Dino ID

[eric.tech]

Good afternoon Reef2reef friends. Pretty sure I have a case of Dino’s, but wanted to confirm. Under the microscope I see what appears to be quite a few Dino’s zipping about mixed with a few diatoms. Just wanted to poll the audience as it’s my first time using a microscope to ID them, sorry for the cellphone pic/video. Thanks in advance!

 

[GoVols]

@Idoc

Can you identify, and confirm?

Thank you

 

[Idoc]

@Idoc

Can you identify, and confirm?

Thank you

I'm going to go with Prorocentrum dinos. They move like a small cell amphidinium dino, but I don't see the typical beak on the front. They have that ever so slight flattening like a prorocentrum. Let's see if @taricha agrees!

 

[taricha]

Good afternoon Reef2reef friends. Pretty sure I have a case of Dino’s, but wanted to confirm. Under the microscope I see what appears to be quite a few Dino’s zipping about mixed with a few diatoms.

Good pics/vids.
Based on the scale (judging from diatom) the only one of our problem dinos that could be this smal is Small-Cell Amphidinium and the opening in the front is not the sideways curved beak/nose that they have.
This is not a dino at all, IMO. It's one of those weird "others" - not a dino, diatom, or cyano.
likely something like this prymnesium or a cryptomonad or another similar flagellate.
Congrats! no dino.

 

[eric.tech]

Thanks for the input! Agains as my first attempt using a microscope for this purpose, still a bit fuzzy on what I’m looking at. Being that there were bubbles in the mats i sucked out last, maybe have some cyano issues going on? It was brown in color and formed a mat, very similar to cyano. No pics at this time as I symphonies most of it out

 

[taricha]

diatoms are strong O2 producers too, and your sample had plenty of them.

 

[eric.tech]

Right on. I’ll look into possible silicate/nutrient sources that might be driving the bloom. Thanks again for the input!