Dinoflagellate ID help, youtube video

[Pisanoal]

Can someone please help with ID of these dinos?

They are covering pretty much all surfaces, potentially toxic as my fish were acting sluggish and didn't have big appetites after coming back from vacation. (Tangs not eating algae, etc). Leading towards amphidinium small cell due to toxins, but they don't quite look like the pictures I've seen. Thanks!

 

[Idoc]

Yes, small cell amphidinium... their tell-tale"beak" is easily seen on a few of them. They typically aren't too toxic, though. I've battled them for a long time.

Use some carbon to see if things perk up a bit. It will help with the toxins.

 

[Idoc]

You'll want to siphon out a many a you can. Your nutrients must have crashed while you were away which gave them the opportunity to take over. There are many threads about battling these... raising nutrients is primary, though. I used the Elegant Corals treatment and that worked well to get them under control. Now, they're still in my main system, but managed.

A 3 day blackout will not work with these monsters. When they hit regularly hit my coral quarantine tank, it takes a 9 day blackout to knock them back... and even after that, i swear they just go dormant and then make a comeback later.

 

[Pisanoal]

Thanks for the reply. I've had them for a long time, I just didn't realize it and wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to my tank. My nutrients did bottom out when an algae bloom took off while I was on vacation and I think it sent the dino's into overdrive or made them go toxic or something. I have been running carbon and fish are doing great. I've also been siphoning them so thanks for those recommendations and others.