Cali Kid Corals

Requesting confirmation - Amphidinium dinoflagellates?

IOnceWasLegend

IOnceWasLegend

Frag Swap Coordinator
BOD
BARcard
Well, I took the microscope out for a test run today, and...shit.

4x.jpg

IMG_20200618_150233.jpg

IMG_20200618_150256.jpg

IMG_20200618_150300.jpg


Bright side: the microscope works well!

Down side: I'm reasonably certain my 'cyano' outbreak is actually Amphidinium dinoflagellates.

Anyone out there able to confirm, and/or have success battling these? (Reading through the thread on Reef2reef right now, since I got 'lucky' in that these are more or less sand-dwelling dinos).

Edit for tank parameters:

NO3: Undetectable
PO4: 0.07 (were undetectable until I began feeding more heavily a few days ago)
Alk: 9.0
Ca: 480
Ammonia: Undetectable
Nitrite: Undetectable
 
I really like how far reefing has come in the past decade. I feel like in the past, dinos, bryopsis and other pests were all reasons to tear down tanks. Now, we have pretty simple fixes for these issues.
 
Coral reefer said:
Dose some nitrates, do a three day blackout. Use a uv steeliness if you have one, and or remove the sand
Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up. After a bit more fiddling, I think they're actually Prorocentrum dinos (no 'beak' on the front of them and a more rounded shape), so a UV sterilizer may actually be effective against them. I'm definitely going to dose nitrates to bring that up a bit, likely dose some beneficial bacteria, and do 'lights-out' for a few days.
 
ofzakaria said:
I advice an icp to check ur silica and other heavy metals.
Check for silicon or rubber tubings in water that might be leeching
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, why would these be your first stop? I saw a couple diatoms under the microscope, but nothing to make me think that this was anything other than dinos.
 
When I struggled with dino, I saw multiple researches claiming silica and heavy metal, especially paired with ultra low nutrients help dino.
 
Feel your frustration. Here's mine:

https://imgur.com/a/TiSOzPC

I just came out of a 3-day blackout yesterday. I've cut my lights way way back, dosing 0.1 ml 3% hydrogen peroxide per 10 gal, and I'm seeing some dusting again. Already.

I vacuuming regularly every 2nd to 3rd day. (Haven't since blackout though, hopeful it's on its heels.) UV sterilizer since last winter. I'm pretty pissed at myself.

When I kicked-off my system (1-year ago) I fk-ed up. Tank was anorexic by my auto water changes, believing I was keeping the tank from going ugly mode. Tough lesson. Like @ofzakaria mentioned, I had high silica too. Maybe introduced dinos through a frag addition.Then BOOM! The primordial pest crept in and conquered. I'm able to easily vacuum it out into a sock but it's a drag.

There's a ton of opinion and approach as you've no doubt come to realize. I wish you luck. I'll post when I figure out what I did to get rid of it. From what I'm hearing from others here: "it'll go away when I remove my sand." But I'm too stubborn. I like my sand.

What I can't believe is that some aspiring bio/reefhacker hasn't come up with a product for this. I'd pay _a lot_ for it.
 
Last edited:
Appreciate the input, @Squist , and sorry you've been struggling with it. It's difficult to see, but am I correct in my guess that's amphidinium? Additionally, to try and get another data point, I'd be very interested to know what your phos/nitrate levels have been throughout this.

Regarding your last line about there not being a product to treat it: I'm honestly not too surprised after digging through what's available. There's a lot of confounding factors:

  • A not-insignificant portion of people don't confirm that it's dinos, so that raises the possibility that their solution for dinos ended up actually being a solution for cyano.
  • People often don't confirm what kind of dinos they have, which makes a big difference since it influences where they're located (and how to treat them). Ex: amphidinium don't enter the water column and stay entirely in the sand, so UV sterilizers do nothing (because they're not in the water column). Ostreopsis are in the water column, so UV is effective. Prorocentrum are mostly sand-dwelling, but enter the water column during blackouts, so UV might be effective against them.
  • Dinos and corals are similar in that they're both eukaryotic animal cells (versus algae, which a eukaryotic plant cell, and bacteria, which are prokaryotic). It's comparatively easy to make a treatment that hits bacteria and algae, but not coral/dinos, because of how different they are; it's much harder, given how similar dinos and corals are, to make something that targets one but not the other.
I'm curious to see how the 'outcompeting dinos' angle plays out, since my dino problem took off right after my GHA was removed from the tank. One of the few consistent things I've seen regarding dino outbreaks is very low nutrients, so I'm hoping that'll help mitigate this issue.
 
There’s a timely Mr Saltwater Aquarium YouTube lecture with Dr Tim today. Jump to 39:25 on the timeline.


“Get nutrients up and dinos will go away,” they say.

Not sure at the moment if my dinos are areamphidinium or not. Last I recall, I have the type that staya in the sand. Or, at least, that’s what I concluded from what I read at the time.

For N and P, I have data back a few months. Looks like this:

3A048C70-6EE0-4CDF-9F02-C7A67003B973.jpeg


B153D039-0D8A-4056-8234-CE47135D0967.jpeg
 
What I remember when I researched the subject is that the silica is one of the main components that makes the dino cyst, along with carbon, phosphorus (po4) and nitrogen.
Since only silica can be reduced without much negative impact on coral, depriving the dino from silica will make it harder on the algae to thrive.
So, it's not that the silica is what is causing the dino per say, the presence of silica in high levels help it to thrive, and the reduction of silica can be a big contributing factor of the cure.
I remember finding many ligit studies in to the dinoflagellates biology suggesting the above.
And indeed when I managed to bring my silica dramatically low(using rowphse) dino layers thinned out noticeably.
Now the trick here is the balance. When using rowphse to reduce silica, you are also reducing po4 so you need to make sure you do not tank po4 and hire your coral.
As you said, dino is a type of algae, and it's similar to the zooxanthalli algae that make coral. Lota of parallels between zooxanthalli and dinoflagellates indeed. I remember even reading that dino is in essence a type of zooxanthalli. This what makes it harder to treat because the condition that render dino ineffective will almost render coral ineffective as well..
I personally would check silica using icp first thing. If I see high silica, I first try to address the high silica level before anything else..
Good luck..
 
Last edited:
Zooxanthellae are a type of dinoflagellates, not the other way around. But yeah, that’s the main reason it‘s hard (if not impossible) to come up with an easy cure for the pathogenic species of dinoflagellates without harming the ones keeping our corals alive.
 
Last edited:
Squist said:
I remember you mentioning this:

https://www.shop-meeresaquaristik.d...ntrol/aqua-biotica-phycoEx-250-mL::1046.html?

Hard to come by here in the states for some reason.
Click to expand...
Yeh it did really work with me, I still have 2 bottles,but I do not know of it has expiration date or not. Maybe I need to go and check.
The website u posted is awesome cause it's in English. The bottles do not have english instructions on them, I had to translate it using Google translate lol.
The product was introduced to me by a reefer friend in Germany. I was skeptic at first, but so far, every European product I have used kicked ass. Even informations on European reefing sites are much more reliable than forums like r2r where is wild wild west lol..
 
Last edited:
I do not see expiration but will email someone and ask
 

Attachments

  • 20200619_110950.jpg
    20200619_110950.jpg
    55.9 KB · Views: 188
  • 20200619_110947.jpg
    20200619_110947.jpg
    65.2 KB · Views: 205
  • 20200619_110953.jpg
    20200619_110953.jpg
    59.9 KB · Views: 193
Squist said:
While we’re playing together in this, um, sandbox:


FWIW. Good primer but some difference, yet similarity, in opinion re dinos. Also, they mention “Michael Mrutzek’s online store for phycoex.” It’s the link above.
Click to expand...
This pdf is awesome. The first time I see such details on the phycoex. Wish I had it before I go through the days of tracking and transitions lol. Even this doc looks like auto translated.
Am suprised phycoex is not common in here, the product is popular in Europe and used for multiple algae treatments.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top