serious dinos algae problem

[fscmocsaj]

I'm having a serious dinos algae outbreak its dark brown and long strands and has air bubbles attached to it. How do i get rid of it without turning the lights off or removing fish/corals?:headwally:

 

[Good_GReef]

Whenever i add non-rodi water or too many nutrients i get the brown dino/diatom stuff that releases air bubbles and my red leg hermits go nuts for it. What kind of cleanup crew do you run? Also, if i see it i will usually run just the blues on my led longer, less whites, and that helps clear it up. Who knows if that helps but i feel like it does.

 

[fscmocsaj]

I only add ro di water and by to many nutrients do you mean overfeed? I don't have any red leg hermits I have a bunch of blue leg hermits and nassarius snails.

 

[GroktheCube]

I kicked mine by using a multi-pronged attack.

I blacked the tank out for a few days by covering with black garbage bags, dosed 1ml of 3% H2O2 daily, ran a very large amount of GFO, and kept the pH at ~8.5.

 

[fscmocsaj]

any fish or inverts that will take care of it?

 

[GroktheCube]

My snails ate it, but couldn't come close to keeping up with its growth rate. You would need extreme nutrient export capabilities to control it that way.

My problem came about pretty early on after I set up my tank, so I didn't have any fish yet.

 

[fscmocsaj]

what is a good website for a clean up crew?

 

[Josh40996]

I don't think any clean-up crew would be able to compete with the growth rate of Dinoflagellates. You may notice that in the mornings, before lights on, the Dino. population is rather low, but after only a few minutes it is back at full throttle.

I recently beat a Dinoflagellates battle in my reef aquarium, and the method I used was that recommended by brandon429. That is Hydrogen Peroxide dosing. Hydrogen Peroxide has a really bad rep. but it really isn't as bad as made out. I found that dosing even over 10X the recommended "safe" dosage doesn't cause any visible harm, but I am obviously not going to ever recommend starting at 10 times the safe dose. The method I used was to black out the aquarium with black bags for 3 days and dose H2O2 to the aquarium, the use of a UV sterilizer correctly sized will also greatly help. I also would like to recommend that if your parameters check out, that you stop water changes until you are sure that the Dinoflagellates are kicked right back under control. Some trace elements in fresh saltwater fuel Dinoflagellate growth

 

[cichlid nutz]

If it is actually Dinaflagellates, then the toxin it releases will kill snails almost immediately. At least the version I have. There are hundreds of different dinoflagellates out there. Good luck!!
Just a little tip to help identify the problem. I am on day 3 of my H2O2 treatment of my Dino outbreak. Also started using my UV sterilizer as well.

 

[fscmocsaj]

H202 and blacking out my tank for 3 days wont harm my corals or fish?

 

[ganjero]

H202 and blacking out my tank for 3 days wont harm my corals or fish?

Blackouts if done properly will not harm, you might see some fading but corals will color up pretty fast IME. I beat mine without using H2O2, the key was being very aggressive and zero laziness.
This is what I did:
- Stop water changes for about 8-10 weeks, as they seem to fuel them.
- Blackout for 5 days with a metallic curtain, zero light in the system (tank, sump, etc). I added an airstone to help with oxygenation, I'm sure the skimmer was enough but I wanted to be safe.
- Raise pH slowly dosing kalk
- Used large amounts of GFO, replacing it every other day for 2 week and then weekly for 2 months
- After the blackout the photo period was shorten and ramp up slowly every other week.
- Wet skimming

This is one of the most annoying things you can get in your tank. If you really have dinos don't spend money in a cleaning crew until you get rid of them, as stated above some dinos will kill your snails.

 

[Josh40996]

H202 and blacking out my tank for 3 days wont harm my corals or fish?

I believe that some anemones and shrimps are intolerant of Hydrogen Peroxide, so please be aware of that and do not proceed until someone more experienced can chime in on some intolerant species, so if you could post your livestock that will help .

Corals and fish will be fine with the blackout and H2O2. Zoas will close after dosing the H2O2 but open right back up unharmed.

 

[ganjero]

Double post

 

[Barro777]

From my research I understand there are no hard and fast scientifically proven remedies to eradicate dinos. The steps that I took a few months ago helped remove all visible signs of dinos in my tank and keep them in check, though I am sure that once you get them you can't get rid of them entirely and they could come back under the "right" conditions just like cyano.

Some of the measures I would recommend include stopping all water changes for several weeks, switching to a sparse feeding schedule (three times a week), increasing flow by adding and/or ramping up powerheads, making sure you definitely use socks in the sump for mechanical filtration, removing all dino-infested rocks that you can to a separate fallow tank that has no lighting for a few weeks, blacking out the DT for 72 hours.

Can't say anything about H2O2. Don't like that kind of intervention. And don't count on CUC to get rid of dinos. Good luck.

 

[NastyZ]

I just went though this this past weekend I don't kno if it was Dino or diatoms but I did the h202 and 3 day blackout and it worked I have a mostly sps mixed reef and nothing was affected I dosed 1ml per 10gals of water ill post after pics when I get home

 

[NastyZ]

So This is before the outbreak

Don't have a FTS of when it was full of algae but you can refer to the above pics

Here's after the treatment I had to scrap all the coralline off because the algae was dieing off and didn't like the look of it so I sped up the process and took care of it this is 3 days after treatment nothing has came back and everything is going great also the color looks different because there is not coralline on the floor so I had to take it under different color combo to get the pic to come out

 

[fscmocsaj]

did you put the hydrogen peroxide directly into your tank?

 

[NastyZ]

did you put the hydrogen peroxide directly into your tank?

Yup I just dumped it directly on top of the powerhead so it spread over the tank turned the lights off and wet skimmed

 

[fscmocsaj]

Did you add it once every day? or just one time

 

[drew930]

Ive done the hydrogen peroxide on two different tanks and it worked both times in combo with a 3 day blackout. From what I have done and read, It is supposed to be 1ml per 10 gallons of water . I would only do about half that on the first day , so it will start out slow. I tried this without the blackout, and it works , just not as fast as it does with the blackout .

I have also read and experienced that water changes actually hurt the situation. Keep that in mind.