Dinoflagellate infestation

[RichardinMa]

Just thought I would chime in on the subject since I finally won my battle after nearly 4 months of fighting. I tried blackouts, peroxide, no water changes, siphoning every two days and on and on and on. Finally, I broke down and ordered Ultra Algae X. I followed all of the directions to the "T" and after 2 1/2 weeks, my tank never looked worse. Some people swear by the stuff, but I swear I won't put that in my tank again. What finally worked for me was the advice given by Julian Sprung. Cut the whites down to 4 hours a day and raise the alk up to 11-12 and keep it there. I also changed out my GFO every 3 to 4 days and in a couple of weeks it was completely gone. Not a strand to be found anywhere. Good luck with whatever treatment you decide to try as this plague is just the suck. Keep us posted!

Your mention of the white light is interesting. I have seven tanks and am having a problem with dinos in only one of them, the one I recently switched over to LED. I have no nitrate or phosphate in the tank as I cannot. even get algae to grow in there for my snails and sea hare so have to feed them algae sheets. I suck off whatever I can see once a day. I have been dosing H2O2 and that has slowed it a lot but I can still see it in the cracks that are more shaded. I think I will dim my whites down and see if that helps.

 

[IdahoGuy]

Finally beat them by raising PH!

 

[msaba]

Late to this thread, but after reading someone anecdotal success with cuprisorb, I was successfully able to manage a massive dinoflagellate infestation in my tank utilizing this in a filter sock. You may google others experiences with cuprisorb but clearly for some dinoflagellates this can be highly effective... I was also having some ALK/CA issues at the time after removing my sandbed so I had also postulated like IG that there may be other factors in terms of dinoflagellate colonization related to possibly LOW ALK or subsequent Ph instability.

Mark

 

[msaba]

It has been postulated cuprisorb's efficicacy in eradication of dines related to incidental removal of the elemental iron...there is another thread on reefchemistry forum with other thoughts as well...

 

[sneeyatch]

I fought an epic battle of dinos about 2 years ago. I thought it was cyano for the longest time and by trying to fight that, I realized I was only fueling the dinos.

I was lucky enough that my tank was still young and I was able to remove my corals and place them into quarantine.

This is what I did and it worked for me - again, my situation was easier since I was able to remove my corals.

1.) Lights out - period.
2.) I tried keeping the pH and alk as high as could and tried keeping it as stable as I could. Whether this helped or not, I'm not sure but I'd like to say it helped.
3.) I had a BRS dual media reactor that I packed with carbon in both containers - changed weekly.
4.) Every single day, I siphoned them out through a double layer of filter socks (one inside the other) and returned the water to the sump. I cleaned and bleached the socks afterward and let them dry for the next day.
5.) NO waterchanges with fresh salt. The fresh salt mix adds nutrients to the water which in turn fuels the dinos.
6.) I dosed peroxide twice daily at the recommended daily dosage (effectively doubling the dose). There was no ill effects on my fish or other non-photosynthetic inverts that I noticed.
7.) Finally after about 2-1/2 weeks or so, I felt I had the upper hand and then siphoned about /2 of the sandbed out through the socks - again, re-using the water.

After that, it was gone. I started my regular lighting cycle right after and it never came back.

Hopefully at least some of that info helps. It was an epic battle...