dinoflagettes

[parrot1012]

ok so I have been trying everything to rid my tank of these damm dinos tried peroxide 1 mil to 10 gal up to 3 mil per 10 blacked out tank for 3 days ran gfo siphon off what I could and nothing has worked I have no idea where they came from nothing added to tank in last 6 months I am thinking I will have to break down the tank and start over have lost almost all sps 10 year old maxima and others question is when I break it down (90 gal) what should be done to make sure this pest will not return I am going to buy another tank and set it up with new sand but should I use some old water for cycle what about live rock? any ideas would be appreciated.

[Royce7586]

try doseing kordon ich attack in my 55g I did one shotglass full at night and one during the day so for a 90 you might want 2? saved my tank

[jrp1588]

Right there with you buddy, been fighting them for months. Had them in my old tank, and fought them for about a year before they went away. They are my curse. If you start over, I wouldn't use anything from the old tank that you can't sanitize. Start clean.

Using old water won't even help a cycle much. bacteria lives in the rock and substrate, not the water. A fair amount of the dino's will probably be in the water though.

Haven't heard of the ich attack method Royce suggested. I went bare bottom, aggressive siphoning of the dinos, kalk slurry to increase pH, h2o2. The dino's just laugh in my face and are back full strength next day.

[GilliganReef]

To truly beat Dinos you have to allow them to starve out. Other words extend out your W/C until its gone. If you must you can do 10% w/c. Also run GFO/Carbon and wet skim. It takes months to win but it is winnable. It took me well over 6 months to win. Also do not do a huge w/c at the end. Once they are gone, allow at least 2 weeks of your extended w/c or do very small w/c at the end. Every time you do w/c you are feeding them.

Another way is also add more bacteria in your water column to help fight it. Everyday siphon and pull out all you can. Your tank will look nasty for a few months, but you can beat this.

[jrp1588]

I'd like to know what triggers them in the first place. My nitrate and phosphate numbers have never been super low, but they're not high either. The fact that I've had two completely separate tanks at two different times come down with this almost 2 years apart leads me to believe it has something to do with my specific practices.

I'd kill for a nice simple hair algae, I'd even take on some cyano. Dino seems to be my curse though.

[DDon]

Sorry to hear about your problems and I definitely feel your pain. I have battled them since January and lost the majority of my SPS and a few LPS as well.
From my experience and from researching, you won't find any one method that works everytime to defeat them due to the number of different species of dinos.
I tried manual multiple 3 day lights out, a 5 day blackout, peroxide dosing (various strengths) water changes, no water changes, elevated pH, manual removal and didn't have any luck.
After reading some success stories with UV Sterilizers, I decided to give that a try and ordered a large quality unit. Once I got it hooked up and running at low flow for max kill, I did 3 days of lights out to keep dinos in the water column, manual removal and blowing rocks clean multiple times a day, scrubbing rocks that I could reach with a tooth brush, daily filter sock changes, fresh GFO, fresh carbon, kalk slurry additions to keep pH up and daily large water changes during lights out (60 gallons on a 240 gal tank). Ramped lights slowly after 3 days of lights out. In the 2 weeks the lights have been back on, I have seen no sign of dinos and the remaining corals look better than they have since January. Not ready to declare victory, but am very optimistic.
There is hope for your tank but it will take some work.
I considered a tank reset as well, but cost was prohibitive. If you decide to go that route, I would sterilize everything you move over. Don't use any of the water from the old tank and even consider using fresh live rock.

There is a long but very informative thread on dinos in the reef chemistry forum. Quite a few different methods people have been successful with.

[jrp1588]

I absolutely wouldn't use your old liverock right out of the tank if you restart. Cook it in absolute darkness for a good while. Throw in some GFO or lanthinum to strip out phosphates. I can't imagine setting up a new tank just to reinfect if from the old.

I have high hopes that I'll eventually starve it out with my bare bottom, daily siphoning routine. No waste is allowed to collect, and I'm removing lots of dinos every day. Eventually they HAVE to run out of food.

[natas]

Hope you can solve the issue parrot. I got rid of mine but the process was not fun and took a long time. I killed mine off by neglecting my tank for 6+ months. No water changes (only top off water). I fed the fish to a minimum. I ended up losing a lot of corals in the process and moved the ones that lived to a frag tank. This is the only thing that killed them in my tank.....and I tried everything.....seriously.

I think if you have a certain strain your chances of killing it are almost 0 unless you want to take drastic measures.

[parrot1012]

thanks all for the input the reason I put a restart is its kinda coincidental but I am moving in a month so I have to break down both tanks anyway 1 thing I don't get is the other tank has nothing wrong and I have added to it main tank has had nothing put in except fish,