My remedy for Dinoflagellates

[cityreefer]

I won’t claim to be a marine biologist, nor will waste your time telling you in detail about what didn’t work. I suffered from Dino’s for 4 months and managed to get my tank totally Dino free. After waiting for several weeks I'd love to share my success with fellow aquarists.

 

Before I start let me say I make no promise that what worked for me will in fact work for you, nor can I guarantee your livestock. That said I feel confident in my success eliminating dinoflagellates while losing absolutely nothing during that process.

 

I tried the following in the process of the battle:

-Repeated water changes over a very short period of time with siphoning

-Skimming aggressively

-Swapping the all filter media in my tank with new stuff

-Kordon (ICH Attack) had it for ICH but they say it “works” with protozoans and dino’s too

-Funa Marin Ultra Algea X

-Peroxide dosing

-Changing RO/DI media in my filtration system

-Dosing Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter7 & Alkaline 8.3

-All tank lights out (though I didn’t black the tank out)

-Turkey blasting

-Scrubbing the dino’s with a soft toothbrush

-Adding a large cleanup crew

-Shortening my periods of daylight

-Ultralife Red Slime Remover

-Placing paper towels (no lotions or anything added) in the overflow

 

So here’s what worked in the form of instructions:

Step 1- Scrub the Dino’s off everything but the sand bed once or twice a day.

Step 2- Place paper towels in the overflow before the filter media leaving it in there for about an hour after scrubbing.

*Repeat steps 1 & 2 for a week prior to Step 3.

Step 3- Turn out the lights for 24 hours.

Step 4- Add a nice cleanup crew with a fair number of hermit crabs to stir things up (assuming you don’t already have them).

Step 5- Remove all filtration other than filter floss (or whatever your mechanical filtration is).

Step 6- Dose Ultra Algae X by Funa Marin to the tune of 5Ml for every 100L (26Gal) every other day. Continuing for no more than 3 weeks. I only needed 3 doses.

***It’s imperative to account for only the water volume in your system (not rock, sand, ect) otherwise it could be lethal on the livestock***

Step 7- When the Dino’s look completely gone stop dosing and do another 24 hours of no light.

Step 8- Perform a normal water change and re-install all filter media thereafter (especially carbon).

 

Notes and Other food for thought:

-Ultra Algae X by Funa Marin may be substituted with DinoXal although I did not try it and you’ll have to follow their instructions for dosing.

-Did the Dino’s occur after you started using a new brand, batch, or bag of salt? If so you should really consider a new bag, brand, or batch of salt during Step 8.

-Are you over feeding your tank?

-Did you have a solid cleanup crew stirring your sand.

 

Pics are before and after...should be self explanatory which is which

[DaveDe]

Hydrogen peroxide and lights out worked like a charm for me. I think I did some manual scrubbing of rocks too.

[elmatth1]

Kalk slurries worked for me

[jedimasterben]

If you want to be sure you're rid of them, then begin carbon dosing. You'll see them reappear immediately if not.

[R1sky_Biz]

If you want to be sure you're rid of them, then begin carbon dosing. You'll see them reappear immediately if not.

 

Ben, Can you elaborate? Do you mean running carbon in a reactor? Or actually dosing some form of carbon? Thanks.

[jedimasterben]

Ben, Can you elaborate? Do you mean running carbon in a reactor? Or actually dosing some form of carbon? Thanks.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/

[pokerdobe]

If you want to be sure you're rid of them, then begin carbon dosing. You'll see them reappear immediately if not.

 

I've read that many users report dinos getting worse with carbon dosing.

 

Just curious.

[jedimasterben]

 

I've read that many users report dinos getting worse with carbon dosing.

 

Just curious.

Yes, that is correct, the common species all seem to carbon limited.

[pokerdobe]

Got it. I had dinos and my carbon dosing seemed to make things worse. They didn't go away until after I stopped.. but there was a myriad of factors that caused and maybe stopped it.. so I'm not sure I could pin it down on anything in specific.

[Peace among worlds]

What worked for me was uv running and no water changes.... most importantly turn off your refugium lights and increase nitrate to about 5ppm or more ..... keep tank lights turned off ... I havent covered my tank with cardboard.... and like everyone said I scraped off the dinoflagellates with a toothbrush ... and it worked ... dinos have been reducing drastically and I'm still running this method ... I still see very few bubbles especially in my refugium .... so I'm gonna keep continuing this method till thyre all gone ..... and I can visually notice the dinos are dying especially in my refugium as they're losing their brown colour and turning white without any bubbles ..... sry I almost forgot bubble scrubbing helped a lot too ...... hope this post helps 

[j.falk]

On 10/11/2019 at 7:59 PM, Peace among worlds said:

What worked for me was uv running and no water changes.... most importantly turn off your refugium lights and increase nitrate to about 5ppm or more ..... keep tank lights turned off ... I havent covered my tank with cardboard.... and like everyone said I scraped off the dinoflagellates with a toothbrush ... and it worked ... dinos have been reducing drastically and I'm still running this method ... I still see very few bubbles especially in my refugium .... so I'm gonna keep continuing this method till thyre all gone ..... and I can visually notice the dinos are dying especially in my refugium as they're losing their brown colour and turning white without any bubbles ..... sry I almost forgot bubble scrubbing helped a lot too ...... hope this post helps 

This thread was made 6 years ago.

[mcarroll]

It's ok to update old threads if you want.  Otherwise @Christopher Marks would have old threads locked. 😉