - I have seen 2 or 3 additional species of diatoms

 

[Jose Mayo]

Wanted to add a comment on possible mechanisms for Silica dosing ending Amphidinium bloom.
Two possible methods that I can see: One is nutrient competition, much like green algae competition, however diatoms multiply by splitting and so can undergo exponential growth whereas benthic algae does not, so the potential for quicker competition exists. In the coastal ocean, Diatoms typically are dominant over Dinos, so perhaps with the addition of Si - the same will be true in our tanks. The final stage of this victory may be slow. We would see Silica (and other nutrients) consumed as diatoms grow, then level off. P, N, and Si would all remain present in abundance, but the growth would plateau because some other trace element that the dinos and diatoms need has become scarce. Under these conditions, dinos should gradually wane as diatoms with available Si, may be a better consumer of whatever the dinos need.

The second possible mechanism is that diatoms will create chemicals that suppress the dino growth directly. This is called allelopathy, and has been demonstrated in a few diatoms versus ostreopsis dinos, as flagged in this post


"Proschkinia and Navicula filtrates exerted the highest inhibitions....
The highest inhibitions were observed for exposures to P. complanatoides and Navicula sp. filtrates (92.5% and 80%, respectively) and increased with the age of diatom culture."

Proschkinia is not commonly found in aquariums as far as I can tell, but Navicula may be common. I've seen it in a few systems.
Be on the lookout for Navicula. Check PhycoKey here for pics. It's a benthic diatom, so it's a prime contender to compete with amphidinium.
And furthermore, Navicula diatom was also one of the diatoms that showed up in the paper discussed in the first post where they dosed Si to stop an amphidinium bloom in the shrimp farm.
They outcompeted the amphidinium with 2 diff diatoms: Navicula sp., and Amphora sp.
At Si to N ratio of 1 to 2 the - Navicula outcompeted the dino.
At Si to N ratio of 1 to 1 both Navicula and Amphora diatoms dominated the dino, and the dino was nearly eradicated from the samples.

It is possible that this suggests as Silica levels increase, different diatoms will begin to grow.
This would fit with what I've seen so far in my dosing (tiny amounts) of Si. I'll ramp up further when my Si test kit I can trust arrives.
At first I only basically had the one kind of diatom as seen in post #4.
Now - continuing to ramp up with very slight doses - I have seen 2 or 3 additional species of diatoms

I'm glad you're experiencing this and hopeful that the dosage of silica in proper concentrations could be a good solution to the problem of dinoflagellates in our reef aquariums ... I had tried to arouse interest in that path in the other wire, but was not welcomed.

My best wishes for your success!

Regards

 

[Waterbourn]

I am a good 5 weeks in with raised nutrients battling amphidinium. Phosphates are are staying around .7 to 1 and nitrates are above 5. A brown hair algea is growing everywhere now so bad I even had to take a toothbrush to it because it started taking over some coral

But even with all this I keep a nice brown tint of dino on my sand bed. In the front if th tank the brown 3ven goes down into the sand almost 2 inches. I have a uv steralizer running the entire time and it does nothing. I did a 3 day blackout and they came tight back tried Fiji mud...no help doesed h2o2 for 2 weeks and no help.

I just started dosing 5 drops of Silica a day. I'm Only on day 2 but not sure how much I should really dose? I have a 125 gallon tank and haven't done a water change in over a month now.

I ordered garf grunge that will come next week. Grasping at straws these days. This type of dino is nasty. People say it is not that toxic but I have lost over a hundred snails even with carbon running through the entire bloom.

Any other thoughts ?? It is so frustrating

 

[dwest]

Thanks Taricha. I'm adding a few pics below. I have always had an excellent pod population and thus my reluctance to add chemicals (or even run a filter sock for extended time). I checked again last night. I still have a large number of very small mysidae type shrimp and lots of amphipods. Lately, I have seen more copepods, likely because I added some from algae barn a month or so ago to try to help out. My algae consists of mostly stringy brown stuff (maybe similar to Waterbourn), but hopefully you can see that in the pics below. I did notice this week that I have some green film (but very hard to remove) algae on the front of the glass and I noticed that coralline is starting to grow on the dead tips of my SPS. So maybe there is a turn-around??? My existing CUC (2 YT,1 PT, urchin, blenny, scarlet and blue hermits are still alive...my snails are all dead) seems to pick at the brown algae, but not exactly enjoy it. Strangely, this brown string algae seems to prefer growing on the glass (or it doesn't get consumed as fast on the glass). I did add a couple of holanthuria cucumbers a couple of months ago (they used to breed in my old system!) and it looks like they are keeping the sand clean near them. I did, as you suggested to me earlier, shut of lights a couple of hours early and blow off rocks. I did that regularly for 2 weeks. And now doing more sporadically 3-4 times per week. I'll re-vamp my efforts with this. I have not tried Si dosing. For now, I will follow this effort with great interest. Lastly, been doing about 25 gallons per week WC as a result of my cleaning /removal efforts. In the past I did this WC every 2 weeks (180 gal tank).

Waterbourn, I feel your pain. I also have a brown hair-like algae. In fact, when I grab a sample of it, I never get the "money shot" with tens or hundreds of dinos. Mostly I see the algae, a couple of dinos, then a bunch of other stuff I haven't ID'd.

Hopefully you will see 3 pics below. The first is a dead acropora with a close-up of the stringy algae with dinos in it. The second is a picture of my sand. I have vacuumed that a couple of times lately for the first time ever. Certainly lots of gunk came out of the sand! And more to get as well. I think you can see evidence of dinos there. The third is a picture of one of one of my BTA that have been cloning for about 25 years. I am using this as a primary indicator that my system is still toxic. I plan to re-try snails when the anemones open back up.

I just added a 4th picture. This shows the edge of the brown algae, along with a relatively high number of dinos. I took this pic a couple of weeks ago.

 

[dwest]

One more thing, if you guys want me to dose silica for learning sake, let me know where to start. I am a scientist at heart (ex-chemical engineer, now teaching AP chemistry and AP physics in high school). The death and destruction this has caused in my tank in unmatched in my over 25 years of reefing. So, it would be really cool if we could find a way to knock these guys out once and for! Also, Waterbourn, I agree with you about the toxicity. Even though I seem to have relatively few dinos, they have wiped out all snails, one fish, and lots of long-lived SPS. I think strong GAC is the only think keeping everything else alive.

 

[Jose Mayo]

In order to contextualize, the intentional use of allelopathy as a means of controlling dinoflagellates presupposes the stimulus of the competing organism, so that it is metabolically compelled to produce its allelochemicals and compete in the environment for the nutrients that are lacking; in times of plenty, there are fewer "wars" ...

The dosage of silica may be the "differential factor" because it is not a high biological value nutrient for the dinoflagellates and potentially stimulate its greatest competitor in nature, which are the diatoms, but they can live together and coexist, if there is not another limiting factor that imposes the competition and ends by eliminating them.

From studies to the use of allelopathic competition in the cultivation of microalgae for industrial applications, I highlight:

"Allelopathy can be stimulated or minimized by a number of biotic and abiotic factors. Among the most important abiotic factors that enhance and stimulate allelopathy are deficiency of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous compounds in culture medium, low light intensities, low temperatures, and a culture medium with a high pH (around 9.0) Abiotic factors acting as repressors of allelopathy include high light intensities, high temperatures, excessive nutrients in the culture medium (nitrogen and phosphorus), and culture medium with low pH values (pH around 6.0 ) The chemical structure of the toxic protein compounds and the mechanisms by which changes in abiotic factors stimulate or inhibit allelopathy have not been fully elucidated. The most important biotic factors are the cellular concentrations of microalgae producing toxic proteins, and the target cells. For example high concentrations of the microalgae Heterocapsa circularisquama and ciliates can bring about the death of the ciliates in an effect similar to "quorum sensing". Peridinium gatunense and the cyanobacteria Microcystis sp. have been shown to inhibit each other through allelopathy." (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4028837/)

From the above, besides the silica dosage to promote diatomaceous growth, significant reduction of phosphate and nitrate, as well as the configuration of the light spectrum, pH and temperature may also be important (obeying, of course, the needs of other inhabitants of the aquarium), so that the "allelopathic" process has a good result.

Regards

 

[taricha]

@dwest it's interesting . There's a few things in yours that don't quite follow the pattern. I suppose a more sensible way to think about toxin or not is in degrees. Large Cell Amphidinium rarely report toxins, Small Cell amphidinium - more commonly report toxins, Others almost always report toxins. So inverts that can pick around the dinos may show little signs of issues, and those that don't or can't will eventually succumb to the dinos. Nothing grows on a diet of dinos alone (toxins or not), so if there is nothing but dinos to eat expect a lot of death.
I wonder if you had an earlier more toxic strain that the UV has knocked out/back and now the increase in microfauna is saying there's a lower toxin condition and things are improving - as far as dinos go. The anemone seems to be more sensitive to whatever chemical shenanigans are going on.
Your microscope shot, I mostly see diatoms, a few dino cells. If you sampled that brown mass on the sand in the 3rd pic, I'm curious what we'd see. I'd expect a lot heavier proportion of dinos there.
The microfauna report sounds like there is a bit of turning the corner going on, and it sounds like siphoning from sand is going to be unavoidable, because yours really don't want to go through the UV.

 

[dwest]

Hi taricha. Your hypothesis about the earlier more toxic strain could be correct. Although I've never seen the number of dinos under the microscope that many others have posted. I can't positively recall if I checked under the scope initially before or after the addition of UV (but I likely scoped first, then added UV second according to my Amazon delivery timing).

I was likely siphoning away the brown mass on the sand bed as you were replying, so it's gone now. I'll let that re-grow and grab another sample for inspection in a few days. It does not re-appear overnight in my sand bed as others report. When I have checked in the past, the concentration of dinos were relatively small no matter where the sample came from (sand bed included). It seems to be that anywhere there is surface area, there are dinos. (although I can most easily find them in the brown algae strings). Again, will check this when I see some on the sand.

A couple of other things, my conch's (3 fighting and one queen, I believe) seems to be OK (others have mentioned as well). Also, my population of limpets may be coming back and maybe even my chitons. Just observations...

Hopefully we are turning the corner. I am slowly seeing more green algae on the glass. Thanks again for your help. Also, please never be shy about throwing your suggestions my way.

 

[taricha]

I'm glad you're experiencing this and hopeful that the dosage of silica in proper concentrations could be a good solution to the problem of dinoflagellates in our reef aquariums ... I had tried to arouse interest in that path in the other wire...

Yes, the other thread we'd kinda like to keep it to tried and true, whereas here - with this strain being unresponsive to UV there's a bit more justification for experimentation. Maybe the Si will turn out to be a key, maybe it'll be a slightly helpful tool among many, or maybe a complete dead end. We'll see!

In order to contextualize, the intentional use of allelopathy as a means of controlling dinoflagellates presupposes the stimulus of the competing organism, so that it is metabolically compelled to produce its allelochemicals and compete in the environment for the nutrients that are lacking; in times of plenty, there are fewer "wars" ...

The dosage of silica may be the "differential factor" because it is not a high biological value nutrient for the dinoflagellates and potentially stimulate its greatest competitor in nature, which are the diatoms, but they can live together and coexist, if there is not another limiting factor that imposes the competition and ends by eliminating them.

This is a very astute point. I pegged nutrient competition and allelopathy as separate possible mechanisms, but they are very likely connected - competition triggering the allelopathy. Where I would dissent slightly is that I feel like we know what happens under P limitation - many systems have traveled that road, and the dinos do quite well at causing lots of problems. For that reason I'd lean toward keeping P, N, and Si all very available until the growth plateaus from having consumed some more minor element (like Fe or B12 etc.)

A couple of other things, my conch's (3 fighting and one queen, I believe) seems to be OK (others have mentioned as well). Also, my population of limpets may be coming back and maybe even my chitons. Just observations...

Hopefully we are turning the corner. I am slowly seeing more green algae on the glass. Thanks again for your help. Also, please never be shy about throwing your suggestions my way.

Anything for a fellow AP Phys teacher
Your oddball invert crew sounds weirdly like mine! holothuria, conch, limpets, chitons - I also got lucky with a large Cerith that laid eggs immediately, blessing me with a million tiny ceriths all over the sand. If you had an urchin and emeralds - we'd be almost totally in sync there.

Since you have filamentous algae (I'd call it green but you say brown - probably because of what covers the algae and not the filaments themselves) and diatoms, and your system has held stable elevated P and N for over a month now with very slow progress, and you have quality herbivores that'll actually eat diatoms, I'd say go for adding Silica. Check my comments linked at the first post, I think 1ppm Silica is a fine upper end target if you actually have a test kit that can read it. (Salifert failed me - I'll review Hannah as soon as mine arrives). Also the microscope will be crucial since you'll need it to tell what's going on - diatoms or dinos. You might even find the diatom competition suppresses new growth or reduces the filamentous algae too.

@Waterbourn it sounds like some of this discussion with dwest may apply to you too. If not, kinda give us a description and shots of your tank status outbreak, and microfauna report like dwest did.