Keys to beating dinoflagellates

[TCU Reefer]

This stuff is worse than any algae or bacteria I've ever dealt with. It's recently starting to pop up more frequently in my tank than ever before so here goes:

Quick system specs:
-230g SPS system
-pH - 8.0
-Temp - 78 - 80
-dKH - 9.0 ppm
-Ca - 450 ppm
-Mg - 1450 ppm
-NO3 - 25 ppm (trying to bring this down)
-PO4 - .05 (running rowaphos)
-TDS from RO/DI - 0
- IO salt

Flow: Tunze wavebox, VorTech, closed loop powered by a Dart & OM 4-way, 3 MJ 1200 mods

Water Changes: 40g every two weeks.

Lighting: 3 x 250w Reeflux 10k's, VHO actinics (all bulbs under a year old)
-Photoperiod of 6 hrs

I've been forced to feed every three days (anthias not happy about this ) and also turn out the lights for several days in a row (SPS really not happy about this). As soon as the lights come back on, it starts to creep back. I'm getting little growth and coloration from my corals.

This is an inwall system so target siphoning poses a challenge to reach every spot, especially in the middle for a 30" deep tank.

Other info:
- Medium biolad (trying to catch all tangs right now to reduce biolad)
- Supplement Mg with Magflake
- Topoff with kalk
- Consistently running carbon and rowaphos via seperate reactors
- Barebottom system running for over a year.
- No fuge but recently added a light and macro to help with nutrients.
- No room for RDSB due to space in fish room

So........How did you guys beat this crap? What else can I do? Please help me save my tank!!!!



Thanks.

[poormanisme]

I had dino's in my 180 reef and they were an absolute pain in the arse to get rid of. The traditional ways of dealing with algaes do not work with dino. I tried increase water changes, reduced feedings, syphoning, short periods of lights out, basically everything i could think of. While this things can help in the short term, you can be assured the dinos will return like crazy.
So while i am indeed no expert, i have gotten rid of my dino's and i had them bad. So what i did was sort of a short version of rock cooking. I took all my rock out and put them in bins that i could cover to keep light out with a big powerhead or pump and let them sit in there for about 4 weeks. I took the rock out once a week and scrubed them down, and they were nasty when that crap was dying. Since the rocks were out of the tank i could really clean the glass and overflows, basically i tried to get as much of those bastards out as i could. After the 4 weeks there shouldnt be any dino's left on the rock or in the tank, but i suppose you could go longer if there were some left alive. Thats what worked for me and if been dino free for a long time. Good Luck

[TCU Reefer]

Thanks for the reply. That's pretty extreme but I realize that for such a serious issue, being vigilant is key.

As you can see from the FTS, I've got my rock zip tied to PVC. In addition, there are plenty of frags/colonies encrusted on the rock. I would really like to avoid taking out the rock but it seems like that's the only thing I haven't tried.

[poormanisme]

Yep, definintly extreme, but i tried for months to get rid of the dino's with all the tradional stuff and nothing worked. Its was well worth all the hard work, and it was HARD work, to finally get my reef back. Best of luck to you.

[rynon]

Raise your alk and ph as high as you dare.......ph of 8.6 alk of 12 or more.....just let your calcium slide in the meantime. Cutting back on lighting will help but raising alk and ph will help more. Calcium levels of 330 are not going to hurt....Mine have always been low and I have SPS. Time works wonders too. You may want to think about getting a kalk reactor OR dripping a TON of kalk to keep your Ph HIGH.

[cashman95]

Does anyone have a pic of this terrible stuff, so I can see if its the same as in my tank?

[DaveJ]

Steve,

GraviT (Kevin) was dealing with this... a couple of things that seemed to help him were a combination of the following:

UV Filter
Carbon 24/7
GFO 24/7

I think that combined with a couple of 3 day lights out periods may help knock yours out as it seems not to be as bad as his.

[Peter Eichler]

Large amounts of GAC, GFO, elevated PH (8.6-8.7), skimming wetter, slightly reduced light cycle, regular harvesting, and I had it beat within a week. Good luck!

[TCU Reefer]

8.6?????? There's no way I can get that high. I drip ( and dump) kalk like mad but I can barely crack the 8.2 mark. My pumps keep freezing up due to calcification. I can't add any more kalk.

I can try to boost Alk but that's always dicey with SPS. I'll just try to go slow.

[Lutefisk]

I recently went through this problem (I hope it doesn't come back).

By the time all was said and done I threw everything at it that I had:

Added a second oversized-skimmer set to skim wet
Added ozone (24x7)
A LOT of carbon (24x7)
Ran a full TLF reactor full of GFO (24x7)
Added kalk slurry morning and evening to raise the pH
Kept the tank in near total darkness for six days. A day after uncovering it I noticed what I thought was some dino build up and I recovered it for another three days.

At this point things look GREAT. The sand, rockwork, and glass are beautifully clean. The SPS got pretty white but are looking good now. The fish and even the clams did just fine.


Paul

[Justin James]

WoW. I did a 3 day lights out and almost lost half my sps and you did 9 days??? WOW. I might as well just take my tank and throw it out in the yard because after my 3 day lights out i'm on the second day of lights back on and theres allready dinos poping up everywhere again. I guess it's either sell what I can of my corals now and then just keep the tank with rock and fish still in it in complete darkness for a couple weeks.

[MegaDeTH]

I dont know what "cooking" rock is, sounds like curing it without lights?

anyway, I've got dino's in 2 tanks, 1 of them I put on a kalk reactor and that's helping a lot, turned the skimmer up and turned up the PH seems to be working


On the nano I'm hoping lots of phosphate remover does the trick, not much I can do, water changes dont phase the stuff

[DaveJ]

Local guy in my reef club did this combo....

No water changes
Ran high quality carbon 24/7
Ran a UV sterilizer.
Ran Kalk as much as he could.
Did 2 or 3 courses of 3-4 day lights out.

All the time he would manually pull what he could.

He thinks the difference was the UV as he had done everything else before but the combination of everything above did it.

[MegaDeTH]

some types of dino's will be all over the water column when the lights are out, I have that stuff in my tanks, it looks like soup when the lights are out, it's strange, you would think the skimmer would pull it all out, but it does not.

if it does not clear up this week I'm going to order one of those small all in one UV sterilizers, jbj makes a small one that I can fit in my nano

[tmz]

The only sucess I have had is with heavy skimming and persistent and frequent manual export. I suck it out with a turkey baster

[Justin James]

So to water change or not to water change? That is the question!

On the topic of dinoflagellates some people say to stop doing water changes and others say to do them more often and bigger.

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[Lutefisk]

Originally posted by Justin James
So to water change or not to water change? That is the question!

On the topic of dinoflagellates some people say to stop doing water changes and others say to do them more often and bigger.

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I did a lot of big water changes and it looks like I've got them licked. I haven't seen a sign of the horrible things for quite some time now.

I went to some pretty drastic measures but I had some pretty significant sps and invert losses before I figured out what the problem was. Once I went to dark, GFO, carbon, ozone, dropping my water temp, water changes etc. (See my earlier post) I didn't lose anything else.

Yes, most of the coral didn't like it very much but they were doing a lot worse with the dino's than the darkness. I was to a point where even zoo's weren't opening. Everything has colored up nicely and is growing well.

Regarding water changes - there may be more than one way to skin this cat. There may be something in the water that is a limiting factor and that once it is consumed the dino bloom may crash. There is also evidence that darkness can kick it in the nuts.

My 2-cents is that if you've got a bad dino bloom underway give it everything you've got and can beg or borrow. This is not a pest that will go away easily.

Paul

[MegaDeTH]

I'm on day 3 of aggressive use of sugar, in an attempt to get bacteria to outcompete the dino's

it seems to have worked, in the short term, all dino appears to be gone in my 75g, the nano still has a little bit left

I'm doing 3 tablespoons daily in the 75g, this morning, day 3, the bacterial bloom was in full swing, the tank looks really cloudy, but the corals are all open, more open than before during the dino outbreak

skimmer is going nuts, I'm going to back off on the sugar on the 75g now

[Justin James]

Please keep me posted as to how your sugar attempt works out.

[reefer1024]

After adding Purigen and a Polyfilter to my 2.5 gallon pico I noticed all my cyno and dyno went away overnight. I found a way to put it in the filter so that all the water was forced through 2 layers of polyfilter. I used enough filter media for a 100 gallon tank that is likely why I saw an overnight change.

[Teremei]

Mine was on my sand. Rocks is no problem. Just turkey baste real hard. Can't do that in a 5" southdown DSB. With lights out 2 days it begins to let loose like cyano does. Then it gets in the water column where your skimmer and carbon can grab them.

[Justin James]

You people make it sound easy LOL. Man oh man I am at war with this crap. syphoning, big water changes, less feeding. I might try the sugar thing if I hear good things about it.

[MegaDeTH]

my tank is still so cloudy I cant see into it, but the corals are all open and look great, so I'm going to let it do its thing, I've stopped using sugar completely on the 75g, still using a little on the nano

the 75g's skimmer is still going crazy


no dino's in the 75g, still a little bit in the nano

[kev apsley]

Read This

[MegaDeTH]

just got home, the cloud is almost gone, no dino's in sight, it worked perfectly

steps that I used

aggressive carbon/phosphate remover used in magnum 350 & small duetto for entire outbreak, the past 2 months up to and including right now

3 weeks of aggressive water changes (40 %), no impact
kalk reactor added, online with no other changes for 2 weeks, 1 more water change, no impact

1 week passes with no improvement

attempt sugar treatment to out compete dino's for nutrients

day 1 3 tablespoons table sugar
day 2 3 tablespoons again, water starting to cloud
day 3 3 tablespoons again water getting more cloudy, skimmer starting to go crazy
day 4 no sugar, really really cloudy, skimmer crazy
day 5 no sugar, really really really cloudy, skimmer crazy
day 6 today, cloud is almost completely gone, skimmer has settled down

not a single spec of dino in the tank right now, it seems to have worked, I'll post here again in another week if it looks good

the corals were all fine for the duration, the dino's did **** off everything, stuff would not open up much at all.

Last couple days everything has been opening more, today everything but the xenia looks wonderful, the xenia looks bad, really bad


I've kept tanks sense 95, I've never tried sugar but I've never had any algae problems other than byropsis

I really did not expect sugar to work, I am pretty shocked right now, my wife is as confused as ever