How I'm winning my dinoflagellate battle with no black out

[Jollyg97]

Hello everyone, as it turns out I guess I like to feed my fish too much, and feeding my fish too much made my phosphate at .15, just enough for my favorite algae, dinoflagellates. Blackouts are not an option for me as I personally think it'd have some stress and decolor my sps. So because of this I began my own regimen that seems to be working quite well and I almost have it eradicated. I do not know if this would work for an infested tank as mine was a rather small outbreak.. but thats the thing, dont let it get out of control. Catch it early and be extremely diligent!

What I'm doing in my 55

In morning when it starts to come out

1. Scrub down rock with brush or blow off rock (I do both depending on coral population on rock)

2. Now it is vulnerable in the water column, use 1ml per 10 gallon hydrogen peroxide while it is exposed more, increasing the chances of killing

3. MICROBUBBLE SCRUB!! I found that Dinos HATE bubble scrubs, just put an airstone where the return pump sucks water and get those thousands of bubbles going, this works especially well after doing steps one and two because it is much weaker on the rock and it's exposed in the column. If you do this right after step one and two, a ton of it surfaces up top and you cn net it.

4. Keep maintaining it with physical scrubbing, you can't be lazy on it or it will spring right back

5. One more dose of hydrogen peroxide a few hours after lights out.

Hope this can help anyone like it helps me!! :hammer:

[moondoggy4]

Great idea thanks for the tips. I did blow it off and suck it in regime noting you have to get it all out or it will land and grow again.

[HidingReefer]

So I'm pretty sure I have dinos in my tank, I am thinking of upping my GFO, do you think just dosing Hydrogen Peroxide will kill them? Also I heard in higher pH they wither away.. is this true? Not to hijack your thread I am just curious..Great info by the way!

[Jollyg97]

Hey sorry I didn't get back to you sooner.. got myself an assortment of nice sticks and i was on a gluing frenzy and I just got caught up with everything lol. Hydrogen Peroxide will not kill it alone, raising ph will not kill it alone, a blackout sometimes reduces them but they may spring right back, same with bubble scrub or manual removal. All things have been reported to work.. but typically not by themselves it seems.. always do a combination of 3. That seems to get the job done if you ask me, I chose a manual method (brush), natural (bubble scrub), and chem (peroxide). This seems to work well for me and the dinos are getting at bay and are reduced to mainly sand. You could do just about any combination but the key seems to be variety, one of each method, as I said I broke it down into three things; manual, natural, and chemical. So whose to say maybe a combination of brushing, then blackout with raised ph wouldn't work? I can't back the theory up with experience as this one method is working for me so I'll stick to it but it's definitely worth a shot. Personally I would not raise ph and do hydrogen peroxide unless you have only like softies. I don't think putting my lps and especially sps in that sort of stress, too much investment and too much risk with that much change in chemistry.

[HidingReefer]

Hmm
alright that makes sense, so looks like I am going to have to do a lot of work on the tank, but at the end of the day, if it's clean, I'll be happy doing work
Thank you for that