I have almost completely eradicated dinoflagellates overnight.

[Velcro]

^ yep thats the same as what I have too. which is funny because maybe this kind isn't the invert killer everyone makes it out to be.
some say that's the tell tale sign is when your snails start dying. But I have seen my snails mow half my back glass clean in one sitting and be fine!

I'll have to give the UV a try. I have stopped doing water changes and that has definitely kept it at bay. Not much daily growth in Dinos anymore but not enough to say I see a decline just yet.
But I am also struggling to get my nitrates to raise above 0. I have been feeding heavily and still nothing (but I still have my skimmer running) The dino's have halted any growth in the fuge and the macro's are slowly dying.

I may try dosing some nitrate and phosphate before buying a UV unit. Is the 55w unit too big for my 30g cube? or is overkill what we are aiming for here!
I ask because I have a 75G that I will be upgrading to once I beat the battle with the dinos. However if they bloom back up in the new tank I'd like to still have an adequate unit.

Overkill seems to be the way to go haha. They are all so cheap that I think the only issue of oversizing MIGHT be heating your water up since the flow is so slow through it. Maybe an expert can chime in.

 

[h8edpurdie]

Well I'm sold. I've been looking at this unit for a while on Amazon and been debating on getting it. Well, debating no more. Thanks for the write up!

 

[StrangeDejavu]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you were, OP. Been fighting dinos for a year now. First time I set up my BioCube I got a dino bloom within 2 weeks, microscope ID'd as Amphidinium. I beat those then got another species few months later, same kind Pants could never ID (user here with phD in Dinoflagellates). That species just up and vanished overnight after unsuccessfully battling them for months. Now I've been fighting a third species for the last few months- Coolia sp. *Bangs head against wall* I've tried everything, my last blackout caused mass tissue recession in my Euphyillia and Trumpets but did nothing to the Coolia, which was a big blow to morale. Tried Vibrant, nada. Tried H2O2 and actually saw about a 60% reduction but they never went away completely.

I bought a SunSun 5W UV for my BioCube 29 after seeing this thread so i'm crossing my fingers. This species is benthic but it let's go and floats in the water column at night much like Ostreopsis ovata. If UV alone doesn't fix it then I plan on blacking out the tank and hitting it with H2O2 while the UV is doing it's job. Burn dinos, burn!

 

[Velcro]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you were, OP. Been fighting dinos for a year now. First time I set up my BioCube I got a dino bloom within 2 weeks, microscope ID'd as Amphidinium. I beat those then got another species few months later, same kind Pants could never ID (user here with phD in Dinoflagellates). That species just up and vanished overnight after unsuccessfully battling them for months. Now I've been fighting a third species for the last few months- Coolia sp. *Bangs head against wall* I've tried everything, my last blackout caused mass tissue recession in my Euphyillia and Trumpets but did nothing to the Coolia, which was a big blow to morale. Tried Vibrant, nada. Tried H2O2 and actually saw about a 60% reduction but they never went away completely.

I bought a SunSun 5W UV for my BioCube 29 after seeing this thread so i'm crossing my fingers. This species is benthic but it let's go and floats in the water column at night much like Ostreopsis ovata. If UV alone doesn't fix it then I plan on blacking out the tank and hitting it with H2O2 while the UV is doing it's job. Burn dinos, burn!

Good luck. I would recommend a more powerful UV if this one doesn't work though. I'd also highly recommend trying to stir things up as much as possible to get them in the column though I'm not sure how much it will have with a benthic species.

 

[StrangeDejavu]

Good luck. I would recommend a more powerful UV if this one doesn't work though. I'd also highly recommend trying to stir things up as much as possible to get them in the column though I'm not sure how much it will have with a benthic species.

Unfortunately this is about as big as I can get. This unit almost goes from the water surface to the sand and is about 4 inches deep and wide. When I took the bags off after the blackout, my tank looked like a snow globe, only it was thousands of brown specks floating around everywhere. I'm hoping I can force that again and get them to go through the UV. Fingers crossed.

 

[revhtree]

Nice thread!

 

[Velcro]

Unfortunately this is about as big as I can get. This unit almost goes from the water surface to the sand and is about 4 inches deep and wide. When I took the bags off after the blackout, my tank looked like a snow globe, only it was thousands of brown specks floating around everywhere. I'm hoping I can force that again and get them to go through the UV. Fingers crossed.

Oh, it's submersible?

 

[StrangeDejavu]

Oh, it's submersible?

It is, it's basically a 130 GPH pump that pulls water in, passes it over the UV and sends it out the top. There really aren't many choices for this size tank so I'm working with the best I got, really hoping it'll do the trick.

 

[prsnlty]

I have a free connection on my manifold, can i use this rather than adding a pump? And what are the dimensions of the uv?

 

[Velcro]

I have a free connection on my manifold, can i use this rather than adding a pump? And what are the dimensions of the uv?

I don't see why not assuming there is a minimal benefit from drawing from display vs sump. My uv is 23"x5.5". The ends are 5.5" where the plumbing connections are, but the cylinder in between the ends is about 3.25".

 

[d2mini]

Love it.
Now where's all the naysayers that poo-poo on UV sterilizer threads?
I've been running an AquaUV Classic 25w ever since my restart. It's on my return line and all water flows through it. 550 gph.

 

[Velcro]

Love it.
Now where's all the naysayers that poo-poo on UV sterilizer threads?
I've been running an AquaUV Classic 25w ever since my restart. It's on my return line and all water flows through it. 550 gph.

I'm a UV believer for life now LOL. I'll probably upgrade to a legit unit with a wiper.

 

[Carl Eckelman]

I posted this in the other dino thread, but wanted to get this info out to more people.

My Dino's came back after I started doing water changes again (20% weekly). This was about a month ago.

I took a relatively hands off approach by just dosing some phosphates to keep them around 0.1ppm and continuing to feed heavy to maintain my 5ppm nitrates. The Dino's got worse and worse over the month to the point of starting to **** off my limited zoas/palys as well as reduce polyp extension in SPS.

My type of Dino's seems to go into the water column at night for the most part, so I decided to try something that I haven't tried in the 1+ years that I've been dealing with this garbage in 3 tanks now... a UV sterilizer. I bought a 55 watt jebao pond sterilizer on amazon for $70ish dollars. It arrived yesterday and I hooked it up in the afternoon. I plumbed it directly to the display with a 300 gph quietone pump set to its lowest setting. I have not measured the exact output but it's quite slow. I'm running the UV 24/7 for now.

95% of the Dino's were gone this morning. Nothing but the white death webs were left.

During my lights on today there was NO noticeable growth in the few tiny areas of Dino's that I can barely find. So far this has been a HUGE success for me and this was the only change I have made... other than blasting the tank with a turkey baster a few hours after lights out to get as much in the water column as possible. Seems like a heck of a coincidence if it wasn't the UV.

My sunny Ds are open for the first time in over a week and I have noticeably more polyp extension in my SPS.

I will continue to update this thread with my findings, but if you have Dino's that seem to dissipate during lights out I HIGHLY recommend giving this a try.

I bought the same thing with similar results

 

[mwilk19]

I've been battling the same scourge of dinos for months now. Lost too many corals and was really beginning to wonder if this was the end of my reefing hobby. I've been in it since the early 90's and had never dealt with dinos before. I tried H2O2 and Vibrant but was just not able to knock them back. I saw @Velcro's original post and thought why not. What do I have to lose at this point? I bought the same UV unit and it went online on Tuesday. I didn't see much difference the first night but later it the day it seemed as if there weren't as many strands on the sand or on the rocks. Today, there are still some visible but all of the strands on the sand and rocks were gone. The leather corals which seemed to attract it the most had very little. My sps corals were mostly clear. This is the first thing I've tried that really made a dent. Will it last, I don't know but I'm hopeful.

P.S. If you get the same unit that @Velcro and I have, be aware. This is a pretty big unit. I was actually shocked when I opened the box. I had to do a little creative plumbing but I was able to fit it under my 120 gallon tank.

 

[chevegan]

He mentioned this on my thread a few days ago. So I dug up my old 9w for my 23gallon water volume at about 130gph. Started wet skimming also bubbling method, and changing out 100 micron pass every few hours. Been 15 hours and today right now by lights out the Dino's are 50-60% better. It's crazy. I didn't scope my Dino's to confirm but they dissapated over night so I thought hey why not. At night skimmer goes nuts pulling out glorious death. Fish and verts more spunky and eating. Just now I stirred the sand before lights out for the night. While tank after while days lights only 3 stands formed. I clean the glass while lights out and stir things up. Awesome and thanks Velcro! FYI I think the micro bubbling is really helping keep things suspended as it attaches to the like glue.

 

[DesertReefBoy]

I had Dinoflagellates as well in my tank. I was battling it for 3 months with no success. I left on vacation and when I got back I wanted to tear my tank down. My wife convinced me to give it one last go. I never tried a UV steralizer. Instead I found out the RODI water I was adding to my tank had very high TDS levels. I fixed that issue and I also decided to stop listening to people tell me to raise my phosphates and nitrates to help grow other algae. I decided to start doing multiple weekly water changes to get my nutrients down. I bought a reactor and started running rowaphos to drop my phosphates. The next day I noticed the Dino's starting to turn a different color. I continued with my water changes and after sucking the Dino's out again the next day. They weren't coming back. Now 4 weeks later my phosphates are way down and the dino hasn't been seen.

 

[prsnlty]

I don't see why not assuming there is a minimal benefit from drawing from display vs sump. My uv is 23"x5.5". The ends are 5.5" where the plumbing connections are, but the cylinder in between the ends is about 3.25".

Thank you, it will barely fit on the tank frame (only free space left). Well the 55w won't, I had to get the 36w to fit. That 1.5 made a difference lol. Man these things are huge!

I think as long as the water flows through it where it pulls the water from shouldn't matter since it's a closed system that recirculates. By hooking it up to the return manifold saves on power consumption and I can cut it off at the same time as everything else if I need to. I don't think I have dinos but I do have cyano and rusty brown film on the glass (was told this is another cyano) as well as the SB and rocks. I'm hopeful this will help with that too. [emoji3]

 

[prsnlty]

I bought the same thing with similar results

Welcome to Reef 2 Reef Carl!

 

[chevegan]

I had Dinoflagellates as well in my tank. I was battling it for 3 months with no success. I left on vacation and when I got back I wanted to tear my tank down. My wife convinced me to give it one last go. I never tried a UV steralizer. Instead I found out the RODI water I was adding to my tank had very high TDS levels. I fixed that issue and I also decided to stop listening to people tell me to raise my phosphates and nitrates to help grow other algae. I decided to start doing multiple weekly water changes to get my nutrients down. I bought a reactor and started running rowaphos to drop my phosphates. The next day I noticed the Dino's starting to turn a different color. I continued with my water changes and after sucking the Dino's out again the next day. They weren't coming back. Now 4 weeks later my phosphates are way down and the dino hasn't been seen.

Those are different than the ones I have and velcro had. Many different strains. I have a ultra low nutrient system. Like I struggle to keep .01ppm phos and .80ppm nitrate. That's my record high after the 3 days lights out lol. Nano tanks are a different animal. Good filtration and husbandry affects the tank DRASTICALLY. I have a skimmer and algae scrubber. and 7 nano fish. Very few snails and such as I don't get much algae to speak of.

Bottom line there are different ways to go about different dino's. The ultra low nutrient ones lose to dirty water. Also for the first time my goni is SO happy lol. 2 weeks now no water change.

Don't know if this is normal but after uv my ph went up from 8.1-8.2 now to 8.3. Tank is also running a degree warmer so yeah there are those things but man so far so good. I'll keep thread updated

 

[Hans-Werner]

UV doesn´t only help against photosynthetic dinoflagellates and other microalgae but also against protozoic ectoparasits of the fish like Amyloodinium and Cryptocaryon.