Siphoning Dinos

[Raintree]

Long story short, I've had my coral and a small amount of life rock in a 29g tank with a HOB (Reef Octopus BH2000) skimmer for the last 6 months. I essentially neglected the tank, thinking I could starve out the dinos and skim the crap out of the water. All that seemed to do is kill/starve most beneficial life and leave my corals stressed and (probably) dying.

As of now I'm going to start aggressively treating the dinos by running GAC & GFO, raising the pH with kalk, and siphoning out as much dinoflagellate goo and other nuisance algae as possible.


I want to avoid dosing hydrogen peroxide as i think this was stressful for my corals (and some of my most precious corals are extremely stressed at the moment; i don't think they would survive more H2O2 dosing) the last time i did it.

My question is; if i siphon the dinos & other algae out daily into a filter sock (there is no sump on this tank), should i just return that water back to the tank? I'd rather not use new salt water as that would get expensive. My main reason for not wanting to return the water to the tank is that there would likely be dinos left in the water column. But maybe

Alternatively I could store the water in buckets for several days (in the dark, while dosing H2O2 to the buckets) to kill off any remaining dinos in the water column, and then return it to the tank. I could potentially even run biological filtration in these buckets to avoid dumping ammonia/nitrite laden water into my tank.


thoughts?


TL;DR if i siphon dinos out of my tank (into a filter sock) should i return that siphoned water to the tank, treat that water in some way to kill the dinos and then return it to the tank, just top off with new saltwater, or go some other route?

 

[mcgyvr]

Nope.. They can go right through the sock..
Not to mention its only 30 gallons total in your tank..
Thats so little water that the cost of all new water is so cheap why even try it..


Have you confirmed that you have dinos vs cyano or something else?
Do this..
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2531708

 

[Raintree]

I'm sure it's dinoflagellates. I guess I'll just have to go crazy on water changes

 

[JohnnyHildo]

I'm sure it's dinoflagellates. I guess I'll just have to go crazy on water changes

there is an issue with that as well though too. if you are positive that you they are in fact dinos then by doing water changes in many cases you are just introducing fresh trace elements to fuel them further. also, in many cases using phosphate media and gfo to drop the nutrients down sets the stage for a environment that dinos wlll survive in without an issue but will starve much of the natural competition that they have.
dinos are overall a pain in the booty but not insurmountable. there are plenty of good threads around on the forums that deal specifically with this topic and they pretty much all require microscope ID and appropriate treatment for the specific strain you're dealing with.

 

[Raintree]

there is an issue with that as well though too. if you are positive that you they are in fact dinos then by doing water changes in many cases you are just introducing fresh trace elements to fuel them further. also, in many cases using phosphate media and gfo to drop the nutrients down sets the stage for a environment that dinos wlll survive in without an issue but will starve much of the natural competition that they have.
dinos are overall a pain in the booty but not insurmountable. there are plenty of good threads around on the forums that deal specifically with this topic and they pretty much all require microscope ID and appropriate treatment for the specific strain you're dealing with.

From my research, i haven't found that there's any truth to this notion that water changes 'feed' dinos. Most life needs trace elements, as well as nitrogen and phosphorous. I already tried the no-water changes/no nutrients method to starve out the dinos and as you mentioned, it just stressed or killed just about everything else in the tank.

Most people that have beat dinos mention siphoning out/manually removing as much of it as possible, combined with high pH, dark periods, and/or hydrogen peroxide dosing... which is why i made this thread, since it seems like a lot of people skip over what they replace the siphoned-out water with.

 

[Ucantwin]

I know you said you don't want to dose peroxide but I got rid of dinos twice before by dosing it. My tanks are 99% sps and I seen no issues. Zoas might temporarily close but will reopen in no time. I was worried the first time because I have $1000's in corals but dinos was taking away the pleasure I was getting from the tank. Dose for a week and your dinos should be gone or close to it.

 

[MGP]

I know you said you don't want to dose peroxide but I got rid of dinos twice before by dosing it. My tanks are 99% sps and I seen no issues. Zoas might temporarily close but will reopen in no time. I was worried the first time because I have $1000's in corals but dinos was taking away the pleasure I was getting from the tank. Dose for a week and your dinos should be gone or close to it.

What quantity did you dose and how? Did you spot treat?

 

[Ucantwin]

I used the recommended 1 ml per 10 gallons. I dosed it at night when the lights have been off for a few hours. I did not spot treat, just dumped it into the tank. There is several huge threads with people who success doing it. I know it's scary at first but once it's gone you will be so happy you did.

 

[JohnnyHildo]

From my research, i haven't found that there's any truth to this notion that water changes 'feed' dinos. Most life needs trace elements, as well as nitrogen and phosphorous. I already tried the no-water changes/no nutrients method to starve out the dinos and as you mentioned, it just stressed or killed just about everything else in the tank.

Most people that have beat dinos mention siphoning out/manually removing as much of it as possible, combined with high pH, dark periods, and/or hydrogen peroxide dosing... which is why i made this thread, since it seems like a lot of people skip over what they replace the siphoned-out water with.

first, it's your system so ultimately your problem to deal with and choose treatment for i'm just speaking from experience. you misread my reply as i would never ever suggest a "no-nutrient" method to anyone with dinos. the exact opposite is often the key to beating them to encourage algae growth and competition. driving the nutrients through the floor is what often allowed dinos to catch traction to begin with.
peroxide, diatom filters, reduced photoperiods, multi-day dark periods, metronidazole, manual removal, more water changes, less water changes, dino-x, bleach, high pH, high magnesium, wet skimming, phytoplankton (and i'm sure there are many more "cures" for this issue) are all treatments i have read about but without proper ID you're basically flailing wildly at the expense of your systems stability.
anyway best of luck with it.

 

[Heuristic]

Feed more, it worked from me. Make sure you have no GFO or phosphate remover and start feeding more while doing bigger/less often water changes. Dino thrive when there's little nutrients in the tank and will out compete other algae. IMO, if you amp up the feeding it will cause the good algaes to start to win the battle against them and win. That's how I got rid of my dino completely

 

[Raintree]

What quantity did you dose and how? Did you spot treat?

I used the recommended 1 ml per 10 gallons. I dosed it at night when the lights have been off for a few hours. I did not spot treat, just dumped it into the tank. There is several huge threads with people who success doing it. I know it's scary at first but once it's gone you will be so happy you did.

IIRC I dosed 1ml per 10 gallons, at night, combined with heavy skimming and other normal tank maintenance. There was no noticeable improvement; if anything, other algae/sponges/etc died off and the dinos got worse. Some of my (already stressed) corals started receding.

Feed more, it worked from me. Make sure you have no GFO or phosphate remover and start feeding more while doing bigger/less often water changes. Dino thrive when there's little nutrients in the tank and will out compete other algae. IMO, if you amp up the feeding it will cause the good algaes to start to win the battle against them and win. That's how I got rid of my dino completely

I started getting dinos after i left for a trip, and the person i left to watch over my tank (who was supposed to be an experienced reefer) dosed my tank with chemiclean to kill cyano, and also stopped controlling/testing alkalinity, which crashed my tank. I was left with a disgusting mess of algae, dinos, and cyano, and near-dead corals. I haven't been able to get it under control since, but there have definitely been periods where nutrients/feeding were higher, and the dinos persisted