All About Dinoflagellates, the Scourge of the Reef Tank

Dinoflagellates, or dinos, are the bane of many reef tank keepers. Once they take over, they're nearly impossible to remove - until one day, they just start to go away as mysteriously as they arrived. But what are dinoflagellates? Are they all bad?
In fact, in their own way, dinos are super interesting critters. Not quite plants, but not quite not-plants either, they are one of the most numerous things in the ocean, outnumbered only by species of Diatom. They can reproduce on their own, and they can live through bad conditions for years before reanimating and taking over a tank.
They even live in our corals, as an important part of their tissues, giving our corals all the energy that the dinoflagellates get from the light. That's right - corals like our stony Acropora or fleshy Acanthastrea are not photosynthetic on their own - they get that from the dinos living in their tissues.
You can battle many species of dino using a UV sterilizer - but it's not a sure thing, and it won't solve them overnight. It will also only help with species that disperse into the water overnight - if the cells are not in the water column then a UV sterilizer will do nothing for you.
The Symbiodinium minutum photo comes from...
Draft Assembly of the Symbiodinium minutum Nuclear Genome Reveals Dinoflagellate Gene Structure
Eiichi Shoguchi et al.
doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.05...
The Blastodinium parasitic dinoflagellate photo comes from...
The parasitic dinoflagellates Blastodinium spp. inhabiting the gut of marine, planktonic copepods: morphology, ecology, and unrecognized species diversity.
Alf Skovgaard, Sergey A. Karpov, and Laure Guillou
Front. Microbiol., 28 August 2012
doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2012.00305
The dinoflagellate cyst photo comes from...
Bravo I, Figueroa RI. Towards an Ecological Understanding of Dinoflagellate Cyst Functions. Microorganisms. 2014 Jan 3;2(1):11-32. doi: doi.org/10.3390/microorganism...
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[@ReefandDive]

Reefman, dinos have been a special subject of interest for me over the years… Ostreopsis and Coolia respond pretty well to an oversized UV with flow for parasites, but many other species (like the also common Amphidinium and Prorocentrum) do not… And nowadays scientists advocate they belong to a new kingdom, or supergroup: supergroup SAR, group Alveolates.

[@ReefMan]

Interesting! Thanks for the info!

[@lastblow4563]

I ABSOLUTE liked how you said "Hi, guys and girls!" SO DAMN TIRED AND SICK of "Hi, guys!" when you are a girl?!

[@GwonkReefkeeping]

Great video. Hope to see you back to making videos soon.👍🏾

[@ReefMan]

Yea, it’s a lot of work to make them, and with the tank issues it all just sort of was no fun spending the better part of every weekend on the videos. I will be back, probably less frequently.

[@GwonkReefkeeping]

@@ReefMan Looking forward to your return.

[@deebKen]

Can you make a video regarding calothrix? Please? :)

[@alexsulewski2497]

Do nitrates have any affect on dinoflagellates ?

[@ReefMan]

I don't think directly. I've seen people with very low to no nitrates have them, and people with high nitrates. That said, keep in mind that algae can mask quite a high level of nitrates if it's very prolific in the tank, so that could be part of the confusion.

[@bopeep7806]

Yes they do, if they bottom out you can end up with a plague of them, slowly increasing nitrates and or phosphate can help with controlling them and eradicating them, its best to have a low amount of both phosphate and nitrate, also uv helps thin the numbers of some types of dinos but you need a microscope to identify which you have :) also people find that trying to promote a wider biodiversity can help with a plague of them i used sponge excel to promote a diatom bloom which outcompeted the dinos i had then slowly increased nitrate amd phosphate to a low but measurable amount of both :) hope that helps you

[@mihaia6026]

Nutrient imbalances can give dinos an advantage against most other organisms. If that happens you got a dino outbreak. What that nutrient imbalance means is not very clear. The solution to kicking dinos is usually UV and/or adding silicates into the water (diatoms will outcompete dinos and the problem is fixed). Also there are a few types of dinos and the solutions are more effective or less effective depending on the dino strains. Some strains are very easy, others not so much.

[@gbj6581]

For me, i believe that it does. When my tank was zero phos and nitrates and i was running skimmers and gfo and carbon overkill on a small tank etc i had more issues with dinos.

[@cyprianlipski3724]

Have you lost all your corals?

[@ReefMan]

Almost all of them. A few are hanging on, I'm trying to get rid of the algae now.

[@ballejoreef4599]

@@ReefMan Man that really sucks. What happened? Your tank was doing so great.

[@jaumeavinyo4515]

@@ballejoreef4599 i remember something about a wave maker that got broken and metal oxidated inside the tank

[@mrsupersym]

@@ReefMan How do you get rid metal pollution out of the tank, in order for tank to be ready again to grow coral? I have few metal screws on the gate valve that are starting to rust. Do I have to replace those gate valve or placing a lid on top of sump is enough?