Dinoflagellate on new(ish) tank

[EBNewbie]

Hi all,
I had to go to Japan for one month and automated my 40G breeder+sump. Everything went well but what I thought was diatoms ended up being Dinoflagellates! Since this tank has 2 clowns, 2 snails, and 3 hermits, I'm wondering if there's an easy way to eradicate this? I have a cycled QT tank where I can move the 2 clowns and scrub the shells of the inverts. I think the root cause of the outbreak is too much feeding as I had 2 Eheim feeders set to the smallest opening but that ended up being too much.

A bit about my setup:
40G breeder
29G sump
Skimmer
GFO+Carbon mini reactor (BRS)

Parameters:
Ammonia,Nitrites 0
Nitrates near 0
Phosphates near 0

 

[ScottR]

Hi all,
I had to go to Japan for one month and automated my 40G breeder+sump. Everything went well but what I thought was diatoms ended up being Dinoflagellates! Since this tank has 2 clowns, 2 snails, and 3 hermits, I'm wondering if there's an easy way to eradicate this? I have a cycled QT tank where I can move the 2 clowns and scrub the shells of the inverts. I think the root cause of the outbreak is too much feeding as I had 2 Eheim feeders set to the smallest opening but that ended up being too much.

A bit about my setup:
40G breeder
29G sump
Skimmer
GFO+Carbon mini reactor (BRS)

Parameters:
Ammonia,Nitrites 0
Nitrates near 0
Phosphates near 0

Oddly, dinos prefer clean tanks. I think the main reason is: their competition and predators start to die off with not enough to eat and dinos only need light to grow.

 

[EBNewbie]

I saw the advice to let nitrate and phosphate accumulate a bit, and remove the GFO. I can leave my light off since I don't have corals.

 

[ScottR]

I saw the advice to let nitrate and phosphate accumulate a bit, and remove the GFO. I can leave my light off since I don't have corals.

There’s a lot of advice from ppl on here about dinos. Not having corals is a huge plus. I’d also stop GFO for the time being.

 

[EBNewbie]

Thanks, I'll keep the lights off starting now, remove the GFO this weekend and change the carbon. I was wondering if there was a more effective method like transferring the livestock to the QT and using peroxide.

 

[ScottR]

Thanks, I'll keep the lights off starting now, remove the GFO this weekend and change the carbon. I was wondering if there was a more effective method like transferring the livestock to the QT and using peroxide.

I’ve never had dinos. But I’d manually remove as much as possible and do a water change. Then try to get your fish back in as soon as possible - assuming parameters are in check. Manually feed fish to keep the nitrogen cycle in check and get the nutrients back in the water. You basically want the rest of your biome to grow back in naturally and squeeze out the dinos. I’ve read many stories on here about people with dinos. Some have no luck at all keeping them at bay.