Dinoflagellate removal!?

[Juiceman]

It took a while but I finally identified what my brown slime was in my tank. It's dinoflagellates. So I've been reading up on them and trying to find a solution to ridding my tank of them. I've lost two tangs, and 5 sps to them.

90 Gallon Tank

30 Gallon Sump

SG 1.024

PH 8.4

AM, NIT, NITRI, PHOS, 0

MG around 1500

Calcium 450

3 Month old VHO's

20% once a month water changes

Mag 18 return pump (1800 GPH)

200 rated Skimmer

foam filter cleaned once a week

just started running Activ. Carbon

Large CUC

I've been removing them with a syphon every two days, and they keep growing back, i've pulled the rocks affected out and scrubbed them twice, grows back the next day.

Edited April 15, 2011 by Juiceman

[Bry]

Yes I've had to deal with that myself. How old are your bulbs? How's your circulation? What do you use for filtering? Have a clean up crew? I know you syphon but how big is your water change? Skimmer?

I'm in Cedar Park too. If you are worried about killing more fish/corals, you can borrow my 10 gallon and emperor 400 filter to transfer water, etc to while you figure this out.

[Juiceman]

Yes I've had to deal with that myself. How old are your bulbs? How's your circulation? What do you use for filtering? Have a clean up crew? I know you syphon but how big is your water change? Skimmer?

I'm in Cedar Park too. If you are worried about killing more fish/corals, you can borrow my 10 gallon and emperor 400 filter to transfer water, etc to while you figure this out.

3 Month VHO's, Mag 18 return from the sump, 200 rated skimmer, foam filter, just started Activ. Carbon, hugh CUC,

I have a 46G QT, and a 29 Cube, I lost the Tang since they were eating the slime, my other fish are non algae eaters, so they're fine.

[Bry]

Leading up to the outbreak were you doing regular water changes? How much? Foam filter cleaned often? I know you have test 0 nitrates but I had a sponge on my return Mag 9.5 that I forgot about in my changes. It was pretty bad, now I don't even us it any longer as I've added a filter sock to the downward flow from my tank.

What about the flow inside your tank?

I was reading this: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php But I don'tknow how I feel about raising pH. Maybe since you have QT you could try it. Personally I'm a bit skiddish on doing it until I google it more.

[Juiceman]

Leading up to the outbreak were you doing regular water changes? How much? Foam filter cleaned often? I know you have test 0 nitrates but I had a sponge on my return Mag 9.5 that I forgot about in my changes. It was pretty bad, now I don't even us it any longer as I've added a filter sock to the downward flow from my tank.

What about the flow inside your tank?

I was reading this: http://reefkeeping.c...1/rhf/index.php But I don'tknow how I feel about raising pH. Maybe since you have QT you could try it. Personally I'm a bit skiddish on doing it until I google it more.

regular 20% changes, filter switched and cleaned once a week, 1800 GPH inside the tank with 2 directions of flow

[+etannert]

There are a couple threads about this on the DFWMAS forum. I'll dig up links later but I think they're on the front page in Reefkeeping.

[Bry]

I'm not sure exactly which step(s) got mine under control. I did several things at the same time including not aggravating the sand so much when I took out the dino. Eventually it all started calming down. I run a sump with a light on at night so the pH doesn't fluctuate.

I also started using Kalk. I don't know if the pH from that helped but it surely didn't hurt. I ran my skimmer wetter to so eveyrhing blew out (my skimmer is not as big as yours though.)

And I'm not sure if others would suggest this (I don't have much coral and nothing fragile) but I popped off a powerhead and manually moved it around the front, back, sides of rock and blew out some things that settled in. I guess at this point I cannot help much more than to say keep doing what you're doing but that answer is no fun. I did the things above and kept doing cleaning (never took a rock out to clean it, just brushed it lightly with a toothbrush in tank) and eventually it stopped.

I'm now running GFO but it's too early to tell what effects that having. Good luck.

[+etannert]

This thread is really good:

http://www.dfwmas.org/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=82998

...and this one might have some helpful info:

http://www.dfwmas.org/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=80273

To summarize:

- No water changes

- Blow off your rocks, coral and sandbed daily so that dinos are suspended in water and filtration can remove them

- Dose hydrogen peroxide 1 ml/10 gals up to twice a day

- Going dark (no lights) may help

- Raising pH to 8.6 may help

[Bry]

Dang, I forgot to mention the lights out for 2 - 3 days while cleaning.

[offroadodge]

I wsa going to say something about GFO, it will help ALOT. if the tank is new it will take time to get it gone, it will go away. Or did for me. The more natural you can keep it the better for the system. Let it run its course, run carbon and gfo. This is JMO, im not a professional.

[Juiceman]

Update,

I've been dosing extra Buffer to raise my PH

I've lowered my photo period by 5 hours on atinics and whites

I've been running Carbon for a week now.

Things have been clearing up pretty quick! I'm seeing my rocks cleaner than I have in a long time. I'm still not done with it and had to siphon some out today, but It hadn't increased in about 3 days. Usually I'd have to siphon every 1-2 days to keep up with it. So somethings working!