Dinoflagellates my experience......h2o2 reefing tool!!!!!
I wanted to post my experience so far.
I got a bloom of slimy brown algae on my sandboxed that started around three months ago when I introduced a dragon goby to the tank. At first I figured he was releasing nutrients from the sand and it would work it's way out automatically in a few weeks. Well obviously that was not the case. I thought I had cyano so I checked my parameters and did a lights out. It helped but it came back and was back to the same amount it was before the lights out in three days. I tried aggressive water cha n especially and so o honing sand, this basically made them stronger.
Fast forward to last week when I suspected I had dinos. I first posted a thread on reefcentral asking if this was dino or cyano. I made sure to explain that they are indeed brown and not purple (video kept picking up blue lights and threw the white balance off). I also explained snail deaths and the stuff being half the size when lights go off. Well I don't even know why I asked on reefcentral because I was convinced I had dinos.
I posted on dfwmas my local reef community. A few people said cyano as well but melev said it looked like dinos. I also had a few members drop by for trays and they said they were certain it was dinos.
So I started the following battle last Monday:
Day 1-3 lights out and dose 10ml of h2o2
Day 4-7 lights on for 4hours, 10ml dose and sandbed siphon
Results:
After the blackout the dinos were cut in half.
Day 5-7 the dinos are roughly 1/4 what they were from day one. They also appear to be very small compared to day one. They almost look like distros at first glance but if you look close you can see stringy slimy appearance.
Plan going forward:
I plan to continue dosing and siphon. I also plan to skip my normal weekly water change this week and until they are gone. Once I see no signs of Dino I will continue 2-3 more days of dosing h2o2.
Tip: I got tired of siphoning this stuff into a filter sock. I have been rotating socks everyday. Today I took a chance and bought one of those eheim quick vac pro's. Man this thing is perfect for dino on sand and sump cleaning. In fact I think it does a better job at sandbed cleaning than my normal tool.
I got a bloom of slimy brown algae on my sandboxed that started around three months ago when I introduced a dragon goby to the tank. At first I figured he was releasing nutrients from the sand and it would work it's way out automatically in a few weeks. Well obviously that was not the case. I thought I had cyano so I checked my parameters and did a lights out. It helped but it came back and was back to the same amount it was before the lights out in three days. I tried aggressive water cha n especially and so o honing sand, this basically made them stronger.
Fast forward to last week when I suspected I had dinos. I first posted a thread on reefcentral asking if this was dino or cyano. I made sure to explain that they are indeed brown and not purple (video kept picking up blue lights and threw the white balance off). I also explained snail deaths and the stuff being half the size when lights go off. Well I don't even know why I asked on reefcentral because I was convinced I had dinos.
I posted on dfwmas my local reef community. A few people said cyano as well but melev said it looked like dinos. I also had a few members drop by for trays and they said they were certain it was dinos.
So I started the following battle last Monday:
Day 1-3 lights out and dose 10ml of h2o2
Day 4-7 lights on for 4hours, 10ml dose and sandbed siphon
Results:
After the blackout the dinos were cut in half.
Day 5-7 the dinos are roughly 1/4 what they were from day one. They also appear to be very small compared to day one. They almost look like distros at first glance but if you look close you can see stringy slimy appearance.
Plan going forward:
I plan to continue dosing and siphon. I also plan to skip my normal weekly water change this week and until they are gone. Once I see no signs of Dino I will continue 2-3 more days of dosing h2o2.
Tip: I got tired of siphoning this stuff into a filter sock. I have been rotating socks everyday. Today I took a chance and bought one of those eheim quick vac pro's. Man this thing is perfect for dino on sand and sump cleaning. In fact I think it does a better job at sandbed cleaning than my normal tool.
ruppertb
Valuable Member
When I take my snails out of my tank so they don't die from all my dyno and I put them in a established tank I have running as back up what's the best way to keep them alive. There in no algea in the back up tank. I have turbos ceriths nasarius and nerite. Can I just drop in algea waffers or nori to feed them?
Well it appears the dinos are again gaining the upper hand. They are still limited to my sandbed but all the work that I though was working is now slowly going away. They are still less than the original amount before lights out and h2o2 dosing but they are slowly growing everyday. Sat and Sun I siphoned them multiple times during the day.
Anyone have suggestions for me? I am thinking of doing another lights out period. I am still dosing 1ml per 10G of h2o2. Tomorrow marks 14 days of h2o2 dosing
Anyone have suggestions for me? I am thinking of doing another lights out period. I am still dosing 1ml per 10G of h2o2. Tomorrow marks 14 days of h2o2 dosing
ruppertb
Valuable Member
Kinda off the dino topic but on the h2o2 topic. As far as used for dipping frags. I dipped a few frags of our in 50 50 h2o2 and tank water for 3 mins. 2 of my zoa frags and my lobo have morphed colors. The lobo used to be a dull purple with a hint of pink and it has now morphed into an amazing pink with green. Has anyone else experience this?
Just thought I would share my experience with dinos here. I had tried the blackout period, dosing with peroxide and blackout. Dosed so peroxide daily to the point that I believe it was affecting some of my corals. Mainly the montis. None of these remedies seemed to work or only helped for a day or so. Ready to pack it in and break it all down. I randomly decided to use a UV sterilizer that I had laying around and never used. I put the UV sterilizer in my sump, blew the dinos off of my rocks and glass daily for about 2 weeks and then after about that 2 week period I came home from work, which is usually when that dinos are the worst and there were none. I haven't seen dinoflagellates in the tank in over 2 months. I still run the UV as precaution as I feel that is what knocked them out
Previously I was under the assumption that dinoflagellates were something that comes into the aquarium on frags, LR, etc. However, in the past 6 months, I have only bought one frag (and no live rock at all), which I bought around 3 months ago... This made me wonder how I actually got dinoflagellates. Is it something that always exists in the aquarium, but is only able to take over under certain conditions? I take care of my tank well (25% weekly WC's, change GFO regularly, use RO/DI, limit feeding, don't add supplements of unknown composition, etc).
Pants
Community Member
Thats the exact questions I'd really love to address at some point. Are these pests new introductions, or are they always present and only reaching bloom levels due to water parameters. One hypothesis I have is that the are always present, but reach bloom levels due to insufficient predator populations. So many people report the dinos disappearing sort of on their own after months (or even years) of eradication attempts. Did the aquarist finally get nutrient levels down enough to reduce the population or did a predator population grow large enough to bring the bloom under control. In the wild many dinoflagellate blooms are actually controlled by viruses. A meta-genomic analysis of aquariums during and after dino blooms, as well as aquariums that have never experienced a bloom could be fascinating. A side project would just be comparing the plankton diversity of skimmerless versus skimmed aquariums.
audi772
Community Member
So glad I ran up on this thread. Been battling what I highly believe to be dinos for quite some time now. I have a thread in the member tanks area about it. 40 gallons total water, just started my first dose minutes ago. Will update with progress as well as how my specific livestock reacts
audi772
Community Member
Day 2 of dosing.. everything did fine during both doses so far. both clowns and mandarin did fine. Coco worm did fine. Plate, frogspawn, torch, duncans and green star are good. Xenias get a little upset at initial dose time but perk back up quick. No change in algae yet but wasn't expecting one this early either.
audi772
Community Member
4th day of dosing and I don't think I see much of a difference... I just got done scrubbing and siphoning the bottom and I took about two whole cup fills of nasty brown snot. I am noticing tho that the algae is only growing in my display.. not in the sump anywhere... My sump is lit for eight hours like my display.. any thoughts on that
Dalmatia
Valuable Member
Are you dosing 1ml per gallon a day? For your sump you should run it vise versa with lighting just to keep your pH from bouncing around too much. Or oceans pH is stable (night time pH in our tanks lower) and by you leaving your lights on during the night in your sump should somewhat equal out your pH and help you out a bit
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