I wanted to post this somewhere because of all the crappy info all over the web. I spent hundreds of dollars and over a year trying all of the methods I could find on the forums.
Diagnosis:
First of all the quick and easy way to figure out if you have Dino’s vs all the other pests out there is quite easy.
1. Remove some of the slimy looking algae from your tank into a small cup.
2. Use a paper towel as a filter, and pour the water through the paper towel into another cup.
3. Put the filtered water in a well lighted area (in the sun or under your tank lights would be optimal)
Check back in a few minutes, If the nuisance in question has regrouped as a stringy snot like substance... congrats you have Dinoflagellates.
So before I tell you what worked for me, here’s what did not work for me:
Hydrogen peroxide: Okay this was the most useless recommendation on the internet, it literally did nothing. I even dosed 2x the recommended dose, and nada.
Dino-X: This stuff really worked, i paired it with a 72 hour black out and it killed all of the Dino’s (woo!). It also made the Dino’s release its toxins that killed about $500 of my SPS, and fish (RIP Mandarin Goby & Potters angel). A week later the Dino’s were back and any coral that didn’t die became severely discolored. My dragon soul torches looked like something you would find in the $20 bargain bin at your LFS. Don’t use this crap.
Manual removal: This method is nothing more than a bandaid.. if your tank parameters are still accommodative to Dino’s, they’ll grow back. At one point I went as far as removing all of my sand (the only place they grow in my tank), and soaking the sand in hydrogen peroxide for 24 hours. They came back a week later...
UV sterilizer: So I have mixed feelings on this one. It’s certainly not the absolute answer or a quick fix, but it helped keep the Dino’s at bay, and it keeps the water CRYSTAL clear. The theory is that you can blast your rocks/ sand with a turkey Baster and it’ll put the Dino’s in the water column, they’ll be sucked into the sump and run through the UV. The issue is that If your tank parameters still support dinos, they’ll come back.
There’s some really nice ones out there that will run you several hundred dollars, and there’s crappy ones for $40 that do nothing. I ended up going with the Jebao 70w UV sterilizer for my 120G. It was like $80, and it definitely gets the job done and is probably the best option for the if you’re not looking to drop $300-500.
72 hour black out: this makes the Dino’s retreat for a day or so after the black out ends. Even with running the UV sterilizer, they come back within 24 hours and continue to grow in the subsequent days.
The “Go Dirty Method:” With this method you just do zero water changes and don’t clean the glass. The goal here is to raise tank nutrient levels and promote algae growth to compete with the dinos. While it is a good strategy, it did not work.
In fact, I feed frozen food everyday, and haven’t done a water change in over a year.. yet the Dino’s remain.
Where I went wrong:
Through all of my research, it was generally encouraged to turn down your light intensity because dinos don’t do well under pure blue lights. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING.
What worked:
After doing all of the methods listed above plus some I’m probably forgetting, I found the method that worked.
Background: I switched from a 40G to a 120G about 16 months ago. I never had issues with dinos in the 40G. I had a ton of very mature live rock (probably 3 years old) that I transferred directly into the 120G. However I didn’t have enough sand. So I just bought some non-live sand, and mixed it with my mature live sand. The sand from my previous tank was filled with crap you don’t want floating around in your tank.. so I rinsed it off with clean water to remove the detritus and other funky stuff that had built up over the years. BAD MOVE.. I also removed all the beneficial bacteria. This paved the way for the Dino infestation.
One day I was sitting in front of my tank, feeling defeated by the dinos. As I mentioned before, the dinos only grew on the sand bed. However I noticed they never grew on the rocks. That’s when it hit me:
What’s the difference between my sand & my rock? There’s coraline algae on the rock that doesn’t allow the Dino’s to grow on it! I need to grow algae on my sand!
How to grow algae 101:
Nutrients: one commonality between dino infested tanks are near zero phosphates and nitrates. You got to pump those numbers up son. Do you have some Chaeto in your sump? That ends today, take it out because we need to get your numbers up, not bring them down. Get yourself some liquid nitrates and liquid phosphate from your LFS. It’ll run you like $15. I’m not one of these scientific reefers that has a $800 dosing & parameter monitoring system.. I got some Hanna checkers, patience, and optimism. Every week or so I’d just pump in whatever the back of the bottle told me to do. You want to get it to the point where algae grows on the glass daily. Clean the glass today, and by tomorrow afternoon it should be back. That’s when you know you’re in the sweet spot. Another gauge is getting a fighting conch. If he spends most of the day wandering around the tank eating stuff off the top on the sand, you’re heading in the right direction. When I had no algae my conch spent weeks under the sand - this is no bueno. Once the algae is growing, stop dosing or else you’ll start growing hair algae which is a PITA that you don’t want to deal with.
Light: algae needs light, especially the white and red color spectrum. Pump up your white and reds. On my AI primes I run my whites between 15-25% during the day, and my reds at 7%.
Literally after over a year of fighting dinos, I beat them in 3 weeks with $15 worth of liquid nitrate and phosphate, a syringe, and my trusty fighting conch side kick. I feel liberated and free. My sand is white, and the tank is once again at peace.
Diagnosis:
First of all the quick and easy way to figure out if you have Dino’s vs all the other pests out there is quite easy.
1. Remove some of the slimy looking algae from your tank into a small cup.
2. Use a paper towel as a filter, and pour the water through the paper towel into another cup.
3. Put the filtered water in a well lighted area (in the sun or under your tank lights would be optimal)
Check back in a few minutes, If the nuisance in question has regrouped as a stringy snot like substance... congrats you have Dinoflagellates.
So before I tell you what worked for me, here’s what did not work for me:
Hydrogen peroxide: Okay this was the most useless recommendation on the internet, it literally did nothing. I even dosed 2x the recommended dose, and nada.
Dino-X: This stuff really worked, i paired it with a 72 hour black out and it killed all of the Dino’s (woo!). It also made the Dino’s release its toxins that killed about $500 of my SPS, and fish (RIP Mandarin Goby & Potters angel). A week later the Dino’s were back and any coral that didn’t die became severely discolored. My dragon soul torches looked like something you would find in the $20 bargain bin at your LFS. Don’t use this crap.
Manual removal: This method is nothing more than a bandaid.. if your tank parameters are still accommodative to Dino’s, they’ll grow back. At one point I went as far as removing all of my sand (the only place they grow in my tank), and soaking the sand in hydrogen peroxide for 24 hours. They came back a week later...
UV sterilizer: So I have mixed feelings on this one. It’s certainly not the absolute answer or a quick fix, but it helped keep the Dino’s at bay, and it keeps the water CRYSTAL clear. The theory is that you can blast your rocks/ sand with a turkey Baster and it’ll put the Dino’s in the water column, they’ll be sucked into the sump and run through the UV. The issue is that If your tank parameters still support dinos, they’ll come back.
There’s some really nice ones out there that will run you several hundred dollars, and there’s crappy ones for $40 that do nothing. I ended up going with the Jebao 70w UV sterilizer for my 120G. It was like $80, and it definitely gets the job done and is probably the best option for the if you’re not looking to drop $300-500.
72 hour black out: this makes the Dino’s retreat for a day or so after the black out ends. Even with running the UV sterilizer, they come back within 24 hours and continue to grow in the subsequent days.
The “Go Dirty Method:” With this method you just do zero water changes and don’t clean the glass. The goal here is to raise tank nutrient levels and promote algae growth to compete with the dinos. While it is a good strategy, it did not work.
In fact, I feed frozen food everyday, and haven’t done a water change in over a year.. yet the Dino’s remain.
Where I went wrong:
Through all of my research, it was generally encouraged to turn down your light intensity because dinos don’t do well under pure blue lights. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING.
What worked:
After doing all of the methods listed above plus some I’m probably forgetting, I found the method that worked.
Background: I switched from a 40G to a 120G about 16 months ago. I never had issues with dinos in the 40G. I had a ton of very mature live rock (probably 3 years old) that I transferred directly into the 120G. However I didn’t have enough sand. So I just bought some non-live sand, and mixed it with my mature live sand. The sand from my previous tank was filled with crap you don’t want floating around in your tank.. so I rinsed it off with clean water to remove the detritus and other funky stuff that had built up over the years. BAD MOVE.. I also removed all the beneficial bacteria. This paved the way for the Dino infestation.
One day I was sitting in front of my tank, feeling defeated by the dinos. As I mentioned before, the dinos only grew on the sand bed. However I noticed they never grew on the rocks. That’s when it hit me:
What’s the difference between my sand & my rock? There’s coraline algae on the rock that doesn’t allow the Dino’s to grow on it! I need to grow algae on my sand!
How to grow algae 101:
Nutrients: one commonality between dino infested tanks are near zero phosphates and nitrates. You got to pump those numbers up son. Do you have some Chaeto in your sump? That ends today, take it out because we need to get your numbers up, not bring them down. Get yourself some liquid nitrates and liquid phosphate from your LFS. It’ll run you like $15. I’m not one of these scientific reefers that has a $800 dosing & parameter monitoring system.. I got some Hanna checkers, patience, and optimism. Every week or so I’d just pump in whatever the back of the bottle told me to do. You want to get it to the point where algae grows on the glass daily. Clean the glass today, and by tomorrow afternoon it should be back. That’s when you know you’re in the sweet spot. Another gauge is getting a fighting conch. If he spends most of the day wandering around the tank eating stuff off the top on the sand, you’re heading in the right direction. When I had no algae my conch spent weeks under the sand - this is no bueno. Once the algae is growing, stop dosing or else you’ll start growing hair algae which is a PITA that you don’t want to deal with.
Light: algae needs light, especially the white and red color spectrum. Pump up your white and reds. On my AI primes I run my whites between 15-25% during the day, and my reds at 7%.
Literally after over a year of fighting dinos, I beat them in 3 weeks with $15 worth of liquid nitrate and phosphate, a syringe, and my trusty fighting conch side kick. I feel liberated and free. My sand is white, and the tank is once again at peace.
