So for some reason I'm having a Dino outbreak. Parameters are all fine. Just cant figure this out. I only feed the tank maybe every 3 days or so. Don't know where the excess nutrients are coming from. How should I go about treating this? Just up the water changes or I don't know what. I already changed my phosphate remover(Seachem Phosguard) and tried to syphon out what I could. 2 days later and its back to where it was. Am I just beat and have to ride this out or is there something else I can do?
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Dinoflagellates
- Thread starter ThatGuy
- Start date
I've been told that silicates fuel the dinos so test your make up water first.
When I was struggling with it Sanjay Joshi recommended that I stop doing water changes all together so the dinos would burn themselves out. I ended having to do the black out thing to eventually get rid of them.
When I was struggling with it Sanjay Joshi recommended that I stop doing water changes all together so the dinos would burn themselves out. I ended having to do the black out thing to eventually get rid of them.
If you look around on a few other forums a bunch of people have used peroxide successfully against dinos. I have used it in the past with success for hair algae as well. A black out will temporarily help just to give you a bit of an upper hand on the situation. However it will not totally fix the issue, you have to find the cause and eliminate that. I would suggest manual removal, a short black out period and possibly read up on peroxide dosing and see if you wan to go that route.
I think you are thinking about diatoms and silicates. I haven't heard that they fuel dinos.
Dinos can be a real PITA. I had issues with them on my last tank and they have made an appearance on my new tank. There are a couple of long threads on RC and some of the other sites about them and I haven't seen them attributed to any one thing in particular. There are low nutrient tanks that have issues with them. On my old tank my nitrate and phosphate levels were zero and no other nuisance algae. At the time that I had the outbreak I couldn't even get cheato to grow. How's that for a pep talk?
There are several ways to try to deal with them ranging from stopping water changes, turning your lights out for several days, dosing hydrogen peroxide at a rate of 1ml per 10 gallons, and raising you pH. Some have success with some of these methods while others don't. I tried peroxide with a little success but it really just kept it in check and they ended up returning. What worked for me on my last tank was blacking out my tank for several days while stopping water changes. After I did that I didn't see them again. I'm started using the same method on my new build today.
Dinos can be a real PITA. I had issues with them on my last tank and they have made an appearance on my new tank. There are a couple of long threads on RC and some of the other sites about them and I haven't seen them attributed to any one thing in particular. There are low nutrient tanks that have issues with them. On my old tank my nitrate and phosphate levels were zero and no other nuisance algae. At the time that I had the outbreak I couldn't even get cheato to grow. How's that for a pep talk?
There are several ways to try to deal with them ranging from stopping water changes, turning your lights out for several days, dosing hydrogen peroxide at a rate of 1ml per 10 gallons, and raising you pH. Some have success with some of these methods while others don't. I tried peroxide with a little success but it really just kept it in check and they ended up returning. What worked for me on my last tank was blacking out my tank for several days while stopping water changes. After I did that I didn't see them again. I'm started using the same method on my new build today.
The seachem phosguard is for phosphates and silicates so I don't think that's what's doing it.
PO4-0
I barely feed the tank and when I do its the size of my pinky nail.
I only have a remora HOB skimmer(rated for up to 75 gal) I have it skimming wet and I clean it out every time because its such a small collection cup.
I did a black out for 2 days. It came right back a day or two after the lights came back on. I don't know about putting peroxide in the tank, but I also never thought of putting baking soda in there until recently either.
I think you are thinking about diatoms and silicates. I haven't heard that they fuel dinos.
Dinos can be a real PITA. I had issues with them on my last tank and they have made an appearance on my new tank. There are a couple of long threads on RC and some of the other sites about them and I haven't seen them attributed to any one thing in particular. There are low nutrient tanks that have issues with them. On my old tank my nitrate and phosphate levels were zero and no other nuisance algae. At the time that I had the outbreak I couldn't even get cheato to grow. How's that for a pep talk?
There are several ways to try to deal with them ranging from stopping water changes, turning your lights out for several days, dosing hydrogen peroxide at a rate of 1ml per 10 gallons, and raising you pH. Some have success with some of these methods while others don't. I tried peroxide with a little success but it really just kept it in check and they ended up returning. What worked for me on my last tank was blacking out my tank for several days while stopping water changes. After I did that I didn't see them again. I'm started using the same method on my new build today.
I've been struggling with pH(added a pH booster to no avail(seachem marine buffer))(kind of the time this started). I'm also nervous about stopping water changes as it is such a small system. Also how long did you do lights out? 2 days didn't seem to work and I don't want to kill/bleach out all my corals by doing this either.
The first time I did it was for 3 days but they came back after a month or two. The second time was for 5 days and I wrapped the tank in black trash bags to eliminate any light. It my case they were really starting to irritate my corals and nothing else was appearing to work so I got more aggressive.
There are different species of dinos so some methods may be more effective on certain species. Unfortunately we don't really seem to have a good understanding of what causes them and one tried and true method to deal with them. If they aren't too bad now maybe you can try to keep them in check with less aggressive methods.
There are different species of dinos so some methods may be more effective on certain species. Unfortunately we don't really seem to have a good understanding of what causes them and one tried and true method to deal with them. If they aren't too bad now maybe you can try to keep them in check with less aggressive methods.
So I decided to do 2 days lights out and dose peroxide. From what I've read on it there is a few out there that do weekly dosing with no problems. Its also interesting how it more or less burns off all the nutrients in the water. From just dosing 4ml last night my skimmer was overflowing just about when I went home for lunch.
Lights on, but only 5 hrs. Looks better. I only see it on the rock and not on the corals so that's good. Only down side with the whole thing is my nem walked and made me nervous so I have to figure out if I'm putting him back in the DT or think of a good argument to set up a nem dedicated nano.
Nope. Just kalk in the topoff and alk/cal 2 part.
Don't know whats happening but the dino is dwindling but the few spots of algae(looks like tough green algae, not HA) is doing fine, if not better. I think I'm just going to keep the green stuff short and leave it there as I don't have any real plant life to help with O2 in the water.
