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Unread 02/11/2016, 10:14 AM   #3051
regtur
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ok, here goes I'm a retired truck driver so don't be mean plz. I posted that yesterday I got up to small bubbles on rocks, algae, but not corals or polyps. removed bubbles just to have them come back in a couple of hours. My wife mentioned that 2 days ago I had a heater passing a small electric charge thru the tank, {bumped head on light fixture rude alert} and since I removed it my brown star polyps just dissolved in gray dust and now bubbles are present is this dinos


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Unread 02/11/2016, 10:16 AM   #3052
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So, if my theory above is true, then I think restarting the tank with the same sand and rocks (especially sand) will always generate the same dinos. The same source of locally available nitrogen gas and a seed population of dinos will restart the process unless you introduce a competing nitrogen fixing agent- like phyto - in such excess, that they limit the dino explosion.

One way to prove this theory is to remove the denitrifying elements as much as possible or pass their output through a chamber to export the nitrogen gas before returning to the tank. Basically, this supports removing the live sand completely as a potential solution.


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Unread 02/11/2016, 10:20 AM   #3053
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Quote:
Originally Posted by regtur View Post
ok, here goes I'm a retired truck driver so don't be mean plz. I posted that yesterday I got up to small bubbles on rocks, algae, but not corals or polyps. removed bubbles just to have them come back in a couple of hours. My wife mentioned that 2 days ago I had a heater passing a small electric charge thru the tank, {bumped head on light fixture rude alert} and since I removed it my brown star polyps just dissolved in gray dust and now bubbles are present is this dinos
That might be coincidence? I don't think we've connected a broken heater or current to dinos before. I don't see an earlier post?

You'll want to confirm that you have dinos first.


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Unread 02/11/2016, 01:27 PM   #3054
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karimwassef View Post
OK - QUESTION TO THE CHEMISTRY GUYS!

Randy, Jonathan -

THEN! IN THE SAND OR OTHER ANAEROBIC MEDIA, DENITRIFYING BACTERIA CONVERT THIS INTO NITROGEN GAS (correct?).

Why the caps? because I think the N2 is the problem. We've associated sand beds with dinos and cyano... but I think it's the fact that a functioning sand bed will generate nitrogen gas.

The Nitrogen gas, along with any waste, becomes a food source... for nitrogen fixing creatures... DINOS, CYANO, PHYTO.
Karim, your description of the N cycle in tanks is correct but I think you are being confused by papers talking about "N" when they mean nitrate/ammonia or nitrite. Nitrogen gas is already present in the aquarium at very high concentrations, because it is 80% of our air. Increasing flow would probably increase the net amount of N2 gas. Dinos and plants can't do anything with N2, nitrogen gas. Dinos can use (almost) every form of nitrogen *except* N gas. They probably prefer inorganic (ammonia, etc) forms of nitrogen because they don't require processing to be useful.

Cyano CAN fix its own usable nitrogen from N2 gas. (This may be its claim to fame in the ocean) It probably likes the sandbed because there's more available phosphate in the low-flow spots where detritus accumulates. We see cyano before dinos because environments with very low available nitrate/nitrite/ammonia are hostile to green plants, and cyano is making its own N. It also stores phosphate. The dinos associate (or eat, or even farm) the cyano and other bacteria, taking advantage of the P and N. Dinos can therefore take advantage of the organically-bound nitrogen in the bacteria cells, plus they can suck up inorganic nitrate/etc from the water. Dinos switch strategies according to local conditions, so if the aquarist is actively reducing available inorganic (ammonia, nitrate) nitrogen, they will predate on bacteria more.

So you're right that bacteria may be part of the problem, but really there is no practical way to sterilize a reef tank without killing *everything*. UV doesn't affect surface-living bacteria, and I saw an AA article saying it doesn't actually affect the pelagic populations much because bacteria can reproduce so quickly.

hth and the chem gurus will correct me if I'm wrong,
Ivy

PS interesting note in that paper! Ostreopsis stops/reduces its toxin production under low nitrogen conditions. So taking up all the available nitrogen by competition (dirty) or direct removal (clean) may make dinos less problematic. Also, diatoms can have symbiosis with cyano. Didn't know that either, cool.


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Last edited by Quiet_Ivy; 02/11/2016 at 01:54 PM. Reason: badly worded sentence
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Unread 02/11/2016, 02:55 PM   #3055
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I agree that there's lots of nitrogen available in our systems from the air. Some species of cyanobacteria can fix nitrogen from the air, but it's never been shown that they do so in our tanks, not to an appreciable degree. I don't think that denitrification is the issue in dinoflagellate problems.

I agree that part of the problem might lie in symbiotic relationships or microbial films, but I don't know what we can do about that. As stated, controlling bacteria and keeping the reef tank alive is going to be difficult to impossible.


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Unread 02/11/2016, 03:54 PM   #3056
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Quote:
Originally Posted by machodik View Post
Further to my above post , those said free floating slime string gone when lights out ..... Is this affirmative "Dinos"?
it is a sign that it could be dinos, since at night when there's no light they are free floating so you won't see them on surfaces anymore. the only way to know 100% it's dinos is to get a microscope and put a sample from your tank on a slide

Quote:
Originally Posted by dragon174 View Post
Okay... I am so done with these dino's that I'm ready to give up but don't want too. Here is what I'm thinking about doing and would like some feedback.

1. Take all of my fish back to the LFS or sell them to other local reefers (including sand sifting star, crabs and snails)

2. Remove all of my rocks from my tank and put them in a tub of tank water with a power head and skimmer to keep it good.

3. Remove and discard all of the live sand in my tank

4. Clean the entire tank, sump and do some re-build the return lines (nothing to do with the dino's but something I've wanted to do for some time).

Questions (when re-starting):
1. should I go bare bottom or get new sand?
2. should I try and save some of the current tank water (50%) or should I start from scratch will all new water?
3. put the rocks back into the tank

Once this is done, I will have to wait for the tank to cycle all over again, but I can't deal with the dino's any more.

Please let me know your thoughts!

sometimes the dinos return, then what? I was thinking of bailing on my tank if after a month the dinos were still there. after about a week or two of the dirty method, bacteria dosing, phyto and pod dosing, UV, and no water changes, adding more live rock and cermedia block I am 100% dino free. my rocks are virgin, not a spot of brown goo on them.


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Unread 02/11/2016, 05:47 PM   #3057
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Thanks and I have yet to find a microscope to confirmed if it was dinos or just some scrapped algae we usually removed during our scrapping the glass wall.

But I just feel annoy with these stuff that sticked to coral's trunk and tip.


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Unread 02/11/2016, 05:56 PM   #3058
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Quote:
Originally Posted by machodik View Post
Thanks and I have yet to find a microscope to confirmed if it was dinos or just some scrapped algae we usually removed during our scrapping the glass wall.

But I just feel annoy with these stuff that sticked to coral's trunk and tip.
yeah i know. the only remaining dino is on one of my SPS, a very tiny amount on the tips that just won't go away. I dipped the coral yesterday and now it's a lot better but not completely cured.


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Unread 02/11/2016, 06:45 PM   #3059
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Interesting update from post 2979 .
Found something I was totally unexpecting to find.
DNA's comment on UV not working on Ostreopis is what lead me to look under the scope again since starting to use UV sterilization just to reconfirm i have Ostreopsis. Maybe I had two types of dinos and didn't know it. That turned out to be the case but not as I expected.
After looking under the scope for about 2 hours today, I found no traces at all of Ostreopsis. Ostreopsis is all i ever saw before installing UV so i never checked after they initially got under control. That seed looking Dino with tetherball motion that I described about in my previous posts is no longer there. These other dinos that I have now are more round and there swimming motion is nothing like the tetherball. This new dinoflagellate has more of a burst swimming motion in no particular pattern.
As I stated before my return pump broke and my UV sterilizer along with all my other equipment in my sump was offline for 4 days or so and dinos expectedly grew. After I got my return pump in I did a three day lights out with UV. When the lights came back on Dino's did get knocked back quite a bit but nowhere near as the first go round when I absolutely knew for sure it was Ostreopsis. This new Dinoflagellate as I stated in my previous post is only a dusting and has never made any strings since UV was sinstalled.
So in an unexpected result slow flow UV killed my Osteopsis and now another type has taken its place and seems to not make strings and stay more on the sand. Even when my return pump was out i never saw strings just heavy dusting.
So just a heads up... if you havent looked under the scope in a while it might be valuable info to take a recent look.
If i ever set up a youtube account ill post the videos


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Unread 02/11/2016, 07:09 PM   #3060
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Quote:
Originally Posted by machodik View Post
Further to my above post , those said free floating slime string gone when lights out ..... Is this affirmative "Dinos"?

Quick test u can do; suck the string out with turkey baster. Place in a cup and stir till dissolved. If u have dinos, string-like formation occurs again within 1-4 hours inside the cup


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Unread 02/11/2016, 07:10 PM   #3061
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Had lights back on and seems it is still lurking tiny bits on Kenya tree tonight but just had enormous fun with my Dino tank-I emptied the contents of my filter sock really just to see how many if any pods it caught (I should have been a biologist) all the greyish powdery stuff settled to the bottom in a mat with a couple of stringy bits on the surface. Well just put a bit of polylab medic (powdered hydrogen peroxide I think it says peroxide salt) in to see what happened and within seconds it all peeled off the bottom into a sort of sculptural vertical mat and is now a big lump hanging from the surface. Still resisting using it but now very tempted to see if it will finally help clear it from the rocks and sand bed. I might have to do it again as it was pretty impressive to watch lol! Don't know if it has killed them as had to give the microscope back. I have found the war on Dino's fascinating and I am almost beginning to wonder if I will miss it when I have finally conquered them lol!


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Unread 02/11/2016, 07:29 PM   #3062
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Dinoflagellates.

Quote:
Originally Posted by seamonster124 View Post
Quick test u can do; suck the string out with turkey baster. Place in a cup and stir till dissolved. If u have dinos, string-like formation occurs again within 1-4 hours inside the cup

Good advise , specially for person like me that now no access to Microscope (I use them a lot before when I was a medical technologist then) .

Will try and report back then. So if they don't go back to string formation then it may be the thin film algae resulted from scrapping glass wall?

Cheers,


MD


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Unread 02/11/2016, 07:30 PM   #3063
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Ok so dinos don't fix nitrogen but they thrive with with the bacteria who do. So, the rest of the logic still holds, it's just that the dinos have a partner in crime with cyano.

The remedies are also the same.

In that case, phyto is also a nitrogen fixer and competes with the cyano/dino crime pair.


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Unread 02/11/2016, 07:34 PM   #3064
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There is a lot of nitrogen gas in our water, but it may not take a lot more to tip the scale. The excess from denitrification may be sufficient.

Based on the posts and articles, it looks like cyano and phyto do fix nitrogen in our tanks. I'll post some references.


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Unread 02/11/2016, 08:18 PM   #3065
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counter-point: This paper presents and cites evidence of LOW N (relative to P) being good conditions for Dino bloom, and HIGH N to P ratio as favoring other competitors.

Quote:
Highest abundance of Scrippsiella-like dinoflagellate (249×106cells/L),peridinin (109 mg/m3), and concentration of phosphate (3.6μM) were related to a low N:P ratio (0.64). N:P ratios below the Redfield proportion(16:1) are associated with optimal growth of phytoplankton. Under experimental conditions in shrimp ponds, an N:P ratio of 5:1 appears optimal for growth of diatoms (Tamayo et al. 2003). In commercial shrimp ponds, the microalgal families Chlorophyceae, Cyanophyceae, and Bacillariophyceaewere dominant and present when N:P ratios are 1.45–2.12 (Tamayo et al.2003). Clifford (1992) concluded that ponds with low N:P ratios encourage cyanobacteria and ponds with high N:P ratios encourage growth of diatoms and that low ratios are associated with red tides (Hodgkiss & Ho 1997;Anderson et al. 2002; Smayda 2005). Hodgkiss & Yang (2001) report that, when Tolo Harbor in Hong Kong has N:P ratios below∼10:1, dinoflagellates increase.
In coastal ponds of Tunisia, when the usually high N:P ratios decrease in autumn, the dinoflagellate Gyrodinium aureolum proliferates and frequently kills farmed fishes (Anderson et al. 2002). The most frequent N:P ratio in shrimp farms around the Gulf of Mexico is in the range of 1.1–6.8 (Alonso-Rodríguez et al. 2000). It is likely that phytoplankton, such as diatoms, were not dominant because of low nitrates and low silicate concentrations (Smayda 1997). Silicates were not determined in this study. In theory, when silicate con-centrations are low, diatom populations decline, while phytoplankton that use excess N and P increase (Anderson et al. 2002; Smayda 2005). Lee et al.(2003) suggested that enrichment of sediment ponds with silicon and trace metals encourages high production of diatoms and might control growth of dinoflagellates in ponds.



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Unread 02/11/2016, 08:30 PM   #3066
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I'd be interested in reading about nitrogen fixation in our tanks, if you have links.


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Unread 02/11/2016, 08:38 PM   #3067
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Regarding ideas to scrap everything and start over I ran across a couple of things that gave me the impression that Ammonia (in doses fatal to livestock of course) could be toxic to dinos but not all bacteria.

I don't remember what I was reading, but this would seem - if true - to wipe out Dinos and establish a strong competitive population in their place.


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Unread 02/11/2016, 09:10 PM   #3068
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fish Keeper82 View Post
Interesting update from post 2979 .
Found something I was totally unexpecting to find.
DNA's comment on UV not working on Ostreopis is what lead me to look under the scope again since starting to use UV sterilization just to reconfirm i have Ostreopsis. Maybe I had two types of dinos and didn't know it. That turned out to be the case but not as I expected.
After looking under the scope for about 2 hours today, I found no traces at all of Ostreopsis. Ostreopsis is all i ever saw before installing UV so i never checked after they initially got under control. That seed looking Dino with tetherball motion that I described about in my previous posts is no longer there. These other dinos that I have now are more round and there swimming motion is nothing like the tetherball. This new dinoflagellate has more of a burst swimming motion in no particular pattern.
As I stated before my return pump broke and my UV sterilizer along with all my other equipment in my sump was offline for 4 days or so and dinos expectedly grew. After I got my return pump in I did a three day lights out with UV. When the lights came back on Dino's did get knocked back quite a bit but nowhere near as the first go round when I absolutely knew for sure it was Ostreopsis. This new Dinoflagellate as I stated in my previous post is only a dusting and has never made any strings since UV was sinstalled.
So in an unexpected result slow flow UV killed my Osteopsis and now another type has taken its place and seems to not make strings and stay more on the sand. Even when my return pump was out i never saw strings just heavy dusting.
So just a heads up... if you havent looked under the scope in a while it might be valuable info to take a recent look.
If i ever set up a youtube account ill post the videos
I also saw two species of dino under the scope. Ostreopsis and a species that would do a 360 degree spin then burst forward like you described. I see no more visible dinos so no point in me checking anymore but just so you know ur not alone


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Unread 02/12/2016, 01:14 AM   #3069
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There are 2000 types of Dinos and they are not all the same.
They are in cold water that tends to be nutrient high as well as tropical waters.
At least some dinos have been associated with rise nutrients.


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Unread 02/12/2016, 01:23 AM   #3070
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Dinoflagellates.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DNA View Post
There are 2000 types of Dinos and they are not all the same.
They are in cold water that tends to be nutrient high as well as tropical waters.
At least some dinos have been associated with rise nutrients.

So in ULNS dinos or cyano are more likely non existence?


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Unread 02/12/2016, 02:50 AM   #3071
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3849724/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3574386/
http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com...1471-2148-7-55
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index...ne_environment

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/107/m107p083.pdf
Ok - so this one might throw you off because it sounds like it's going the other way... but the argument is actually that the dinos provide preferable conditions during limited N periods so the cyano can more efficiently fix N for the dinos to consume. So... they are thriving on the nitrogen fixation engine... that's their food supply. That was my read of it, anyway.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/4/chemistry
http://www.americanaquariumproducts....Potential.html
http://www.americanaquariumproducts....gen_cycle.html
http://urbansage.com/cyano.html
http://www.aquarium-pond-answers.com...aquariums.html


one of my favs:









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Unread 02/12/2016, 03:10 AM   #3072
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Here's a basic fast view on the N and P cycles for those who want it



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Unread 02/12/2016, 06:19 AM   #3073
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Quote:
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So in ULNS dinos or cyano are more likely non existence?
Not true. Many people in this thread got dinos while approaching very low nutrients "green hair algae disappeared and dinos appeared"


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Unread 02/12/2016, 08:10 AM   #3074
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Not true. Many people in this thread got dinos while approaching very low nutrients "green hair algae disappeared and dinos appeared"
There does seem to be a lot of variables and this thread has been so interesting and I'm amazed that no one in the aqua world has done a proper study. I reckon an answer could be found if everyone was surveyed. I had high nutrients and at one point nitrate was at 50 so for me the 'dirty' method obviously made no difference. Different types seem to react in different ways mine changed several times, I did have cyano and algae vanished. Plants including cheato stopped growing and was where I had a lot of Dino's collecting. Some corals suffered more than others. Mine loved the power heads and the mesh on the wier. They also accumulated in any areas of flow and filter media. I never realised the greyish dust was Dino's either, getting as much of that out has also helped. I do think keeping them water borne with lights out plus the UV and 10 micron socks has been key. My little experiment with the hydrogen peroxide last night was interesting in that suddenly it all raised up into the water also leading me to think that this action helps keep it in the water.


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Unread 02/12/2016, 01:11 PM   #3075
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karimwassef View Post

In that case, phyto is also a nitrogen fixer and competes with the cyano/dino crime pair.
No offence but are you possibly confusing fixing nitrogen with assimilating nitrogen? Your ref list in the other post doesn't have anything on non-bacterial phytoplankton fixing N. Well, diatoms but we don't dose those.

Mostly to clarify for people reading along- the "phyto" we hobbyists dose into our tanks is one or more species of green algae. Our phyto cannot fix nitrogen. Living algae can use up lots of free floating already-fixed nitrogen (ammonia, nitrate, etc) and is a good food source for pods. Adding phyto helps a lot vs dinos and even dead phyto seems to be good.

hth
ivy (dosing silica is on my list of things to try actually)


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