Dinoflagellates and vibrant

[Joebiwan3]

So ive got a pretty nasty dino outbreak in my 150 gal. They spread over the entire tank in less than 2 days from when i noticed them. I added vibrant this past monday at the reccomended dose and by thursday every acro i had has bleached white and died and my lps that were doing great ( torches, acans, favia etc.) All literally looked like they melted. Dinoflagellates are ok tho nothing really died back there . Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Im also running a 36W uv sterilizer 24/7.

 

[Roger D]

So ive got a pretty nasty dino outbreak in my 150 gal. They spread over the entire tank in less than 2 days from when i noticed them. I added vibrant this past monday at the reccomended dose and by thursday every acro i had has bleached white and died and my lps that were doing great ( torches, acans, favia etc.) All literally looked like they melted. Dinoflagellates are ok tho nothing really died back there . Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Im also running a 36W uv sterilizer 24/7.

 

[Roger D]

I'd use a black out of about 3 days. I too used vibrant and had trouble stabilizing the water after. Nitrites went crazy and had cyano after.

 

[Deep]

Do the dinos seem to be less in the mornings and become more during the day ? If yes, then the UV should work. I would also manually vaccum whatever you can into the sump via filter socks. Also dont carbon dose or feed corals or do any water changes till Dinos are gone. Best of luck,.

 

[Joebiwan3]

Its hard to tell if they are better in the mornings because there is so much of it. I did some manual cleaning with a toothbrush on the rocks and a turkey baster but they came back really fast. Im not feeding any corals or doing any dosing since almost every coral i have is dead now im assuming either from the dino die off from the vibrant or from the affevt it had on nitrates/ phosphates. My system was running with 0 phosphates and 4 ppm nitrates prior to the outbreak which ive heard is an environment dinos love. I started over feeding slightly and adding more reef rlids just to get a slight reading on the phosphates. This system has only been running since may of this year.

 

[Deep]

Its hard to tell if they are better in the mornings because there is so much of it. I did some manual cleaning with a toothbrush on the rocks and a turkey baster but they came back really fast. Im not feeding any corals or doing any dosing since almost every coral i have is dead now im assuming either from the dino die off from the vibrant or from the affevt it had on nitrates/ phosphates. My system was running with 0 phosphates and 4 ppm nitrates prior to the outbreak which ive heard is an environment dinos love. I started over feeding slightly and adding more reef rlids just to get a slight reading on the phosphates. This system has only been running since may of this year.

Do you have a picture ? I was battling Dinos and manual removal by siphoning into a low micron filter sock in the sump helped a lot. The UV helped too but just make sure the flow into the UV is right. If feeding heavy does not help you could try dosing nitrates and phospates. The idea is to encourage competing growth - could even be Cyano or GHA. They need to outcompete your Dinos.

 

[Joebiwan3]

I dont have a picture at the moment, im stuck in bed battling the covid unfrtunately. Ill get over to the tank at some point and take a few pics. Should i not dose the vibrant anymore? I also had microbacter 7 and microbacter clean but isnt that sort of the same thing?

 

[Deep]

I dont have a picture at the moment, im stuck in bed battling the covid unfrtunately. Ill get over to the tank at some point and take a few pics. Should i not dose the vibrant anymore? I also had microbacter 7 and microbacter clean but isnt that sort of the same thing?

I am sorry you have Covid. Hope you feel better soon. Yes I would stop dosing Vibrant - I am seeing many threads where people complain of die-offs. I think Vibrant is best suited for when you have issues like bubble algae. You can continue dosing Microbacter 7 - I dont see any issues with that, but then I dont think it helps the Dino situation much.

 

[diverpat]

I am dealing with dinos also and I’m just now getting to a good place with them. I used Vibrant and it didn’t touch them. It did bleach many of my SPS, some Are recovering, some died. I’ve used Vibrant in the past for bubble algae and never had an issue. It could be the added stress of the Dinos that took them out. I have a 57 gallon tank and bought a 24W UV sterilizer (Green Killing Machine). It has made a huge difference! I’m on day 18 with the UV and I feel like I’m on the other side of the outbreak. Now I’m battling green hair algae because the dinos knocked out my CUC.

 

[DrMMI]

I had a nasty outbreak of amphidium dinos. Tried everything from 3 day blackouts to dino x. Nothing worked until I ultimately raised my nutrients and introduced a bunch of established live rock covered in gha. Elegant corals dino method definitely put a big dent into them as well. I had to do it for 3 weeks in a row until about 95% of the dinos were gone.

 

[Willis19]

I had a nasty outbreak of amphidium dinos. Tried everything from 3 day blackouts to dino x. Nothing worked until I ultimately raised my nutrients and introduced a bunch of established live rock covered in gha. Elegant corals dino method definitely put a big dent into them as well. I had to do it for 3 weeks in a row until about 95% of the dinos were gone.

I used red X algae which is from the same brand as DINO X, did not work at all. Now, I'm using DINO X is working some days, some others inso come back during the light cycle. did you resolve the issue?

 

[Joebiwan3]

I used red X algae which is from the same brand as DINO X, did not work at all. Now, I'm using DINO X is working some days, some others inso come back during the light cycle. did you resolve

I used red X algae which is from the same brand as DINO X, did not work at all. Now, I'm using DINO X is working some days, some others inso come back during the light cycle. did you resolve the issue?

Hey wow i forgot about this thread. Thanks for your reply. To be honest with you they just recently maybe like a month or so ago rabdomly disappeared. My nitrates and phosphates bottomed out at 0 so i added a tiny amount of neophos and neonitro. I also stopped dosing everything and i kept my water changes very small and infrequent. I started to see other kinds of algae grow during this time but the dinos persisted. I did 10 gallon water changes on my 150 gal every other week and pysucally removed what i could of the dinos and the other algaes. I also dosed microbacter 7 and micribacter clean during this time. A couple weeks ago i tested my NO3 and my PO4 and my PO4 was within range i think it was 0.015 but my NO3 was at 40ppm. I then started slowly dosing red sea nopox at a lower than recommended dose and literally within 3 days the other algaes vanished and the dinos never came back. Everything is thriving and looking good and as of my last test my NO3 was around 12 and my PO 4 was about the same maybe a little less. .....i cut the nopox dose even more and am now dosing just like 5 ml a day. Everything looks great tho so im going to let it ride for a while and not disturb it. Tank is coming up on the 1 year old mark.

 

[Ghost25]

What I'm about to say is more informed speculation than scientific fact.

My understanding is that Vibrant is a bacterial blend, the bacteria consume the phosphate, nitrate, and dissolved organics in your water and convert it to bacterial biomass. Those bacteria are than easily removed by your skimmer. This is effective when dealing with some algae blooms because you are able to starve them.

Dino blooms typically occur when you have low dissolved nutrients and they are able to tolerate significantly lower dissolved nutrients than many other organisms. Your nutrients were probably very low to start and when you dosed Vibrant you lowered them even further. Corals do need dissolved nutrients and by reducing them to nearly zero you caused them to bleach while not affecting the dinos. Just my two cents.