DNA, you should be able to see cocos -- IIRC, E. hux is the smallest coco and it's around 5-6 uM, which is larger than most bacteria, and stained bacteria are visible with a conventional optical microscope. Another approach would be to try filtering a few liters of tank water through a brown, unbleached coffee filter and seeing if you get a whitish residue when it dries. If so, test the residue with vinegar to determine if it's calcareous. Similarly, even if you can't see cocos well enough to identify the species, you should be able to confirm that they're cocos (or at least some form of calcifying phytoplankton) by adding vinegar to a microscope slide and watching bubbles form as their armor dissolves.
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Originally Posted by DNA
This makes one think it is not just the onset of darkness that signals the free swimming period for dinos. I have noticed this in my tank that the dinos start to leave the sand before lights go out.
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I theorize that dinos disperse at night to hunt because they need to let their bacteria farms regenerate. Staying in the sand all the time would be safer, so there must be a reason they don't do it... My guess is that if they did, they'd nom through their food supply and crash.
Maybe your dinos leave the sand early because they're running short of food and need to go hunting. Or maybe they've gotten used to the light cycle in your tank and know darkness is coming soon.
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Originally Posted by seamonster124
Interesting development. I purchased two corals one week apart, both got attacked by dinos while the rest of corals appears dino free and are growing. It appears my other corals developed immunity while new guys need to be blow off several times per day.
Then I decided to dump 16oz homegrown phytoplankton. All dinos disappeared within the hour!
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What sort of phyto?
If it's green, that would seem to support the notion that the green phyto is hostile to dinos, and if it sticks, it appears corals can recruit bacteria from phyto to protect themselves. Though it bears mentioning that if your other corals have already recruited dinocidal bacteria, they probably would have spread to your new ones eventually.
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Originally Posted by PorkchopExpress
seamonster, have you looked at water samples under your scope before and after adding the phyto? i'm really curious what is happening to dinos...have you (or anyone, really) tried just adding drops of phyto to a slide of dinos?
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Yes, please. If this shows any promise, it would particularly valuable to test different species of dinos against the same species of phyto -- nannochloris, perhaps?