Dinoflagellates! Help me before I give up.

[Aquaman101]

I am at a loss with my tank.

I've got dinoflagellates. I tried the only two methods I've read about that stand a chance, but they aren't working for me.

I have tried the elevated pH. I get it above 8.6 and try my best to keep it there. I use saturated kalkwasser to keep it around 8.2 and add kalk slurry a couple of times a day to get it over 8.6. I'm doing this while my tank is covered.

I've also tried the 1ml per 10 gallon rule with Hydrogen Peroxide, but that doesn't seem to help either.

I've have just started my last trial. I have the tank covered and am going to add Hydrogen Peroxide at the recommended rate and I'm going to work on keeping the pH elevated.

It's sad to sink a bunch of money in this hobby, only to have a microorganism ruin it for you.

Does anyone have any other suggesstions?

[krzyphsygy]

Are they on the sand bed?

How big is the tank?

How long has the tank been set up?

What type of circulation are running, how many gallons per hr?

What are your nitrates at?

[Aquaman101]

Originally Posted by krzyphsygy

Are they on the sand bed?

How big is the tank?

How long has the tank been set up?

What type of circulation are running, how many gallons per hr?

What are your nitrates at?

There are some on the sand bed, but mostly on the rocks and back wall.

It is a 75 gallon tank with a 40 gallon sump.

The tank has been up for just over a year.

For circulation I have 2 x 750 pgh Koralia's and 1 x 1050 Koralia, plus whatever the return is pushing. The return pump is used. Not sure how strong it is, but it seems to be a Mag 7 I think.

The nitrates are 0. I run a dual BRS reactor with High Capacity GFO and Carbon. I also have some cheato in the fuge section of my sump.

The lights are T5's. They are brand spanking new. I replaced them cause I thought maybe there were the cause as there were 1 year old.

[b0bab0ey]

I had dinos and cyano. 3-day lights out, once a month, every month worked for me. It might not seem like it's doing much at first, but if you keep on doing it religiously, once a month, every month, whether it looks like it needs it or not, YOU WILL WIN!

Need proof? I had dinos/cyano like you and here's what my tank looks like now after 7 months:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/al...ictureid=31902

[orcus]

+1 for blackout method. When I had them on my 30 gallon a couple years ago, this was the only thing that worked. I got some black butcher paper, and covered all sides of the tank, and put towels over the top. I left it that way for an entire week. All the corals were fine, much to my surprise, and the sand was nice and clean afterwards. This was an LPS tank. SPS may not react the same way.

[Aquaman101]

Originally Posted by b0bab0ey

I had dinos and cyano. 3-day lights out, once a month, every month worked for me. It might not seem like it's doing much at first, but if you keep on doing it religiously, once a month, every month, whether it looks like it needs it or not, YOU WILL WIN!

Need proof? I had dinos/cyano like you and here's what my tank looks like now after 7 months:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/al...ictureid=31902

The problem is the dino's in my tank come back with a vengeance within a week of a lights out.

I think a big part of my problem is my tank gets a ton of ambient sunlight from large windows in the room where my tank is.

When you came out of a blackout, did you slowly increase the lighting time or just jump right back into your regular light schedule?

[Aquaman101]

Originally Posted by orcus

+1 for blackout method. When I had them on my 30 gallon a couple years ago, this was the only thing that worked. I got some black butcher paper, and covered all sides of the tank, and put towels over the top. I left it that way for an entire week. All the corals were fine, much to my surprise, and the sand was nice and clean afterwards. This was an LPS tank. SPS may not react the same way.

I've debated trying a week, but I have an anemone and some sps frags. I may just have to chance it.

[rsaha]

Last fight I had with dinos I did a 5 day lights out on an SPS tank. Covered the tank with blankets and didn't even peek. Ramped my lights up from about 2 hours a day my normal photoperiod over a couple weeks. It worked.

[b0bab0ey]

Originally Posted by Aquaman101

The problem is the dino's in my tank come back with a vengeance within a week of a lights out.

I think a big part of my problem is my tank gets a ton of ambient sunlight from large windows in the room where my tank is.

That is a pretty big problem IMO. Natural sunlight fuels nutrients in your water exponentially compared to the artificial lighting we use. You've got to find a way to block all of that ambient sunlight out (blinds, curtains, whatever). Move the tank if you have to.

Originally Posted by Aquaman101

When you came out of a blackout, did you slowly increase the lighting time or just jump right back into your regular light schedule?

The first day I only ran my lights 4 hrs per day. Then I went to a permanent 6 hr per day schedule until the dinos were gone. Now I'm up to 8 hrs. IMO, light is the enemy when dealing with dinos. You need enough to keep your corals alive and that's it. I also cover the sides of my tank with black plastic garbage bags to keep out ALL light during my 3-day lights out period.

To be truthful, I'm just passing on advice that Sk8r gave to me. It worked, and now my tank is tight and clean. Made a believer out of me.

[Fish4Me2]

Are you dosing anything? I found dinos appeared shortly after I started dosing bacteria. I suspect it might have had some relationship. I'd like to claim that lights out worked for me, but I moved to a new house and took the tank down before I had any success in getting rid of them.

[Aquaman101]

Originally Posted by Fish4Me2

Are you dosing anything? I found dinos appeared shortly after I started dosing bacteria. I suspect it might have had some relationship. I'd like to claim that lights out worked for me, but I moved to a new house and took the tank down before I had any success in getting rid of them.

I wasn't dosing anything until I started trying the Hydrogen Peroxide. I wonder if the dino's didn't start appearing until I got my system extremely low on nutrients. I have GFO, carbon and cheato running.

[krzyphsygy]

Some really great info here. When These have invaded my tank, I hired an awesome cleanup crew, keep my nutirents low with reg water changes, and made sure skimming was top notch. Always ko'd eventually. Takes some time,

These are some really informative posts with some really great ideas. Stay Vigilant!!

[Hudzon]

and remove and clean the rocks you can and scrape and vacuum the backs and sides best you can, when it dies off you have to still export it somehow, so if you do go with a blackout make sure to vacuum and step up your water changes to 2 to 3 times a week for a couple weeks afterwards

[Aquaman101]

Originally Posted by Hudzon

and remove and clean the rocks you can and scrape and vacuum the backs and sides best you can, when it dies off you have to still export it somehow, so if you do go with a blackout make sure to vacuum and step up your water changes to 2 to 3 times a week for a couple weeks afterwards

What's the best way to go about removing rock you have coral glued to?

Do I just have a tub of clean water standing by, take the rock out (coral attached) and give it a good scrub in the clean water, then put it back in the tank?

[cody6766]

It took me several months to kick them. I tried peroxide and it worked for a while. They eventually developed a tollarance to it and it became less and less effective. I switched to kalkwasser instead of RO/DI in my ATO and did a series of blackouts. The longest was a week and my corals/clam/nem never suffered. It took a long time and I was tempted to scratch the tank along the way. I held out and it all just slowly went away

[Aquaman101]

Originally Posted by cody6766

It took me several months to kick them. I tried peroxide and it worked for a while. They eventually developed a tollarance to it and it became less and less effective. I switched to kalkwasser instead of RO/DI in my ATO and did a series of blackouts. The longest was a week and my corals/clam/nem never suffered. It took a long time and I was tempted to scratch the tank along the way. I held out and it all just slowly went away

How often did you do lights out?

[Aquaman101]

bump..

What's the best way to go about removing rock you have coral glued to?

Do I just have a tub of clean water standing by, take the rock out (coral attached) and give it a good scrub in the clean water, then put it back in the tank?

[zakk]

It's funny, I'm fighting them now for the first time ever, and I too am running the combination of carbon, GFO and chaeto.

My strand is Chattonella.

After a lot of research into phytoplankton, it seems that while most are green, a few (like these) are red, and may get their coloring from iron, which definitely leads me to think, along with all these GFO/dino threads, that these new outbreaks are somehow related to ferrous oxide introduction into the tank. Even after GFO is ceased, they can continue to survive with photosynthesis alone (which is why lights out is often cited as a 'cure').

I am on day one of the 3 day lights out. I tried actinics only, but they were growing in that light too. Total blackout for 3 days, once a month reportedly seems to result in improvement and sometimes complete success. GFO was replaced by rox carbon as I do believe these things are very toxic. Even if I clear them out, I do worry about the long term effects on my livestock.

[Hujoweforum]

Most of the lower life form of algae don't like high alk. Shoot for 10 DKH for the future until it disappears.

[zakk]

I usually run ~11DKH in the tank, it's easy to hit that number with BRS 2 part. In fact, I'm at 206ppm right now, which is 11.56DKH. I'm surprised the number isn't higher since I'm using a combination of BRS alkalinity and kalkwasser to try and bring up the ph (even with the lights out).

My ph is 8.22 right now even after a full day blackout. If the lights came on I think I could hit 8.4 or 8.5 so I'll hopefully have that as a backup when the blackout is over. I'm also considering ordering up a UV sterilizer, every little bit should help...

[tkeracer619]

What is the tds of your RO water?

[zakk]

Originally Posted by tkeracer619

What is the tds of your RO water?

Correction, just re-testd, ALK is 12.8DKH(!) due to my efforts to raise ph.

The RO membrane, filters and resin are only weeks old. Readings are:

tap: 112 ppm
RO: 004 ppm
DI: 000 ppm

[zakk]

Dosed 14 ml of H2O2 today. dinos are gone, but that could be because of the blackout. I am doing 4 hours of lights on today to watch for adverse reactions to the peroxide. 2 hours in, nothing even flinched. Very few strands left at all, however, I know these freakin things can reproduce in front of your eyes, so we'll see. 14ml for ~140 gal of water per day for for 7 days I think is the recommended dosage. I will report back with my results. So far the only real reaction in the tank was an instant drop in ORP, but it's slowly crawling back up. Corals are open and happy for the moment.

[Aquaman101]

I'm on day 4 of my blackout. I lost my gbta unfortunately. I assume the lights out stressed it out and it let go of the rock and got all tangled up in the powerhead

I'm continuing to dose 10 ml of H2O2 each night. My system is roughly 100 gallons.

I'll report back and the end of my week long black out too.

[zakk]

I noticed that after ceasing the GFO that my phosphate climbed up to .13 today. I figure I'm leaching phosphate from the rock and/or substrate. I actually think I'm going to let the tank sit at around .13 for a while, as when my phosphates were high, I never had even heard of these pests in 14 years of reefing. I think I'm going to try and do what I can to control phosphate naturally (fuge/scrubber/pellets), and put a little less reliance on GFO. Like people say, good changes take time in this hobby. I should learn to listen to the masters.

Sorry to hear about your gbta, were there remnants all over from the lawnmower?