Seabass's In-wall 100 Gallon

[seabass]

The dark brown crud is coming back (on the sand and rocks). So I dipped the rocks in peroxide and I siphoned out a bunch of the sand. I took some of the siphoned gunk and filtered it through a paper towel. According to post #3 of this thread, if you filter dinos through a paper towel and stir it up, it will group back together (while cyano will not). Here was the result:

Then I dosed some DinoX into this container, and re-stirred the the water. This time, it didn't come back together. I'm taking this to mean that it could be dinos. I'm reluctantly now dosing DinoX into my tank.

[Justind823]

That sucks!

[markalot]

Ignorance is bliss. Has it been bothering any corals?

[seabass]

Hey Mark.

 

At this point there isn't much for coral, so that isn't too much of a concern yet. I just don't want to have a lingering problem going forward. I'll see how it goes. I suppose I can always move my fish and do a black out.

[seabass]

Reefing with dinos is no fun. I'm sick of it. I'm going to move the fish, run lights out on the tank for 5 days, and dose 2ml of food grade 35% hydrogen peroxide each day for a couple of weeks.

 

[yoshii]

That sucks Good luck!

[jedimasterben]

Unfortunately the lights out won't do anything. Dinoflagellates aren't solely photosynthetic.

[RollaJase]

Unfortunately the lights out won't do anything. Dinoflagellates aren't solely photosynthetic.

Lights out and UV then?

[seabass]

I will be doing: lights out, UV, and peroxide. I'll also be running my protein skimmer along with my activated carbon reactor (to deal with toxins). I've just, unsuccessfully, finished with a couple of rounds of Dino X (bottle is gone and I won't be repurchasing).

 

Stray thought: I'm wondering if this plague didn't contribute to my anthias demise. I swore them off. Maybe someday, when my reef is more stable, I might try another single. IDK, I guess I should probably stick to my guns on no more anthias.

 

Unfortunately the lights out won't do anything. Dinoflagellates aren't solely photosynthetic.

I've always read that this was part of the solution. How did you get rid of your dinos? I don't want to just spin my wheels any longer. I'm not opposed to dosing kalk (in addition to everything else) if I need to.

[jedimasterben]

How did you get rid of your dinos? I don't want to just spin my wheels any longer. I'm not opposed to dosing kalk (in addition to everything else) if I need to.

Unfortunately, I didn't. There is no way to be rid of them. I've just come to terms with that and ignore them when they bloom and deal with the losses as they come. For management, strong UV or automatic dosing of hydrogen peroxide are the only options that work. UV has the bad side effect, though, of turning your water brown due to dino die off, but peroxide can correct for that (carbon and purigen both do not help).

[seabass]

There is no way to be rid of them.

That's disheartening, but I appreciate your insight and experience. I still hope that I can beat it; but now I'm thinking I need to go even further:

• movie fish to my rock flower anemone 40 breeder
• peroxide dip and move the rocks, anemones, and coral frags to a second 40 breeder (with no sand, lights, or food)
• I might even setup another tank (with clean sand) for the sand bed snails ???
• break down the tank and clean it out
• I might even run it with some tap water and bleach to disinfect (then declorinate)
• thoroughly clean the sand with freshwater and peroxide
• then set it up again (with UV and peroxide dosing)

[Mariaface]

If you're going to go that far, you may need an intermediary tank for the fish/inverts. They could have the cells adhered to their slime coats, in their guts with food/algae, on/in their shells, etc.

[Tamberav]

I would try and fight it as people do beat it back into submission. I am sure there are many strains, some probably worse than others.

 

I used freshwater, peroxide, aggressive blackouts, and swapped the filter sock A LOT. I also accidentally overdosed alk which nuked the crap out of it, but also nuked a bunch of my corals (oops). I haven't seen dino show up in a long time. I was sure I would get it after I moved since I was using 100% new water and the fact everything was getting disturbed. It did not show up, I pray it never does, I wouldn't wish that stiff on my worst enemy.

[seabass]

If you're going to go that far, you may need an intermediary tank for the fish/inverts. They could have the cells adhered to their slime coats, in their guts with food/algae, on/in their shells, etc.

Maybe you're right. I think I will setup a tank for my fish and snails (versus potentially contaminating my other tank).

[jedimasterben]

I wouldn't bother with any of that. It won't do you any good. Just start using UV and peroxide and carry on. Will save you LOTS of time, money, and likely livestock.

[seabass]

OK, back to: blackout, peroxide, UV, and luck (at least for now). I might ditch the sand bed too.

[jedimasterben]

I found little difference between sand and not in regards to dinoflagellates, but keep in mind that with no sandbed you'll lose you're primary means of denitrification and will likely need to dinner significant amounts of alkalinity solution to make up for what it's list to the nitrogen cycle.

[seabass]

So, for the last 6 days, I've:

• Added a UV filter with a new bulb
• Stopped water changes
• Dosed 3ml 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide daily, equivalent to 35ml of 3%, or about 3ml of 3% per 10 gallons (that's 1ml of 35% per 40 gallons, or about 3 times the typically recommended dosage)
• Couple of days without lights, then one hour of blue lights daily (mostly to feed fish)

So far so good; everything looks good (with no signs of dinos). Well the BTAs are moving around a little, but I expected that might happen. I know that this doesn't mean that I'm out of the woods, but I'm going to up the light cycle to 4 hours of blues with 3 hours of daylights. I'll continue peroxide dosing, UV, and holding off on water changes for now. I'll probably do a water change in another week.

 

I use food grade peroxide for dosing because stabilizers (which might not be reef safe) are not listed in the ingredients on 3% antiseptic hydrogen peroxide. The most common stabilizer of H202 is acetanilide. Other stabilizers might include phenol, tin, Colloidal stannate, organophosphonates, and nitrate.

[seabass]

I just posted this in another forum:

It is important to make a positive ID, since treatments can get a little extreme (and potentially cause losses to beneficial life and other livestock). Dinos are a single celled protozoa, so you can't think of them as you would algae (seeing less of them doesn't necessarily indicate they are dwindling on numbers). Your changes in lighting might be affecting how they are grouped together, but they are probably still fine and are just free swimming, waiting for conditions to be right for another bloom. This could come from a water change, disturbing the substrate, improved lighting...

 

I wish I had the magic bullet for getting rid of it, as I'm dealing with it myself (currently no signs of it, but I've fallen for that before). It's sort of like an alcoholic that's not currently drinking, it doesn't mean he's not an alcoholic anymore.

 

A lot of smart reefers will tell you to pitch everything (rocks, corals, sand, and water) and start from scratch. However, I still remain hopeful. I've tried Dino X, reducing the photo period, running just blue lights, blackouts, UV, peroxide, cleaning, not cleaning, water changes, no water changes, etc. I haven't tried increasing pH levels yet.

 

Not all varieties of dinos are the same or respond to the same treatment protocols. However, here is what I've personally found.

• Dino X did nothing positive to improve my particular situation.
• Cleaning and water changes only temporarily improve how your tank looks, but you are better off avoiding these disruptions while you fight it off. However, doing nothing is not a cure either.
• A UV pond filter does seem to help, but it didn't eradicate the dinos (this is a good addition to any treatment protocol).
• Dipping the rocks in a salty peroxide solution made the rocks free of dinos, but it did not make my tank free of dinos (so it returned).
• Lighting changes just affected how they group together, but don't get rid of them. However, lighting and the light cycle is very important in how/when you fight this pest. They are much more susceptible to treatment when they are free swimming.
• Dosing peroxide has to be done with the lights out (when they are free swimming). I only use food grade peroxide, as it doesn't contain potentially harmful stabilizers. 1ml per 10 gallons of tank water is considered safe for fish and many corals and anemones. There are, however, peroxide sensitive creatures like pods and shrimp which could be harmed with peroxide treatments. I have been dosing an equivalent of 2ml of 3% peroxide per 10 gallons of tank water during lights out.

Remember this is an alternative to breaking down my tank, so I am willing to be a little more extreme and risk some losses. Also, activated carbon might help reduce the toxicity of the dying dinos, so I would consider running fresh GAC during treatments (although I'm not currently doing this).

I think I'm still going to break this tank down, putting all the livestock in a 40 breeder (yeah, it will fit). I'll dip the rocks (coral and anemones) in a salty peroxide dip both prior to putting them in the 40B, and when removing them from that tank. In the meantime, I'll clean the tank and fill it back up again. Luckily, my storage tank holds enough water to fill it.

[jedimasterben]

I would really, really stress not to do that. It is a ton of work and won't get you any farther than where you are now. What wattage is your current UV sterilizer, and how much flow do you have going through it?

[ReefWeeds]

I missed your thread completely! This is a cool tank, Seabass. And I'm sorry about the dinos

[seabass]

I know you will say that it's way too underpowered (and for this purpose, I might agree with you). It's 13W with 500gph going through it. However, I'd estimate that it's not much more than 100gph (as it produces a gentle stream through a fairly restricted opening). It supposedly rated up to 2,377 gallons: https://www.amazon.com/AquaTop-UVCP-13-Submersible-Pump-Sterilizer/dp/B004GET7LO/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1472213326&sr=8-11

 

Here's the deal about breaking down this tank. I can have everything out of the tank, dipped in peroxide, and in a 40 breeder in less than a half hour. The disruption to the livestock would be minimal. The rest is just cleanup work, which I can easily complete in a day.

[jedimasterben]

Or you could PM me your address and borrow my manly​ UV sterilizer. 13 watts for that much volume isn't gonna cut it, I'm afraid, it will take a beast to do it.

 

It is rated for 2377 gallons for killing very weak algal cells that need very little dosage to kill. Dinoflagellates are a whole different category, you'd need to run around 10-15GPH through that 13 watt unit to get level 1 sterilization.

[Marc.The.Shark]

What's up with the bleach dosing for Dino's? Saw a thread on R2R about it with seemingly successful results. Seems a little unconventional to me, but I'm no scientist. I just read a few posts, but claims were it was eradicating the problem.

 

http://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-dinos-a-possible-cure-follow-along-and-see.253917/

[jedimasterben]

What's up with the bleach dosing for Dino's? Saw a thread on R2R about it with seemingly successful results. Seems a little unconventional to me, but I'm no scientist. I just read a few posts, but claims were it was eradicating the problem.

 

http://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-dinos-a-possible-cure-follow-along-and-see.253917/

That thread is too long for me to go through, but what of it I have read had no information that was useful. There is no 'cure', and there never will be, unfortunately. Dinoflagellates were here long before us and will be here long after humans are extinct.