Can somebody explain Dinos to me?

[ichthyogeek]

And no, I don't need somebody to explain the difference between sauropods, therapods, and hadrosaurs to me (btw, hadrosaurs for the win)

I'm only just getting back into the hobby, but I keep hearing about dinoflagellates, as if they're some Lovecraftian horror risen from the depths of the reef tank. 5 years ago, the rage was all over Bryopsis and how to remove it, and I'm very confused. What's so bad about dinoflagellates that everybody's freaking out about them now?

 

[Montiman]

Essentially Dinos are just really hard to get rid of. They have become more common for 2 main reasons IMO.

1. Live rock is harder to get. Dinos are often out competed by bacteria and other microbes. Because live rock is now less common these competing microbes aren't present in many new tanks today.

2. Filtration methodologies have vastly improved. When I started in the hobby everyone struggled with high nitrates and the related hair algae, bryopsis, and such that came with it. Now we have extremely powerful algae and bacterial filters that can over-clean tanks. This is why you now hear of people adding nitrates and phosphates to their tank. Dinos flourish in low nutrient environments that are now common but were once unheard of.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Dinoflagellates are microscopic single celled organisms that are photosynthetic. They are very widespread in nature. There are over 2,000 different types of Dinoflagellates that can be found in different marine and fresh water environments. This is the basis of why Dinoflagellates can be such a problem to get rid of in a reef tank. To make matters more challenging, Dinoflagellates can look a lot like cyanobacteria.
Dinoflagellates looks like runny brown boogers with air bubbles. While funny, that is somewhat accurate. The most common color for dinoflagellates is a shade of brown, but they are also common found in a pale brown to off white / yellow color as well as a few different shades of green. The will start to coat object inside your aquariums as well as / or coating the aquarium glass. This coating will look like slime and be one of the above mention colors. It is also common to see gas bubble trapped by it and even a stingy appearance as the gas bubbles try to escape.
Two concerns with dino, is that dinoflagellates in marine aquariums are toxic to most organisms that you will keep in a marine aquarium and they can cover or coat corals to the point of stress them and even killing them.

 

[Cory]

Simply put- they will cover everything including corals and fish and rocks with brown slime. And they can kill them. They will kill all your snails. Corals get covered in their webs and die.

And even worse- they kill stuff with palytoxin. Ever heard of red tide? Massive amounts of sea life roll on the beach? Yup dinos.

You get them, its basically game over imo.

 

[ichthyogeek]

So...I know about red tide dinoflagellates (Karenia, formerly Gymnoodinium), and disease dinos (Amyloodinium/Oodinium). My big question was more about why they seemed to be popping up more now than before in people's threads, something that Montiman explained well enough for me.

Also...@Cory , I actually applied for a job working with red tide dinos (didn't get it I think); the toxins the red tide dinos release are brevetoxins and not palytoxins (those are Ostreopsis dinos). There's actually some interesting anecdotes about fish larvae ingesting the red tide dinos as a first food actually....

Thanks everybody!

 

[Klaus DK]

So what is the best way to identify them without a microscope? And best way to get rid of them?

 

[Cory]

So what is the best way to identify them without a microscope? And best way to get rid of them?

By looking like these pics which are ostreopsis, or take some in a glass shake.it up a bit. See if they make.those strings like in the pictures.

 

[Cory]

best way is a high wattage high flow uv sterilizer.

 

[Idoc]

So what is the best way to identify them without a microscope? And best way to get rid of them?

@Cory gave some good pictures of dinos outside of a microscope...very good representation of them! But, the best way is to use a microscope for identification since the type of dino determines the treatment.

 

[tahoenano]

best way is a high wattage high flow uv sterilizer.

spot on. This worked for my nano. Only lost my snails unfortunately, better than a crash though.