Is This the Dinoflagellate Treatment We’ve all been Hoping for?

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

I too have tried everything under the sun and have many many corals. I was beating it but still had it in my tank. I also raised my temp to 82 degrees and they are gone. I had dinos for about 6 months, I'm leaving it at 82 indefinitely.

How long did it take for them to go after raising the temp?

 

[jeffrey750750]

How long did it take for them to go after raising the temp?

Roughly a week

 

[esther]

Roughly a week

That's pretty amazing. Congrats!

 

[DrMMI]

I too have tried everything under the sun and have many many corals. I was beating it but still had it in my tank. I also raised my temp to 82 degrees and they are gone. I had dinos for about 6 months, I'm leaving it at 82 indefinitely.

What species of dino did you have? I tried it for a week and didn't have any improvement and I think I have amphidium

 

[RSnodgrass]

I'm guessing based on some of the posts that most aren't actually verifying they have dinos with a microscope, present company included.

Cyano-"bacteria" for instance is not the same as dinoflagellates... they can be easily confused if only visually looking with the naked eye. There are also numerous species of dinoflagellates and this article is specifically addressing one.

If the "treatment" doesn't work for someone it would first need to be verified what they are actually dealing with. Obviously helpful if it does work to know what it was too.

 

[LardLad]

Funny story, when I was cycling in my first reef tank I had dinoflagellates in short order. I did battle with them for some time. Then I heard about the four-day blackout and thought I would give it a try. All I had in there with some snails and a crab and 9 pounds of live rock a big bed of Fiji pink aragonite. So I taped up some cardboard boxes to fit it really snug and switched my timer on my lights off and waited four days.

I was so excited on the final day to take it off and see my results. When I took it off much to my dismay the lights had been on the entire time because I used a crappy timer from the 70s. Anyway the temperature said 92 degrees F. I was shocked to find that my snails and crabs survived it. I felt really bad for them.

Never saw another Dino ever again.

 

[jeffrey750750]

I'm guessing based on some of the posts that most aren't actually verifying they have dinos with a microscope, present company included.

Cyano-"bacteria" for instance is not the same as dinoflagellates... they can be easily confused if only visually looking with the naked eye. There are also numerous species of dinoflagellates and this article is specifically addressing one.

If the "treatment" doesn't work for someone it would first need to be verified what they are actually dealing with. Obviously helpful if it does work to know what it was too.

I never checked with a scope but they did group in a cup after being shook up. Even my snail had dinos. These were taken back in December. It's been a long road, from h202, bleach, to running the tank dirty, dosing bottle after bottle of bacter7, dr Tim's, tlc marine sat and even sucking out my sand bed a layer at a time. For about two months I sucked out the brown goo everyday. At this point I only had it on the rocks. My temp averaged around 77 to 78, I read something about temp here so I through my heater in and set for 82 and in a week they were gone. It's been weeks since I reaquascaped and the rock/sand is clean.
My previous reef had metal halides over it so the tank always ran warm and at that point I have never even heard of dinos
I'm back to loving my tank again, just trying to get my nitrates down a bit before I can add anymore corals

 

[RSnodgrass]

I never checked with a scope but they did group in a cup after being shook up. Even my snail had dinos. These were taken back in December. It's been a long road, from h202, bleach, to running the tank dirty, dosing bottle after bottle of bacter7, dr Tim's, tlc marine sat and even sucking out my sand bed a layer at a time. For about two months I sucked out the brown goo everyday. At this point I only had it on the rocks. My temp averaged around 77 to 78, I read something about temp here so I through my heater in and set for 82 and in a week they were gone. It's been weeks since I reaquascaped and the rock/sand is clean.
My previous reef had metal halides over it so the tank always ran warm and at that point I have never even heard of dinos
I'm back to loving my tank again, just trying to get my nitrates down a bit before I can add anymore corals

Great to hear! Do you feel the shaking up in the cup was the best way to determine without a scope? How long did it take to clump back up? I was debating buying a cheap scope.

 

[fishybizzness]

I just went through that test. I siphoned some out with a baster and shook it up in a small jar. I then filtered it through a coffee filter into a glass. I set the glass outside on my porch railing in the sun and within 15 minutes it had clumped together again. This is what it looked like.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

That's what mine are like in my tank now, the long stringy bits. I have been at 82 for nearly 4 weeks and still have some showing. I haven't done a blackout on mine. I still get strands on my pulsing xeina (yes I want that in there) and on and around the remaining hammers, even on my nem. It looks alot better than it did when I turned the temp up. But I still have bits like this.

 

[SCHAULJ]

Trying this approach as well.

This seems to be working for me... Temp has been sitting at 82 for a few days. Ive dosed 5ml of neophos every other day. Important to note that my phosphate didn't bottom out, it registered around .03 consistently. The only other thing im doing currently is siphoning the sand bed through a filter sock and the filtered water goes right back into the sump. Significant improvement. Hopefully its all gone in a few more days! More to come.

 

[SCHAULJ]

This seems to be working for me... Temp has been sitting at 82 for a few days. Ive dosed 5ml of neophos every other day. Important to note that my phosphate didn't bottom out, it registered around .03 consistently. The only other thing im doing currently is siphoning the sand bed through a filter sock and the filtered water goes right back into the sump. Significant improvement. Hopefully its all gone in a few more days! More to come.

Dino update.... they gone! I had them for less than a week. Couldn't be happier.

Increased Temp from 78 to 82 on Friday June 5th. Maintained 82 from Friday June 5th to Wednesday June 10th. Lowered temp to 80 on June 10th and will maintain 80 moving forward instead of 78. Tank and inhabitants look great! Minimal stress as a result of the increased temp.

Dosed
Friday 5ml Neophos
Sunday 5ml Neophos
Tuesday 5ml Neophos

I took a fine filter sock and sucked all the dino off the sand bed letting the filtered water drain right back into the sump to ensure im not removing the nutrients just the yuck... This was done twice. Saturday and Tuesday.

Other than that I blew off the dinos and changed my filter floss daily. Thats it.

Round 1 was 3 month battle
Round 2 was 6 days

IT WORKED FOR ME! @Jake Adams

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Just an update, I had run the higher temp for 5 weeks. Yes the dinos weren't as bad but I still had them after that time, I lost all my hammer corals except 1 but that's just hanging on, and a clown fish that I cannot find any sign of (maybe bubble coral or nemfinishwd it off). I have now lowered the temp back to 78 and did a long overdue water change of around 40%, also now I'm 2 days into a 3 day blackout. I hope this helps a little.

This is the most recent shot after the water change/before blackout.

 

[Chayo]

Any updates on everyone’s tank who ran it at a higher temp with success? And have you maintained it at that elevated temp since? thanks