Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

Cooper 2020 · May 5, 2020

These are what we have and have just started to increase temperature so will report back https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/amphidinium-dinoflagellate-treatment-methods.365850/post-7131557

Waynefish · May 5, 2020

Thanks for sharing Hank!

I started at 78.5 F and have been raising 0.5 F per day. My temp range has been 80 to 80.5 F for the last 24 hours. At this temp range there has been a distinct reduction of the dinos on my sand bed. I have acans, sps, torches, hammers, ricordea. They're looking fine at this temp range.

I hope my bit of data can be useful to others.

merereef · May 5, 2020

taricha said:
This is very cool!

The cells focused on in that video are ciliates, though they might have some dinos in their stomach.

These are prorocentrum, actually. (They are about ~5 times the size of the amphidinium cells in the first two pics of that image in post #957.)
Are you saying yours went away with elevating temp? They are probably trickier than amphidinium.

Taricha i think you should run tests increase temp and let us know what happens

taricha · May 6, 2020

merereef said:
Taricha i think you should run tests increase temp and let us know what happens

First, I’d have to grow some!

Mark · May 7, 2020

After running the tank at 82.5 for a week and half and seeing all the Dino's vaporize, I've reduced my temp down to 80.5 out of curiousity to see if Dino's stay gone or creep back. So far so good. I may then leave that as my new normal temperature, rather than 78 degrees.

cedwards04 · May 7, 2020

Mark said:
After running the tank at 82.5 for a week and half and seeing all the Dino's vaporize, I've reduced my temp down to 80.5 out of curiousity to see if Dino's stay gone or creep back. So far so good. I may then leave that as my new normal temperature, rather than 78 degrees.

Keep us posted. Ive slowly raised my temp. Im sitting at 82.5-83.0 as of this morning. Going to hold it here and see what happens.

Mark · May 7, 2020

cedwards04 said:
Keep us posted. Ive slowly raised my temp. Im sitting at 82.5-83.0 as of this morning. Going to hold it here and see what happens.

Will do. Regarding your tank, I'm sure you read this already, but it took around a week after increasing the temp to see Dino's vaporize. Let us know how it goes! Hopefully the temp thing isn't Dino species specific or something.

cedwards04 · May 7, 2020

Yeah, I appreciate the heads up though. I did a really thorough vacuum of the sand, then dosed some 34% peroxide. It didn't kill them, but definitely knocked them down significantly. Hopefully this helps.

taricha · May 7, 2020

Mark said:
After running the tank at 82.5 for a week and half and seeing all the Dino's vaporize, I've reduced my temp down to 80.5 out of curiousity to see if Dino's stay gone or creep back

I looked through some of your posts and didn't see any microscope pics of the dinos. Do you have any?

Mark · May 7, 2020

taricha said:
I looked through some of your posts and didn't see any microscope pics of the dinos. Do you have any?

I don't unfortunately. It's ironic, I had a wicked microscope that I gave away during a Mary Kondo style purge at the house. So I have no idea what kind of Dino's I had. I can say that they disappeared at night, and their presence on sand/glass/corals increased as the day progressed.

JPK_Esquire · May 9, 2020

Unfortunately, this isn’t a club I cared to join; nevertheless, here I am. Got my diagnosis this morning thanks to @taricha. Below is my video! I’m going to try this raise the temperature idea and also start siphoning the sand through a 5 micron filter sock. Will report back.

ApolloReef · May 9, 2020

All, just to give an update, it took about 10 days to get rid of them and they have stayed gone using the raising temperature idea after having them over two months before any treatment. First, I got my nitrates and phosphates above zero while I slowly raised temperature to 82-83 degF. They started to recede at that point. When the progress slowed, I hit it with a 3 day blackout. A week later, no signs of them and the tank looks better than ever before. This is my experience with the temperature method, your mileage may vary. BTW, @taricha identified mine as prorocentrum so not sure if this applies to all types.

taricha · May 9, 2020

Thank you. Prorocentrum are probably the most annoying. Almost the hardest to remove and also frequently toxic.

hankacrank · May 10, 2020

CHALK ANOTHER ONE UP FOR THE TEMPERATURE METHOD!

bobssecrtsn · May 10, 2020

@taricha

do you think these are Prorocentrum?

Mark · May 10, 2020

hankacrank said:
CHALK ANOTHER ONE UP FOR THE TEMPERATURE METHOD!

Thank you @hankacrank for sharing this discovery. After decades of reefkeeping, I was seriously close to throwing in the towel. I'm back to enjoying the hobby and growing corals again.

taricha · May 12, 2020

bobssecrtsn said:
@taricha

do you think these are Prorocentrum?

yep!

JPK_Esquire · May 13, 2020

Update on my results using the increased temp method. I began increasing the temp gradually 4 days ago, to where I am now holding between 82 and 83. I cannot tell much regression related to the Dinos, but maybe. However, I do have a pretty good amount of Cyano that has popped up. I am going to siphon the sand through a 5 micron filter sock later today and will treat the Cyano with Chemi-Clean, unless someone thinks otherwise.

Mark · May 13, 2020

JPK_Esquire said:
Update on my results using the increased temp method. I began increasing the temp gradually 4 days ago, to where I am now holding between 82 and 83. I cannot tell much regression related to the Dinos, but maybe. However, I do have a pretty good amount of Cyano that has popped up. I am going to siphon the sand through a 5 micron filter sock later today and will treat the Cyano with Chemi-Clean, unless someone thinks otherwise.

Sounds fine, I'd still wait 7 days or more at 82F. I still had Dino's at the 4 day mark. I'd do the chemiclean during week 2, and keep the temps up. I think both Cyano and Dino's compete for top spot when your nutrients bottom out. When I treated Cyano with chemi-clean, Dino's took their place. If Dino's are dying, you could see Cyano coming back. I would check your nitrate and phosphates and ensure they are not bottomed out.