Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[attiland]

I believe I have Prorocentrum. I've posted a picture and video above. I also sent a picture to taricha who was leaning that way as well and suggested UV.

It is not conflicting with what @ScottB said. It has affect against some strains can be forced to water column. Even works somewhat with small cell Amphidinium but the process is slow based on the few hundred posts I have gone trough and based on my own fight.
I am firm believer is the aim is not to kill Dinos but help the competition to do the job for you for long term success.

 

[NR53]

Welp, I have dinos. Been battling them for about 3 months now and I'm onto the third method. UV had done wonders for me in the past when I had coolia, but I believe I have amphidinium now because they're strictly in the sand. Even though they fade at night, they bloom during the day so I assume they're hiding instead of going waterborne.

• UV not effective. On a 120g system I'm running a 55w Lifegard UV with a 700gph pump directly pulling from the display tank
• Did daily vacuuming of sand running the water through a sock, then pumped back through a UV sterilizer. This kept them at bay but if I skipped a couple days they would be back at full coverage.
• I'm now trying silica dosing. Dosing .4ppm of Spongexcel daily for about a week now and barely registering anything with the Salifert test.

Sand is still covered with a brown mat but the good news is that I THINK I'm seeing more diatoms. I've always recognized them as the long strands but I'm seeing different varieties. Slowly seeing less dinos in the sample taken.

Identified in August

Thick mats of dinos last week

Today I'm seeing a better diatom to dino ratio so I can only assume the diatoms are growing and hopefully outcompete them. Really hard to tell with the naked eye since the sand is just covered in brown.

I'm seeing a lot of shapes. from the long strand type, footballs, rectangles. Can anyone confirm if this is a diatom? I usually distinguish them by the distinct dots/sections but this one looks more singular. There is a large number of these guys.

 

[ScottB]

Welp, I have dinos. Been battling them for about 3 months now and I'm onto the third method. UV had done wonders for me in the past when I had coolia, but I believe I have amphidinium now because they're strictly in the sand. Even though they fade at night, they bloom during the day so I assume they're hiding instead of going waterborne.

• UV not effective. On a 120g system I'm running a 55w Lifegard UV with a 700gph pump directly pulling from the display tank
• Did daily vacuuming of sand running the water through a sock, then pumped back through a UV sterilizer. This kept them at bay but if I skipped a couple days they would be back at full coverage.
• I'm now trying silica dosing. Dosing .4ppm of Spongexcel daily for about a week now and barely registering anything with the Salifert test.

Sand is still covered with a brown mat but the good news is that I THINK I'm seeing more diatoms. I've always recognized them as the long strands but I'm seeing different varieties. Slowly seeing less dinos in the sample taken.

Identified in August

Thick mats of dinos last week

Today I'm seeing a better diatom to dino ratio so I can only assume the diatoms are growing and hopefully outcompete them. Really hard to tell with the naked eye since the sand is just covered in brown.

I'm seeing a lot of shapes. from the long strand type, footballs, rectangles. Can anyone confirm if this is a diatom? I usually distinguish them by the distinct dots/sections but this one looks more singular. There is a large number of these guys.

Great photos and I like your process so far. There are tons of diatom species, but those rectangular ones look "special". But I see typical ones as well.

To my eye, those dinos are almost leaning toward Prorocentrum which can also be sand based and a bit clingy. Confirm the UV is running well, cut the flow to 300gph, and run a 48 hour blackout.

PO4 and NO3 >= .1/10

 

[NR53]

I had suspicion that prorocentrum was in the mix but wasn't sure since the dinos have been exclusively in the sand. Thanks for confirming. Nitrates have always been in the 8-12ppm range and phosphate consistently at .12 even before dinos. I'll try cutting back the UV pump's flow rate and a longer blackout to hopefully trigger them to migrate into the water.

I "splurged" on a $70 microscope instead of a $20 toy one and its been fascinating as hell. First pic do I see procentrum and amphidinium? Second one is from last night which had quite the variety of diatoms I've never seen before. Silicate dosing is bringing out some cool stuff.

 

[ScottB]

I had suspicion that prorocentrum was in the mix but wasn't sure since the dinos have been exclusively in the sand. Thanks for confirming. Nitrates have always been in the 8-12ppm range and phosphate consistently at .12 even before dinos. I'll try cutting back the UV pump's flow rate and a longer blackout to hopefully trigger them to migrate into the water.

I "splurged" on a $70 microscope instead of a $20 toy one and its been fascinating as hell. First pic do I see procentrum and amphidinium? Second one is from last night which had quite the variety of diatoms I've never seen before. Silicate dosing is bringing out some cool stuff.

Yes, I think you are correct. The bottom one in first pic does look like LC Amphid. Good pics, but lets look for a Like from @taricha on Proro and LC Amphids. I think he would enjoy seeing your variety of diatoms and sand critters.

When you blacked out before, did you wrap the tank or just leave lights off?

 

[taricha]

@NR53 and @ScottB I only large cell amphidinium. The cells that look a little different are probably just caught at an angle.

 

[ScottB]

I had suspicion that prorocentrum was in the mix but wasn't sure since the dinos have been exclusively in the sand. Thanks for confirming. Nitrates have always been in the 8-12ppm range and phosphate consistently at .12 even before dinos. I'll try cutting back the UV pump's flow rate and a longer blackout to hopefully trigger them to migrate into the water.

I "splurged" on a $70 microscope instead of a $20 toy one and its been fascinating as hell. First pic do I see procentrum and amphidinium? Second one is from last night which had quite the variety of diatoms I've never seen before. Silicate dosing is bringing out some cool stuff.

Well sorry about that but glad I tagged taricha. No need for a blackout then, and the UV isn't really going to do much against those sand-hugging amphids.

Remaining in the bag of tricks:
a) dumping in some pods
b) adding some microbiome diversity (particularly if this was a dry rock start and <2 years old.) Sump rock from LFS, rock from another established tank, ipsf.com, or some rock from the Gulf shipped wet.

LC Amphids are super slow to resolve but at least they aren't really all that toxic.

 

[NR53]

Any particular kinds of pods we know have been effective at eating dinos? I have a decent population of amphipods I see at night. I've seeded tiger pods in the past from Reef Nutrition, but I have two leopard wrasses so their population may be limited.

Half of the rock is ~2.5 years old that was transferred from my old 50g tank and the other half is ~1 year old base rock when I upgraded to this one. I may go for an order for ipsh or garf to get some added biodiveristy going.

 

[aggrofish]

I posted in a separate thread but this might get more traction from all the people following it. Can someone identify? They move around, look like ladybugs.

 

[ScottB]

I posted in a separate thread but this might get more traction from all the people following it. Can someone identify? They move around, look like ladybugs.

Hard to tell from that still pic. Here is a link to the DINO ID Guide. Check the linked pics and videos for matching shape and movement.

Dinoflagellate Identification Guide

I've had this laying around for a while. Had some recent interest, so I tweaked it a bit and am posting it. Not really about cures just ID pictures, videos, and a few short facts. Hope it can be helpful.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[GarrettT]

@taricha and @ScottB

What y'all think Amphidinium LC, Prorocentrum or...? It's all over my sand bed.

 

[attiland]

@taricha and @ScottB

What y'all think Amphidinium LC, Prorocentrum or...? It's all over my sand bed.

I can see 2 types here Ostreopsis and Amphidinium too

 

[ScottB]

@taricha and @ScottB

What y'all think Amphidinium LC, Prorocentrum or...? It's all over my sand bed.

Sweet Jesus that is quite the collection.

@taricha and @ScottB

What y'all think Amphidinium LC, Prorocentrum or...? It's all over my sand bed.

Very nice cinematography work there. You nearly have the complete cast of characters. One visible ostreopsis cell (the sesame seed shaped one), several LC Amphids and Small cell too. Might even have a few Prorocentrum (the symmetrical ones with the circle in the middle).

It is very common to have one set of dinos displace another, but you have more diversity on display there than Central Park in June.

Congratulations?

Here is a link to (my view of) the current consensus treatment tools if you haven't seen it already:

A Dinoflagellate Treatment Guide

As the title suggests, this is intended as a short guide on what to do when you suspect dinoflagellates are trying to overtake your system. It is an attempt to boil down the protocols discussed across 11,000 posts in this "Are you Tired" thread along with thousands of other dino threads. I did no...

docs.google.com

 

[GarrettT]

Well at least I now finally know what I'm dealing with.

Will silicate dosing work on all the Dinos? Just seeing how aggressive I need to get with this. Currently dealing with byrosis and plan on treating that with Reef Flux tomorrow. I'd imagine my Dinos are going to be loving this.

 

[LOVEROCK]

Well at least I now finally know what I'm dealing with.

Will silicate dosing work on all the Dinos? Just seeing how aggressive I need to get with this. Currently dealing with byrosis and plan on treating that with Reef Flux tomorrow. I'd imagine my Dinos are going to be loving this.

Silicate dosing has worked for small cell large and procentrum for me

 

[ScottB]

Well at least I now finally know what I'm dealing with.

Will silicate dosing work on all the Dinos? Just seeing how aggressive I need to get with this. Currently dealing with byrosis and plan on treating that with Reef Flux tomorrow. I'd imagine my Dinos are going to be loving this.

I think you are correct to deal with the bryopsis first. That treatment process will add some amount of nutrient "noise" to the system; I cannot say whether it will add or subtract from your dino population.

I don't see dosing silicates and nutrients interrupting the bryopsis treatment, so you are fine to go parallel with at least that part of treatment IMO.

 

[joaocdestro]

EXTRA EXTRA!!! I found a solution that works for me!

I have a 230 gallons mixed reef tank, and I was battling against Amphidinium for 3 years!!!

Solution: TURN OFF AND ON SKIMMER + Biopellets reactor.

The idea behind it is to maintain my coral's feed and strong (by bacterioplankton), but no organics on the water column for dino's. I know it sometimes is controversial by feeding dino's with bacterioplankton... but the removal of these bacteria from time to time by skimmer was like a silver bullet against Amphi.
I was inspired by reading Dr. Tim's recipes: https://www.drtimsaquatics.com/resources/recipes/

It took more than 1 month to see progress

This is my particular recipe:

Biopellet reactor 24hrs
Medium power UV Light (at sump) 24hrs (because I had ostreopsys too)
No3 dosing to maintain 1-4 PPM
Po4 using GFO to maintain lower 0,04ppm (never zero)
Circulation medium to strong
Lights DIY: Royal Blue 100%, UV and Whites 30%.
A little GAC Carbon change every 15 days.
No filter socks, No Perlon

Daily Skimmer schedule:
If Time 13:00 to 16:00 Then OFF
If Time 17:00 to 19:00 Then OFF
If Time 21:00 to 02:00 Then OFF

Dosing pump with balling light method (Fauna Marin with trace elements) without water changes since ever and I do 3 ICP's every year to check contaminants and fine-tunning individual parameters.

My reef consumption:
KH Solution: 120ml day (with trace 3 fauna Marin)
Ca Solution: 50ml day (with trace 1 and 2 fauna Marin)

I hope this can help you too guys!

 

[jcosta98]

Hi everyone, Recently noticed Dinos starting growing , believe this is the strain I'm fighting , although I can't confirm it with a microscope.

I will post here what I already done / been doing , and will update on my fight with dinos , might end up helping someone in the future if I beat them.

So , I was reading 1 ppm No3 and 0.00 Po4 at the start of my dino appearance . This was something I noticed Around 25/12/2021 , but I only started taking action 5 days ago.

Actions I took:

--> Feed heavier , several times a day
--> Started feeding phytoplankton daily
--> Got some Copepods to help biodiversity
--> Started dosing daily Bacto Blend by FM and Waste-Away by Dr tim.
--> Took out my filter sock , hoping to help raise nutrients.
--> Stopped scraping my glass, letting algae grow on it


My plan is to kill it with biodiversity and competing organisms, will see if it works, as of now , I see no regression on the dinos.

Good luck everyone!

 

[Harold999]

Hi everyone, Recently noticed Dinos starting growing , believe this is the strain I'm fighting , although I can't confirm it with a microscope.

I will post here what I already done / been doing , and will update on my fight with dinos , might end up helping someone in the future if I beat them.

So , I was reading 1 ppm No3 and 0.00 Po4 at the start of my dino appearance . This was something I noticed Around 25/12/2021 , but I only started taking action 5 days ago.

Actions I took:

--> Feed heavier , several times a day
--> Started feeding phytoplankton daily
--> Got some Copepods to help biodiversity
--> Started dosing daily Bacto Blend by FM and Waste-Away by Dr tim.
--> Took out my filter sock , hoping to help raise nutrients.
--> Stopped scraping my glass, letting algae grow on it


My plan is to kill it with biodiversity and competing organisms, will see if it works, as of now , I see no regression on the dinos.

Good luck everyone!

Feeding heavier doesn't always help rising po4.
The easiest and most controlable way is to dose po4.

Keeping your po4 at at least 0.03 and nitrates at 10 and it's bye bye dino's.

 

[joaocdestro]

Feeding heavier doesn't always help rising po4.
The easiest and most controlable way is to dose po4.

Keeping your po4 at at least 0.03 and nitrates at 10 and it's bye bye dino's.

I agree, I prefer dose Po4 and Dose No3 than feed, then try the approach of Dr. Tim's, turn skimmer on and off some times of the day to remove the bacteria with organics.... so no food for dino's.