Jump to content
SaltCritters.com

Yet Another Dino ID Thread


sublunary

Recommended Posts

Hello hive mind,

 

I have finally accepted the fact that the weird brown stuff I'm dealing with is dinos.   I've been doing a LOT of comparisons to images and videos I'm finding, but am still not sure which type it is.  Any help is appreciated.  (And yes, I've spent a ton of time on that giant R2R thread.)

 

It started just in the sand - no strands, no bubbles.  More recently I'm getting short strands and bubbles.  It likes to grow on pretty much any surface - algae, rock, coral skeleton - I even saw some cells attached to a copepod under the microscope. The first several samples I looked at under the microscope had no movement, but todays batch is undeniably dancing around.  

 

About 40x magnification, after lights out.

526782840_WIN_20201229_22_49_25_Pro(2).thumb.jpg.ebe860c4c2d774c27dd045b27926d9d1.jpg

 

I think 400x under cheap microscope, plus some phone zoom. 

20210106_202230.thumb.jpg.56dd16ff27557ba67da1f5c78604aabe.jpg

 

20210106_200118.thumb.jpg.59e6fda1eb43521c412b9f96a2a661c1.jpg

 

1200x on cheap microscope, with usb camera.

WIN_20210109_16_02_10_Pro.thumb.jpg.55978129ca429905663dd1a1476b90cd.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

I'm leaning towards procentrum, but they look a bit too round for that.  I don't think they move like ostreopsis.  I don't see the beak amphidinum have.  I think I can at least rule out coolia, since mine aren't spherical.  So I'm very confused.  Thanks in advance!

Link to comment

Oh, totally forgot to add:

 

Nitrates - between 25 and 50 (salifert)

Phosphates - 0.04 (Hanna ULR phosphaste)  

Alk - 8.2

 

Part of why I've been in denial about it being dinos is my nutrients have never zeroed out.  Nitrates have been stuck a bit above 25 the whole time the tank has been up.  Phosphastes have been high enough to max out the Hanna checker, and I've used GFO to bring them down, but have never zeroed out. 

 

I feed small amounts of a variety of foods multiple times a day most days.  Dose phyto 3-4 times a week (nanochloropsis) and copepods once every week and a half.  Skim dry, have macros in the fuge on an opposite light schedule, run carbon all the time because I have leathers. 

Link to comment

Thanks Clown.  I was leaning away from amphidnium because I had read they stuck to the sand, didn't form strings, and didn't attach to macroalgae.  Guess I'll take a second look at it.

 

Looks like a lot more siphoning for me, but no uv plumbing.  So that's something.  

 

 

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Nice pics and movie!!!

 

On 1/9/2021 at 6:22 PM, sublunary said:

that giant R2R thread

That's partly my fault for starting that thread.  🤷‍♂️ lol

 

On 1/9/2021 at 7:10 PM, sublunary said:

Nitrates - between 25 and 50 (salifert)

Phosphates - 0.04 (Hanna ULR phosphaste)  

Alk - 8.2

I found your tank thread, but it's long...and there's not enough detail in this thread.

 

So far all I can say is that 0.04 is VERY low for phosphates...and when you consider the error rate on test kits, it might really be zero or very very close to it.

 

Can you share relevant parts of the tank's history up to this point with us?  What happened?  Was it a problem from the beginning?

 

You mentioned that phosphates were high (like nitrates still are) and that you had to use GFO to lower them.  

 

But how did they get so high?  

 

What made you think you had to lower the phosphate level?

 

What made you think that you had to use GFO?

 

I see in your tank thread that phosphates finally hit zero and now you're dosing phosphates.

 

For what it's worth (and I think this is on the big dino thread) it's very dangerous to remove phosphates from a system where nitrates are very high light this.  You will bleach corals and cause dino's to bloom IN A HURRY.  Same goes for dosing nutrients....always start with phosphates to avoid making things worse by accident.

 

"Why" is a little complicated, but I like this analogy...

 

Think of photosynthesis as an engine, nitrates as gasoline, and phosphates as oil.  The engine won't run when oil and gas are lacking...but nothing really gets hurt....fill up the oil and gas and off you go.  

 

If you put oil in, the engine still won't run, but it will at least have the protection it needs.   

 

But if you put gas in the engine and take off, without putting oil in, the engine is going to melt down and the car is going to be broken.

 

Right now your car has a full gas tank and you're dripping oil into the engine.

 

Remember that photosynthesis in your corals is driven by dino's that are not totally unlike the dino's infesting your tank right now.  They have at least similar nutritional needs.  Make one happy and you *should* be able to make the other happy too.

 

IMO you should dose phosphates back up to the level where they were before you started trying to lower PO4....and don't wait to do it.  

 

At minimum (even if it's more ppm than before), you should dose up to 0.10 ppm.

 

Have you read the linked articles on the first page of my R2R thread?  Especially (for this moment) the one about how much nutrients it takes for bacteria to break down dino skeletons.

Link to comment

Thanks mccarrol!  I was kind of hoping you'd weigh in. 

 

On 1/26/2021 at 4:48 AM, mcarroll said:

Can you share relevant parts of the tank's history up to this point with us?  What happened?  Was it a problem from the beginning?

 

You mentioned that phosphates were high (like nitrates still are) and that you had to use GFO to lower them.  

 

Let me see what I can reconstruct.  

 

I guess to start with, in my first 2 tanks I never monitored phosphate.  When I first started reefing, it was totally absent from the discussions I was reading.   When I came back to the internet research part of the hobby last year, the recommendation seemed to be nitrate under 10 and phosphate as close to zero as possible without hitting it, with .03/.04 as ideal. 

 

I started this tank in February 2020.  Mostly dry rock, with a few pieces from my old tank, added a couple of purchased pieces of live rock a bit later.  Bottled bacteria, ghost feeding for the cycle.  First livestock went in end of March.

 

Phosphate was pretty stable and low for the first few months (the .03 to .04 range).  Around September it jumped up to .36.  This is above the level that I understand will inhibit calcification in corals, so I used GFO for a couple of weeks until it came down to .10/.08.  I don't know what caused the September spike.  Everything was going pretty ok up until that point.  I lost some LPS to brown jelly disease mid-august, and I started culturing my own phyto and copepods around then.  It might have been adding more coral food, but I didn't keep a log of what I tried when.  Around the time it spiked I was starting to see annoying amounts of GHA for the first time. I don't think I actively made the connection to the phosphate reading, but it's obvious now. 

 

It looks like in October I had dinos for the first time.  I was kind of in denial of what it was, because I knew my nutrients were high, and the jar test didn't show anything.  Nitrate around 25, phosphate around .05.  I tried a 3 day blackout, which knocked out the dinos, but I lost quite a few corals in the aftermath.   A bit later in October, the GHA exploded and took over every available surface.  I dealt with it by manual removal several times a week and upping my CUC.  

 

In November, phosphate jumped again to max out the Hanna checker at .99.  (I checked it a couple of times with reagent from different batches, and it read the same).  Used GFO again to bring it down to .10ish then removed it.   Phosphate stayed between .04 and .10 for the rest of the time until recently.   

 

Somewhere in December the GHA basically gave up and the dinos moved in.  I can see dinos growing on top of GHA in some of my pictures form early December.  In mid-December, I learned the hard way that I need 2 heaters on the coldest nights, and my temp dropped from it's normal 78ish to 74ish for a night.  I don't know if that opened the way for more dinos, but I'm sure it didn't help.  Somewhere after that it finally got bad enough to convince me it was probably dinos and I needed an ID.  Right now it's the worst it's been yet.  Long strings on every available surface that completely grow back 24 hours after siphoning into a 5 micro filter sock. 

 

On 1/26/2021 at 4:48 AM, mcarroll said:

IMO you should dose phosphates back up to the level where they were before you started trying to lower PO4....and don't wait to do it.  

 

At minimum (even if it's more ppm than before), you should dose up to 0.10 ppm.

 I'm working on dosing up to that, but it's taking much bigger doses than the back of the bottle calculation suggested.  20 ml raised it by only .01, and I'm a bit hesitant to dose 140ml at once to get it the rest of the way.   (Assuming it actually raised it at all, given the margin of error...)  I'll see where it is tomorrow after dosing 40ml today.  

 

On 1/26/2021 at 4:48 AM, mcarroll said:

Right now your car has a full gas tank and you're dripping oil into the engine.

I really like this analogy and it definitely helps.  I've seen a lot of people saying that you need "the right ratio" of nitrate and phosphate, and a lot of hand waving at the redfield ratio, but no one who could actually give me numbers of what that looks like in a tank.   This at least helps operationalize it. 

 

On 1/26/2021 at 4:48 AM, mcarroll said:

But how did they get so high?  

I don't have a specific answer for this for either nitrate or phosphate.  I feed the fish often, and corals/filter feeders less often.  I run a skimmer.  Change filter floss every couple of days and I replaced the sponge in the bubble trap with filter pad that I change every couple weeks.  Macros in the display and the fuge (none of which are doing so well right now, no surprise.)  Before I stopped doing water changes, I was changing about 5 gallons a week.  I've done larger changes on occasion to try to drop the nitrates with no real effect.   I have a shallow sandbed (for goby and pistol shrimp) and was stirring/vacuuming a small portion of it with each water change.  I feel like it all boils down to the fact that I like to watch my fish eat and I have no interest in carbon dosing. 

 

On 1/26/2021 at 4:48 AM, mcarroll said:

Have you read the linked articles on the first page of my R2R thread?  Especially (for this moment) the one about how much nutrients it takes for bacteria to break down dino skeletons.

I have read at least the abstracts and several of the articles, but I've read so much that it's all more of a jumble in my head than anything.  Looking at the one about breaking down dino thecae, it does give another point in favor of dosing phosphate. 

 

This also reminds me of something I wanted to ask.  I've seen people recommend addressing dinos with Dr. Tims nitrifying bacteria and Waste-Away.  I saw you comment on someone's thread that you would never let either of those products near a tank that's ever had dinos.  I'm curious as to why you say that, since the intention seemed to be to introduce heterotrophic bacteria to do what that article discusses and eat the dinos.  (If I'm remembering your comment wrong, I apologize, it was a while ago).

 

On 1/26/2021 at 4:48 AM, mcarroll said:

Nice pics and movie!!!

Do you have any thoughts on ID?  Since Clown suggested amphidinium, I've been focusing my reading there.  It matches pretty well on the micro level, but there are things about it's presentation that still have me second guessing. 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, sublunary said:

I tried a 3 day blackout, which knocked out the dinos, but I lost quite a few corals in the aftermath.

Generally dino's will disperse during a blackout – they mostly "gang up" into visible patches for protection from flow and light, both of which they are susceptible to.  

 

But a blackout doesn't usually hurt them...no worse than a storm on the reef.

 

I'm surprised it hurt your corals for the same reason...they must already have been tweaked.

 

1 hour ago, sublunary said:

n November, phosphate jumped again to max out the Hanna checker at .99.

Doesn't the Checker top out a 2.00 or something like that?  At any rate, that's one hell of a spike in phosphates.  You have no idea what caused it??

 

1 hour ago, sublunary said:

I'm working on dosing up to that, but it's taking much bigger doses than the back of the bottle calculation suggested.

Hm....someting about that (along with the mystery above) doesn't sound right.  You're 100% confident in the phosphate testing process?

 

1 hour ago, sublunary said:

a lot of hand waving at the redfield ratio

That is a good perspective, but it's also only a statistic.  You can't (or shouldn't) take statistics at face value nor read too much into them.  😉

 

1 hour ago, sublunary said:

Macros in the display and the fuge (none of which are doing so well right now, no surprise.)

An algae die-off is always accompanied by a release of nutrients.....it could be quite large, depending on the algae and the circumstance.  Sounds plausible?

 

1 hour ago, sublunary said:

I feel like it all boils down to the fact that I like to watch my fish eat and I have no interest in carbon dosing. 

Everyone like to watch their fish eat (😉) and nobody should be carbon dosing.

 

Unless you're REALLY REALLY overfeeding – meaning that lots of food is winding up in the filter pads and in the rocks and gravel – then I don't think that's enough to explain your numbers.

 

1 hour ago, sublunary said:

Looking at the one about breaking down dino thecae, it does give another point in favor of dosing phosphate. 

This is where awareness of the Redfield Ratio can help.    And/or knowledge of garden composting.  The amount of N and P required for bacteria to break them down is truly phenomenal.

 

1 hour ago, sublunary said:

I saw you comment on someone's thread that you would never let either of those products near a tank that's ever had dinos.  I'm curious as to why you say that, since the intention seemed to be to introduce heterotrophic bacteria to do what that article discusses and eat the dinos.  (If I'm remembering your comment wrong, I apologize, it was a while ago).

It sounds like something I'd say.  😉

 

I'm not sure I remember the exact comment, but here's the logic (and a link) anyway.

 

Blooming dino's eat things like bacteria rather that starving when photosynthesis breaks down.  (Convenient that their toxins will kill everything in sight, generating bacteria boom after bacteria bloom for them to dine on.  This is how dino blooms are made.)  It's a gnarly but highly effective survival strategy.  See: Bacterivory in algae: A survival strategy during nutrient limitation.  So I don't want to throw more food in the tank that might literally feed into that lifestyle.

 

IMO what I want to do with blooming dino's is to A) kill or remove them (time is on your side if you lack specific means like UV or micron filtration), B) make sure the successive generations are mild-mannered epiphytes that live happily on dissolved nutrients and photosynthesis – NO MORE EATING OF THINGS.  (autotrophy vs phagotrophy....gotta love the mixotrophs like dino's)  This is their mode of living where you never see or notice dino's unless you go looking with a microscope....where everyone is living happily ever after.

 

Maybe someone with dino's and a lot of time and ability can do some experiments with Waste Away, etc.  @tarichahas been into experiments like that in the past....I imagine he still is.

 

4 hours ago, sublunary said:

Do you have any thoughts on ID?  Since Clown suggested amphidinium, I've been focusing my reading there.  It matches pretty well on the micro level, but there are things about it's presentation that still have me second guessing. 

I'm versed in the ecology more than the ID....when I look, lots of them look alike to me.  (I've never personally had dino's, so never had a chance to see them up close.)

 

If you still feel like that ID might not be right, I'd actually recommend posting in that R2R thread to double check.  There are still plenty of folks there that are very good at ID.

 

Amphidinium can be notoriously tough to tamp down, so it might be worth getting the second opinion just in case.

Link to comment
On 1/28/2021 at 4:22 AM, mcarroll said:

But a blackout doesn't usually hurt them...no worse than a storm on the reef.

 

I'm surprised it hurt your corals for the same reason...they must already have been tweaked.

Yeah, they were definitely already tweaked.   Part of it was moving around pumps I think.  

 

On 1/28/2021 at 4:22 AM, mcarroll said:

Doesn't the Checker top out a 2.00 or something like that?  At any rate, that's one hell of a spike in phosphates.  You have no idea what caused it??

The ULR Phosphate does max out at 0.90.   (I was wrong above when I said .99)  I really have no idea what caused it.  No significant deaths, no notable changes in feeding.  No change in water source.  You are right that macro die off could have dumped nutrients in, but I don't think I had a significant die off at that point.  I've had periods of slow growth, but the only die off I've noticed has been after the dinos.  So I'm not sure.   I really thought it was a faulty reading until I did multiple retests.  

 

On 1/28/2021 at 4:22 AM, mcarroll said:

Hm....someting about that (along with the mystery above) doesn't sound right.  You're 100% confident in the phosphate testing process?

I am 100% confident in the process (with the exception that I think the packets of powder are a terrible way to get a consistent amount of reagent...)  I am assuming something is taking it up, or I did the calculation wrong to begin with.  But the increased dose is having more of an impact.  I'm at .07 and trending up. 

 

 

Thanks for the explanation on the bacteria, that does make sense.  Like anything in this hobby, the amount of contradictory advice out there is frustrating.   I appreciate your taking the time to sort some of it out for me. 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...