Dinoflagellates

[Thunderkat]

I was looking at some stuff online (dinoflatellates) and saw this picture (http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/Dinoflagellates.jpg) and thought it was a picture taken from my tank, just a little less red.

What part of the pic is the dinoflagellates?

[Polkster13]

The light green thingy in the middle bottom of picture is halimedia. The bubbles are O2 bubbles created by the cyano bacteria. The slimy stuff in, under and around the bubbles is the cyano bacteria. Dinoflagellates are found in the water column and can get up to 2 mm in size.

Dinoflagellates link (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/GeolSci/micropal/dinoflagellate.html)

[CD]

What part of the pic is the dinoflagellates?


Dinos appear in tanks as a brownish hue, and IME one of the first "blooms" you get in a newly cycyling tank. It doesn't really look like "algae" in the normal sense that you would initially think, but rather looks like a "coating" of rusty brown dirt all over everything...the rock, sand bed, glass, etc. and yes, even the water takes on that color. We have a newly set up 55G tank that is just now finishing up with the dinoflagellate stage. I'll try to get a pic of it for you later. ;)

Wendy

[GaryP]

Does anyone pay attention at my talks? :)

Frederick, That's not cyano, its dinos. The yellow/green stuff. Not all dinos are planktonic, although all go through a planktonic stage.

Wendy, I think you are confusing dinos and diatoms. Two seperate critters altogether.

If you have never encountered dinos in an aquarium, consider yourself lucky. They are tough to get rid of. No herbivores that I know of will eat it and survive, except for amphipods and you would need a few million of them to make a dent in it.

[Polkster13]

The stuff that looks like hair algae in the upper left hand side of the picture? I thought that was hair algae. I also thought it was cynco that created the air bubbles. Man I am confused! My bad. :unsure

[GaryP]

Yea, the yellow color is diagnostic for dinos, although they are sometimes classified as a brown algae. I had the same stuff in my tank and still do in a few isolated spots like my overflow. The only way I know of to get rid of it is to dose heavily, and repeatedly with Kalk and keep your pH over 8.5 until its gone. Read my edit of my last post.

[Polkster13]

Yeah Gary, I do pay attention to your talks, just got that one confused. I started to say they were dinos, then I looked up that link and saw that they are free swimming, remembered the red tide part of the talk, confused the air bubbles and changed my mind and put cyno instead.

Anyway, that IS a sprig of halimedia growing up from the bottom. At least I got that ID right. :roll

[CD]

That's not cyano, its dinos. The yellow/green stuff


So the bubbly stuff on the glass is the dinos?



Wendy, I think you are confusing dinos and diatoms. Two seperate critters altogether.


LOL...OOPSIE :blush Well, it was a "D" word...yep deh-deh-definitely a "D" word. LOL :lol

Wendy

[GaryP]

I had a real bad problem with this stuff growing on the chaeto in my fuge. It was floating the chaeto and it was drying out and dying. It produces more bubbles than cyano. I could see how you could be confused by it though. It took me a while to figure it out.

[GaryP]

Yea, the nasty, slimy, yucky stuff is dinos. It has the consistency of snot.

[Polkster13]

Uweuuuwe, ugh, ugh, ugh... Now there's a disgusting mental picture that is going to linger in my brain. Quick, someone post a really pretty picture of your reef!

[GaryP]

Hey, I didn't start this thread. Excuse me for forcing the real world on you. :)

[Thunderkat]

Haven't ever been to one of your talks. I am starting to think I don't have as much cyano as I thought, there is the brown stuff even in high flow areas of my tank, even right by the discharge of my tunze 6060.

If I do have as much dinoflagettes as I think what should I do, redo from start? Format the drive? :lol

[GaryP]

You have 2 choices for killing it off, raising the pH to over 8.5 with Kalkwasser or setting off a thermonuclear device. I personally recommend the pH option. Please let me know if you choose the other option and how many kilotons you plan on using as I live about 7 miles from you.

[Thunderkat]

Hmm, I do have some buddies in the sub fleet and I used to be on board one soo...hmmm no wait, I got cheap and opted to buy the cleaner wrasse that could not withstand a thermonuclear device. :lol

pH over 8.5 so then would constantly keeping at 8.6 work and would that hurt my mushrooms and zoos? How long over 8.5?

Need to get some pics first and post them before I try anything radical or have somebody that knows about them tell me I have the affliction.

[GaryP]

pH over 8.5 so then would constantly keeping at 8.6 work and would that hurt my mushrooms and zoos? How long over 8.5?

Need to get some pics first and post them before I try anything radical or have somebody that knows about them tell me I have the affliction.

For as long as it takes to get rid of the dinos. Count on at least 1-2 weeks of dripping Kalk almost constantly. I stopped to soon and they came back again. None of my critters suffered from the higher pH. I lost one SPS that is pretty tempermental anyway. That may or may not have been the cause. The mushrooms and zoos certainly weren't bothered by it.

I'll work out a series of measures for you to knock it out. Rarely does one technique do everything that needs to be done to control a nuisance organism.

[JimD]

Raising Ph and Alk will usually get rid of Dinos., it can take a while, you should see some die-off in a month or so. Make sure not to drip kalk over any sensitive corals, always drip in a high flow area.
By the way, that first pic is definately Dinoflagellate.

[GaryP]

Thanks for backing me up Jim. I know what they look like by now! :)