Dinoflagellates under microscope ID

[Barzy Bill]

Hey peeps. Can any with experience confirm dinoflagellates in my tank. I used a cheap microscope. Couldn’t take a steady pic. The strand appears to have bubbles.

the back story. I had a slight case of bryopsis, my phos were low and nitrates are never detectable.. I dosed a minimal dose of flucanzol. Turned skimmer off for a couple of days. Perhaps the die off of the bryopsis increases nutrients. I skimmed wet and done WC weekly. 2 weeks later I decided to give waste-away a try. Bryopsis seemed to be receding. dosed a cap full of eco-balance just Incase too much good bacteria exported. Weeks later I’m trying to get my nitrates to detectable with neo-nitro because I read bryopsis present on low nutrient tanks. Only slowly dosed for 3 day But decided to stop before something more bad arises. I’ve been noticing the “Dino” since then. Phosphates are now barely detectable, probably from waste-away. My nitrates are always zero. Tank is 7 months. 40b
I have Dino-x but haven’t used it yet.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Bump

 

[Subsea]

@Barzy Bill

Welcome to the reefing zone. I see it’s your first post to r2r. mycroscopic identification is above my pay grade and I did not sleep at the Holiday Inn last night, but I have commercially grown marine algae > 20 years and have been reefing since Moses crossed the Red Sea.

Dino’s are a type of phytoplankton that thrives often when nutrients are low and unfortunately is almost always a part of the uglies associatedwith first year start up “baptism into reefing”. I have been reefing for 48 years and I am just coming out of second Cynobacteria treatment cycle in five days. So, you are not alone with the “algae blues”. Stand encouraged, algae does not have to win.

My suggestion to you is to “stay the course”. In my many years of reefing, this hobby website has the most bountiful collection of expertise & knowledgeable coupled with caring hobbiest that will assist you. Please start a tank journal in that subforum. List all pertinent tank details in one place so that a baseline of information is in one place to allow diagnostics to assist discussion with you.

This is my oldest tank at 25 years mature.

 

[Barzy Bill]

Nice tank. Thanks for the words of wisdom. I think my tank is too clean. I will try to do WC every 2 weeks rather my usually weekly. I think curing my rock in a bucket and not in the tank helped skip the early ugly phase but this may be reason why my nitrate is always undetectable. If this is my first ugly phase, I’ll take it.. it could be worse.
I have stopped running gfo for a month now to try to get my phos up. I think I’m too ocd clean. I’m not sure if I should try dyno x. My “dino” isnt as bad as other tanks that I’ve seen.

 

[Barzy Bill]

Group members over at fb don’t think it’s Dino. Here is a comparison photo magnified 400x. To my photo (brown cell) magnified 120x.. any idea of what this could be?

 

[Neoalchemist]

Group members over at fb don’t think it’s Dino. Here is a comparison photo magnified 400x. To my photo (brown cell) magnified 120x.. any idea of what this could be?

Both pics are dinos. Top looks like coolia and ostreopsis, bottom pic is ostreopsis.
https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?posts/3578648

 

[NoLobster]

I dosed fluconozole as well to get rid of bryopsis and within a week I started noticing what I think are dinos. Oops! Going to get a microscope and try to verify. How did your battle go?

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Good thread!