Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[OpenOcean33]

I've been dosing silicates for about 3 maybe 4 weeks now. I just made up a solution to dose phosphates today. I'm not really sure how high I should be dosing phosphate. I only have one nem and a few fish, other than snails and crabs. I figured I'd start off with .01ppm phosphate a week and go from there.

Ive never dosed phosphate but anything gradual like that I believe would be a great idea.

 

[Entz]

I've been dosing silicates for about 3 maybe 4 weeks now. I just made up a solution to dose phosphates today. I'm not really sure how high I should be dosing phosphate. I only have one nem and a few fish, other than snails and crabs. I figured I'd start off with .01ppm phosphate a week and go from there.

I am really just trying to get them to show up. I am using Searchem Flourish Phosphorus and was dosing to 0.032 mg/l which should equal 32ppb (~0.098ppm P04) if the mg/l converters are correct. Then using their calculator to figure how much product to dose per week. Then adding slowly and doing frequent testing to see where it lands. For me it is few drops a day. Where in the same range it looks like.

 

[taricha]

I am starting to see some diversity. I believe these are diatoms (hopefully)? Sorry for the somewhat blurry images, my printed camera mount needs some tweaking.

Those pics are great. Pennate diatoms (likely something like cylindrotheca) mixed in with the amphidinium dinos.

 

[David_Cool]

I took another water sample today and it looks about like it did before. Lots of dinos but with a fair number of diatoms as well. I filled a couple of petri dishes with water and some sand from an area of concentrated dinos and dosed one with a bit of PO4 and Si, and dosed the second with 10 fold more. I placed them next to a grow lamp in a controlled 26C area. If the theory of out-competing works the results should speak for themselves and the second dish should have quite a bit more diatoms. Looking back I should have done a third with no dosing. Here's hoping.

 

[David_Cool]

I know a lot of people on here say to avoid dinoX because it is harsh on corals, but has anyone had any success with it, since I don't have any coral?

 

[Joey Merrell]

I know a lot of people on here say to avoid dinoX because it is harsh on corals, but has anyone had any success with it, since I don't have any coral?

I've personally not had any issues with it affecting my coral. It works well enough, so I'd use it again if I had to.

 

[Entz]

I took another water sample today and it looks about like it did before. Lots of dinos but with a fair number of diatoms as well. I filled a couple of petri dishes with water and some sand from an area of concentrated dinos and dosed one with a bit of PO4 and Si, and dosed the second with 10 fold more. I placed them next to a grow lamp in a controlled 26C area. If the theory of out-competing works the results should speak for themselves and the second dish should have quite a bit more diatoms. Looking back I should have done a third with no dosing. Here's hoping.

Looking forward to the results. At least with mine (small cell amphidinium) diatom and diversity seems to be a solution but a controlled experiment to know definitively would be awesome.

 

[David_Cool]

Well the results are in. I dosed them the first day and not much happened over 24 hours. the one that I dosed 10 fold, I dosed 40 fold the second time, and kept the first at a small dose. the second day the lower dosed plate had a massive increase of diatoms, both large and small. the higher dosed plate looked about the same as the first day. I tested the nitrates of both plates since I figured that would be a limiting factor that I wasn't dosing and sure enough both plates were at about 0. It could be that the higher dosed plate ran out of nitrate before the lower plate but I would have expected more diatom skeletons than what I saw if they had a boom and bust cycle. I am currently desiccating the plates to figure out the water volume I had and thus the dosing PPM I used.

 

[David_Cool]

After doing the calculations it looks like dosing with .03PPM PO4 and .05PPM Si should be highly effective in my tank. I'm going to start dosing this daily to see how effective it is. I may also increase lighting contrary to what others have said, since I had a bright grow lamp right next to the plates nonstop. I think since dinos are mixotrophs and diatoms are autotrophs, the more light the better chance diatoms have of out competing them.

 

[taricha]

After doing the calculations it looks like dosing with .03PPM PO4 and .05PPM Si should be highly effective in my tank. I'm going to start dosing this daily to see how effective it is. I may also increase lighting contrary to what others have said, since I had a bright grow lamp right next to the plates nonstop. I think since dinos are mixotrophs and diatoms are autotrophs, the more light the better chance diatoms have of out competing them.

Personally, I never lowered the light to fight sand bed dinos since I decided that I was going to try to grow as much green as possible.


Btw, did you have a control sample that just got status quo - no additions?
Small scale dino tests are hard because the sample often decays over time just from the issues of being small scale. Temp, flow, gas exchange, concentration of sample etc.

 

[David_Cool]

Personally, I never lowered the light to fight sand bed dinos since I decided that I was going to try to grow as much green as possible.


Btw, did you have a control sample that just got status quo - no additions?
Small scale dino tests are hard because the sample often decays over time just from the issues of being small scale. Temp, flow, gas exchange, concentration of sample etc.

no, right after I set it up I thought about that. I may set it up and run it after the fact just to see the results for comparison.

 

[JerseyReefer]

I dont know if I'm right so this is just my theory if u wash the sand bed the dinos will be gone, but so will all the beneficial stuff. So if you put it back in there would be nothing to outcompete the dinos. Just my thought on the subject since one of the core treatments is biodiversity

This is totally my experience.

 

[JerseyReefer]

I noticed mine grows mostly where light is low and flow is low. Do you guys see this too? The middle of my tank where light is brightest and there is less rock is very clean.

Has anyone added more flow and seen a difference?

 

[David_Cool]

I noticed mine grows mostly where light is low and flow is low. Do you guys see this too? The middle of my tank where light is brightest and there is less rock is very clean.

Has anyone added more flow and seen a difference?

I don't have a lot of flow, and really could have used more light. I did have one LED array with white and actinic blue in the middle of my tank and it seemed like the dinos would centralize where the light was and stay away from the shadows. I just re-purposed a 48" T5 grow lamp that we have for carnivorous plants for our saltwater tank. I'm hoping to see a difference with the dosing. Does anyone know if cyano also retreats into the sand at night? I'm wondering if I also have a problem with that since its showing up when I look under the scope.

 

[brandon429]

Taricha I have a question

Have you considered making any subsection of work here that revolves around simple rip cleaning, the kind we do in our sand rinse thread where we take apart beds/wash fully vs topically vacuum and then decloud/remove the invader off all the live rocks externally? The reason I'm asking is because its a venue for tank curing that hasn't been explored much, I scanned the pages, wanted to offer that option to work a few challenges live time based on a full tank access willingness...the polar opposite of the recommend to lessen nutrient export. What we'd do is literally take apart a tank and clean it to the bone, skip cycle set back up, maintain the biofilter during the cleaning and we're invader free by raw force...no coaxing

this ties into the searchable detail that no pico reefs have enduring dinos I know of, literally not one at nano-reef.com and that's a lot of legit start-to-finish pico data to mine out for invasion patterns. *we all get our corals from LFS/online yet only the tiny/accessible tanks run invader free/patterns to consider upscaling at least to 40 gallon systems, they don't always have to tolerate an invasion for ten months

pico reefers are largely direct access keepers, they permit no initial, interim or total buildup massing. They'll rip clean on a normal Tuesday, even before an invasion-that type of willingness might be a key measure to try on slightly larger tanks...

we already have to part-clean tanks that are being moved among homes/cities, so they don't move over waste and are able to skip cycle upon setup, so whether we're rip cleaning to handle a move timing or doing it to remedy dinos, same steps. most current dino methods allow for existence of cell groups in the tank/collective insulation and feed acqui/ and we want to give the method of all masses removed a documented try

if you didn't want that aspect of dinos cures here (all species, not just amphi, we'll take on any strain) that's understandable, your focus might be on allelopathic studies/chemical interactions/competitions and that's clearly a strong pathway developing as well.

I sure would like to run rip clean testing on any tank that can be given a 100% water change upon command, upon reset back up after we nail that sandbed hospital clean. however big of an aquarium one can find invaded with dinos who is still willing to perform a total water change at the end is the ideal candidate. willing to surgically clean and jet out all rock surfaces externally, as the tank is taken apart. literal reef surgery, it rocks, wanted to add that here but its impractical for large systems

additionally, consider the pairing of the two systems

start with a rip clean to evacuate correctly, without hesitation

then dose your ideal levels of Si or anything else, plants, anything via the water

add in your algagen competitor microbes.

complete and total evisceration of the invasion should be looked at, and due to the years in the sand rinse thread we've got skip cycle surgery down pat. we want to remove the invader cells and all supporting organic detritus clouding stores...we put back the rest and then upgrade the microbial competition by strategy in the uninvaded condition vs the common invaded one/wait for mass to die off itself within tank and be physically exported by mechanics or bound up somehow...we're fully opposite of that in every way for this method

 

[David_Cool]

Taricha I have a question

Have you considered making any subsection of work here that revolves around simple rip cleaning, the kind we do in our sand rinse thread where we take apart beds/wash fully vs topically vacuum and then decloud/remove the invader off all the live rocks externally? The reason I'm asking is because its a venue for tank curing that hasn't been explored much, I scanned the pages, wanted to offer that option to work a few challenges live time based on a full tank access willingness...the polar opposite of the recommend to lessen nutrient export. What we'd do is literally take apart a tank and clean it to the bone, skip cycle set back up, maintain the biofilter during the cleaning and we're invader free by raw force...no coaxing

this ties into the searchable detail that no pico reefs have enduring dinos I know of, literally not one at nano-reef.com and that's a lot of legit start-to-finish pico data to mine out for invasion patterns. *we all get our corals from LFS/online yet only the tiny/accessible tanks run invader free/patterns to consider upscaling at least to 40 gallon systems, they don't always have to tolerate an invasion for ten months

pico reefers are largely direct access keepers, they permit no initial, interim or total buildup massing. They'll rip clean on a normal Tuesday, even before an invasion-that type of willingness might be a key measure to try on slightly larger tanks...

we already have to part-clean tanks that are being moved among homes/cities, so they don't move over waste and are able to skip cycle upon setup, so whether we're rip cleaning to handle a move timing or doing it to remedy dinos, same steps. most current dino methods allow for existence of cell groups in the tank/collective insulation and feed acqui/ and we want to give the method of all masses removed a documented try

if you didn't want that aspect of dinos cures here (all species, not just amphi, we'll take on any strain) that's understandable, your focus might be on allelopathic studies/chemical interactions/competitions and that's clearly a strong pathway developing as well.

I sure would like to run rip clean testing on any tank that can be given a 100% water change upon command, upon reset back up after we nail that sandbed hospital clean. however big of an aquarium one can find invaded with dinos who is still willing to perform a total water change at the end is the ideal candidate. willing to surgically clean and jet out all rock surfaces externally, as the tank is taken apart. literal reef surgery, it rocks, wanted to add that here but its impractical for large systems

additionally, consider the pairing of the two systems

start with a rip clean to evacuate correctly, without hesitation

then dose your ideal levels of Si or anything else, plants, anything via the water

add in your algagen competitor microbes.

complete and total evisceration of the invasion should be looked at, and due to the years in the sand rinse thread we've got skip cycle surgery down pat. we want to remove the invader cells and all supporting organic detritus clouding stores...we put back the rest and then upgrade the microbial competition by strategy in the uninvaded condition vs the common invaded one/wait for mass to die off itself within tank and be physically exported by mechanics or bound up somehow...we're fully opposite of that in every way for this method

The tank we have is at the bottom end of large, 45 gallon, but we really don't have the ability to do that right now. It may be a final step if I can get a local reef shop to "fish-sit" for me while I nuke the rebel scum. The resistance will fall! I'll give this attempt another month, at which point I'll reevaluate and see what I want to do. What kind of rock cleaning are we talking here? Dry rock status?

 

[brandon429]

I envision this for the slightly larger nanos where we're trying hard to avoid double and triple rip cleans (most mileage on first go) -

we'll rip the bed out totally and not put it back until the rock scape and corals are free of invader. no hiding places till it abates, then we can put the sand back. vs rinsing, removed all at once. This has already been documented about a hundred times in the sand rinse thread, sandbeds are not the breakpoint for surface area in a reef tank, and live rocks don't take on more bac (or need time to ramp up) to make up for lack of sand, that's not how it works. they regulate their own surfaces for bacteria independently of the sandbed.

The live rocks have enough surface area for the whole reef alone, without ramp down time, which is why we have everyone rinsing their sandbeds in tap in that thread...sandbeds don't matter they're incidental surface area, bacteria, and detritus and in very very few tanks, living animals in the sandbed. We show in the sand rinse thread that 98% of sandbeds are just mud, no helpful animals. If your tank is invaded with dinos, sandbed worms aren't helping anyway.

also, before the large job, we test model the rocks-only reset before you even run it. we don't experiment on whole tanks, we model then apply.

pick a couple removable and invaded test rocks to remove from the system. clean them externally, pressure jet somehow using saltwater to evacuate pores of the live rock, be creative. pump battery water gun with saltwater is one way, make a jet pump with special hose ends etc, but jet the test rocks clear of invader, and detritus.

run bottled peroxide across the cleaned rocks just before rinse...cellular cleanup.

peroxide pouring, not a harm to filtration bacteria per 10x000 peroxide reef tank threads.

manhandle those rocks but always use just saltwater and peroxide, things we can indeed upscale to your whole system if we rip clean it <----neither method is antimicrobial. I'm aware peroxide says antimicrobial on the bottle, its just not due to our contact times, convolutions within the rock, and the inability of 3% to cut through insulating biofilms in the time we use it. these are harsh but within skip cycle boundaries, we use the methods in multi threads already.

set new test rocks all cleared in a bucket of saltwater, a mini nano reef, keep it topped off and heated, match your reef conditions but that test bucket is now a model of your tank before you do any work



if they grow back in the test bucket much past 1 or 2 more rip cleans, this method isn't likely to help and you can know that far before doing the work. If you had light growback and it took two rip cleans to guide it out = price of hesitation but at least we got it. Anyone with an invaded ten gallon or five gallon can just rip clean the whole system all at once due to easy access, and if you needed it twice more that's not hard. Ive rip cleaned my pico reef four times in the thread just to participate, and it wasn't even invaded. I ran it to show the method doesn't cause a recycle in my 13 yr old system.

not trying to derail the approach Taricha let us know if its ok to discuss manual war options here for dinos. this above pretty much sums up my whole game plan anyway, happy to work any challenges in message
B

I still think it sounds powerful to rip clean, maybe even twice if the system can be accessed, then dose the new microbes. measure and react to the Si levels

nitrate and po4 are now baseline zero like a new tank, dose 'em if we like...but do it in the uninvaded condition for once...
really hit that ecology where the manual removal seems to have done all the work, then dose the microbes only as preventatives, never as the removers.

 

[Entz]

I noticed mine grows mostly where light is low and flow is low. Do you guys see this too? The middle of my tank where light is brightest and there is less rock is very clean.

Has anyone added more flow and seen a difference?

Mine are the worse in areas with lower flow for sure as I think it keeps the mats from forming (maybe). Mine seem to like light and are usually worse later in the day then in the morning. Not sure if they go deeper into the sand or what. My tank has 2 horrible spots in it due to its shape.

FWIW, mine have been massively better since I have been dosing and aggressively vacuuming but they are still coming back. They are present on the walls, most likely due to them getting stirred up during cleaning. It used to be a full brown patch within 24 hours after a deep cleaning, now its just a few spots after 3 days. I got a bit lazy on dosing PO4 and it is back to near zero (2 ppb) but is detectable at least. I need to do another check with the scope tonight. Getting some Cyano but I am okay with that for now ...

I have noticed a load of brown in my filter floss as well, which is an easy export method, but it makes me wonder if these guys are entering the water column at some point (night maybe?)

 

[Jameseywayney]

Hey everyone, I've been battling dinos just on my sand, its not stringy whatsoever, and mostly dissapears at night. I think its small cell amphidinium but i'm hoping someone can help me confirm. I dealt with Ostreopsis in my old tank which was taken care of via UV, Dosing Microbactor7 and dosing phosphates as they had bottomed out. I followed the same routine this time without success. I've started dosing silicate.

 

[David_Cool]

Since all of the dinos seem to be isolated to the sand surface during the day, do you think rigging up a cheap UV sterilizer like this with some Al foil on the outside as a deflector and running it back and forth over your sand would have a decent effect?

https://www.amazon.com/Sarora-Subme...ht&qid=1556637092&s=pet-supplies&sr=1-28&th=1