I had small cell amphidinium, uv dosent really work...dosing silicates and keeping phosphates high really helps. Took me 8 weeks to get rid of it. I was just at mike palettas house and i believe he had coolia. He says pollen had alot to attribute to it.
Always so interesting hearing how some of these strains pop up in tanks. Appreciate you leaving a comment and tuning in! It can take some time to handle these things, but worth the perseverance! -Blaine
I have a 150-gal mixed reef with soft corals and lots of fish. I started with all dry rock (CaribSea Life Rock) and run a 25 watt UV 24x7, large sump, carbon, skimmer. About a year into it, got dinos. Microscope and FB group ID’d them as large cell amphidinium. Sand got brown and snotty when lights were on. Was easy to siphon them off day after day. (Like a crust on top of the sand.) Dealt with them for about 8 months. They eventually went away. Never added anything, never slowed down on water changes. There was no magic “cure” or treatment other than hard work and time. Didn’t lose any corals, inverts, or fish. It was just ugly and frustrating!
Dinos are evil. 😂 Never got the pleasure of dealing with them until the dry/sterile rock days. A microscope is almost mandatory these days. Thanks for the video.
They are quite evil LOL! You know something we chatted about too a lot was the concept of dry rock and possibly how they may be something that gets Dinos involved in systems. -Blaine
My 160 gallon reef tank is one year old now. I had an issue with mysterious deaths of only snails and sand sifting gobies. I lost 7 gobies total over the course of the year and lost evert turbo snail. The sand bed looked a little brown but appeared to me to look more like diatoms rather than dinos. My hermits, urchins, brittle stars and sand sifting stars are all great. At this point, I am not planning to replace snails or gobies anytime soon. All other fish and corals have done amazing as well. My final conclusion is that I must have one of the toxic species of dinos. My nitrates have been 5-10 ppm for almost the entire duration of owning the reef. Phosphates are low but detectable range. My tank is a peninsula, so I have 2 powerheads on one side of the tank and 2 overflow outputs on the other. I am running my overflows at the surface for agitation and the powerheads are about 6 inches above the sand bed at variable flows. I think this setup seems to better keep sand bed clean and free of debris with while corals are still getting plenty of flow. I do have a chemipure elite carbon/gfo bag in my sump but never bottomed out my nutrients. I am thinking to just leave things as they are but I would certainly love to get some further guidance on my next step.
An interesting scenario you are describing! Like I mentioned in the video I feel the next best possible step is to collect a sample and get it under a microscope! Will be hard to tell you the next step until we get further understanding on what we are going after. Can find even a cheap microscope off Amazon that can work perfectly. -Blaine
I did get a microscope and identified small cell amphidiniums, confirmed with after posting on Mack's dino support group. Now I need a good comprehensive strategy. Anything you all do that had been most successful with this nasty big?
Without a microscope, how would one suspect that they may have an infestation of dinoflagellate? Can you take a water sample to your LFS to help diagnose the problem?
Absolutely something you can do, and can take photos or videos and send it to us on our social media and we can try and help identify it for you! -Blaine
So the sure proof way to figure out if you have dinos without a microscope is... Take a sample and put it in a cup of tank water. Swish it around until it breaks apart. Then put the cup under your tank lights. If it goes back to looking like it did before breaking it apart, then you have dinos. But you'll need a microscope to positively ID what type you have.
Great information and great video
Appreciate the comment, and thanks for tuning in!
-Blaine
I had small cell amphidinium, uv dosent really work...dosing silicates and keeping phosphates high really helps. Took me 8 weeks to get rid of it. I was just at mike palettas house and i believe he had coolia. He says pollen had alot to attribute to it.
Always so interesting hearing how some of these strains pop up in tanks. Appreciate you leaving a comment and tuning in! It can take some time to handle these things, but worth the perseverance!
-Blaine
I have a 150-gal mixed reef with soft corals and lots of fish. I started with all dry rock (CaribSea Life Rock) and run a 25 watt UV 24x7, large sump, carbon, skimmer. About a year into it, got dinos. Microscope and FB group ID’d them as large cell amphidinium. Sand got brown and snotty when lights were on. Was easy to siphon them off day after day. (Like a crust on top of the sand.) Dealt with them for about 8 months. They eventually went away. Never added anything, never slowed down on water changes. There was no magic “cure” or treatment other than hard work and time. Didn’t lose any corals, inverts, or fish. It was just ugly and frustrating!
I never got them when I had a bare bottom reef tank and ran 400 watt metal halides which produce a lot of uv light
Interesting thought about potentially the metal halides keeping them at bay! Thanks for leaving a comment and tuning in!
-Blaine
Liked the video
Dinos are evil. 😂 Never got the pleasure of dealing with them until the dry/sterile rock days. A microscope is almost mandatory these days. Thanks for the video.
They are quite evil LOL! You know something we chatted about too a lot was the concept of dry rock and possibly how they may be something that gets Dinos involved in systems.
-Blaine
My 160 gallon reef tank is one year old now. I had an issue with mysterious deaths of only snails and sand sifting gobies. I lost 7 gobies total over the course of the year and lost evert turbo snail. The sand bed looked a little brown but appeared to me to look more like diatoms rather than dinos. My hermits, urchins, brittle stars and sand sifting stars are all great. At this point, I am not planning to replace snails or gobies anytime soon. All other fish and corals have done amazing as well. My final conclusion is that I must have one of the toxic species of dinos. My nitrates have been 5-10 ppm for almost the entire duration of owning the reef. Phosphates are low but detectable range. My tank is a peninsula, so I have 2 powerheads on one side of the tank and 2 overflow outputs on the other. I am running my overflows at the surface for agitation and the powerheads are about 6 inches above the sand bed at variable flows. I think this setup seems to better keep sand bed clean and free of debris with while corals are still getting plenty of flow. I do have a chemipure elite carbon/gfo bag in my sump but never bottomed out my nutrients. I am thinking to just leave things as they are but I would certainly love to get some further guidance on my next step.
An interesting scenario you are describing! Like I mentioned in the video I feel the next best possible step is to collect a sample and get it under a microscope! Will be hard to tell you the next step until we get further understanding on what we are going after. Can find even a cheap microscope off Amazon that can work perfectly.
-Blaine
@@TopShelfAquatics Thanks. I agree. The only way to know for sure is to break out the scope and look.
@@hdemetri will be best! Let me know what you come up with and hopefully we can figure a solution for ya!
-Blaine
I did get a microscope and identified small cell amphidiniums, confirmed with after posting on Mack's dino support group. Now I need a good comprehensive strategy. Anything you all do that had been most successful with this nasty big?
Without a microscope, how would one suspect that they may have an infestation of dinoflagellate? Can you take a water sample to your LFS to help diagnose the problem?
Absolutely something you can do, and can take photos or videos and send it to us on our social media and we can try and help identify it for you!
-Blaine
So the sure proof way to figure out if you have dinos without a microscope is... Take a sample and put it in a cup of tank water. Swish it around until it breaks apart. Then put the cup under your tank lights. If it goes back to looking like it did before breaking it apart, then you have dinos. But you'll need a microscope to positively ID what type you have.
Dinoflagellates, ain’t nobody got time foe dat!
That’s right!.. of course taking the time to identify which type you may got is important to take time for dat! 😂
-Blaine
you should’ve shown a actual example in someone’s tank of each dino type mentioned.
thanks