Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[Cwentz758]

I have continued dosing Water Glass at a rate of 1ppm daily, I’m about 3 weeks into SI dosing but started slow. The Salifert test still only shows cloudy water (not blue) and the Hannah Checker is on back order. I sent off an ATI/ICP on Friday so I should get an idea where I’m at on SI. I will continue dosing 1ppm til I get a reading on the Salifert kit or the Hannah Checker comes in. Diatoms are increasing and Dinos seem to be decreasing slightly. I’m still blowing off the Dinos that get on the rocks and leaving the sand alone.

SI diatoms didn’t start blooming until I dosed 5ML a day. My corals started nose diving lost my sticks so I stopped dosing SI

 

[ScottB]

I have continued dosing Water Glass at a rate of 1ppm daily, I’m about 3 weeks into SI dosing but started slow. The Salifert test still only shows cloudy water (not blue) and the Hannah Checker is on back order. I sent off an ATI/ICP on Friday so I should get an idea where I’m at on SI. I will continue dosing 1ppm til I get a reading on the Salifert kit or the Hannah Checker comes in. Diatoms are increasing and Dinos seem to be decreasing slightly. I’m still blowing off the Dinos that get on the rocks and leaving the sand alone.

Not that I have had personal experience with amphid species, but have read enough -- more than enough -- to advise patience. While they are the least aggressive in terms of toxin, they are by far the most effective on defense. Don't go overboard on treatment that affects the rest of the tank inhabitants. Many have tried aggressive methods that don't work, but destabilize the system leading to unnecessary coral mortality. According to a hundred or more posts, SI dosing is fine though.

 

[Rwade]

Not that I have had personal experience with amphid species, but have read enough -- more than enough -- to advise patience. While they are the least aggressive in terms of toxin, they are by far the most effective on defense. Don't go overboard on treatment that affects the rest of the tank inhabitants. Many have tried aggressive methods that don't work, but destabilize the system leading to unnecessary coral mortality. According to a hundred or more posts, SI dosing is fine though.

I’m only dosing SI and would like to maintain 1ppm, once I get a reliable test. My corals are looking good right now.

 

[cedwards04]

Quick update with my experience:

I'll keep up my weekly monitoring, but it's now been ~three weeks without any amphidinium (or any dinos) in any of the samples I'm scoping. Two weeks ago I restarted water changes and three days ago I performed a 50% water change to see if the influx of trace elements would spur dino growth. So far my treatment regimen has been effective for my particular ecosystem.

So what exactly did you do?

 

[andrewey]

So what exactly did you do?

These are all the items that changed in my tank between IDing amphidnium and not seeing them anymore.

• Raised nitrates to 20-25ppm
• Raised phosphate to 0.10-0.15
• Water changes were still withheld (discontinued due to previous ostreopsis)
• Dosed Si (dose estimated, but not measured)
• Increased feeding frequency of pureered fish/coral food
• Increased feeding of whiteworms + their soil
• Photoperiod of T5s increased one hour
• Mini Filter socks changed every 24-48 hours instead of every 48-72 hours
• Increased proportion of kalk dosed within the photoperiod
• Natural effect of time

The actions in bold were taken in the hopes of directly treating the amphidinium, the others were changes I was making for unrelated reasons and may or may not have had any effect on the amphidinium - they are listed here for completeness.

 

[Cwentz758]

These are all the items that changed in my tank between IDing amphidnium and not seeing them anymore.

• Raised nitrates to 20-25ppm
• Raised phosphate to 0.10-0.15
• Water changes were still withheld (discontinued due to previous ostreopsis)
• Dosed Si (dose estimated, but not measured)
• Increased feeding frequency of pureered fish/coral food
• Increased feeding of whiteworms + their soil
• Photoperiod of T5s increased one hour
• Mini Filter socks changed every 24-48 hours instead of every 48-72 hours
• Increased proportion of kalk dosed within the photoperiod
• Natural effect of time

The actions in bold were taken in the hopes of directly treating the amphidinium, the others were changes I was making for unrelated reasons and may or may not have had any effect on the amphidinium - they are listed here for completeness.

Did the increased Si have any bad affect on coral? Once I got the diatoms bloom and my Salifert kit read .5 si my birds nest bleached in two days and other SPS started to bleach. Hammers also were very retracted. I had to perform a 15% water change and today things seemed better. Minus losing the birds nest.

 

[andrewey]

Did the increased Si have any bad affect on coral? Once I got the diatoms bloom and my Salifert kit read .5 si my birds nest bleached in two days and other SPS started to bleach. Hammers also were very retracted. I had to perform a 15% water change and today things seemed better. Minus losing the birds nest.

I didn't see any effect on coral, however I never saw a large diatom bloom. I simply observed that after a few days my slides became ever increasingly populated with various diatoms until after about two weeks, I rarely encountered any amphidinium. I kept dosing for three additional weeks and slowly tapered the dose off. At that point, I did not see any amphidinium. I'm sure they are still there, should my nutrients ever dip down or some type of event/imbalance favors their proliferation, but for the time being my tank is happy with the current nitrate and phosphate level, so I'll keep it there and try and maintain stability.

My population of sponges loved the Si dosing

 

[Rwade]

Did the increased Si have any bad affect on coral? Once I got the diatoms bloom and my Salifert kit read .5 si my birds nest bleached in two days and other SPS started to bleach. Hammers also were very retracted. I had to perform a 15% water change and today things seemed better. Minus losing the birds nest.

I’m curious what the color of your test solution shows for a .5 SI reading, I’m dosing 1ppm of Water Glass daily and don’t get a .5 reading. I just get a light bluish gray color.

 

[Cwentz758]

I’m using the Salifert kit. It’s like a cloudy color with maybe a tiny blue tint

 

[RMS18]

Another week in the books and things are looking good. Decided to add some new LPS to celebrate the small win. Orange plate, pink tip elegance, yellow tip elegance and a orange/green lobo.

It's been about 5 weeks since focusing on stability with the big 3, reasonable nutrient levels and routine maintenance and nothing else.

 

[Rwade]

So based on Cwentz758 interpretation of the Salifert test, I’m also at .5 on SI one hour after dosing 1ppm of Waterglass. I have diatoms and what I believe are Chrysophytes (strings of snot that look like small greenish cells attached by gel under magnification).

 

[xjiang7]

I have been dosing silicates for two weeks and now there are about twice as more this algae than the Dinos. Can someone help me to identify it?

 

[TurboTang]

1

 

[TurboTang]

1

Hi guys,
After reading through this entire thread I'm convinced I have amphidiniums. Before I begin the treatments outlined here, can someone take a look at these pics and verify?

 

[Rwade]

Hi guys,
After reading through this entire thread I'm convinced I have amphidiniums. Before I begin the treatments outlined here, can someone take a look at these pics and verify?

Yep, that’s what you have.

 

[TurboTang]

Yep, that’s what you have.

Based on what I've read, and how I got to where I am - I think you guys might have already figured out how to beat it.
Months back I decided it was time to add corals to the tank but I had a lot of different algae and felt like I needed to get it completely in control first. LFS recommended nopox
It worked well. but I started to get this orange dusting on the sand about the same time I introduced a bunch of frags. In addition I was constantly removing cyano from the chaeto in my refuge. The orange dusting on sandbed became thicker and more slime like. I assumed cyano was spreading so tried chemicleen. Interesting thing all this was happening in my quarantine tank at same time because I was taking sand/water from DT. I would siphon off top layer of sand and build up sand bed in my quarantine tank. I harvested a hand full of chaeto with cyano in it and just dumped it in the quarantine tank and treated it also with chemicleen.
Well, the chemicleen did as advertised on red slime in chaeto, but did nothing to the orange stuff on sand in either tank.
In fact the orange stuff really took off after the chemicleen in both tanks. About 4-6 weeks later I noticed the sand was clear in the quarantine tank ( a third of it was covered in chaeto and the rest had a bunch of strands of chaeto spread all around by the devil damsil fish living there - different story). But DT was worse than ever.
Is chaeto the answer? I saw a couple positive stories with chaeto, but not many tried it. Perhaps I should try spreading chaeto around DT. Only problem is there is a lot more flow in DT than quarantine tank......

 

[Rwade]

Anyone have an idea to what this thing is? It appears to have eaten some of the smaller Dinos, but retracts when larger Dinos bump into it.

 

[Rwade]

My Hanna Checker finally arrived (was back ordered) and the test results are 2.0ppm SI. This is after dosing 1ppm Waterglass daily for the last 17 days, and 20 ml Spongexcel before that. I never got over a .5 reading on the Salifert test, and even that was questionable. I’m getting a good Diatom bloom and the sand is looking a little better. I’ll be cutting the dosage down to .5ppm daily. Hopefully I’m on the way to winning this battle.

 

[Cwentz758]

I’ve stopped dosing Si once I had a big diatom bloom, and my corals started going down hill (especially SPS) I’ve done two small water changes since and corals have responded back in a good way. The diatoms are still in full affect an I’m wiping the glass daily in the front and sides. The sand is still brown but it looks more of diatom nature than the Dino’s. I would say I’m about 2 weeks into this with the diatom bloom.

 

[dwest]

I have been dosing silicates for two weeks and now there are about twice as more this algae than the Dinos. Can someone help me to identify it?

Chrysophytes?