Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[taricha]

so for SiO4 I was shooting for high side natural seawater ranges at 3ppm. Was hesitant to go higher, at least intentionally. I did see a few readings of 5. I could see the sand color change from that dark brown to a golden brown as the diatoms population increased.

"To convert to silicon, multiply by 0.3. Natural sea water contains about 10 mg/L as silicate." that's from the Seachem instructions. This seems to imply the quoted 2-3ppm value of seawater is as Si. @Randy Holmes-Farley article indicates a 2-3ppm seawater number as SiO2. These are all roughly in the same ballpark.
Regardless, your target number makes sense - Si of 1ppm which would show up as 3+ ppm on Seachem test.
(I hope I'm doing this right, or at least not super wrong.)

 

[Bebow]

So let's consider if you have dinos and they have executed their bloom phase and are dominating, there's very little else in the tank. They've likely consumed just about everything there is to be had. So if you don't do water changes, or input some trace elements, then nothing can grow to compete with them. This is seen in tanks where they say "I've had elevated N & P for a month and no green algae growth - can't even grow Chaeto!"
So early on, dose nutrients - if green doesn't take off then do water changes - perhaps even add trace elements if you can't get algae or diatoms to grow. Grow everything, remove dinos as much as you can. Once you've raised up a strong contingent of competitors - green algae & diatoms - then it makes sense for you to force them to compete for scarce micronutrient resources. You can stop water changes, and any other micronutrient input. After you have sufficient stuff to compete with the dinos.
This is why sometimes the advice sounds contradictory.

I apologize for steeping in and making clear as mud to Jaysin13. I wasn’t aware of this theory but it make sense!

 

[Jaysin13]

I apologize for steeping in and making clear as mud to Jaysin13. I wasn’t aware of this theory but it make sense!

You're good bro. I appreciate all help.

 

[Bebow]

Found stringy bubbles all over a pocillipora today. Coral had almost died in my January battle with Dino’s. Some of these look different, smaller than amphinidium. They where attached to the dead areas of the coral.

 

[Bebow]

Found stringy bubbles all over a pocillipora today. Coral had almost died in my January battle with Dino’s. Some of these look different, smaller than amphinidium. They where attached to the dead areas of the coral. Lot of diatoms!

 

[CDavmd]

Follow up:

After the power failure and cold temps the Dino’s were suppressed for about 3 weeks. They are back with a vengeance despite elevated nutrient levels and green turf growing all over the glass and dead corals (those that succumbed to the power failure).

Discouraged.

 

[taricha]

Follow up:

After the power failure and cold temps the Dino’s were suppressed for about 3 weeks. They are back with a vengeance despite elevated nutrient levels and green turf growing all over the glass and dead corals (those that succumbed to the power failure).

Discouraged.

Sorry. No fun, but not surprising. The lower temps likely pushed the dinos to form cysts as happens seasonally in nature at some sites. This is a good report. Nice to know that temperature can trigger this behavior in captivity also.
Apparently the die-off especially of coral made valuable nutrients and space newly available.

 

[taricha]

This is a bit of a rabbit hole, so I made another thread for it. But it's super on-topic. It's all about the theory behind elevating nutrients and competing for trace elements.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/experiment-trace-element-limitation-in-reef-tank.380859/

 

[Javamahn]

So I am sort of giving up the fight against amphinidium but I not. I am building a 150 gallon to replace the current 90 gallon that has Dino. The new build only has the tank and the stand and I am not in a big hurry. All the the equipment on the current system is oversized for up to 250 gallon tanks so can I move my sump and skimmer pumps fish and coral and what steps should I take as far as dipping or cleaning solutions to minimize bringing Dino's to the new tank. Most of the coral can be pulled off the rock as they are still relatively small and I anticipate a few weeks in QT while the new tank cycles. I am pulling out my Jebao 55w UV from the current tank today as I am not seeing much change after a month online along with the 36w Turbotwist I have on my return. I do see lots of gha on the live rock but it looks like Dino is right there with it all rusty

 

[coachb9]

Hello everyone. I think this is the dino monster I have as well. Pics for verification. The tank pic doesn’t show the bubbles on surface but they are there.
Nitrate 0.05
Phosphate 0.16
I have been doing water changes like a dope. I am going to siphon and run water back into tank.
I tried bleach but it was affecting fish too much so I stopped after 3 doses. Haven’t tried peroxide yet. Scared to try Dino-X.
Added a ton of pods a few days ago. Going to order more and phyto as well.
The dino seems to have affected some snails but not many. I’m thinking my dino isn’t very toxic, just real ugly.
Any feedback would be appreciated

 

[taricha]

Unfortunately, you'll find that amphidinium hugs the sand grains and likely are protected from oxidizers (bleach & peroxide) and most other chemical attacks by the organic debris there.
Additionally, they won't be touched by UV either.

 

[coachb9]

That’s what I’m reading from all these posts.
So how do I beat it?

 

[coachb9]

That’s what I am reading that I didn’t know before.
Now the question, how do I beat it?

 

[matic]

I removed al my sand and added some live rock and cleaned the rock daily with a turkey blaster. I also added biopellets; my dino’s seemed to be gone but I’m still waiting to add my sand back.
Removing the sand cured 90% of my problem.

 

[coachb9]

I have 100+ lbs of live rock in my tank now and contemplated removing sand but not sure I am there yet

 

[Waterbourn]

here is my update on amphididnium very briefly which i have been fighting for about 3 months

thought i had cyano and used chemiclean.
it didn't work so that is when i found i had dinos. I had used chemiclean in the past and i am certain there is a link between chemiclean and dinos, probably when you already have low nutrients like i did
i started raising phosphates and nitrates (average 0.1 and 4-8)
didn't see a huge change so i tried 3 day black out and h2o2. dinos came back within a day of lights back on
didn't see a huge change so i added uv (jaebo 55w). it did not work that i can tell which we know does not work with this type of dino.
brown filamountous algea started growing on everything. i let it grow and after a few weeks i finally scraped a bunch off glass and rocks since it started creeping on coral. This raised phosphates even more
then it seemed i hit some plateau or nutrient limitation where phosphates and nitrates stabilized and no real increase in algae either was seen. everything stopped growing for the most part.
dinos still there but not worse. they seemed to have stopped growing too from what i observed but did not completely go away.
at this point i added fiji mud to refugium
i bought 10 lbs of garf grunge and 5 lbs of garf grunge plus and placed a thin layer over my sand bed. (this seemed to be one thing that really made a difference). i finally got parts of my sandbed that turned white again
i read about silica and started adding. i have 125 gallon tank and have been adding 10-20 drops a day. I need to buy a hanna as i don't know where i am now. but diatoms did start growing. are they helping? I am unsure, but i see more diatoms than dinos
i bought a 3lb piece of live rock for lfs and added it to increase even more biodiversity
i just did a water change after 2 months. i think things were stalling too much. i was worried about a dino bloom but have not seen it yet.

i just took some samples of brown patches on my sand which are very dark now. This is what i see.

i think diatoms right. I can find a dino here and there but nothing like it was. I have hope where i was almost ready to give up.

on a side note i see this in a couple places and have no idea what it is. some hard bubble. any thoughts?

 

[Oberst Oswald]

i see this in a couple places and have no idea what it is. some hard bubble. any thoughts?

Bubble algae... get them out as fast as you can.

 

[coachb9]

Yup that’s bubble algae.
And the rice looking stuff in your microscope pic is diatoms.

So not to jump on your response but I just did my first siphon of my sand where I ran the water back into a filter sock and then back into the sump, so not a water change. Unfortunately it took about a pound of sand out with it which I had to dump out of the sock when I was done but at least the sand is clean (for now). From what I gather, I will need to do this every 2-3 days and hopefully that will make a difference.
I am also going to get my mag up to 1500 over the next week and then continue to add pods and phyto in hopes that I get a battle for whatever the dino is eating.
Nitrate - 5
Phosphate 0.16

 

[Jose Mayo]

here is my update on amphididnium very briefly which i have been fighting for about 3 months

thought i had cyano and used chemiclean.
it didn't work so that is when i found i had dinos. I had used chemiclean in the past and i am certain there is a link between chemiclean and dinos, probably when you already have low nutrients like i did
i started raising phosphates and nitrates (average 0.1 and 4-8)
didn't see a huge change so i tried 3 day black out and h2o2. dinos came back within a day of lights back on
didn't see a huge change so i added uv (jaebo 55w). it did not work that i can tell which we know does not work with this type of dino.
brown filamountous algea started growing on everything. i let it grow and after a few weeks i finally scraped a bunch off glass and rocks since it started creeping on coral. This raised phosphates even more
then it seemed i hit some plateau or nutrient limitation where phosphates and nitrates stabilized and no real increase in algae either was seen. everything stopped growing for the most part.
dinos still there but not worse. they seemed to have stopped growing too from what i observed but did not completely go away.
at this point i added fiji mud to refugium
i bought 10 lbs of garf grunge and 5 lbs of garf grunge plus and placed a thin layer over my sand bed. (this seemed to be one thing that really made a difference). i finally got parts of my sandbed that turned white again
i read about silica and started adding. i have 125 gallon tank and have been adding 10-20 drops a day. I need to buy a hanna as i don't know where i am now. but diatoms did start growing. are they helping? I am unsure, but i see more diatoms than dinos
i bought a 3lb piece of live rock for lfs and added it to increase even more biodiversity
i just did a water change after 2 months. i think things were stalling too much. i was worried about a dino bloom but have not seen it yet.

i just took some samples of brown patches on my sand which are very dark now. This is what i s

i think diatoms right. I can find a dino here and there but nothing like it was. I have hope where i was almost ready to give up.

on a side note i see this in a couple places and have no idea what it is. some hard bubble. any thoughts?

Yes, I would like to think that you did it: with the dosage of silica there were conditions for diatoms to grow, they grew, they dominated the dinoflagellates and practically eliminated them (allelopathy, maybe?).

Congratulations

 

[bh750]

here is my update on amphididnium very briefly which i have been fighting for about 3 months

thought i had cyano and used chemiclean.
it didn't work so that is when i found i had dinos. I had used chemiclean in the past and i am certain there is a link between chemiclean and dinos, probably when you already have low nutrients like i did
i started raising phosphates and nitrates (average 0.1 and 4-8)
didn't see a huge change so i tried 3 day black out and h2o2. dinos came back within a day of lights back on
didn't see a huge change so i added uv (jaebo 55w). it did not work that i can tell which we know does not work with this type of dino.
brown filamountous algea started growing on everything. i let it grow and after a few weeks i finally scraped a bunch off glass and rocks since it started creeping on coral. This raised phosphates even more
then it seemed i hit some plateau or nutrient limitation where phosphates and nitrates stabilized and no real increase in algae either was seen. everything stopped growing for the most part.
dinos still there but not worse. they seemed to have stopped growing too from what i observed but did not completely go away.
at this point i added fiji mud to refugium
i bought 10 lbs of garf grunge and 5 lbs of garf grunge plus and placed a thin layer over my sand bed. (this seemed to be one thing that really made a difference). i finally got parts of my sandbed that turned white again
i read about silica and started adding. i have 125 gallon tank and have been adding 10-20 drops a day. I need to buy a hanna as i don't know where i am now. but diatoms did start growing. are they helping? I am unsure, but i see more diatoms than dinos
i bought a 3lb piece of live rock for lfs and added it to increase even more biodiversity
i just did a water change after 2 months. i think things were stalling too much. i was worried about a dino bloom but have not seen it yet.

i just took some samples of brown patches on my sand which are very dark now. This is what i see.

i think diatoms right. I can find a dino here and there but nothing like it was. I have hope where i was almost ready to give up.

on a side note i see this in a couple places and have no idea what it is. some hard bubble. any thoughts?

Thanks for that detailed update! I'm on pretty much the same exact path and situation. In an effort to boost biodiversity I just added 6lbs of Walt Smiths Fiji Mud to tank and refugium last night. Today i just had 5 lbs of garf grunge and 5 lbs of grunge plus arrive at my house. Added some stuff from indo pacific sea farms last week (snails, worms, stars, snails). I already have a healthy population of pods and other worms.

I'm holding off on silicate dosing just to see what impact this all has.