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Unread 06/02/2016, 02:24 PM   #3726
ben01
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I have been a battling a massive plague of O. ovata for months now. I ided them under a microscope. I may finally be winning thanks to this thread.

I was running a fairly low nutrient system by having only three small fish in a 65 gallon tank and giving them minimal, but adequate, feeding. My NO3 and phosphate were always measured at zero or very near it. When the dinos hit they covered everything, even my zoas and gorgonians closed up.

After reading this thread a few months ago I decided to start over feeding my tank with frozen food. The dinos actually receded some and mostly covered the rocks, not the livestock, but were still pretty heavy. My bristle worm population exploded along with thousands of brittle stars. A couple months ago I also started dosing Sodium Silicate to kickstart some diatoms into competition but that doesn't seem to have done much. About a week ago I put in a small amount of new live rock from the LFS. Today I noticed that the amount of dino "coverage" is the smallest it has been in months!

With a sample size of one and no control this is hardly a scientific experiment but I think the live rock addition my have really helped. Now I just hope the dinos don't make a comeback.
Its been over two weeks now and the dinos have almost completely disappeared. The live rock infusion seems to have turned the tide in a couple weeks after months of the plague.


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Unread 06/02/2016, 02:30 PM   #3727
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Just to be very clear, I suspect that the Ostreopsis is quite vulnerable to UV if it goes through the filter. There's no reason to believe that the dinoflagellates are entering the UV filter at a rate high enough to be of interest, though.
In the case of O. Ovata I don't think UV would do much good. I ran a canister with a micron filter for days that would stop any and all dinos and it didn't make much of a dent. Since UV will have a much smaller kill rate than the canister's %100 it doesn't seem very promising. Maybe for other types of dinos it would work better.


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Unread 06/02/2016, 03:05 PM   #3728
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How large is this microbe?


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Unread 06/02/2016, 03:34 PM   #3729
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How large is this microbe?

http://botany.si.edu/references/dino...axa/Oovata.htm

It is the smallest species in the genus. Thecal surface is smooth, ornamented with minute, evenly distributed pores (0.07 µm diameter) (Figs. 1-4). Cells have a dorsoventral diameter of 47-55 µm and transdiameter of 27-35 µm (Faust et al. 1996).


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Unread 06/02/2016, 09:48 PM   #3730
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That must be some tough armor to block high doses of UV.


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Unread 06/03/2016, 10:05 AM   #3731
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A quick update. I dipped the rocks i could in freshwater and scrubbed them all with a toothbrush outside of the tank. Then i did a 2 day blackout, then 2 days of 20% blues. I see a couple strands of dinos holding on but the tank looks much better.
A lot of stressed corals. A couple sps browned badly and i lost my strawberry shortcake acro frag...


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Unread 06/03/2016, 06:01 PM   #3732
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I'm reluctant to celebrate but I do believe I can see the finish line. My tank hasn't looked this good since I first set it up. I did have two patches of light dusting in the substrate, so I took three samples. I was unable to find a single Amphidinium anywhere in all three slides. What I am seeing though is diversity. Not a whole lot yet, but encouraging none the less. Lots of diatoms, a tiny nematode with phyto in its gut, an egg shaped thing with pointy things growing off of it scurrying around, also appeared to have phyto in its gut. I also found a larval stage Tigriopus copepod, which I assume was feeding on the diatoms. Snails are constantly cleaning now and my hermits have molted, shedding their orangeish/yellow shell and finally returning to the blood red colors they used to have. I'm relieved at the progress i've already seen, but i'll have my victory dance when my lighting period is back to normal and all still appears well.

Here's two pre-blackout pics and a pic taken tonight:







I started out with 4 hours of moonlights on Monday, Dark Blues only set to 1%. The next day, I bumped them up to 2% and increased to 8 hours. Each day I increased intensity until I reached 10% Dark Blue and 5% Blue. Tomorrow, I plan on trying 1 hour of 16000K set to about 25%. If all looks well, then I plan on adding 1 hour every 1 - 2 days. Today is also day 14 of my Microbacter7 dosing, which I plan to continue for the next week and phyto dosing until the bottle is gone. Next Friday is also going to be coral shopping day, I plan on coming home with at least 4 or 5 frags.


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Unread 06/03/2016, 08:27 PM   #3733
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Fingers crossed strange I hope you beat them back. I'll add pics as well this weekend before and after. So far so good. I'm petrified to do a water change I'm going to try and do one more week without.


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Unread 06/03/2016, 11:15 PM   #3734
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Fingers crossed strange I hope you beat them back. I'll add pics as well this weekend before and after. So far so good. I'm petrified to do a water change I'm going to try and do one more week without.
Thanks, we'll see. I think i've done 3 water changes in the last 10 days if it makes you feel any better, but you might be dealing with a different species than mine.


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Unread 06/04/2016, 01:47 PM   #3735
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Pulled a sample of what looked like detritus on my live rock. In it, I found bunch of these things that look like Ostracods. Anyone familiar with either of them? Would love to put a name to them as i'm seeing a lot of them pop up now.

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Unread 06/04/2016, 10:36 PM   #3736
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Pulled a sample of what looked like detritus on my live rock. In it, I found bunch of these things that look like Ostracods.
Pretty sure those are ciliates - euplotes maybe (Google images of "hypotrich ciliates" for others in that family)

Here's a hypotrich ciliate of some variety from one of my samples that had a taste for amphidinium dinos. I mis-ID'd it as euplotes at the time.
https://youtu.be/f5VctFNP_zs
Most ciliates eat primarily bacteria, but some eat and thrive on larger particles including dinos. And under the right conditions the ciliates can curb the dino population.


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Unread 06/05/2016, 11:16 AM   #3737
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Pretty sure those are ciliates - euplotes maybe (Google images of "hypotrich ciliates" for others in that family)

Here's a hypotrich ciliate of some variety from one of my samples that had a taste for amphidinium dinos. I mis-ID'd it as euplotes at the time.
https://youtu.be/f5VctFNP_zs
Most ciliates eat primarily bacteria, but some eat and thrive on larger particles including dinos. And under the right conditions the ciliates can curb the dino population.
After looking at some images, i'd agree with that ID. Thanks!


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Unread 06/05/2016, 10:30 PM   #3738
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I don't know if this has been covered in this thread yet but I ran across this article while reading up on Amphidinium. The part that caught my interest was "The Amphidinium was outcompeted by diatoms if the Si/N ratio was kept at 1:1 or greater. . . I know not all species have the same vulnerabilities, but for those particularly bad cases, I think it would be worth a try. It'd be interesting to see if dosing large amounts of silica encouraged a diatom bloom which would inhibit dino growth or even keep them under control. Just thinking out loud here...


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Unread 06/05/2016, 10:34 PM   #3739
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It'd be cheap to try silicate dosing. I got a gallon of water glass for $10-20 dollars or so, and it'd last most anyone a lifetime.


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Unread 06/06/2016, 05:14 AM   #3740
taricha
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Originally Posted by StrangeDejavu View Post
I don't know if this has been covered in this thread yet but I ran across this article while reading up on Amphidinium. The part that caught my interest was "The Amphidinium was outcompeted by diatoms if the Si/N ratio was kept at 1:1 or greater. . .
It's been talked about, but I don't think it's been given a thorough testing.


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Unread 06/06/2016, 06:24 AM   #3741
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Wow... The thought of cultivating diatoms. Sounds desperate, but pick your poison...

Do diatoms irritate corals? Do they have natural predators?


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Unread 06/06/2016, 10:23 AM   #3742
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Wow... The thought of cultivating diatoms. Sounds desperate, but pick your poison...

Do diatoms irritate corals? Do they have natural predators?
Based on what I was just reading, protists and snails mainly. "Pick your poison" seems to be accurate as this article I just ran across said diatoms, when attacked by copepods, release chemicals that warn other diatoms to bolster their defense. They also begin releasing aldahydes which inhibited copepod eggs from hatching. The article suggested that in large enough quantities, they even begin disrupting the food chain. Since biodiversity seems to be an important role in the fight, it would probably be counterproductive.


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Unread 06/06/2016, 01:37 PM   #3743
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It's interesting that diatoms can interfere with copepod reproduction, but we can use snails to consume them. Many snails are happy to eat diatoms, and they won't be harmed by them. Still, I don't know that the diatoms will outcompete the dinoflagellates.


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Unread 06/06/2016, 01:49 PM   #3744
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So I have now realized I am fighting dino's. Here are some pics of them. I am going to try to increase my copo pod population and see if that will help.

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Unread 06/06/2016, 02:29 PM   #3745
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So I have now realized I am fighting dino's. Here are some pics of them. I am going to try to increase my copo pod population and see if that will help.
I have no doubt my addition of copepods as well as my daily dosing of Microbacter7 and phytoplankton helped greatly in my fight. What bit of dinos were left after my 6 day blackout slowly receded as my copepod population grew. I'm now seeing pods and spirorbid worms everywhere, as a result of the phytoplankton dosing. Best of luck!


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Unread 06/06/2016, 09:07 PM   #3746
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Matt, looks like prorocentrum dinos would be my guess. Hadn't seen very many with that kind. Would you post some tank pics to show where and how they grow?


Seen some posts lately about brown dusting on sand after dinos that turns out to be diatoms.

I get the same in my tank at the moment. Every once in a while I check the scope to confirm it's diatoms. Then I place my conch into the area. (I need to re scape so he can get to all parts of my sand bed - he won't go over rocks)
This is what it looked like 15 minutes after I put him on the brown dusting area. You can see he cleaned a white halo around himself.




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Unread 06/06/2016, 09:21 PM   #3747
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Hi everyone
I've been reading this very long and somewhat informative (most of the stuff, I can't comprehend, lol) thread and I'm proud to say that, I am at page 75 out of 375 pages. 300 more to go!
Anywho, I to, have dinos and have been battling this demon for about 2 months going on 3! I finally said, after dealing with scrubbing the coral plugs, rocks, powerheads, basically what ever was in the frag tanks. I have 2 frag tanks, 40 gals each with both tanks plumbed to one 40gal sump.
I finally said, there's gotta be a better way to clean or get rid of all this crap. That's when I turned to this thread, hence I'm only at page 75. At page 75, my head is spinning from all the info, how much more when I get to the last post! Anyway, I started to do the 3% peroxide deal. Started first dose on May 25, so it's been 17 days. First 14 days, dosed the 1ml per 10gals. For me, I just simply dosed 10ml, as I too, am skeptical about this. Nothing really happened the first 14 days. As I kept reading this thread, I read somewhere that they doubled the dose of peroxide. So, being desperate, as we all/most of us are, I also, doubled the dose, to 20ml per day. That being said, this morning as I usually do, had my coffee in front of my frag tanks and I noticed that there weren't as much bubbles suspended by brown nasty snot! Hmmm, something just might be working. Whatever it is, I'll take it! Hopefully, by continuing this process, I'd be able to keep this demon at bay. I know I can't totally eradicate this crap but if I can't see, that's good enough! I was also, about to dose skimmate! Yup, yall read what I'm talking about in the earlier posts. Since, I am 300 pages back from all of you, I really don't know how the outcome was except for the one person, can't remember his name, that initially did it. He also posted a pic of him pouring it in. I'll get to more reactions as I keep reading.
Was going to start the skimmate dose but my sidekick cleaned out the collection cup last night. Will try tomorrow in hopes it'll assist in this demonic eradication.

Side note: I do not know the kind of dino strain I may have, as there are many. I do not have a microscope, I wish I did. So, I don't know if I have a strain that is tolerable to the many different ways of eradication or one of the weaker ones, if you will. Hopefully the weaker one and I say this seriously, only because my snails are walking all over it. Not sure if they are eating it. My crabs too, are all over it and which seems they are eating it. None have died, not one. My 2 yellow tangs, 2 blue tangs, yellow wrasse, melly wrasse, 2 chromis and a lawnmower blenny eats that crap and none have died, yet. The LMB eats that sh!t up like no other. His belly is so fat, he can hardly hold himself up, sways side to side.

We shall see...

I was going to run skimmerless, also but then remembered that I need skimmate to dose skimmate.

Good luck everyone!
I'll update as things progress.

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Unread 06/10/2016, 02:21 PM   #3748
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Matt, looks like prorocentrum dinos would be my guess. Hadn't seen very many with that kind. Would you post some tank pics to show where and how they grow?


Seen some posts lately about brown dusting on sand after dinos that turns out to be diatoms.

I get the same in my tank at the moment. Every once in a while I check the scope to confirm it's diatoms. Then I place my conch into the area. (I need to re scape so he can get to all parts of my sand bed - he won't go over rocks)
This is what it looked like 15 minutes after I put him on the brown dusting area. You can see he cleaned a white halo around himself.

It's growing everywhere! Lol

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Unread 06/10/2016, 08:43 PM   #3749
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Well guys...caught the dinos again...this is frustrating. Dont even know where or how they came back..started off with a little dusting then 2 days later full on dinos. Shet.

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Unread 06/11/2016, 06:15 AM   #3750
taricha
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It's growing everywhere! Lol
Thanks. Snotty mats on sand and rocks. Looks like more in higher flow areas?


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Well guys...caught the dinos again...this is frustrating. Dont even know where or how they came back..started off with a little dusting then 2 days later full on dinos. Shet.
Rereading your earlier posts, you did Heavy feeding + 3 day blackout + live phyto + pods?

In my tank, as the dinos in the sand disappeared, the amount of biodiversity in the sand went through the roof. Now without dinos, the sand has less critters - as though part of the sandbed bio-explosion was due to the availability of dinos as a food source. Now they've been gone for a while, my sandbed is less alive. I've wondered if this makes me susceptible to another dino sandbed episode.

Any chance your pods population is now gone and the dinos are thriving without the grazers?

Also, you mentioned after your dinos left being annoyed by GHA, what if anything did you end up doing to curb the GHA?


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