Dinoflagellates- DinoX, MetroPlex, Vibrant- no help

[mtnrunner]

Yes I'm running a fine filter sock.

 

[mtnrunner]

So does lights out help to eventually get rid of the dinos?

Do I continue the treatments outlined earlier for the maximum amount of time recommend for each?

Should I also start using hydrogen peroxide again? I thought it was negatively impacting my mushrooms but have read it is safe.

Thanks

 

[mtnrunner]

I'm losing nearly all my SPS now - STN. Dinoflagellates are back after 2nd lights out. I've gone from great growing SPS to nearly losing everything and I don't have any idea what triggered it all.

.

 

[Neil Fox]

I'm not sure these are Dino's. Personal experience tells me that lights out can also kill corals. SPS don't like it one bit. I has something like this once and blacked out the tank for three days, I went on a reduced lighting schedule and lost a bunch of frags. I eventually moves as many as I could and sort of let it run it's course with heavy water changes and lights about 4 hours a day. My Stylaster Birdsnest was particularly hard hit because this stuff gets caught up on all the pointy bits. That being said, H2O2 was no help and neither was Vibrant. I did dip the corals in Coral RX to try to swish off the "algae" that was growing on them. That helped but it was a real pain. What you have looks identical to what I had including the bubbles. I also stopped all additives except 2 part, I had been dosing AA and Iodide on occasion.

 

[Beardo]

Sorry to hear about your problems.
I fought dinos for a long time and like you lost almost all my sps, which coincided with my use of metro. What has finally been working for me was raising my pH to 8.75 for 4 weeks using a kalk slurry dosed with a dosing pump controlled by Apex to keep pH elevated but not allowing it to go above 8.80. I combined that with dosing peroxide starting at 1 ml per 10 gallons of water volume twice a day and slowly working up to 3 ml per 10 gallons. Peroxide alone never really did much for me in previous applications so I attribute most of the success to the elevated pH. Adding that much kalk slurry caused alot of precipitation and I had to clean pumps ever week or so but worth it to me for the results.

 

[birdman1979]

What did all that Kali do to your alkalinity?

I have read that water changes might fuel Dino's. Same with carbon sources and aminos.

Bubble scrubbing will force them to the water surface where they can be skimmed out.

 

[gig 'em]

I had a dino outbreak in my tank recently and have successfully eradicated it. What I did is I aggressively kept my nutrients low by replacing GFO every week and replacing carbon every other week. I also performed 10-20% water changes and siphoned out the dinos from where ever I could find them in my tank. I kept this up for a couple weeks until the dinos were hardly visible and now I am maintaining my low nutrient regiment with GFO and carbon until I feel the corals have rebounded and can out compete the dinos for nutrients.

 

[Beardo]

What did all that Kali do to your alkalinity?

I did not see much change in alkalinity from the heavy kalk addition due to the precipitation that was occurring. At the end, my alkalinity was 0.5dkH lower than where I started.

 

[twilliard]

Oh man sorry to see this. These guys can overcome a tank quickly. They have a multiplication rate higher than anything I have ever worked with.
bleach, and no I am not kidding before there is a 100% loss.

 

[ihavecrabs]

I had the same looking stuff recently. I dosed Vibrant 2-3x normal dosage for a week and performed a blackout for 3 full 24 hours periods. After that it was gone. I stopped dosing vibrant and my corals were not happy. I started dosing nitrates and my corals have returned to full color and there has been no sign of the dinos. Took a few weeks to see improvement in the coral.

Although this was definitely not done scientifically and I did not confirm with a microscope.

 

[acropora4u]

240 gallon cube cycled with dry rock , ro/di saltwater, marine bio cube slab , carbon and gfo reactors always running and had media changed every 2 weeks , water changed @ 25 gallons every 2 weeks, limited fish load etc. went thru all the Algea cycles and never really got coralline Algea growth and corals barely grew! I got Dino blooms the last month and totally was ready to give up on reef. Then I decided to black out tank for 3 days and start to dose VIBRANT and let me tell you it has been a month since I did this blackout/vibrant and the tank looks awesome. I have zero Dino or other Algeas, coralline is now growing like mad and corals are really growing and thriving. It's amazing !!! I'll try and post pics sometime. Dean

 

[twilliard]

Do not mistaken dinoflagellates for chrysophytes. In a lot of cases they look the same.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Does anyone know where these comes from primarily? I am using all dry rock and my own frag plugs so hoping to avoid them outright.

Is live rock and frag plugs the culprit? If you have this pest where do you suspect it came from in your particular systems?

 

[tigé21v]

Oh man sorry to see this. These guys can overcome a tank quickly. They have a multiplication rate higher than anything I have ever worked with.
bleach, and no I am not kidding before there is a 100% loss.

Can you elaborate, or point us to the pertinent thread?

 

[Neil Fox]

Does anyone know where these comes from primarily? I am using all dry rock and my own frag plugs so hoping to avoid them outright.

Is live rock and frag plugs the culprit? If you have this pest where do you suspect it came from in your particular systems?

Quite the contrary in my opinion. Just like bread left in bag will eventually get mouldy, protists find a way. Mr. Williard is local to me, I would really like to sit down with him. He has researched this for a long time. Whilst not in my field of expertise, I have access to some really cool instrumentation, gene sequencers and scanning electron microscopes.

 

[eggie]

My recomendation for this type of problem is lowering nitrates and phosfates, doing weekly water changes just 5-10%, dosing bacterias helps, have very good water movment in tank (power heads), get some herbivore fish Tangs do great job plus a good cleaning crew. Dont over feed or dose anything else until the problem is solved. Fish dont die if they dont eat one day. Rinse frozen food, Change filter socks 2 times a week clean skimmer and skim wet.

 

[sporeefer]

I had a dino outbreak in my tank recently and have successfully eradicated it. What I did is I aggressively kept my nutrients low by replacing GFO every week and replacing carbon every other week. I also performed 10-20% water changes and siphoned out the dinos from where ever I could find them in my tank. I kept this up for a couple weeks until the dinos were hardly visible and now I am maintaining my low nutrient regiment with GFO and carbon until I feel the corals have rebounded and can out compete the dinos for nutrients.

this is the most frustrating thing about the hobby for me right now- 100% conflicting advice from every angle! Most other threads about dinos point to low phos and low nitrates as a CAUSE of the outbreak.

 

[ruppertb]

I had Dino in my tank for what seemed like forever. Probably 9 months plus. It really started a month or so down the road of starting the tank. I was lucky to not have much for coral and could move it to a small nano. I’m not sure what got rid of it because I tried many things. But at one point in time I had my ph elevated as well as my magnesium elevated. Added h2o2 and had tank wrapped in black plastic drop cloth. Sucked out as much as I could as often as I could and it just seemed to disappear shortly after

 

[DesertReefT4r]

I am fighting dino right now and its been a several month fight. I also lost 90% of my sps during the battle. I tried bacteria dosing, 2 3 day blackouts, manual removal, more water changes, less water changes, reduced lighting, increased feeded, increased no3 and po4, and DinoX. For me DinoX has worked really well at greatly reducing the dinos but has not yet eliminated them, on dose 11 currently. Dosing has also coincided in the death of some of the sps but not all and they were already stressed and weaked. Low no3 and po4 is the common cause for a dino outbreak as was the case for me. I have increased no3 to 10-15 ppm and po4 to 0.10-0.15 to help promote green algaes and outcomplete the dinos. I am also attempting to increase micro fauna and bio diversity by adding reef stew a mix of live pods, brine shrimp baby and adult and phytoplankton along with bacterial dosing. This all seem to be helping to shift the balance of the tank. Pics for proof of results.