jedimasterben
LED world domination!
Hello all. Sorry for the long post, there's a tl:dr at the end if you'd like to skip the fluff lol
I've been battling a dinoflagellate infestation off and on for about a year now. I've done just about everything I can bring myself to do. I have acid washed 95% of my rocks with muriatic acid, replaced my entire sandbed with new non-live sand, dosed large quantities of peroxide (at the peak, a 3:1 ratio, so 3mL per gallon of water), and done a couple 3 day blackouts. I can't shake these things. I do not wish to resort to chemical means (some have success with Fauna Marin Ultra Algae X, but I don't want to chance it).
I am in the middle of moving my tank. My fish are all in a quarantine tank with some of the live rock from my display and will be treated with 15mg/L dose of chloroquine phosphate. This will more than likely kill what dinos are in that system, I will need to verify with a microscope, though, to be sure. Dinoflagellates can get stuck in a fish's slime coat and transferred from one place to another, so if the chloroquine doesn't get them, then I would need to freshwater dip all of the fish before returning them to the display - a freshwater dip (specifically, a dip with a very different salinity level) bursts the cell wall of dinoflagellates upon contact.
That brings me to the troubling part. I have what little live rock that I have not removed to bleach/acid wash, along with a few dozen coral frags and colonies, some anemones (mini-maxi and rock flower), serpent stars, snails, and shrimp sitting in a small 14g Biocube that is filled to the brim with all of it. For corals, all that has survived the onslaught of toxins from the dinoflagellates are some Discosoma, Ricordea, Alveopora, Goniopora, Acanthastrea, Zoanthus, Palythoa, Pterogorgia, and Psuedopterogorgia.
The day after moving them to this tank, I placed a 5w UV sterilizer on the system (with new bulb), began dosing 3mL of peroxide twice daily, and did a full 7 day blackout. With what research I have done, 7 days is nowhere near enough to kill the dinos, but I have pushed the pause button so that I can prepare for the next steps.
Now, some of this rock has the mushrooms, ricordea, and anemones on it, and they cannot be easily removed. The rest is fresh uncured (was, anyway, "cured" it already) rock from KP Aquatics off the Atlantic coast of FL, and as such is covered with coralline algae, sponges, feather dusters, tons of benthic life. The 'old' rock in my tank is just starting to get coralline coverage, and has beautiful pink sponges and feather dusters that I never purposely added, not sure where they came from (tank was started with all dry rock and one small bit of 'boat rock', so no life was added from it other than bacteria).
The problem is that to be rid of the dinos, I'm really going to need to freshwater dip everything in that tank if I want to attempt to save it. All the corals, all the rock, all the snails/shrimp/inverts, etc. At the very least I will need to do a dip with a vastly different salinity, which will be figured out once I can get the dinos to bloom again and get a sample for identification and testing. I know that exposure to freshwater will kill loads of saltwater inverts, but will that happen in the few seconds it will need to kill the dinos? I don't particularly want to lose all of the life that I've tried so hard to keep going for all of this time, especially all the tiny feather dusters and one particular pink sponge. It's going to be done regardless of what it will kill, but I just want to know what I am up against and what to expect to lose.
After the dip, I'm going to put everything into another tank (not back into the BC14 until I can drain it and clean it out to make sure no dinos survive in it) and monitor it for a good while to see if the dinos come back. I'll be dosing vitamin c, as these dinos I've been plagued with absolutely love the stuff, so if any are left, it will bring them to light.
tl:dr
Here is just some of the damage that these bastards have caused. I've lost a couple thousand dollars in corals, clams, and tangs.
And this is basically all I have left in this picture, besides the anemones and a couple more zoas and mushrooms that are on the rocks behind and under the rack. Notice the size of the gorgonian, it is the same specimen as in the third picture.
I've been battling a dinoflagellate infestation off and on for about a year now. I've done just about everything I can bring myself to do. I have acid washed 95% of my rocks with muriatic acid, replaced my entire sandbed with new non-live sand, dosed large quantities of peroxide (at the peak, a 3:1 ratio, so 3mL per gallon of water), and done a couple 3 day blackouts. I can't shake these things. I do not wish to resort to chemical means (some have success with Fauna Marin Ultra Algae X, but I don't want to chance it).
I am in the middle of moving my tank. My fish are all in a quarantine tank with some of the live rock from my display and will be treated with 15mg/L dose of chloroquine phosphate. This will more than likely kill what dinos are in that system, I will need to verify with a microscope, though, to be sure. Dinoflagellates can get stuck in a fish's slime coat and transferred from one place to another, so if the chloroquine doesn't get them, then I would need to freshwater dip all of the fish before returning them to the display - a freshwater dip (specifically, a dip with a very different salinity level) bursts the cell wall of dinoflagellates upon contact.
That brings me to the troubling part. I have what little live rock that I have not removed to bleach/acid wash, along with a few dozen coral frags and colonies, some anemones (mini-maxi and rock flower), serpent stars, snails, and shrimp sitting in a small 14g Biocube that is filled to the brim with all of it. For corals, all that has survived the onslaught of toxins from the dinoflagellates are some Discosoma, Ricordea, Alveopora, Goniopora, Acanthastrea, Zoanthus, Palythoa, Pterogorgia, and Psuedopterogorgia.
The day after moving them to this tank, I placed a 5w UV sterilizer on the system (with new bulb), began dosing 3mL of peroxide twice daily, and did a full 7 day blackout. With what research I have done, 7 days is nowhere near enough to kill the dinos, but I have pushed the pause button so that I can prepare for the next steps.
Now, some of this rock has the mushrooms, ricordea, and anemones on it, and they cannot be easily removed. The rest is fresh uncured (was, anyway, "cured" it already) rock from KP Aquatics off the Atlantic coast of FL, and as such is covered with coralline algae, sponges, feather dusters, tons of benthic life. The 'old' rock in my tank is just starting to get coralline coverage, and has beautiful pink sponges and feather dusters that I never purposely added, not sure where they came from (tank was started with all dry rock and one small bit of 'boat rock', so no life was added from it other than bacteria).
The problem is that to be rid of the dinos, I'm really going to need to freshwater dip everything in that tank if I want to attempt to save it. All the corals, all the rock, all the snails/shrimp/inverts, etc. At the very least I will need to do a dip with a vastly different salinity, which will be figured out once I can get the dinos to bloom again and get a sample for identification and testing. I know that exposure to freshwater will kill loads of saltwater inverts, but will that happen in the few seconds it will need to kill the dinos? I don't particularly want to lose all of the life that I've tried so hard to keep going for all of this time, especially all the tiny feather dusters and one particular pink sponge. It's going to be done regardless of what it will kill, but I just want to know what I am up against and what to expect to lose.
After the dip, I'm going to put everything into another tank (not back into the BC14 until I can drain it and clean it out to make sure no dinos survive in it) and monitor it for a good while to see if the dinos come back. I'll be dosing vitamin c, as these dinos I've been plagued with absolutely love the stuff, so if any are left, it will bring them to light.
tl:dr
- dinos took over.
- gotta freshwater dip everything.
- what should I expect to lose?
- ????
- profit.
Here is just some of the damage that these bastards have caused. I've lost a couple thousand dollars in corals, clams, and tangs.
And this is basically all I have left in this picture, besides the anemones and a couple more zoas and mushrooms that are on the rocks behind and under the rack. Notice the size of the gorgonian, it is the same specimen as in the third picture.
