Dinoflagellates.

[Mikefromaz]

I think the UV method holds a lot of promise. I am expecting a new bulb in a week or so. Meanwhile, I cleaned the piled up detritus from the LR section of my sump and other make cleaner stuff. Today was my 2nd. vodka dose. There is no question the skimmer output had increased. The only noticable change with the brown goop is that it seems to have slowed growth and the streamers are gone. It is obviously way too soon to form any conclusions. Efforts so far...new skimmer pump, housekeeping in sump, two bags of purigen, a fresh charge of Phosguard in the reactor and dosing vodka. Oh yeah.....crossed fingers.

[dcarwile]

Can someone link me pants id site again? i lost it

[cal_stir]

Originally Posted by dcarwile

Can someone link me pants id site again? i lost it

Try this
http://www.algaeid.com/identification/

[Mikefromaz]

Making progress! I just did another nitrate test on my tank.I was expecting the all too familar 20+ppm. What I read was ZERO nitrates. As recently as twelve hours ago nothing had changed. Zero! Sump maintenance, Stability bacteria supplement, new skimmer pump and most amazing is the vodka dosing. After losing two corals and watching my tank go to sludge this is exactly the good news I have been hoping for.

[DNA]

My Ostreopsis dinos live happily in zero nitrates and they have done so for years.
I'd recommend no additional SPS while there are visible dinos.

---

We should mention our dino species all the time.

[Mikefromaz]

Hey DNA thanks for cold shower. I suppose after living with "dinos "for years" someone elses enthusiasm might be a bit much huh? As soon as I purchase a microscope I will report the name of my species to you.

[mathman7728]

where do the dinos go when the lights go out? I've noticed that my sand looks clean soon after all the lights go out, but as soon as the lights go on the dinos are back. so where do the dinos go in the dark?

i've read where some say they are in the water column but i wonder about that given that as soon as the lights go on they return to the same spot on the sand. how can they "know" where to return to once the lights go back on...i doubt they have a homing beacon. therefore, they must not go anywhere, correct?

[karimwassef]

Different dinos return to the same locations as were deviously infested. They are free floating in the dark.

The locations are a function of your flow and natural anchor points.

[DNA]

Fram an Italian article:

"Artemia sp. test. The presence of O. ovata caused a rapid and strong mortality
effect on Artemia sp. nauplii already at low cell concentrations: after 24 h nearly all
the Artemia (10 for each test) died even in the presence of algal cell numbers as low
as 6-8 per ml".
x
"The toxicity test and the chemical analysis evidenced the presence of toxins also in the
extracellular medium which increased with increasing culture aging, presumably due to
cell death and consequent lysis".
x
"Both cells and extracellular medium were toxic towards Artemia sp. nauplii".

Source.
www.sibm.it/PDF%20ATTI/.../Pagine%2032-33.pdf

- - -

I was looking for the point when toxins are released.
Cell breakup seems to be it and probably cell division as well.

If 6 cells in a milliliter can kill artemia in 24 hours, most plankton will have a really hard time in a tank with visible dinos.
This dino density would most likely be totally invisible to the naked eye.

[karimwassef]

even a cobra dies under a mongoose. There's probably plankton that can stand toe to toe with dinos... Just not artemia

[mathman7728]

do dinos negatively impact corals in ways other than smothering them as the dinos grow (e.g. covering up the corals as they become larger/string like)? i've noticed my LPS don't look good (not expanding as much before, mouths open wide, etc) but there are no visible signs of dinos on the corals (only see the dinos in the sand bed)?

[DNA]

I did three more tests.

Doubled the CO2 bubble rate for the Calcium Reactor and the flow for about the same.
A week later the dinos don't seem to mind, but Cyanobacteria is on the rise.

---

My dinos like to stay in half shades so I placed an 80W fluorescent bulb next to the front glass increasing the light in their favorite spots on the sandbed by a lot.
For three days the dinos just did their usual thing and didn't care about all the extra light.

Perhpas it's UV from the halides they were hiding from.
They have a glass cover, but who knows.

---

For the next three days I deprived the dinos of their favorite spots with current that blew the sand around.
I also added two more stream pumps to see how the nighttime free swimming dinos did against a lot of current and frequent trips through the stream pumps.

The dinos just relocated to new spots they have not liked so far and adjusted to the change.

---

The impact from these three tests:
Not a dent.

[karimwassef]

DNA - why not sterilize like I did?

I think dosing peroxide in the sump at night would likely work just as well as UV?

[DNA]

Loads of live rock.
That will be my last test.
Can't do it though until next winter.

---

For the time I have spent on dinos I could easily have earned enough money to rebuild the tank and replace everything for it and in it at least once.
My contribution for one of the worst problem reefers face is a very long list of things that don't work. It should shorten the way for someone else to the holy grail.

The survey is off due to lack of interest so I'm off the case..
It's already done with 200 questions and if someone thinks it's the best way forward, like I do, it's yours if you have 10 infested reefers ready to take part and time to process and present the data.

Tired with no real success, dead corals and lack of interest from fellow reefers I don't have the drive to continue.
The summer is here, I'm going out to have fun.

[EvMiBo]

I dosed my 4th dose of FM Ultra Algae X last night, dino's are about 75% gone. So far so good. Hopefully it stays this way .

I have thought about running a UVS, I just wonder how much beneficial critters will be fried too..?

[karimwassef]

Who cares how much beneficial critters get zapped?

The whole point of antibiotics is to kill the disease bacteria. Good bacteria die too, but the alternative is for the patient to die... You can add back probiotics once things improve.

By the way, only free floating organisms are zapped. Ever since I set up my UV, I see more pods coming out at night. They're probably feeding on the fried remains of water column plankton. My corals also open up to feed more.

Your tank is sick - treat it.

[bertoni]

Erythromycin should be safe enough for the ammonia-consuming part of the tank's filtration. I might keep some Amquel or Prime on hand, out of general caution, but a reasonable Erythromycin dose should leave the filtration bacteria at least relatively undamaged.

[karimwassef]

Dinos aren't bacteria though. I was just using the antibiotic as an example. They're more complex protozoans. I don't know if they're susceptible to antibiotics.

I do know that peroxide and UV kill them.

[Mikefromaz]

Originally Posted by EvMiBo

I dosed my 4th dose of FM Ultra Algae X last night, dino's are about 75% gone. So far so good. Hopefully it stays this way .

I have thought about running a UVS, I just wonder how much beneficial critters will be fried too..?

Man I hope all goes well for you too. I used Marine Algaefix to battle HA. It worked amazingly well at killing off the nuisance algae. At that point the dinos which I've never had before in twelve years reef experience rushed to the foreground. My belief is the Algaefix took out most if not all of the algae (competition for nutrients) at the cellular level as well as the HA etc. I've mounted a super campaign to suppress nitrates and phosphate including super cleaning the sump extra purigen and a fresh charge of Phosguard. It started to show slight improvement after about 48hours. I began dosing vodka on day four. The results were amazing. I can honestly say that what was a coral choking snot covering the sand, rocks and some of the corals is now barely a stain on the sand. Good luck and please let us know of your experience regarding your bsttle with dinos.

[EvMiBo]

Originally Posted by karimwassef

Who cares how much beneficial critters get zapped?

The whole point of antibiotics is to kill the disease bacteria. Good bacteria die too, but the alternative is for the patient to die... You can add back probiotics once things improve.

By the way, only free floating organisms are zapped. Ever since I set up my UV, I see more pods coming out at night. They're probably feeding on the fried remains of water column plankton. My corals also open up to feed more.

Your tank is sick - treat it.

So far the FM Ultra Algae X is working very well.

Any idea what contact time you need to fry the dinos with UVS?

I'm potentially interested in getting a 40w EA or AquaUV unit, but there isn't much info (that I know of) that explains what size unit you actually need to fry the dinos, and what GPH rating, etc.

Also, how large are dinos that are floating around the water collumn at night? Couldn't another (and much cheaper, fwiw ) solution be to run very small micron fitler socks once you see dinos? And for a period thereafter. Blow them off their perches right when the lights go out. I would require a lot of sock changes but I could see it potentially working to a degree..?

Sorry if you've answered this already, but did you start UVS in the middle of a dino outbreak, or after? What other methods (if any) did you use to eradicate them?

[karimwassef]

I tried lots of things until I settled on sanitizing my water. I use UV but got decent results with hydrogen peroxide at night too.

I did use a massive ultra fine sock used for ponds - it probably held 3 gallons when open, but it got clogged in a week.

The UV has instructions for flow vs. parasite impact but I think I threw away the box that had that info on it. I found that 300-400gph is the right rate for my dinos.

The slower the flow, the bigger the bug it can zap. If you go fast, you kill very small things like bacteria.

[karimwassef]

Funny thing is that I got the UV because my fish had marine velvet... It helped but a lot of them died anyway. Guess what marine velvet is? A kind of dino...

The UV kills them when they're outside a fish, but mine were already infected.

[EvMiBo]

So you credit your success against dino's to hydrogen peroxide and UVS then.

How big is your system and what UVS are you using? The 40w AquaUV would be good for me I think, but the dimensions are horribly long (38" x 4" x 2.5")... The AquaUV 57w dimensions are more doable though (20" x 4" x 2.5"), so I'd probably go for that. Maybe overkill but that seems to be the way to go with UVS if you're actually going for the kill.

I will let the FM Ultra Algae X take it's course, if dinos come back I will probably run a UVS. These things are expensive though

[karimwassef]

Nothing is more expensive than dinos. In comparison, UV is cheap.

I got a 40W coralife. It's a twisty flow and about 2ft long.

My tank is 96" x 34" x 27" high ~ 380g.

[DNA]

We have at least two cases were algae treatment opened the door for dinos.
I could imagine that too kills much of the plankton, just like UV does.

At the moment abundant and healthy plankton gets my vote.