Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[BitReef]

Pellet Food feeds Amphidinium Dinos
At least in my tank.
My dino outbreak started when I went on vacation and had an auto-feeder dropping pellet food (I normally feed frozen food). Originally I didn’t directly connect the dinos with the pellet food. I started fighting the dinos by increasing NO3 and PO4, dosing bacteria and phytoplankton, increasing the tank temp and introducing chaeto. I had dinos on the run. They went from about 95% coverage of my sand to 30% in a little over a week. Then, last Sunday, I was in a hurry to leave the house and didn’t have time to feed frozen food, so I dropped in a pinch or two of pellet food. Monday when the lights came on dino coverage was back up to 75%! I’m not sure what this means but I’m absolutely convinced the pellet food caused the dino spike. It’s the only thing that changed from Sun to Mon.

 

[taricha]

Pellet Food feeds Amphidinium Dinos
At least in my tank.
My dino outbreak started when I went on vacation and had an auto-feeder dropping pellet food (I normally feed frozen food). Originally I didn’t directly connect the dinos with the pellet food. I started fighting the dinos by increasing NO3 and PO4, dosing bacteria and phytoplankton, increasing the tank temp and introducing chaeto. I had dinos on the run. They went from about 95% coverage of my sand to 30% in a little over a week. Then, last Sunday, I was in a hurry to leave the house and didn’t have time to feed frozen food, so I dropped in a pinch or two of pellet food. Monday when the lights came on dino coverage was back up to 75%! I’m not sure what this means but I’m absolutely convinced the pellet food caused the dino spike. It’s the only thing that changed from Sun to Mon.

What pellets?
Interesting observations. The pellets could be richer in Fe/trace elements, but it's also possible that pellets being ~10% water and frozen being ~90% water, that when you feed pellets it's a much larger food input than the amount of frozen even though the food amounts might seem comparable.

 

[missourimud]

could I gent one of you fine gentleman(or ladies) to confirm if this is amphididiniums for me? I've had it posted over on the main dino thread but yet to confirm. thanks

 

[missourimud]

could I gent one of you fine gentleman(or ladies) to confirm if this is amphididiniums for me? I've had it posted over on the main dino thread but yet to confirm. thanks

#taricha #ScottB please, if i have to make a purchase i would like to have it get in shipping before the weekend, thanks

 

[Reef and Dive]

#taricha #ScottB please, if i have to make a purchase i would like to have it get in shipping before the weekend, thanks

If it helps, to me looks like small cell Amphidinium, but not a great reaolution…

 

[Grossman90]

Can i get an id on these? Doesnt look like ostreopsis i dealt with 2 years ago. Best way to combat if it is small amphidinium? Thanks

 

[Dodger]

Has anyone considered moving sand in from another aquarium?

 

[Reef and Dive]

Has anyone considered moving sand in from another aquarium?

Yes and done. Bringing colonization from a mature reef helps, but with many risks

 

[missourimud]

@Reef and Dive question for you.
Not really sure how i ended up dinos, my no3 got pretty low but always got some color on the salifert test and po4 stays high(hanna) but I certainly do.
If i have small cell here is my plan
nutrients seem pretty good

no3@5 po4 .13
I have silica coming also phyto.
Went and bought 13w uv tonight ( all i could find locally) my plan is to run the uv, start dosing phyto and silica on monday when they get here.
Anything else i can do?
So far only of my sps is looking rough but this is progressing quick and i want to stay on top of it.
I have a much better microscope coming as well. Any advise would be appreciated

 

[Reef and Dive]

@Reef and Dive question for you.
Not really sure how i ended up dinos, my no3 got pretty low but always got some color on the salifert test and po4 stays high(hanna) but I certainly do.
If i have small cell here is my plan
nutrients seem pretty good

no3@5 po4 .13
I have silica coming also phyto.
Went and bought 13w uv tonight ( all i could find locally) my plan is to run the uv, start dosing phyto and silica on monday when they get here.
Anything else i can do?
So far only of my sps is looking rough but this is progressing quick and i want to stay on top of it.
I have a much better microscope coming as well. Any advise would be appreciated

You can dose non-nitrifying bacteria often (eg dr tim waste away). Don’t do this together with UV.

If dinos are under control and nutrients present, time will do the work. Silica and diatom competition helps.

UV is not a great help for small-cell amphis…

You can often blast the sand and rocks to make dinos go back to circulation and while doing that use a 50micron sock…

On the class of things that can be done but might affect the tank:

- reduce photoperiod, specially whites
- avoid WC and trace dosing (dinos might starve from what they consume)
- 3 day blackout (I recommend this only when the battle is nearly won and you barely see dinos)

Drastic options when it is starting to get out of control:

- Cruz (Elegant Corals) bacterial bloom method
- Removing substrate

Extra bonus tip:
Nutrients present are important, but if you check your N - P ratio you might check it is tilted to the side where it promotes cyano (P too high for that N). DO NOT try to correct that (and lower too much phos) while battling dinos, because they take great advantage of this…

 

[Dodger]

Has anyone considered moving sand in from another aquarium?

Started adding sponge excel yesterday. Had a very light dusting of diatoms on my glass already. See where this goes. Should I remove my filter floss and just use my sponge filter? Didn't see anyone write about using floss and removing the diatoms we are trying to create?
Been adding flourish for the last week as my phosphates were still zero. Think I wasn't adding enough because my phosphates did not increase. Did a bigger dose yesterday, checked my water and still no phosphates? Used Red Sea and Hanna checker. Noticed that I have green algae (i think) beginning to grow, is that were the phosphate is going? Add more or just continue with a bit each day?
People are saying to add live phytoplankton. How important is this?
Thanks for all your help to everyone, but Reef & Dive!!

 

[Reef and Dive]

People are saying to add live phytoplankton. How important is this?

Just as a matter of report:
As I’ve experimented with dinos in one special tank before (my current display, gladly no dino problems today), I tried using entire 200mL bottles of live phyto every day for 2 weeks and checking any difference on the microscope: there was none.

 

[Reef and Dive]

is that were the phosphate is going?

I think so, and that could be a “good” thing for the moment…

Should I remove my filter floss and just use my sponge filter?

I wouldn’t worry and use it anyway.

My previous comment is put as report because there are scientific reasons to think that allelopathy could place a role inhibiting dinos, but in my personal (controlled) experience with nannochloropsis it did not.

 

[taricha]

Just as a matter of report:
As I’ve experimented with dinos in one special tank before (my current display, gladly no dino problems today), I tried using entire 200mL bottles of live phyto every day for 2 weeks and checking any difference on the microscope: there was none.

Agreed. Live phyto hasn't been an effective dino tool from what I've seen.
In some cases, it seems to just act as organic food trapped in a dino mat that can fuel the bloom.

 

[wareagle]

Low Pi concentration in surface has been hypothesized to be due to significant dinitrogen (N2) fixation rates in the NPSG (Kitajima et al., 2009). Nano-sized unicellular N2-fixer cyanobacteria (<10 µm) were reported to be the main contributor to this Pi exhaustion due to their relative tolerance of low iron and Pi availability (Berman-Frank et al., 2007). In contrast, microphytoplankton, especially diatoms, which have a high P demand, were described as poor competitors at low Pi concentrations (Egge, 1998). Microphytoplankton must thus rely on alternative strategies to grow in Pi-limited environments.

Phosphorus stress of microphytoplankton community in the western subtropical North Pacific

Abstract. Phosphorus stress in microphytoplankton (diatoms, dinoflagellates, Trichodesmium spp.) and small-sized unicellular cyanobacteria was assayed usin

academic.oup.com

For those of you trying with diatoms.

Diatoms are prominent eukaryotic phytoplankton despite being limited by the micronutrient iron in vast expanses of the ocean. As iron inputs are often sporadic, diatoms have evolved mechanisms such as the ability to store iron that enable them to bloom when iron is resupplied and then persist when low iron levels are reinstated.

Different iron storage strategies among bloom-forming diatoms

The availability of the micronutrient iron has profound influences on primary productivity and biogeochemical cycling in the ocean. Here we describe iron storage mechanisms in diatoms, a predominant group of phytoplankton. We substantiate evidence with environmental data that diatoms have...

www.pnas.org

 

[missourimud]

Got the new scope in late last night. Was playing with it way too late, actually way clear just hard to take a picture.

I am not seeing a "beak" like amphidinium references. More prorocentrum, although the "pyrenoid" in the center doubled. Another confirmation if you please?
They swim all over fairly quick. I have them everywhere, sand and rock. I actually sucked this sample off some hair algae!
I am kinda at a loss as my po4 has actually been high-always.

Nitrates were low months ago but I was still in the process of stocking, I only run a skimmer and socks and dont change the socks often.

What fueled this best I can guess is me killing off my bryopsis. My tank was started with dry rock and I added 15lbs of GLR in the beginning. I truly think the LR helped but it did bring some stuff.

I currently register
5-6ppm no3 ( salifert)
.1 po4 ( hanna ul)

T5s been off since friday. Led switched to only blues. Lost a couple acro frags and a torch, although they were all newish and pretty stressed before the outbreak. Just bummed as these are my first coral losses. I have been learning to be patient but I would like to do all I can to provide for the creatures.

What i am going with is dosing silicates. Running a small UV, loading my filter sock with floss and changing daily. Phyto should be here today (ordered before i saw you comments above)

Let me know if i am off base or any other suggestions.
thanks

 

[taricha]

More prorocentrum, although the "pyrenoid" in the center doubled. Another confirmation if you please?

100% prorocentrum

They swim all over fairly quick. I have them everywhere, sand and rock. I actually sucked this sample off some hair algae!
I am kinda at a loss as my po4 has actually been high-always.

In the wild, this is their niche, colonizing macroalgae. Algae release sugars and proteins that can sustain these dinos (or indirectly sustain the communities that the dinos thrive in.) manual removal of algae from the display will be part of the treatment.

What fueled this best I can guess is me killing off my bryopsis. My tank was started with dry rock and I added 15lbs of GLR in the beginning. I truly think the LR helped but it did bring some stuff.

Yep. Stressed and dying algae definitely fuel nuisance dinos and cyano. All of our problem dinos exist in small numbers in reef habitats. We import them into our systems all the time.

 

[dcmcwi08]

So I think it’s time. I’m proud to announce that I believe my Amp Dinos are defeated. I dosed a lot of crap, up to and including algae barn bacteria and phytoplankton, SEED, SpongeExcel, MB7, and NeoNitro.

Those combinations I don’t believe did anything but promote the Dino’s. BUT what I believe worked was Dosing the Sponge Excel (Silicates) until I had a nasty diatom bloom. Once that was in full affect I quit dosing it as my corals began to suffer. I lost all my SPS sticks (only had a few nothing crazy). I did small water changes about 5-8 gallons every two-ish weeks mainly because my hammers were looking sad and deflated and thenew water helped. On top of dosing silicates I started dosing Sodium Nitrate as the Neo Nitro did nothing to raise my nitrates. I got my NO3 up to about 8ppm and kept it there this whole time.

it’s been close to 6 weeks or a little more since I did these few things and stopped the rest and as of today I have almost 0 brown sand. There is what appears to be a small patch of diatom looking brown but the dark stuff is gone. I’ve noticed coralline starting to go crazy on my rocks again and my fish are happy.

My only current worry are my hammers they still seem to be deflated and some heads are beginning to harden and I don’t know what as the rest of my tank parameters are in check.

My zoas and Xenia have taken off through this whole thing as well.

Hey! I know this has been a while, and you probably answered this l later on in this very long thread, but did the Dinos ever come back? I have small cell amphidinum and am planning to force a diatom bloom (I only have zoas and acans right now, the dinos definitely killed my SPS). Just wondering if it led to long term improvement or not. Thanks!

 

[missourimud]

appreciate all the feedback. amazing how even though they are a nuisance, they force you to learn new things. Thats what i love about having a tank, there is always something around the bend.

 

[chema]

You can dose non-nitrifying bacteria often (eg dr tim waste away). Don’t do this together with UV.

If dinos are under control and nutrients present, time will do the work. Silica and diatom competition helps.

UV is not a great help for small-cell amphis…

You can often blast the sand and rocks to make dinos go back to circulation and while doing that use a 50micron sock…

On the class of things that can be done but might affect the tank:

- reduce photoperiod, specially whites
- avoid WC and trace dosing (dinos might starve from what they consume)
- 3 day blackout (I recommend this only when the battle is nearly won and you barely see dinos)

Drastic options when it is starting to get out of control:

- Cruz (Elegant Corals) bacterial bloom method
- Removing substrate

Extra bonus tip:
Nutrients present are important, but if you check your N - P ratio you might check it is tilted to the side where it promotes cyano (P too high for that N). DO NOT try to correct that (and lower too much phos) while battling dinos, because they take great advantage of this…

I had success in my former battle against Amphidinium some months ago, but they have come back. I have observed that the ratio N/P went down to around 50 (6/0,12) from nearly 100. According to the extra tip you mention, would it be better to increase N to raise the relationship up to 100 instead of lowering PO4?