Dinoflagellates.

[240gallons]

I fought dinos for over a year. In the end I cut all corals hard and soft from the LR. Placed in a rubbermaid with new LR. Threw the old lr in the back yard. Dumped a gallon of bleach in my 75. Drained. Got some new LR. Replaced the coral....no issues x 5 yrs

[tmz]

It's possible ,I supose. However,I haven't heard a freshwater dip kills them instantly before.

[Potsy]

Originally Posted by Pallobi

Anyone have any thoughts? Maybe I should assume that statement was bogus?

The claim was originally made by "Pants" a member of reefcentral and a microbiologist specializing in dinoflagellates, and further disseminated by me. In experiments he found that a rapid change of even 5 ppt of salinity was enough to kill dinoflagellates.

I have confirmed this with my own experiments featuring a microscope, a dropper filled with freshwater, and a sample of ostreopsis dinos. A few drops of freshwater in the petri dish, bringing the s.g. to 1.014 instantly and the result is dead dinos, ruptured and bloated. But the change must be sudden. A few stragglers can survive in hyposalinity if the salinity is lowered gradually.

Consider what happens when dipping zoanthids in freshwater: amphipods and flatworms start dropping like flies right away. Dinoflagellate's soft, unicellular bodies, or any microbes for that matter I'd imagine, can't withstand those kinds of differences in osmotic pressure.

[tmz]

Consider what doesn't happen to the the zoanthid's endosymbiont dinofalgellates(zooxanthelae) as zoanthidae tolerate fresh water dips well with no apparent loss . Hyposalinity might kill some dinoflagellates but it will kill lots of other isotonic organisms as well. Not all corals and other isontic orgaisms tolerate it well.
I've never heard of hyposalinity as a treatment before and wouldn't personally do fresh water dips on all new corals.Never heard of Pants and haven't seen his posts so it's difficult to evaluate the pass along information without context.

[phhasek]

Dosing nitrate can be a solution

[tmz]

Is there any detail about NO3 dosing to remove dinoflagellates . Any evidence for this notion? How does it affect them ? At what level?

[acabgd]

I fought dinos at the end of last year. Tried everything. Finally a combination of a 3-day blackout, aggressive GFO and carbon, FaunaMarin Ultra-Bio, as well as ATI EasyVital (http://www.atiaquaristik.com/en/easyvital) did the job. I couldn't actually believe that this helped, but it did...

[ganjero]

Originally Posted by tmz

Is there any detail about NO3 dosing to remove dinoflagellates . Any evidence for this notion? How does it affect them ? At what level?

This is the only place were I have seen this approach but the original poster later on in the thread concluded that dosing nitrates was not why the dinos were disappearing (see this post.)

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1620464

[Pallobi]

I only ask cuz I've setup another entirely different system to combat the Dino's I have I. What was jus a temporary system... I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure it was brought on by certain tiles I've used... As I've never seen Dino's in any system where I haven't used them, and every system I had used them... I'm startin over with new or sterilized everything... Thing is, I have about 15 nice zoa frags that have Dino's on them, and I don't wana add them to this new setup, unless I'm positive I can kill them... My thought was a nice freshwater dip, followed by a peroxide solution dip, then into a coral QT I setup... And kinda see from there if they come back... Absolutely no sand, rock, or tanks will be used in the new setups... Any pumps or equipment will be soaked in bleach for a while... I assume that will definately kill any Dino's on the gear... But my worry is the frags... Some are real nice, but if I have to avoid keeping them, well then I will... But was hoping to hear good news on them going through some dips... And maybe salvaging the collection I have to this point... They are all on frag plugs...

[OrionN]

I got Dino in one of my tank. Fortunately it was in my QT, that is about 25 g cube. I completely isolate the tank. All the equipment used on that tank stay with that tank. I just do water change and suck out as much Dino as I can with each of the water change, 50% weekly. After a few months the Dino went away and have not come back since.

[petere1989]

Originally Posted by Bpb

My dinoflagellates outbreak began immediately after I killed off all of my Cyanobacteria by doing a 3 day dark period. Tank was COVERED in cyano before...after lights out it was sparkly clean. I loved it. Then 2-3 days later the brown bubbly snot showed up. Nothing else changed. Just killed one pest and freed up nutrients for another pest to consume

exact same thing happened to me. It looked like sponge growing on the rocks, and went from there. Mine haven't gotten any worse, and seem to be residing slowly. I'm trying the hydrogen peroxide but I'm not expecting much from doing that, more of a trial I guess.

[mussel and hate]

Originally Posted by Potsy

The claim was originally made by "Pants" a member of reefcentral and a microbiologist specializing in dinoflagellates, and further disseminated by me. In experiments he found that a rapid change of even 5 ppt of salinity was enough to kill dinoflagellates.

I have confirmed this with my own experiments featuring a microscope, a dropper filled with freshwater, and a sample of ostreopsis dinos. A few drops of freshwater in the petri dish, bringing the s.g. to 1.014 instantly and the result is dead dinos, ruptured and bloated. But the change must be sudden. A few stragglers can survive in hyposalinity if the salinity is lowered gradually.

Consider what happens when dipping zoanthids in freshwater: amphipods and flatworms start dropping like flies right away. Dinoflagellate's soft, unicellular bodies, or any microbes for that matter I'd imagine, can't withstand those kinds of differences in osmotic pressure.

In light of this perhaps a hyposalinity dip with h2o2 and move to quarantine. If one were careful regarding contamination the animals could be saved at the very least.

[bertoni]

I agree that the lights-out treatment leaves a lot of nutrients in the system. That's why I would run a lot of GFO and do some water changes before restarting the lights. I'd also siphon out as much of the cyanobacteria as possible before it dies and decays into the water column.

[DNA]

My tank is empty now.

If you have identified your dinos as a Ostreopsis species and got rid of them please post your findings here.

[TampaSnooker]

I have a dino in a propagation system that was not previously skimmed or UV sterilized. Some thoughts after re-reading this thread: After hooking up even a low quality skimmer, I am producing lots of skimmate - mostly at night. The areas where they were growing on substrate are reduced greatly after 4-5 days of skimming. I also wonder if a UV sterilizer would help with free swimming species/stages. I don't recall seeing much info on equipment on everyone's tanks, but food for thought.

[DNA]

Among the countless measures I applied, one was to blow them off the rocks several times a day for a weeks.
In the morning they would also be absent from the sand as a natural behavior.
Perhaps it would keep them down a bit, but it was far from being enough to reduce their numbers to a noticeable point.
At least some dinos have a unique way to instantly attach to almost anything.

Without a skimmer I'd think your tank would be run over much faster.

[TampaSnooker]

Yes, they came on fast, but that system is for growing out zoas, corallimorphs, anemones, chalice and acans. I like the dirtier water for those species, but it does allow dinos opportunity if they want to bloom. Seems to be cleaning up quickly though with the skimmer operating. Whatever species I had was irritating my sinuses during water changes.

[bertoni]

I might run some fresh carbon on that tank, given that the dinoflagellates seemed to be irritating your sinuses. The carbon might help remove the irritant.

[TampaSnooker]

I had been using ROX, but I keep getting the sense that certain corals don't like it. That may attribute to the fact that this system is run "dirtier" and I"m seeing swings from too much too fast. My normal amount is a guesstimated cup for a 400 gal system. But it is definitely a good suggestion, Jonathan.

[TampaSnooker]

What's the best way to collect dinos for microscope analysis? Some scrapings from where they settle or pull from the water column at night?

[bertoni]

I'd get some scrapings from where they're growing. There might not be much in the water column.

[brandon429]

Bump

The picture of the fishes slime coat vectoring any pest is article worthy documentation... blog worthy to the nth.

It goes to show you can't always stop an incursion, you need a way to deal with one. It makes me wonder how one could ever stock a tank with fish and not eventually reimport the stuff

[Pallobi]

My thought is, that if a quick exposure to freshwater dip actually does kill Dino's on contact, then that would suffice as far as that goes (fish bringing it in on their slime coat)...

[mayjong]

i would advise catching dinos as early as possible. do not let it grow to epic proportions!

i had some recently, i would call it a "mid level" outbreak that occured over a period of about 5 days. once i realized what i was dealing with i did a 3 day lights out, added carbon/gfo in a reactor, crank'd up the skimmer and did daily small water changes. the water changes were really just a side affect of using airline tubing to suction out as much as could every day for about two weeks. i refused to run that water through a sock and return it to the tank (i don't have alot of faith in that!) and i'm not convinced that "no" water changes helps to defeat them. in my experience, the more wc, the better in all situations.
anyway after a couple of weeks, they were gone. this was about 3 weeks ago, and i haven't seen any since.

if you wait until they take over, it would be much harder, i'm sure...

[QPWithCheeseQP]

I had a horrible dino outbreak about 5 months ago and it all died off when a added a reactor and ran GFO. Now im having a cyano problem that I just can't get rid of