Dinoflagellates.

[Mark426]

I tried everything for months (other than chemicals like dino-x) and finally beat it quickly using the dirty method. No water changes for one month, no cleaning glass except the front pane, adjusted skimmer to barely skim, feed heavily, and dosed KNO3 a couple of times in the beginning to raise Nitrates to 2-3 ppm. All dinos gone in 2 or 3 weeks and have yet to return. Back to weekly 10% water changes, skimmer adjusted back to normal and slowly removing the algae off side and back panes.

[joti26]

Took my sample into work which I had got off the floss in the sump and definitely Dino's absolutely full of them but all dead apart from one very small translucent microbe about ten times smaller. So have borrowed scope over the weekend to investigate further. Pods arrived today so will add those tonight. However, almost all gone from the sand just a few strands on softies and the red grape so feeling hopeful! Not sure whether to ditch the floss in the sump now for a while as well, it is between the refugium and return pump to stop bits of cheapo etc from clogging the pump but seems to be a real collecting place for the little sods! The second sample I took from just the water didn't have anything in it though.

[Reef Ruler]

Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing yet, but as the dinos have faded, Cyano has started to show up. Still haven't done a water change. I'm kind of tempted to see what happens if I let it play out....but I also want to change the water. Dinos are way too complicated to deal with.

[Dfee]

Originally Posted by Mark426

I tried everything for months (other than chemicals like dino-x) and finally beat it quickly using the dirty method. No water changes for one month, no cleaning glass except the front pane, adjusted skimmer to barely skim, feed heavily, and dosed KNO3 a couple of times in the beginning to raise Nitrates to 2-3 ppm. All dinos gone in 2 or 3 weeks and have yet to return. Back to weekly 10% water changes, skimmer adjusted back to normal and slowly removing the algae off side and back panes.

Awesome post. Hope to see more like it! Congrats!

[Billybatz9]

Originally Posted by Mark426

I tried everything for months (other than chemicals like dino-x) and finally beat it quickly using the dirty method. No water changes for one month, no cleaning glass except the front pane, adjusted skimmer to barely skim, feed heavily, and dosed KNO3 a couple of times in the beginning to raise Nitrates to 2-3 ppm. All dinos gone in 2 or 3 weeks and have yet to return. Back to weekly 10% water changes, skimmer adjusted back to normal and slowly removing the algae off side and back panes.

What kind of corals do you keep?

[justthewife]

Jumping in on this thread if you don't mind

[mannyhernz]

Well started feeding 20ml of phyto in the am and pm. Stop skimmer for most of the day, also feeding my acans mysid on a daily basis. Just purchased some micro bacter7 to dose..will this regime help? I have a 20g fusion tank sps dominated with some lps/zoas. Anything else i should add or use? Thanks.

[Billybatz9]

Have a biocube 29. Just dumped a cube of mysis and a cube of brine shrimp in. Dirty water and all. Didn't even rinse the dirty water out like I normally do. Let's see how this dirty water goes.

[Billybatz9]

Originally Posted by mannyhernz

Well started feeding 20ml of phyto in the am and pm. Stop skimmer for most of the day, also feeding my acans mysid on a daily basis. Just purchased some micro bacter7 to dose..will this regime help? I have a 20g fusion tank sps dominated with some lps/zoas. Anything else i should add or use? Thanks.

Post some pics

[Billybatz9]

Should I stop dosing calcium and alkalinity

[bertoni]

I would keep dosing calcium and alkalinity if there are calcifying organisms in the tank.

[Billybatz9]

Originally Posted by bertoni

I would keep dosing calcium and alkalinity if there are calcifying organisms in the tank.

I have sps corals. Let me ask you. How much should I feed daily? Two cubes? 1 cube? Four times a day, pellets? I don't want to kill my corals either.

[Billybatz9]

Originally Posted by seamonster124

Wish me luck folks. Just did a 10% WC. No trace of Dino's so I should be safe........

When you dosed seachem stability, did you dose entity bottle at once?

[Fish Keeper82]

Originally Posted by Billybatz9

I have sps corals. Let me ask you. How much should I feed daily? Two cubes? 1 cube? Four times a day, pellets? I don't want to kill my corals either.

Let your corals tell you. I feed 2 cubes and quite a bit of flakes a day in my 126 gal since doing the dirty methid with the skimmer off now for about a week.
To my surpeise my nitrate has only climbed to 4 ppm but corals look much better now quite possibly better than ever now that im feeding more. My nitrate was .25 to .5 ppm before going dirty method.
Feed more... if your corals respond bad then try something else. They might surprise you. Mine certaintly did.

[Billybatz9]

Originally Posted by Fish Keeper82

Let your corals tell you. I feed 2 cubes and quite a bit of flakes a day in my 126 gal since doing the dirty methid with the skimmer off now for about a week.
To my surpeise my nitrate has only climbed to 4 ppm but corals look much better now quite possibly better than ever now that im feeding more. My nitrate was .25 to .5 ppm before going dirty method.
Feed more... if your corals respond bad then try something else. They might surprise you. Mine certaintly did.

Thanks for reply. My other concern is that I have a six line wrasse in my reef tank. I don't know if I should move him out of tank since he's eating all the pods :/ which I think it the whole reason for the dirty method right? To increase pods.

[Fish Keeper82]

Originally Posted by Billybatz9

Thanks for reply. My other concern is that I have a six line wrasse in my reef tank. I don't know if I should move him out of tank since he's eating all the pods :/ which I think it the whole reason for the dirty method right? To increase pods.

No one really knows why the dirty method has worked for some dinoflagellates. Some speculate it gives other macro algae a chance to out compete Dinos for nutients. Thus more macro algea in turn gives pods more food as well. Some have introduced a specific type of pod....i belive it is the Tisbe in conjunction with phytoplankton.

[justthewife]

We hooked up a UV sterilizer about 5 days ago and it seems to be doing something in the tank as the brown stuff in my tank is diminishing.

[seamonster124]

Originally Posted by Billybatz9

Thanks for reply. My other concern is that I have a six line wrasse in my reef tank. I don't know if I should move him out of tank since he's eating all the pods :/ which I think it the whole reason for the dirty method right? To increase pods.

Dirty method worked for me with 3 wrasses in the tank including six line.

Do u have a fuge?

[Billybatz9]

Originally Posted by seamonster124

Dirty method worked for me with 3 wrasses in the tank including six line.

Do u have a fuge?

Nope. Just a 29 gallon biocube. Run only filter floss and was running chemi pure.

[karimwassef]

Originally Posted by justthewife

We hooked up a UV sterilizer about 5 days ago and it seems to be doing something in the tank as the brown stuff in my tank is diminishing.

Keep in mind that UV kills everything so it's like cleaning up the canvas for you to paint a new painting. If you don't actively populate with beneficial elements, the bad ones will return.

I added bacteria, chaeto from healthy tanks, thousands of pods and new live rock. I also used heavy wet skimming to export the dead.

[Fish Keeper82]

Looks like i finally got my Ostreopsis Dinos under control. I wish i would have taken more pictures if when they were at their worst.

Before pics




I would say my Dinos were 95 percent gone in only 2 days of UV running in conjuntion with lights out to keep them in the water column. My UV is a Coralife turbo twist 6 18 watt. I'm running it super slow flow maybe 50 gallon an hour to hopefully kill all Dinos with that extra contact time.
I added Seachem Sability for added bacteria diversity ( although i dont think this help much). Then i increased feedings and turned off my skimmer as well to add more nitrates and phosphates. As i posted before, i have not lost any snails or anything else that was tring to eat the dinos like my lawnmower blenny. Thats the only reason i turned off my skimmer i dont belive my particular species of Dinos is very toxic and didnt care there would be dead dinos in the water
When my Dinos were at their worst my readings were 0.00 Phosphate (hanna checker) and 0.25 ppm Nitrate ( Red Sea Pro) now they stand at 0.06 Phosphate and 4ppm Nitrate.
Corals seem much happier with the added nitrate and phosphate in the water. Macro algae is now beggining to grow on the rocks.
I did a 10 percent waterchage for the heck of it and did it at the end of the lighting cycle and left the lights off the following day. They did grow a bit from that WC but not much. This has been great outome, all corals are open and happy. Very minimal Dino dust left, not enough to worry about. I sugest if you do happen to do a WC when you are battling dinos go lights out for a day or to after.

Im not saying they are completly gone but they are knocked back so much all i can see is very minimal Dino dust after my first WC. My thinking is worst case scenario if they do happen to come back slowly a 2 day lights out with UV will knock em back 95 percent in my case. I plan to only run the UV at night now for a while. Im putting this one in the win column after many

After pics

[justthewife]

Originally Posted by karimwassef

Keep in mind that UV kills everything so it's like cleaning up the canvas for you to paint a new painting. If you don't actively populate with beneficial elements, the bad ones will return.

I added bacteria, chaeto from healthy tanks, thousands of pods and new live rock. I also used heavy wet skimming to export the dead.

Added new pods, macro algae so far. Looking actively for good bacteria additive.

Should UV be run constantly or only when problems arise? Or only at night? What is recommended? I was under the impression it was to be run all the time.
My husband did his research on them and made sure it was set up and plumbed correctly with its own pump and all. I was under the impression that the UV only killed the things it came in contact with in the water column. Isn't there a lot of bacteria in the tank that will not run through it that is in the rocks and sand? If it doesn't run through the UV, how does it kill it? At any rate, I think it seems to be working on the dino's.

[karimwassef]

great wins for the slow UV!!

The UV kills everything that passes through it - especially slow with a lot of power.

You're right, a lot of things don't go through it, like adult pods and bacteria in the rocks. But the babies will eventually get zapped so you need to keep the machine going with phyto to give the survivors a leg up over the dinos.

I ran mine CONSTANTLY after the tank recovered - but I was so beaten down that I think it was out of fear and desire for vengeance

A few months later (yes - months of loathing)... I ran it at night only. This happens to coincide with when my skimmer is off too. So far, so good.

[REEF DIVA]

There is a cure that Randy Holmes Farley came up with to eradicate aptasia and majano anemones. I hate dinoflagellates with a passion and have made it a personal challenge to gain control over them. So this is what I do that works following the formula given by Randy with some liberal interpretation.

You will need the following items: a large horse syringe, sodium hydroxide flakes, lab grade and kalkwasser powder. The hard-to-find item is the horse syringe. I don't know what else to call it. What I use is an actual, very large syringe with a metal needle. With the plunger pulled back, the entire syringe is 13" long and the needle is about 1 1/2" long. I don't know what gauge the needle is. The bigger the needle is, the better this would work. Dilute the sodium hydroxide in some RO or RO/DI water while wearing safety glasses and gloves. Mix it in a container with kalkwasser while wearing safety glasses and gloves. This stuff gets hot and can burn your skin. So keep a rag on hand. The proportions don't seem to matter that much. I usually make it about a 60-40 mix with more kalk than sodium hydroxide.

It seems to matter more that you make the mix as thick as you can make it
while you can still get it up the horse syringe. Fill the syringe as much as possible. Now, turn off all of your pumps and leave them off for 3 to 4 hours. Even turn off your Sea swirls. What you want to do is slowly and carefully apply pressure to the syringe to target areas where the dinoflagellates are growing. The mix should be thick enough that it does not float away at all. It should remain right where you put it. This mix will kill anything you cover so if you want to get rid of any mushrooms, just inject them. The same for aptasia, majanos, etc. You can apply this thick formula near the edge of the base of an SPS coral without losing the whole coral. This has been my experience. Because the mix is so thick it is fairly easy to control where you put it. That is why you don't want a mix that is very watery. After you have targeted all the areas you want, walk away. Let the mix burn the dinoflagellates for a good 3 hours. Since the mix is thick, the fish don't stir it up very much (a little bit sometimes which is not a problem) and they do not try to eat it.

Before you turn your pumps back on, you must get some vinyl hose and suck out all of the white mix you put on the dinoflagellates. It is very easy to see because it is bright white and thick. If you fail to remove a little bit, it should be okay. Try to get every bit you can. After you have sucked out all of the white mix of sodium hydroxide and kalkwasser, make sure to add some new saltwater to replace what you took out. Then just start up your pumps again and Sea Swirls. It would also be wise to turn off your lights for the 3 to 4 hours of treatment. The entire treatment will probably need to be repeated at least 2 more times. Also it is not a good treatment when dinoflagellates are very advanced and have covered most of the rocks. It is just very labor-intensive if you are treating many rocks. It is a very effective treatment when you can catch dinoflagellates early on.

In my experience, the alk is not affected. I have used this same treatment at least 15 times since 1997 to treat various different things (dino, majanos, mushrooms, aptasia) in a 350 gallon SPS dominant reef with no ill effect to fish or corals.

My current reef has over 70 SPS colonies and over 50 fish. Good luck!

[karimwassef]

that may work with small infections. The Kalk mix will burn anything it touches and I've used it too for anemone. Big tanks with most rocks covered would be hard to cure with spot treatments, but it could save key colonies.

I think UV achieves the same. IMO, the key is still adding biodiversity to create a healthy ecosystem.