Dinoflagellate Identification
- Thread starter Adam_B76
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epicfatigue
Active Member
head over to Mack's reef...Dinoflagellates support group!.
LeeLoo Lola
Valuable Member
Going to be perfectly honest. I was reading this thread and meant to complain to friends in a private message and posted on this thread by mistake. Lol. I have Covid for the first time and I think it’s messing with my head. I was frustrated, but know I need to do more whether or not I feel up to it at the moment. Totally embarrassing!
That said, I just ordered a microscope so I can do an ID. My nitrate and phosphate were low, but I got them higher as of last week. I’m going to recheck tonight. I’ve been reading Mac’s reef support group to get a game plan.
I’ve been reefing for 20 years, but this is my first tank that I’ve started without live rock or live sand and I’ve never experienced issues like this before.
jerrberryjerr
New Member
My humble advice to all, if you think you have dinoflagellates you probably do. Secondly, just go out and get yourself a UV sterilizer. Risk is zero and chances are that it will wipe out those filthy buggers in no time! Don’t waste a bunch of time trying to figure out what type you have. If UV doesn’t work at the very least you have a great tool on hand to have crystal clear water. God send tool!
epicfatigue
Active Member
UV only works on half. If you see it in the sand 80% chance UV will not do anything. And it could be as simple as dosing silicates.
Adam_B76
New Member
Thanks so much to those who responded to this post! I honestly forgot to post an update about my dinoflagellate outbreak because they were eradicated so quickly and I had bigger problems with flukes on my fish!
I’m not sure if I just got lucky but getting rid of the Dino’s were pretty easy and quick for me! I tried to identity them through a cheap microscope however after hours of adding the slime to my slides the Dino’s didn’t really swim or move for some reason. What’s important is I erased them from my tank and hopefully this information will help someone else with Dino problems. Here’s what I did…
No water changes, (my first water change was about a 3 days ago)
My nutrients were 0 so I stepped up my feeding from 2 to 3 or even 4 times a day (not sure if that actually mattered) but it’s what I did.
I started dosing NeoPhos and NeoNitro according to directions. One night I think I dosed a little too much because when I tested my nitrate and phosphorus levels were high!
Very soon hair algae and other green nuisance algae started to take over everything! Then here comes this dark maroon Cyanobacteria covering my substrate including covering all the Dino snot. Did the cyano kill the Dino? Idk 
but all the Dino disappeared within days.
Now to deal with the cyano! At this point I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore! I tried Dr Tim’s Waste Away and it did nothing for the cyano taking over my tank. I kinda wasn’t expecting it too though but someone suggested that I try it.
I went hardcore and got some Chemiclean (Don’t judge me!) lol. It worked great actually! I followed the instructions to a T though.
(I have a 40 breeder with no sump currently) After treatment I did a 15 gallon water change and added carbon back to one of my HOB filters. I have 2 Tidal 75’s
I thoroughly scrubbed algae off my rooks using a coarse toothbrush in a 5 gallon bucket of tank water,
It had been several days and there are no signs of Dino or cyano at all. Green nuisance algae is still very slowly growing but nothing crazy. My snails seem to be keeping it in check. That 15 gallon water change really helped lower the nutrients. Oh and I almost forgot say it’s no longer Thanksgiving dinner every day for my fish! It’s back to twice a day feedings. I’m even noticing some purple coralline starting to grow in areas for the first time ever! (no it’s not cyano either I checked!)
Now I’m in the process of treating flukes which were starting to get out of hand even before the Dino. I honestly didn’t know why my royal gramma and orchid dottyback were flashing so much since my other fish were unaffected and happy. It took me awhile to figure out what was wrong with them and what I should do about it. It’s been day 3 after using Prazipro and no more flashing so far. My fish still have a good appetite despite what I read. The first day of treatment they didn’t want to eat but after that they ate everything as before… actually even more so.
I wasn’t expecting this to be such a long reply but I wanted to share my experiences fully and hopefully this helps someone else. As I said before, maybe I just got lucky!
I’ll update later if the Prazipro worked or not. So far so good! For now fish stopped scratching completely! I’m going to do a 10 gallon water change this Friday or Saturday, run carbon for a few hours/remove it and do another full dose of Prazipro to kill any new larvae that might be hatching out. Time will tell! Thanks everyone for all your advice!
I’m not sure if I just got lucky but getting rid of the Dino’s were pretty easy and quick for me! I tried to identity them through a cheap microscope however after hours of adding the slime to my slides the Dino’s didn’t really swim or move for some reason. What’s important is I erased them from my tank and hopefully this information will help someone else with Dino problems. Here’s what I did…
No water changes, (my first water change was about a 3 days ago)
My nutrients were 0 so I stepped up my feeding from 2 to 3 or even 4 times a day (not sure if that actually mattered) but it’s what I did.
I started dosing NeoPhos and NeoNitro according to directions. One night I think I dosed a little too much because when I tested my nitrate and phosphorus levels were high!
Very soon hair algae and other green nuisance algae started to take over everything! Then here comes this dark maroon Cyanobacteria covering my substrate including covering all the Dino snot. Did the cyano kill the Dino? Idk
but all the Dino disappeared within days.Now to deal with the cyano! At this point I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore! I tried Dr Tim’s Waste Away and it did nothing for the cyano taking over my tank. I kinda wasn’t expecting it too though but someone suggested that I try it.
I went hardcore and got some Chemiclean (Don’t judge me!) lol. It worked great actually! I followed the instructions to a T though.
(I have a 40 breeder with no sump currently) After treatment I did a 15 gallon water change and added carbon back to one of my HOB filters. I have 2 Tidal 75’s
I thoroughly scrubbed algae off my rooks using a coarse toothbrush in a 5 gallon bucket of tank water,
It had been several days and there are no signs of Dino or cyano at all. Green nuisance algae is still very slowly growing but nothing crazy. My snails seem to be keeping it in check. That 15 gallon water change really helped lower the nutrients. Oh and I almost forgot say it’s no longer Thanksgiving dinner every day for my fish! It’s back to twice a day feedings. I’m even noticing some purple coralline starting to grow in areas for the first time ever! (no it’s not cyano either I checked!)
Now I’m in the process of treating flukes which were starting to get out of hand even before the Dino. I honestly didn’t know why my royal gramma and orchid dottyback were flashing so much since my other fish were unaffected and happy. It took me awhile to figure out what was wrong with them and what I should do about it. It’s been day 3 after using Prazipro and no more flashing so far. My fish still have a good appetite despite what I read. The first day of treatment they didn’t want to eat but after that they ate everything as before… actually even more so.
I wasn’t expecting this to be such a long reply but I wanted to share my experiences fully and hopefully this helps someone else. As I said before, maybe I just got lucky!
I’ll update later if the Prazipro worked or not. So far so good! For now fish stopped scratching completely! I’m going to do a 10 gallon water change this Friday or Saturday, run carbon for a few hours/remove it and do another full dose of Prazipro to kill any new larvae that might be hatching out. Time will tell! Thanks everyone for all your advice!
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