Dinoflagellates

Shin,

No one makes a difference in dino in 4 days, if they do they did not have dino to begin with.

You continue to cut back on photoperiods and clean and clean and clean. Eventually you start to notice you're winning the battle.

 

Yes Cheryl, I know..

But ya never again...

 

I heard all kinds of algae spores are in our air, even traveling as high as the stratosphere. Do you think this could have something to do with your dino problem?

 

?? this was a joke no?

Any updates on the dinos Gabby?

 

Did you ever get rid of the Dino's Gabby?

 

Hey guys. Sorry I've been MIA for a few months. The good news is that I think that I beat the dinoflagellates! I haven't seen them for a few months now. The bad news is that I don't know how I did it. It is probably a result of one of the following things (or some subset of them):

pH
First off, I did raise my pH from around 7.8 to 8.3. Normally I would have made this change slowly over about a week or so. But in this case, I broke that rule. Numerous articles explain that dinoflagellates are sensitive to higher pH. However, I came across another article that showed that dinoflagellates are also very sensitive to rapid changes in pH. So I took advantage of this, and dosed my tank by dumping the Alk solution into a high flow area of my tank, rather than dripping it with my dosing pump. I don't think the dinoflagellates liked that. Surprisingly, the coral and livestock didn't seem to be bothered very much. If anyone else decides to try this, be careful!

Water quality
Before the dinoflagellates appeared, I was doing weekly 10% water changes religiously. Some members informed me that dinoflagellates seem to actually like water changes so I cut back to every other week. But then I became extremely busy with school, and I was only doing a WC around once a month. Then my skimmer broke. It has been off for at least 3 months. I also slacked off on replacing the GFO for several months. Thus, my tank was dirty. A good amount of hair algae and cyano appeared. I was still doing rapid Alk doses.

Sometime during this whole thing, the dinoflagellates disappeared. Whether it was the higher pH, the rapid pH changes, the dirty water, the competition between the dinoflagellates and cyano/hair algae for other nutrients, I do not know.

 

well, whatever it was that worked, that's great news!

 

Gabby:
Below is a a c/p from Wiki

"At night, water can have an appearance of sparkling light due to the bioluminescence of dinoflagellates.[60][61]
More than 18 genera of dinoflagellates are bioluminescent,[62] and the majority of them emit a blue-green light.[63]
The luciferin-luciferase reaction responsible for the bioluminescence is pH sensitive.[64] When the pH drops, luciferase changes its shape, allowing luciferin, more specifically tetrapyrrole, to bind.[64] Dinoflagellates can use bioluminescence as a defense mechanism."

Any bioluminescence at night that you have noticed? if so, your ph is the problem. Using Kalk is the most effective why to raise ph & and maintain a stable dKH. What is your evape rate? Other dinos flourish in low ph as well, and most are so damn diverse that a black out could have little to no effect in the long term.

" There are several nutritional strategies in dinoflagellates: phototrophy, mixotrophy and heterotrophy. Phototrophs can be photoautotrophs or auxotrophs. Mixotrophic dinoflagellates are photosynthetically active, but are also heterotrophic. Facultative mixotrophs, in which autotrophy or heterotrophy is sufficient for nutrition, are classified as amphitrophic. If both forms are required the organisms are mixotrophic sensu stricto. Some free-living dinoflagellates do not have chloroplasts but host a phototrophic endosymbiont"

Corailline method works, I have done it before. But, in 3 out of 6 cases they came back because each of the three clients refused to dose Kalk. All cases suffered from chronic low ph, due to the mis-use of two part additives. You might want to invest in a Kalk doser with magnetic stirrer. They are pretty cheap, or you could make your own. Good luck!