Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[taricha]

So you are cutting way back on light, adding peroxide, and adding Dino X an algaecide. I'm guessing you are killing a lot of stuff. You should figure out how you are going to remove all of the dead organic matter that you are creating. I understand that you aren't doing water changes, so it might not be the simplest thing.
Also when people say stop carbon. They mean carbon dosing, not to get rid of GAC. GAC is very useful for removing toxins, and general dissolved organic material.

 

[ReefPig]

So you are cutting way back on light, adding peroxide, and adding Dino X an algaecide. I'm guessing you are killing a lot of stuff. You should figure out how you are going to remove all of the dead organic matter that you are creating. I understand that you aren't doing water changes, so it might not be the simplest thing.
Also when people say stop carbon. They mean carbon dosing, not to get rid of GAC. GAC is very useful for removing toxins, and general dissolved organic material.

Thanks for the advice.
I will add carbon back once I’ve finished with DinoX, but using it now will just remove the treatment, I only have a few more days left before I reach 10 treatments, so I’ll push it to the maximum.

I‘m wet skimming and pulling out plenty of crap, for now, this will have to do, otherwise pointless doing the treatment.

 

[ScottB]

Thanks for the advice.
I will add carbon back once I’ve finished with DinoX, but using it now will just remove the treatment, I only have a few more days left before I reach 10 treatments, so I’ll push it to the maximum.

I‘m wet skimming and pulling out plenty of crap, for now, this will have to do, otherwise pointless doing the treatment.

Keep us posted on how the acros tolerate Dino-X. I've read about bad outcomes several times around here for acropora in particular. Of course it is always hard to separate out true cause / effect as a dino outbreak is a symptom of an already compromised biome. Good luck.

 

[ReefPig]

Keep us posted on how the acros tolerate Dino-X. I've read about bad outcomes several times around here for acropora in particular. Of course it is always hard to separate out true cause / effect as a dino outbreak is a symptom of an already compromised biome. Good luck.

Absolutely, and there are so many strains of dinos, some of which are highly toxic.
Unfortunately DinoX requires that you do not run any GAC, otherwise you'd be removing the treatment, so any toxins are released into the water and build up over the treatment cycle. I highly suspect this is the main issue people see when they say that DinoX killed their tank.

Last night I administered treatment 7 of DinoX, I can see vast reduction in dinos, maybe 99%, but I can still see a couple of very small, albeit very light brown, patches on the rocks.

Yesterday, any rocks which I could easily remove, I did, and spot treated them directly with H2O2 and scrubbed in a targeted manor.
However this wasn't possible to do with all rock structures, as some are too big to easily do this, and some of the patches are close to corals, so a high chance of H2O2 directly hitting them.

I am however becoming increasing concerned about my acans, which are not looking good at all, in fact, I'd say they're just about hanging on.
Acro's on the whole are doing "ok", polyp extension is less than half of normal, some of the colours have darkens and become washed out, particularly more sensitive types, like green slimer and tenuis.

I guess I'm at a cross roads as to whether continue until dose 10, which may, or may not finish killing the dino's, or indeed call it a day and start running GAC and water changes.

I feel I'm close to having a resolution here, at least visually, it's whether or not they could handle 3 more doses and another 6 days of this harsh treatment.

Granted, FM never said this was a gentle treatment, in fact they specifically say that they always use this as a last resort.

I think I'll leave it until tomorrow, which will be treatment 8 day anyway, then decided.


One thing I have found, is that my Alk/Ca uptake has dropped by around 40%, thankfully I have an GHL KH Director, which has been alerting me throughout, and I've made a number of adjustments to dosing to compensate.
The shift in uptake seems to go in big stages, suddenly requiring a lot less.
Again I suspect this is another point which may be killing peoples tanks, the corals are already super stressed but people aren't realising they're overdosing Alk/Ca and ultimately killing them inadvertently.

 

[ReefPig]

In addition to my post above, I think I'm going to stop the treatment today and start clearing out the DinoX.
I'm not convinced my Acans will survive much longer, and they may not survive at all.

This is one of the two of them, but they both look the same.

It looked like this a couple of weeks ago:

Right now, it looks like this:

 

[taricha]

I really appreciate your observational account here.
The nastiness of the skimmate is a testament to you indeed killing and fortunately removing organic material.

Again I suspect this is another point which may be killing peoples tanks, the corals are already super stressed but people aren't realising they're overdosing Alk/Ca and ultimately killing them inadvertently.

This is a really good point, and one that we've missed previously in thinking about how dinos outbreaks harm corals. They definietly drop the Ca/Alk consumption (increasing the alk), and if not adjusted for - then this would definitely add stress to the coral.

 

[Dj City]

I wanted to chime in.
It's been quite a while since i've posted anything in this thread.

I BEAT DINOS!!!

It was not especially hard to do but I did need the right equipment and a multi pronged approach.

3 day blackouts
Diatomaceous earth filter (optional but recommended)
Dr Tim's Dino recipe (Dr Tim's Dr Tim's Refresh / Dr. Tim's Waste Away)
Dr Tim's waste away gel (Optional but recommended)

The regiment looks like this:

3 day blackout with U.V. (while aggressively blowing off rock and aggressively turning and disturbing the sandbed)
•
Employ Diatom Filters (Optional)
.
Beneficial bacteria dosing
•
3 day blackout with Dr Tim's Refresh (No UV)
•
Dr Tim's Waste Away liquid (No UV)
•
Dr Tim's Waste Away Gel
•
Redeployment of U.V.

1st thing was a PROPERLY SIZED, PROPERLY PLUMBED UV Sterilizer with the CORRECT flow.
I can not stress this enough.
You absolutely NEED to have all 3 of the requirements for a UV Sterilizer met in order for it to work.
I have a 180 gallon display and I use a Pentair aquatics smart UV 40w. UV Sterilizer. I use a Jeabo DCP 15000 pump to run it with 1 inch plumbing. Anything smaller than 1 inch plumbing WILL NOT WORK because you will NOT get the needed flow through the UV.
Here is the flow chart...

Put the pump IN THE DISPLAY on the sand bed or no more than 1 inch above the sand bed. Have the UV in a closed loop within the display both pulling from the display and dumping treated water back to the display.
It should look something like this. (Don't mind the mess. Pay attention to the set up of the UV)

3 day total blackout while using UV.
I have the feed pump in the tank and the return in the tank creating a closed loop. Pump is a Jeabo DCP15000. Pump is about a 1/2 inch above the sandbed. PVC pipe goes from pump to top of tank (about 25 inches) through 2 90° elbows forming a "U" and down about 6ft. to the UV.
The UV is laying horizontally on the floor in front of the tank. Water goes through the UV then back up about 6ft of PVC pipe then through 2 90° elbows forming a "U" to return water to the tank.
I am flowing 1019 gph through the UV according to apex flow meter. The UV calls for between 943 - 1574 gph to deal with algae, bacteria and dinos.
I use a Tunze 6105 on full blast to blow the rocks, sand and all surfaces. I put the pump right up to the rocks and make the biggest mess I can getting everything in the water column so it can go through the UV.

I have 4 Marineland Magnum polishing internal filters. Each rated for up to 97 gal tank / 290 gph. These filters will run Diatomaceous earth powder to mechanically filter dinos out.


Immediately after the 3 day blackout...
Deploy Diatom filters while continuing to aggressively blow off rocks and aggressively disturb sand bed with continued use of UV.
If not using Diatom filter, simply continue to aggressively blow off rocks and aggressively disturb sand bed with
continued use of UV.
Do this for 3 days using normal light schedule.

After the 3 day period
Start Dr. Tim's Dino treatment which consists of another 3 day blackout while using Dr. Tim's Refresh then using Dr. Tim's waste Away. FOLLOW DIRECTIONS and complete the entire regiment.

Once complete with Dr. Tim's dino regiment...
Do the whole thing over again just to make sure you have knocked them OUT!


This is what I was dealing with and what I defeated.

This stuff was EVERYWHERE and was killing corals. It was much worse than what you see in these pics.

Now the tank looks like this...

A few months later...

The UV is still in operation and still getting the correct flow but there was no way to plumb it the way I would have liked so I ended up with this.

It's still effective but not nearly as effective as having the closed loop from display to display.

I am happy to report that I am STILL Dino FREE!!!!

Just so you know, this is not my 1st fight with dinos. Last battle I had was a 5 year battle on my old 110 gallon reef. DInos won.

The war I lost...
I raised nitrates and phosphates. (No good)
I used UV but did not know I was using it improperly. (No good)
Blackouts (knock them back but not good enough on its own)
Vibrant dosing. (No good)
MB7 dosing. (No good)
Peroxide dosing. (No good)
Sea cucumbers. (No good)
Stupidly high flow. (No good)
Leaving sand alone. (No good)
Surface siphoning sandbed. (No good)
Deep disturbing sandbed with heavy mechanical filtration using 5 micron socks changed every day. (Better but no good)
Feeding tank. (No good)
Starving tank. (No good)
Increase pods. (No good)
Beefed up fuge chaeto. (No good)
Decrease light intensity. (No good)
Increase light intensity. (No good)
Change light fixtures. (No good)
Sacred Indian dino dance. (No good)
9mm. (No good)
.45 ACP. (No good)
12ga. (No good)
Photon torpedo straight from the Starship Enterprise. (No good)

Check out my build thread for more detail on the fight against dinos.

Good luck in YOUR fight against these prehistoric monsters!

 

[nick9one1]

I wanted to chime in.
It's been quite a while since i've posted anything in this thread.

I BEAT DINOS!!!

It was not especially hard to do but I did need the right equipment and a multi pronged approach.

3 day blackouts
Diatomaceous earth filter (optional but recommended)
Dr Tim's Dino recipe (Dr Tim's Dr Tim's Refresh / Dr. Tim's Waste Away)
Dr Tim's waste away gel (Optional but recommended)

The regiment looks like this:

3 day blackout with U.V. (while aggressively blowing off rock and aggressively turning and disturbing the sandbed)
•
Employ Diatom Filters (Optional)
.
Beneficial bacteria dosing
•
3 day blackout with Dr Tim's Refresh (No UV)
•
Dr Tim's Waste Away liquid (No UV)
•
Dr Tim's Waste Away Gel
•
Redeployment of U.V.

1st thing was a PROPERLY SIZED, PROPERLY PLUMBED UV Sterilizer with the CORRECT flow.
I can not stress this enough.
You absolutely NEED to have all 3 of the requirements for a UV Sterilizer met in order for it to work.
I have a 180 gallon display and I use a Pentair aquatics smart UV 40w. UV Sterilizer. I use a Jeabo DCP 15000 pump to run it with 1 inch plumbing. Anything smaller WILL NOT WORK because you will NOT get the needed flow through the UV.
Here is the flow chart...

Put the pump IN THE DISPLAY on the sand bed or no more than 1 inch above the sand bed. Have the UV in a closed loop within the display both pulling from the display and dumping treated water back to the display.
It should look something like this. (Don't mind the mess. Pay attention to the set up of the UV)

3 day total blackout while using UV.
I have the feed pump in the tank and the return in the tank creating a closed loop. Pump is a Jeabo DCP15000. Pump is about a 1/2 inch above the sandbed. PVC pipe goes from pump to top of tank (about 25 inches) through 2 90° elbows forming a "U" and down about 6ft. to the UV.
The UV is laying horizontally on the floor in front of the tank. Water goes through the UV then back up about 6ft of PVC pipe then through 2 90° elbows forming a "U" to return water to the tank.
I am flowing 1019 gph through the UV according to apex flow meter. The UV calls for between 943 - 1574 gph to deal with algae, bacteria and dinos.
I use a Tunze 6105 on full blast to blow the rocks, sand and all surfaces. I put the pump right up to the rocks and make the biggest mess I can getting everything in the water column so it can go through the UV.

I have 4 Marineland Magnum polishing internal filters. Each rated for up to 97 gal tank / 290 gph. These filters will run Diatomaceous earth powder to mechanically filter dinos out.


Immediately after the 3 day blackout...
Deploy Diatom filters while continuing to aggressively blow off rocks and aggressively disturb sand bed with continued use of UV.
If not using Diatom filter, simply continue to aggressively blow off rocks and aggressively disturb sand bed with
continued use of UV.
Do this for 3 days using normal light schedule.

After the 3 day period
Start Dr. Tim's Dino treatment which consists of another 3 day blackout while using Dr. Tim's Refresh then using Dr. Tim's waste Away. FOLLOW DIRECTIONS and complete the entire regiment.

Once complete with Dr. Tim's dino regiment...
Do the whole thing over again just to make sure you have knocked them OUT!


This is what I was dealing with and what I defeated.

This stuff was EVERYWHERE and was killing corals. It was much worse than what you see in these pics.

Now the tank looks like this...

A few months later...

The UV is still in operation and still getting the correct flow but there was no way to plumb it the way I would have liked so I ended up with this.

It's still effective but not nearly as effective as having the closed loop from display to display.

I am happy to report that I am STILL Dino FREE!!!!

Just so you know, this is not my 1st fight with dinos. Last battle I had was a 5 year battle on my old 110 gallon reef. DInos won.

The war I lost...
I raised nitrates and phosphates. (No good)
I used UV but did not know I was using it improperly. (No good)
Blackouts (knock them back but not good enough on its own)
Vibrant dosing. (No good)
MB7 dosing. (No good)
Peroxide dosing. (No good)
Sea cucumbers. (No good)
Stupidly high flow. (No good)
Leaving sand alone. (No good)
Surface siphoning sandbed. (No good)
Deep disturbing sandbed with heavy mechanical filtration using 5 micron socks changed every day. (Better but no good)
Feeding tank. (No good)
Starving tank. (No good)
Increase pods. (No good)
Beefed up fuge chaeto. (No good)
Decrease light intensity. (No good)
Increase light intensity. (No good)
Change light fixtures. (No good)
Sacred Indian dino dance. (No good)
9mm. (No good)
.45 ACP. (No good)
12ga. (No good)
Photon torpedo straight from the Starship Enterprise. (No good)

Check out my build thread for more detail on the fight against dinos.

Good luck in YOUR fight against these prehistoric monsters!

Good job!
What type of dinos were they?

 

[Dj City]

Good job!
What type of dinos were they?

Amphidinium
I hope my descriptions were detailed enough and I hope others have the success I've had.

 

[BrianReefer]

Amphidinium
I hope my descriptions were detailed enough and I hope others have the success I've had.

Did you try silica dosing or no?

 

[Dj City]

Did you try silica dosing or no?

I did and it did NOT work.

 

[Dj City]

People have tried to balance out their tank by introducing other things like diatoms or other pest algae. The problem is, once your tank has dinos, That is your new balance.

You HAVE to get dinos under control first in order to achieve the balance you are looking for.
Adding silicate will not get you where you are trying to go.
You wind up having additional problems to deal with and fight while still trying to fight the dinos. You end up knocking your tank Further out of balance.

 

[thedon986]

I recently transferred over from my nano to a 70 gallon and my dinos are back, or apparently had never left. In the nano I ended up siphoning out the sand and that kept them at bay at least.

Was hoping 5 months without sand and pumping bacteria and nutrients would have killed them off but they popped right back up after the transfer about two weeks ago. I am determined to keep my sand for this tank so will be looking into @Dj City UV and Dr Tim’s strategy. My phosphates were bottomed out and nitrates about 2-3 so not surprised they popped back up so fast.

 

[nick9one1]

I wanted to chime in.
It's been quite a while since i've posted anything in this thread.

I BEAT DINOS!!!

It was not especially hard to do but I did need the right equipment and a multi pronged approach.

3 day blackouts
Diatomaceous earth filter (optional but recommended)
Dr Tim's Dino recipe (Dr Tim's Dr Tim's Refresh / Dr. Tim's Waste Away)
Dr Tim's waste away gel (Optional but recommended)

The regiment looks like this:

3 day blackout with U.V. (while aggressively blowing off rock and aggressively turning and disturbing the sandbed)
•
Employ Diatom Filters (Optional)
.
Beneficial bacteria dosing
•
3 day blackout with Dr Tim's Refresh (No UV)
•
Dr Tim's Waste Away liquid (No UV)
•
Dr Tim's Waste Away Gel
•
Redeployment of U.V.

1st thing was a PROPERLY SIZED, PROPERLY PLUMBED UV Sterilizer with the CORRECT flow.
I can not stress this enough.
You absolutely NEED to have all 3 of the requirements for a UV Sterilizer met in order for it to work.
I have a 180 gallon display and I use a Pentair aquatics smart UV 40w. UV Sterilizer. I use a Jeabo DCP 15000 pump to run it with 1 inch plumbing. Anything smaller than 1 inch plumbing WILL NOT WORK because you will NOT get the needed flow through the UV.
Here is the flow chart...

Put the pump IN THE DISPLAY on the sand bed or no more than 1 inch above the sand bed. Have the UV in a closed loop within the display both pulling from the display and dumping treated water back to the display.
It should look something like this. (Don't mind the mess. Pay attention to the set up of the UV)

3 day total blackout while using UV.
I have the feed pump in the tank and the return in the tank creating a closed loop. Pump is a Jeabo DCP15000. Pump is about a 1/2 inch above the sandbed. PVC pipe goes from pump to top of tank (about 25 inches) through 2 90° elbows forming a "U" and down about 6ft. to the UV.
The UV is laying horizontally on the floor in front of the tank. Water goes through the UV then back up about 6ft of PVC pipe then through 2 90° elbows forming a "U" to return water to the tank.
I am flowing 1019 gph through the UV according to apex flow meter. The UV calls for between 943 - 1574 gph to deal with algae, bacteria and dinos.
I use a Tunze 6105 on full blast to blow the rocks, sand and all surfaces. I put the pump right up to the rocks and make the biggest mess I can getting everything in the water column so it can go through the UV.

I have 4 Marineland Magnum polishing internal filters. Each rated for up to 97 gal tank / 290 gph. These filters will run Diatomaceous earth powder to mechanically filter dinos out.


Immediately after the 3 day blackout...
Deploy Diatom filters while continuing to aggressively blow off rocks and aggressively disturb sand bed with continued use of UV.
If not using Diatom filter, simply continue to aggressively blow off rocks and aggressively disturb sand bed with
continued use of UV.
Do this for 3 days using normal light schedule.

After the 3 day period
Start Dr. Tim's Dino treatment which consists of another 3 day blackout while using Dr. Tim's Refresh then using Dr. Tim's waste Away. FOLLOW DIRECTIONS and complete the entire regiment.

Once complete with Dr. Tim's dino regiment...
Do the whole thing over again just to make sure you have knocked them OUT!


This is what I was dealing with and what I defeated.

This stuff was EVERYWHERE and was killing corals. It was much worse than what you see in these pics.

Now the tank looks like this...

A few months later...

The UV is still in operation and still getting the correct flow but there was no way to plumb it the way I would have liked so I ended up with this.

It's still effective but not nearly as effective as having the closed loop from display to display.

I am happy to report that I am STILL Dino FREE!!!!

Just so you know, this is not my 1st fight with dinos. Last battle I had was a 5 year battle on my old 110 gallon reef. DInos won.

The war I lost...
I raised nitrates and phosphates. (No good)
I used UV but did not know I was using it improperly. (No good)
Blackouts (knock them back but not good enough on its own)
Vibrant dosing. (No good)
MB7 dosing. (No good)
Peroxide dosing. (No good)
Sea cucumbers. (No good)
Stupidly high flow. (No good)
Leaving sand alone. (No good)
Surface siphoning sandbed. (No good)
Deep disturbing sandbed with heavy mechanical filtration using 5 micron socks changed every day. (Better but no good)
Feeding tank. (No good)
Starving tank. (No good)
Increase pods. (No good)
Beefed up fuge chaeto. (No good)
Decrease light intensity. (No good)
Increase light intensity. (No good)
Change light fixtures. (No good)
Sacred Indian dino dance. (No good)
9mm. (No good)
.45 ACP. (No good)
12ga. (No good)
Photon torpedo straight from the Starship Enterprise. (No good)

Check out my build thread for more detail on the fight against dinos.

Good luck in YOUR fight against these prehistoric monsters!

Thank you for this very detailed post

I'm in the middle of a very similar regime by elegant corals (Cruz Arias).

It's going very well and after a week I have no Dino's on my sand at all.
I tried the same thing a year ago, but within a couple of weeks of ending the treatment they started coming back. So this time I'm going to do it twice (as you suggested).

The main difference I see is Cruz recommends placing an air stone near the return pump to flood the tank with fresh air. The aerobic bacteria (waste away) can deplete the tank of oxygen quite quickly, if they die they become dino food.

 

[Thrassian Atoll]

Update on mine. Doing nothing different completely got rid of my Large Cell Dino’s. Tank has been great.

 

[ReefPig]

Update on mine:

I wouldn’t use DinoX ever again, not only did it not resolve my issue, and whilst it didn’t kill any of my corals, they’ve all completely browned out, most are showing minimal polyp extension, even after a metric tonne of carbon and multiple water changes, but it also killed off all of my sponge population (which I had a lot of).
The dead sponges have release vast quantities of silicates into my tank.

And I still have dinos...

 

[attiland]

I have a question for those had success with Si dosing against large cell Amphidinium. I have achieved in a week a complete diatom bloom.
Should I stop dosing or should I just go slow on the dosing?
How long should I keep the bloom going?
How long did it take for you from this point the Dinos to go?

For entertainment here are some pics of what is bad looking sand. I have stopped siphon the sand 2 weeks ago a d now the diatoms making it look bad but it is now it is more of a rusty colour rather than red and the bubbles significantly reduced. I she’ll mention that the pics taken 2hours prior lights off. Even with this it is noticeable that the Zoas and hammer loves the treatment

 

[thedon986]

Should I stop dosing or should I just go slow on the dosing?
How long should I keep the bloom going?
How long did it take for you from this point the Dinos to go?

I think you have to keep up the dosing while the dinos are receding and have been gone for quite some time. Maybe you can back the dosing down a tad but a microscope is your friend for taking a peek at ratio of dinos to diatoms in samples. Also make sure to keep your nutrients high (nitrate >3ppm and phosphate >.05pmm) which will help to keep them from coming back. I think the consensus is that it doesn't really hurt to keep dosing and you can keep doing it until you are confident the dinos won't return.

 

[attiland]

I think you have to keep up the dosing while the dinos are receding and have been gone for quite some time. Maybe you can back the dosing down a tad but a microscope is your friend for taking a peek at ratio of dinos to diatoms in samples. Also make sure to keep your nutrients high (nitrate >3ppm and phosphate >.05pmm) which will help to keep them from coming back. I think the consensus is that it doesn't really hurt to keep dosing and you can keep doing it until you are confident the dinos won't return.

My Phosphate and nitrate are quite high some would say crazy high. Actually dropped quite a bit due to the diatoms. Microscope is in daily use and currently the glass now pure diatoms and the sand today is in patches I would say 50/50 diatoms and dinos. I will keep it up.

 

[thedon986]

My Phosphate and nitrate are quite high some would say crazy high. Actually dropped quite a bit due to the diatoms. Microscope is in daily use and currently the glass now pure diatoms and the sand today is in patches I would say 50/50 diatoms and dinos. I will keep it up.

For sure keep it up. When the silica source is gone the diatoms will be too giving room for the dinos to re-surge. Keep it up until they have been totally crushed. I let up on my last treatment and they came back in the new tank I just transferred to. Except now my problem is in a 70 gallon tank and not a 12. Wishing I would have crushed them before moving over.