Trying blackout to rid Dinos in tank.

[Andrew Schubert]

Now that I've finally gotten rid of the turf algae in my tank, I'm now battling my first real outbreak of dinos in my 16 month old tank. I think it probably has to do with switching over to the Zeovit system 4 months ago, and having an ULN system not allowing the Dinos anything for competition in the tank (current levels are Nitrate - 6 and PO4 - .02). Anyways, the dinos have started showing up about 4 days ago and are starting to really stick to my corals. I want to be very proactive with this before its too late, so I'm going to do a 3 day blackout of the tank (I'm already dosing Vibrant on a reg. weekly schedule). However, I do have some concerns questions as I do this.

1) I have a lot of acro frags (like 30+ or so), and wonder if doing a 3 day blackout is of any concern to them. obviously, after the blackout I'll have to slowly ramp the lights back up.
2) Do I actually need to put a tarp over the tank, or is just turning the lights off good enough. My tank is in my basement, so it doesn't really get much...to any...natural sunlight to begin with.

 

[SPR1968]

When I did it a few years ago, I just left the lights off with curtains closed (no tank wrap) and left the tank for 3 days in darkness. It had no effect on the corals, as really it’s just like a tropical storm in the ocean.

But what I also did was increase water flow to the affected areas

When the lights came back on the tank was spotless and the dino’s never came back, but it can depend on the strain etc.

 

[Andrew Schubert]

When I did it a few years ago, I just left the lights off with curtains closed (no tank wrap) and left the tank for 3 days in darkness. It had no effect on the corals, as really it’s just like a tropical storm in the ocean.

But what I also did was increase water flow to the affected areas

When the lights came back on the tank was spotless and the dino’s never came back, but it can depend on the strain etc.

Cool....I also upped the water flow which was high to begin with.. I have two Neptune waves, and 2 gyres running. Upped my waves from 30% to 60%.

 

[Zach W]

Do you have any idea what strain it is? Do you run any UV on your system? Several of the strains of Dinos go into the water column when it is dark which allows for the UV to kill them! When I added UV to my system it cleared out my dinos but like I mentioned it is dependent on the strain!

 

[Jon Fishman]

Corals will be fine. I would recommend heavy dosing of Vibrant with blackout but if you are doing Zeovit, I would avoid the vibrant

 

[Andrew Schubert]

Do you have any idea what strain it is? Do you run any UV on your system? Several of the strains of Dinos go into the water column when it is dark which allows for the UV to kill them! When I added UV to my system it cleared out my dinos but like I mentioned it is dependent on the strain!

I had a Uv sterilizer. Sold it 4 months ago when I started Zeovit as the uv would kill the zeovit bacteria.

 

[Andrew Schubert]

Corals will be fine. I would recommend heavy dosing of Vibrant with blackout but if you are doing Zeovit, I would avoid the vibrant

Yea, I've been doing both vibrant and zeovite. I usually add 10ml weekly with water change. But have dosed 2x this week of 10ml each. Haven't seen any negative effect of doing g zeovit and vibrant together....at least not so far

 

[Andrew Schubert]

3 day blackout is complete. Looks like all signs of the dinos is gone. Some of the left over algae that is hangining around on the rocks is all 'brownish-gray' which I am assumming is die off from what hasn't been released from the rocks yet.

Saying that, my PO4 has sky-rocketed from 0.8 to .25 currently. I'm assuming this is because of decaying algae still being collected within the water column and on the rocks. I added some GFO to a filter sock, but any other ideas that I should be doing to help maintain the PO4 until things get back in check following the blackout?

Side Note - The blackout has definitely caused "some" stress to my acros for sure. One of my acros hasn't shows any polyps since having the lights back on (I'm hoping that it isn't dead). The rest of the acros lost a lot of their colors as well. I can see "some" of the color coming back already with having the lights turning back on, so hopefully not much of a longtime issue there.

Also my BTA decided to split during the blackout. Not sure if this was a direct result of the blackout, or what...

 

[SPR1968]

You may find the corals are reacting to the high nutrient release, but if your PO4 was low before, I would continue with the GFO until it brings it back down to the previous levels

Just let everything stabilise, and only add things after doing some research into each additive to see what it does and if it’s needed along with potential risks. I’m talking vibrant etc.

 

[LC8Sumi]

I just did a 3 day blackout on my tank. The room is pretty dark, so I didn't cover the tank. There was not a single dent in any of the algae/dinos On the bright side (haha), the corals were fine also.
I wasn't expecting much to be honest out of this method, as in my previous tank, before shutting it down, it was going light-less for a good 3 months!, and still some of the algae/dino survived.