What Do Dinos Consume to Grow/Multiply?

[ingchr1]

There seems to be a lot of antidotal and conflicting posts on what products you should stop adding to your tank when there is an outbreak of dinoflagellates. Simply, what do dinos consume to grow/multiply? Based on this, does stopping the use of Product X actually have a positive effect on a dino outbreak without creating an overall negative effect on tank health?

The types of products I'm thinking of are carbon dosing, amino acids, phytoplankton (live and dead) and trace elements.

The goal of this thread is to focus on products to stop using, not other/overall approaches to dealing with dinos.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

From what I can remember reading in red tide research (different dinos than those that are typically problematic in reef tanks, but dinos nonetheless), primary limiting factors were nitrogen and dissolve inorganic carbon.

 

[ingchr1]

I do know of one amino acid product that the manufacturer states in their instructions to not use the product in the presence of undesired dinos. Based on this I think we can place amino acids on the list of products to stop using during a dino outbreak.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Dinos need much the same things that algae and photosynthetic corals need, aside from calcium.

 

[ingchr1]

Dinos need much the same things that algae and photosynthetic corals need, aside from calcium.

If one was having a dino outbreak, would the stopping of dosing of all products, other than for say two-part, be part of a good strategy to implement and see what happens? Does phyto (live or dead) feed dinos?

 

[taricha]

There's a couple of categories here to think about.
1) amino acids - dinos seem to use this, moreso than say common GHA. So a not very annoying population of lot of GHA with a tiny bit of dinos can shift to a more annoying population of a lot more dinos if amino acids get fed.
2) Carbon dosing - some yes, some no. anecdotally, myself and several others find that dinos can grow well when there's big carbon dose of vinegar - but heavy carbon doses of other sources like ethanol don't seem to encourage dinos, and in fact can be used to fight them (probably by N limitation) - see beuchat article.
3) Phytoplankton / pods - usually no, but maybe yes in a few cases.
Most dino outbreaks are toxic and slimy, the slime allows a dino outbreak to capture organic particulates and use it to grow on as the organics break down. The toxicity allows it to kill off would-be grazers like copepods. So I usually recommend against pods and phyto.
The exception is that some dino outbreaks (large cell amphidinium mostly) are really low or absent in toxins, and some pods can in fact eat them without much trouble. I suspect the minority of people that find phyto/pods useful are those with this type of bloom. But sometimes even this kind can be too toxic for pods to eat, so it's really unusual that it helps.

4) Traces - the clearest connection is to Iron. Dino populations often plateau and then start blooming again after water changes. A couple of people have been able to get the growth to restart from a plateau by simple addition of Fe-containing traces.

5) Bacteria (heterotroph) - MB7, WA etc. See number 2, carbon dosing. The bacteria bottle media often contain carbon sources which could have a helpful impact on the dino bloom depending on what the carbon sources are. The bacteria in the bottle may or may not activate in your system. Attempts to demonstrate they do activate haven't been successful, but it's easy to show there are digestible carbon sources in the liquid in the bottle. So I tend to think of these bottled products as carbon dosing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Can't really add much to what taricha said.

 

[ingchr1]

@taricha thank you, exactly the type of information I was looking for.

 

[davidwillis]

There's a couple of categories here to think about.
1) amino acids - dinos seem to use this, moreso than say common GHA. So a not very annoying population of lot of GHA with a tiny bit of dinos can shift to a more annoying population of a lot more dinos if amino acids get fed.
2) Carbon dosing - some yes, some no. anecdotally, myself and several others find that dinos can grow well when there's big carbon dose of vinegar - but heavy carbon doses of other sources like ethanol don't seem to encourage dinos, and in fact can be used to fight them (probably by N limitation) - see beuchat article.
3) Phytoplankton / pods - usually no, but maybe yes in a few cases.
Most dino outbreaks are toxic and slimy, the slime allows a dino outbreak to capture organic particulates and use it to grow on as the organics break down. The toxicity allows it to kill off would-be grazers like copepods. So I usually recommend against pods and phyto.
The exception is that some dino outbreaks (large cell amphidinium mostly) are really low or absent in toxins, and some pods can in fact eat them without much trouble. I suspect the minority of people that find phyto/pods useful are those with this type of bloom. But sometimes even this kind can be too toxic for pods to eat, so it's really unusual that it helps.

4) Traces - the clearest connection is to Iron. Dino populations often plateau and then start blooming again after water changes. A couple of people have been able to get the growth to restart from a plateau by simple addition of Fe-containing traces.

5) Bacteria (heterotroph) - MB7, WA etc. See number 2, carbon dosing. The bacteria bottle media often contain carbon sources which could have a helpful impact on the dino bloom depending on what the carbon sources are. The bacteria in the bottle may or may not activate in your system. Attempts to demonstrate they do activate haven't been successful, but it's easy to show there are digestible carbon sources in the liquid in the bottle. So I tend to think of these bottled products as carbon dosing.

I am very interested in using carbon dosing to help with dinos. In the article, it mentioned using Xepta NP, and Red Sea NO3 : PO4-X dosing at night. It sounded very logical, how the bactera would grow over the dinos, essentially suffocating them. Both forms of carbon dosing worked, but Xepta NP worked better.

I have been dosing vinegar, as from what I understand it is less likely to cause an outbreak of cyano. However you mention it may actually cause the Dinos to get worse (feeding them). After reading the article, I have changed my dosing from the day to the night (not ideal for ph though). But I am wondering if I should change my carbon source from vinegar to Xepta NP, or mix vodka with my vinegar?

What are your thoughts?

Also does it matter what type of dinos?

By the way, this and the link you sent may explain how to fight dinos better than anything so far. So thank you!

 

[jda]

This is my general opinion that not everybody is in agreement with.

The dinos in the corals (zoox) have the benefit of the host to gather and recycle for them. The hosts are good at this. Whether it is is symbiosis or slavery (as @Lasse has suggested lately), it does not matter to me. Let the hosts do their jobs which can happen just with fish waste and light if you have enough fish and feed them well.

Don't dose any extra things that give advantages to things that already are at a disadvantage from noting having a host. For example, if you add aminos, what is going to win the math game of surface area? Probably a tank full of dinos and not a few small frags or corals who just lose since they are not huge. The corals might already be losing the surface area game for fish waste too, so why give the dinos more?

While you can limit algae exposure with slower fuge or sump turnover (keeping fish waste in the tank longer), this is already very hard when dinos are in the display.

Make the hosts happy, don't worry about the symbionts (the host will) and don't encourage growth by other things. Even the fun things that you might want like mini starfish, pods, etc. do not need any supplements, phyto, aminos or anything else to thrive.

Even if dinos cannot directly use something that you dose, they might be able to use an increase in something that uses what you dose.

All of this said, fish waste might be enough for dinos...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I personally would not use organic carbon dosing to try to eradicate dinos since they may well consume the organic perfectly well.

IMO, you want to boost competition, and making sure N and P are readily available, and potentially dosing silicate to spur diatom competition is a good plan.

 

[davidwillis]

I personally would not use organic carbon dosing to try to eradicate dinos since they may well consume the organic perfectly well.

IMO, you want to boost competition, and making sure N and P are readily available, and potentially dosing silicate to spur diatom competition is a good plan.

Thanks Randy. However I have been doing that for about 1.5 years now. They will go away temporarily, but just as fast another variant will come. I have gone from Prorocentrum to coolia to amphidiniums, and now back to Prorocentrum. po4 is 1.2 and no3 is 20. I have also been taking icp tests, and most things look great (of course silicates are off the chart).

The first round of Prorocentrum ended when I just gave up and started dosing vinegar, and doing water changes (I also added a power filter, which may have helped). Once they went away, I stoped dosing waterglass (silicates were 41,000 if I remember correctly), and removed the power filter, then a few months later coolia (which went away within a week or two by using the power filter and uv). Then a few months later lca and sca showed up.... You get the picture.

I just want a way to be done with this, and the idea of suffocating them with bacteria made sense... and this article https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/dinoflagelates-a-disruptive-treatment.873/ showed that may be the only very effective way.

Here is what I currently have going on
ozone
uv (90 watt on a 300 gallon tank with a slow flow of about 200-500 gph, running only at night).
dosing waterglass
dosing microbactor 7 daily
Add phyto and pods (have not done this for a while as it did not seem to do anything and is very costly)
Add live rock from the ocean (added 8 lbs, maybe that was not enough?)
power filter
only do very small daily water changes of less than 1%
Decreased lights to 6 hours, and mostly blue (I had raised that back up)

Paramaters
temp 77
ph 8.1 to 8.2
alk 8.0 to 8.2
ca 450
mg 1400
no3 20
po4 1.2

Anyway, I really appreciate your input!

 

[davidwillis]

This is my general opinion that not everybody is in agreement with.

The dinos in the corals (zoox) have the benefit of the host to gather and recycle for them. The hosts are good at this. Whether it is is symbiosis or slavery (as @Lasse has suggested lately), it does not matter to me. Let the hosts do their jobs which can happen just with fish waste and light if you have enough fish and feed them well.

Don't dose any extra things that give advantages to things that already are at a disadvantage from noting having a host. For example, if you add aminos, what is going to win the math game of surface area? Probably a tank full of dinos and not a few small frags or corals who just lose since they are not huge. The corals might already be losing the surface area game for fish waste too, so why give the dinos more?

While you can limit algae exposure with slower fuge or sump turnover (keeping fish waste in the tank longer), this is already very hard when dinos are in the display.

Make the hosts happy, don't worry about the symbionts (the host will) and don't encourage growth by other things. Even the fun things that you might want like mini starfish, pods, etc. do not need any supplements, phyto, aminos or anything else to thrive.

Even if dinos cannot directly use something that you dose, they might be able to use an increase in something that uses what you dose.

All of this said, fish waste might be enough for dinos...

That is an interesting idea.

The only things I dose is Ca, Alk, partc, vinegar. I also dose elements that are low based on icp tests, but maybe I should stop? I do that because I have read that missing trace elements can lead to dinos. Do you recommend not dosing vinegar (even if that would take the no3 and po4 even higher)? My corals are growing at a good rate, so I think they are happy.

I think I have plenty of fish wast (that is why my no3 and po4 is high).

 

[brandon429]

When I look at the dinos work threads stickied permanently in the nuisance algae forum I see a very very low cure/ sustain fix rate, and a very very high rate of counter invasion takeovers that don't get resolved. That impression comes from starting at page one and then flipping through the pics uploaded for two straight hours

How sure are we of claims and processes stated here considering almost no ability to stop the invasion under live time work constraints? What's the next phase of advice?

Plus its not like I'm rushing the summary, some of those threads have five years to pan out. The result patterns have spoken

I wouldn't use methods that have a very very low sustain fix rate and a very very high rate of counter invasion tradeoffs.

If we don't change advice we can't get new outcomes it seems.

 

[Garf]

There's a couple of categories here to think about.
1) amino acids - dinos seem to use this, moreso than say common GHA. So a not very annoying population of lot of GHA with a tiny bit of dinos can shift to a more annoying population of a lot more dinos if amino acids get fed.
2) Carbon dosing - some yes, some no. anecdotally, myself and several others find that dinos can grow well when there's big carbon dose of vinegar - but heavy carbon doses of other sources like ethanol don't seem to encourage dinos, and in fact can be used to fight them (probably by N limitation) - see beuchat article.
3) Phytoplankton / pods - usually no, but maybe yes in a few cases.
Most dino outbreaks are toxic and slimy, the slime allows a dino outbreak to capture organic particulates and use it to grow on as the organics break down. The toxicity allows it to kill off would-be grazers like copepods. So I usually recommend against pods and phyto.
The exception is that some dino outbreaks (large cell amphidinium mostly) are really low or absent in toxins, and some pods can in fact eat them without much trouble. I suspect the minority of people that find phyto/pods useful are those with this type of bloom. But sometimes even this kind can be too toxic for pods to eat, so it's really unusual that it helps.

4) Traces - the clearest connection is to Iron. Dino populations often plateau and then start blooming again after water changes. A couple of people have been able to get the growth to restart from a plateau by simple addition of Fe-containing traces.

5) Bacteria (heterotroph) - MB7, WA etc. See number 2, carbon dosing. The bacteria bottle media often contain carbon sources which could have a helpful impact on the dino bloom depending on what the carbon sources are. The bacteria in the bottle may or may not activate in your system. Attempts to demonstrate they do activate haven't been successful, but it's easy to show there are digestible carbon sources in the liquid in the bottle. So I tend to think of these bottled products as carbon dosing.

I don't actually recall light quality being discussed with dinos, with them being brown and all, specialising presumably in the blue wavelengths.

 

[jda]

That is an interesting idea.

The only things I dose is Ca, Alk, partc, vinegar. I also dose elements that are low based on icp tests, but maybe I should stop? I do that because I have read that missing trace elements can lead to dinos. Do you recommend not dosing vinegar (even if that would take the no3 and po4 even higher)? My corals are growing at a good rate, so I think they are happy.

I think I have plenty of fish wast (that is why my no3 and po4 is high).

I would not know how to balance rising waste products with dinos using organic carbon. I do not dose anything, but I also have other ways to handle no3 and po4. I know that this is not helpful.

Is there a different kind of organic carbon that dinos might not like as much? I do not know the answer to this... just wondering.

 

[brandon429]

are there dinos control options that have a very very high rate of cure/sustain and a low rate of counter invasion?

by tradeoff invasion I mean doing action X to kill dinos, then winding up with uncontrollable cyano or hair algae in tradeoff. the tank still looks bad for another year

 

[davidwillis]

When I look at the dinos work threads stickied permanently in the nuisance algae forum I see a very very low cure/ sustain fix rate, and a very very high rate of counter invasion takeovers that don't get resolved. That impression comes from starting at page one and then flipping through the pics uploaded for two straight hours

How sure are we of claims and processes stated here considering almost no ability to stop the invasion under live time work constraints? What's the next phase of advice?

Plus its not like I'm rushing the summary, some of those threads have five years to pan out. The result patterns have spoken

I wouldn't use methods that have a very very low sustain fix rate and a very very high rate of counter invasion tradeoffs.

If we don't change advice we can't get new outcomes it seems.

This is exactly how I feel. Perfectly said!

 

[brandon429]

the work they do in the NA forum on dinos is the only place in reefing I see options for large tankers being worked at all other than individual thread posts. almost no collated work exists for live time jobs so those stickies provide crucial patterning that people can use in approach development

one thing I always thought was wonky about the site is how stickies are chosen

and what keeps them up for five years without rotating competition for the good of the hobby

how much trouble do rip cleaners have with dinos?

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

we can't have a rip cleaning option though as a sticky I always thought that was odd considering the stark patterns on file if I click through every submitted job and look at the after pics compared to the after pics from this thread for example:

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

That’s the thing, I really don’t have any strongly slimy stuff. Strictly tons of “dusting”. So you just put an air stone in your tank at night? 1 ML of peroxide per 10G when lights out, is that the ratio you used? Put a wooden air stone at your intake pump so it saturates the entire tanks...

www.reef2reef.com

one way to evolve reefing practice fairly is to alternate stickies sometimes rarely if results justify the exchange. stickies should require excellent results or they should unsticky, and stay up only by their own accord and degree of work posted. lesser-adapted methods will die out, knowledge will change, if stickies can sometimes be updated before we're all ninety years old.

 

[davidwillis]

are there dinos control options that have a very very high rate of cure/sustain and a low rate of counter invasion?

by tradeoff invasion I mean doing action X to kill dinos, then winding up with uncontrollable cyano or hair algae in tradeoff. the tank still looks bad for another year

I have been looking for a year, and I don't know of any. The main advice is to rain N and P, then dose waterglass, in theory this will create diatoms, and maybe other algae. But I have fish that eat any hair algae, and with my silicates high, I have mostly diatoms on the gravel, and dinos on the rocks..... At one point my tank was very ugly, with hair algea covered in dinos (the fish would not eat it). Once the dinos went away, it cleared up, but then came back again.

So I don't know of anything with a high rate of cure.