...my battle with dinoflagellates is on!

If you have the patience to skim through this thread it may help. I was the original poster and I did overcome Dino's. remember, it's an algae and it can be beat. You just have to deprive it of its fuel and take it one day at a time. Try boosting your PH over the next eek or two to 9.0. Yes, I know that is excessive but the tank should be fine with this level for a short period of time. Also, at the same time, do a 3 day blackout. Wrap the tank in a black contractor bag (sides only not the top). Stop feeding and keep skimming. Good luck
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1619925
 
LOL i have had floods, hair alage,red slime,diatoms, and now black bugs invading my tourch and frog spawn which I will be fighting very soon. For me its the fact I have put way to much money into everything to back out now lol. Just keep fighting the good fight
 
...thanks GaryLCrouch and everyone for the positive responses to my post.(can't believe it's still active!)
I realize I sounded a little "dramatic" in my original post but truly I was soooo ****ed off about it. I encouraged a lot of negative responses and I got them!!!:hammer:
I apologize if I offended anyone.

Let me tell you what I did:
1) Lights out for 3 days
2) Dosed 8 ml hydrogen peroxide twice daily(I doubled the suggested dose, risky.)


After 3 day the dinos were all gone. My rock looked "sterile". My 3 fish were fine and happy to see daylight! My few corals all did fine except clove polyps which are still struggling to come back. Acropora did not do so good.
The tank was clear of all dinos until a few days ago...they're back! Coming on slowly but they're back.
OK, this time I've ordered Fauna Marin Ultra X for my second attempt. Should be here Saturday and will begin treatment. Wish me luck!
Any advice?
 
Welcome back. Yes, read the chemistry forums if you haven't already. Thought dlandino posted somewhere about raising ph. Like I said look around a bit and take it slow.
 
Treating the tank with chemicals is..... well..... NOT GOING TO FIX IT!
Peroxide? wow.
You are not going to treat the symptoms and in turn eliminate the problem, period!
Chriskid and I had a LENGTHY discussion, as well as Justin Credible when he and I spoke at Cmac last year. You can't fix the problem if you treat the symptoms.. Why do you think they came BACK!>? because the problem is there. DINO is ALGAE>? Then get your phosphates and Nitrates down, and I KNOW that SOMEONE will chime in against this but hey,m not EVERYONE has the same "opinion"
But Algae LIVE of organics, Chaeto does too, so I eliminated my Phosphates slowly and MY Problem is almost ALL GONE. and I don;t treat my tank with Chems to do it. neither shold you, fix the problem, don't TREAT the symptoms and you will do well.
And if GFO Reactors and Phosban are considered "Chems" then I stand corrected, LOL, Oh and Chemipure really doesn't do enough for phos, but it certainly does HELP,.

That was my Two cents based totally on experience and talking with people., but NOT TOO MANY PEOPLE! No offense at all, but the more people you talk to the more IDEAS you will have to try. The bottom line here is "FIX THE CAUSE NOT THE SYMPTOMS" Period. And nine times out of ten PHOSPHATES are the Cause, and they really are difficult to READ on any test kit OTHER than an electric Hanna, which is the most reliable, and REMEMBER that even when you read close to zero, that is not taking into consideration all the phosphates that ARE in the water column in suspension by the algae that need it. it CANT BE ZERO if you have ALGAE growing...
This is all stuff that Chris and Justin and I talked about. so don;t shoot me down becasue you do not agree, EVERYONE KNOWS THEM so.....

Good luck!!! YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!
 
I'm too am a newbie & am currently dealing with an outbreak of Dinoflagellates as well. I wasn't sure at first what it was. I kept gravel washing and doing water changes and the more I gravel washed and did water changes the worse it got. RO was only reading 5 TDS. (Didn't have DI yet that just came in the mail today yay BRS) Phosphates in the tank were only .2 I was driving myself nuts trying to figure out what was going on. Every morning the substrate and glass was clear but by 3pm it was covered in brown snotty looking hairs with little bubbles attached. Finally I talked to my local expert at the LFS. He said right away it was Dinoflagellates. He suggested treating it with Fauna Marin's Ultra Algae X. I'm on day #5 and just gave the third dose a few minutes ago. Ever since day 2 my tanks appeared clear and so far so good. This is what I did so far.

Turned off GFO and Carbon. Removed all macro algaes and placed in QT because AlgaeX will kill your macros.
Just before lights out at night I gravel vacced through a filter sock and just simply returned the water back to my sump and cleaned out as many as I could. Then lights out for the night and gave it the first dose. Now I know the Fauna Marin gives recommended settings for the lights but I decided to have lights out for 24 hours. Day 2 set the blue+ to 4 hours and the rest to off. Same for day 3. Day 4 increased blue+ to 5 hours and set the coral growth lights back on but only for 1 hour. Also fed my corals on day 4 but with 1/4 the amount of food as normal. No trace elements added either.
After each day I wiped down the glass with a sponge to remove as many dead algae as possible. Skimmer has been running wet since dose 1.

Going forward my plan is to keep increasing my lights slowly (like and hour every day or so) until they're back to normal (But not more than Algae X recommends during the cycle which is 10 hours blue 6 hours growth. Not sure if moon lights are included in the 10 for blue. Experts please chime in here) My feeding plan is to stay on reduced feed for the rest of the week and then slowly increase back to normal. Fauna Marin recommends turning on activated carbon after the complete cycle and a water change 2 days after the cycle which I intend to do. I also intend to follow the entire 21(10 dose) day treatment. No point quitting early just because the tank looks clear only to have it come back with a vengeance.
 
so you are attacking the algae...... what happens when you stop dosing and your phosphate problem brings them back?
LOWER YOUR PHOSPHATES.... You said you turned OFF your GFO>? :thumbdown:

Phos Phos PHOS~!, until its gone algae will grow. Now mind you it will kind of ALWAYS be present, but eliminating it as most you can, and getting it out of the water column will work. Macro Algae needs phos to grow and it IS a slightly vital part of the system in general, so getting it to zero is ALMOST impossible if not improbable, but having a scrubber or Macro area keeps it out of the tank once you get Phos to near zero

May I ask what you used to test and get a .21 reading? I figure its three times that in the algae and rocks.

and one more thing, I diont understand what you mean by Gravel vac.?
YOu are stirring up your gravel (Sand) Bed? That is not good either.
you should run GFO, lights out for a few days every week for a month, run gfo.
I did, and I got it 89% gone, and soon as I pick up my Hanna I will know 100% where I am at
 
...my battle with dinoflagellates is on!

.2 was a typo. .02 is what was meant to be typed. It's tested using a Hannah checker.

I'm following the suggestions on fauna Marin's website. They said this product was tested for a decade. If they say turn off gfo and carbon and remove macro then I will be:). We can both report our findings in a few weeks and share. My Dino's are still currently 100% gone fwiw
 
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Just checking in. It's day 8 of my treatment cycle and yesterday was dose 5. Still all clear. My lights are up to 4 hours growth and 7 hours blue+. Moonlights have always been on 10 hours each night. Phosphates are 0.01 using my Hannah checker. Will be very interesting to see what happens afterwards. It's very interesting... phosphates are 0.01 and I haven't had a WC, run GFO, Carbon or had macros in the refugium for 8 days. There is literally no visible micro algae of any sort. How can p04 be LESS than when all my systems were up and running and had macros in the refugium? That doesnt make any sense.
 
it does if there is NO ALGAE for it to be "needed"
If you have ALGAE you HAVE PHOS. You numbers are going to be lower if you don't have any algae.... kinda like a broken record huh.
 
Chevy4w:
Just an update. My last dose was Thursday. On Saturday I added my macro algae back to the refugium. Today I did a 20% WC and restarted both GAC and GFO reactors with fresh media. Still no signs of the dinos returning. There was about 4sq inches of film algae around the overflow that I wiped away during the WC. Will retest PO4 tomorrow and let you know where it's at.

How goes your battle?
 
Tonight will be the 5th dose. Keeping the lights low and siphoning the rock every other day.(very little loose dinos on the rock) I am not so sure mine is completely gone. I am definitely keeping this stuff dormant but I don't think I'm going to be able to stop treatment after the 5th dose tonight. I still have this brown crust-like stuff on the rocks where the dinos were growing.

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chevy4w said:
...thanks GaryLCrouch and everyone for the positive responses to my post.(can't believe it's still active!)
I realize I sounded a little "dramatic" in my original post but truly I was soooo ****ed off about it. I encouraged a lot of negative responses and I got them!!!:hammer:
I apologize if I offended anyone.
Click to expand...

I've been on this forum a really long time and I will tell you one thing: take about 99.9% of what people say as a joke...meant to poke at you...not to offend you. The few people who actually mean things in a really negative way will eventually reveal themselves.

I fought hair algae in my main display for about 5 years and was ready to throw in the towel many times. But I stuck with it, figured it out, and am still here. You'll be much better off in the end for fighting this fight because it will teach you all about reef chemistry and the ways to clean up all sorts of problems.

Also, when people joke...just give it right back to them!! They can take it! Or they don't belong here. It's more fun that way anyways.
 
Rechecked phosphate like I said I would. It's at 0.11ppm. I'll give the GAC and GFO a few days to do their magic and re-check. Let you know if I find any more evidence of Dinoflagellates. (Or any other nuisance algae for that matter)
 
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