Really stumped with Dinos need advice

[James Macaluso]

Hey all,
I've never come to fight against something with such determination to ruin my tank, Dinoflagellates or "Dinos", as they are affectionately known as, are on a quest to knock my whole system down. I have been consistently dosing hydrogen peroxide 2 twice per day at 1.5mL to my 20 gallon system. I have performed a 3-day blackout while dosing to no avail. Every few hours, I siphon them away, and dispose them from my filter floss, for them only to come back. They are threatening to wipe most of my corals out, and have done signifiant damage to my JF burning banana, as well as my other SPS. I have turned up the flow on my jebao DC 5000 return and my 2 SOW wavemakers. And blast the rocks and coral with a turkey baster to clean them of dinos so the corals don't get smothered.

Some recent things that happened to the tank:
About 2 months ago, I used Interceptor Plus to rid my tank of parasitic copepods (white bugs) that quickly damaged an orange wall hammer. Frags of the wall hammer were saved, but the centerpiece was destroyed. Interceptor did short work of all the pods (good and bad ones) , as well as all my hermits (disposed of).

Around some time afterward, dinos and cyano seemed to appear simultaneously. Not knowing what dinos were, It seemed to me that cyano and dinos were the same thing, and I dosed a Cyano remover called Ultra-Life Red Slime Remover. The red cyano was gone in a number of days, but the dinos remained.

I did a 3-day blackout, along with dosing H2o2, no help it seems

It has been close to 2 weeks now, and I don't seem to have a leg up against them. I'm not close to giving up by any means, and really want to end this before I start having to toss corals away.

My current water Parameters: As per API
pH: 8.1
Nitrate: 20ppm
Po4: 0 (API)
Ca: 400
Alk: 8
Temp: 80.0-81.0F

Filtration: Filterfloss, Bioballs, chaeto w fuge light

My possible ideas to why this is happening is
1. The loss of microfauna from interceptor caused a misbalance in my tank.
2. Chaeto consuming all phosphates

Any advice is greatly appreciated

 

[Crabtastic]

P04 at 0 can definitely be a problem, are you running GFO also?

 

[James Macaluso]

P04 at 0 can definitely be a problem, are you running GFO also?

I used to run GFO pretty heavy, stopped when this happened

 

[dugthefish]

Stop putting chemicals in your tank. All that crap just treats the symptoms; identify and fight the disease. Raise nutrients, reduce photoperiod/intensity, and manual removal are a good start to battle dinos. Good luck.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

I have found if I don’t have any green growing on the glass I’d get Dino’s. Do not do any water changes. I’d pull the cup on the skimmer for a while.. You can stir/siphon the sand bed into filter socks and keep the filter socks cleaned daily. You can place some carbon in a sock. I fel that after a water change mine would come back stronger. I actually down sized my skimmer and have not had them since. Currently I am at undetectable PO4. And NO3 I have only a hint of color looking sideways. I however still have some hair algae holding on so I have some green growing on the glass.

This whole Dino thing is new in the last ten years. I got them first five years ago. killed out my sps fast. I almost want to blame caking agents in the salt. Salt was way different in the 90’s. I just switched from IO salt after 25 years. It was grainier and would cake easily back in the day. Just my unproven opinion. Would maybe explain why a water change would make them angrier.

 

[James Macaluso]

Hey everyone,
Thanks for all the kind replies and feedback. I just tested my magnesium levels and found them to be far lower than my normal number of 1400+. They are around 1260, could this be a factor of the growth I’m getting?

 

[Charles4400]

I recently had a small case of dinos on a nano tank I have (20g im nuvo fusion). I had redone some aquascaping and dinos were starting to form and spread throughout the tank. It wasnt horrible but was just starting to get alarming.

I tried some dino-x and it actually worked. I heard mixed reviews of it working for some and not others but decided to give it a shot, hopeful but actually expecting it not to help. Took about 2 weeks but dinos did vanish and have not come back yet. Its been about 3 weeks since my last dosage.

Since then ive added a hob fuge with cheato and a cheap grow bulb and no dinos as of now.

Ymmv but may not hurt to give it a shot if you are at wits end.

 

[James Macaluso]

I recently had a small case of dinos on a nano tank I have (20g im nuvo fusion). I had redone some aquascaping and dinos were starting to form and spread throughout the tank. It wasnt horrible but was just starting to get alarming.

I tried some dino-x and it actually worked. I heard mixed reviews of it working for some and not others but decided to give it a shot, hopeful but actually expecting it not to help. Took about 2 weeks but dinos did vanish and have not come back yet. Its been about 3 weeks since my last dosage.

Since then ive added a hob fuge with cheato and a cheap grow bulb and no dinos as of now.

Ymmv but may not hurt to give it a shot if you are at wits end.

I'm a little reluctant to try more chemicals on the tank but if H202 does me no good in a matter of days then I'll investigate further into it. I heard DinoXal is a very good formula however it comes all the way from Germany. My current infestation is manageable, but I'd like to rid myself of it because it's starting to take a toll on some of my SPS. Im seeing stress-induced tissue loss on my pavona, montipora cap, lepto, stylo etc. I've ramped up the h202 dosage recently so hopefully it does me any good.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I'm a little reluctant to try more chemicals on the tank but if H202 does me no good in a matter of days then I'll investigate further into it. I heard DinoXal is a very good formula however it comes all the way from Germany. My current infestation is manageable, but I'd like to rid myself of it because it's starting to take a toll on some of my SPS. Im seeing stress-induced tissue loss on my pavona, montipora cap, lepto, stylo etc. I've ramped up the h202 dosage recently so hopefully it does me any good.

I’ve used Algae-Fix vs dinos in a number of reef tanks, with no impact on corals/inverts. Usually 3 treatments and then go for the kill-shot w/a 3 day blackout.

I’m stopping short of recommending this to people on the board...just saying I’ve done it several times and it works well and quickly.

 

[SDK]

I noticed that the problem started when you killed off a significant portion of your CUC (pods and HC's), but you did not mention replacing either population. I always try the natural solution first, so would recommend that as an important step for long term success. Many don't realize what a huge part a thriving pod population plays in that balance.