Fighting Dinos

[pham515]

Hey all first post! so I’ve recently had an explosion of Dino’s in my tank. It’s a fairly newer tank that’s been running about 4 months. I am currently doing the “blackout” phase and am on day 2. However this morning I noticed the water was getting really cloudy. My question is do I do a water change? Do I leave it? I hate to sound like a newbie but just figured I’d ask here before making any other decisions. TIA

 

[BryanM]

This is a good place to start:

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/a-dinoflagellate-treatment-guide.841/
This guide says to avoid water changes unless it is an emergency.

A big part of treating dinos is actually identifying which kind you have.

 

[Lavey29]

Blackout does nothing to solve the problem. It's a temporary bandaid fix that's it. You need a cheap microscope to ID dinos and post complete tank parameters along with tank pics under white light. Some dinos are toxic so cloudy water is a concern to. You may want to add airstone temporarily.

 

[Brian W]

I've had Dinos a few times so far. What I've learned is I needed to dose nitrate and phosphate daily and test daily to keep both elevated.

Once I can constantly keep them elevated the dinos will slowly fade away and green algae will grow and out compete the dinos. Your tank will look horrible but you will not have dinos.

I've struggled with dinos for 2 years straight once due to low nutrients. Once I figured out I needed to stay on top of my nutrients it was easier to beat dinos. I still constantly struggle with keeping nutrients elevated but I make sure to regularly dose nitrates and phosphates as well as feed heavily. As long as I see some algae grow on my over flow I know I'm good.