Hi all. Bit of a long post, but I’m currently shocked, confused, but delighted!
I have been fighting large cell Amphidinium for the past year. It began when I restarted my 170 litre tank after being plagued by Aptaisia, turf and bubble algae. I bleached the live rock and recycled the tank, swapped out my old LEDs for new ones plus twin T5s with ATI Blue Plus and Coral Plus bulbs. This was last summer (2019). Within two weeks of turning the lights on, dinos started to turn up on the sand, and the battle began.
I read as much as I could on it, and started to try the typical approaches; blackouts, H2O2, regular water changes, then no water changes, bottled bacteria (I’ve tried several now), but nothing worked. I then removed the sand, but it just spread on to the rocks and started smothering and killing the corals. In desperation, I tried Dino-X, which led to about 70% of my corals withering away and dying. I’d had enough, so decided to restart the tank again completely.
I set up a quarantine tank for the fish and remaining corals, but even after dipping them, they all continued to deteriorate and eventually died (the fish remain fine to this day). I set up the main tank with brand new Marco Rock, sand, and new filter media, and cycled for six weeks with the lights off, using Dr Tim’s. I then added five mollies and left it for another few weeks before returning the original fish. Turned the lights on, added some cheap soft corals (I’m a teacher and this tank is in my classroom, so I want to keep it as cheap as possible), and within two weeks the dinos were back on the sand. I’m assuming they got back in with the fish, somehow. (Interestingly, the dinos showed up in the quarantine tank quite quickly last summer, so I removed half the sand that was under the one LED light, and that was it, it went away and never come back. I keep that tank running with some mollies and macro algae in, so I can quarantine new corals, and I’ve not seen any dinos for nearly a year).
I started fighting the dinos in my main tank around Christmas time. Having done even more reading this time (this is a great site), I started out removing the sand, and dosing silicates, phosphates, and nitrates, as they were a bit low. I reduced water changes, but couldn’t go longer than a week without having to turkey baste and toothbrush the rocks, as the Dino was starting to affect the corals again. I gave up the dirty method after a couple of months, as couldn’t see any changes, and went to weekly 25-50% water changes and rock scrubbing. That has been my life for the past few months.
After a while, I decided to try Vibrant, as some turf/hair algae was growing and getting smothered in Dino. Like many people, I overdid it and a few weeks ago was rewarded with cyano. I left it for a couple of weeks, in the hope the cyano would defeat the Dino and then I could just have one manageable pest to deal with. It didn’t work, and both cyano and Dino covered the rocks, coral, and glass. I was starting to think about shutting the tank down at this point, but am stubborn.
I decided to get rid of the cyano so treated the tank with UltraLife Red Slime Remover. I’ve used this a few times over the years in fresh and marine tanks, so was confident it would work. I also had a thought about the lighting, as that was the only constant in this tank for the entire time I’d been battling Dino. The quarantine tank has an old TMC tile over half the tank, and an even older T8 freshwater bulb leftover from when I used the tank for breeding Corydoras catfish, and the Dino disappeared really quickly and never came back. In the main tank I decided to try to replicate the straight blue and white colour from the quarantine tank, so swapped out the Coral Plus bulb and replaced it with a new cheap Blue Plus style bulb (iQuatics) to see if it made a difference. The colour isn’t as nice now, as I loved the way the Coral Plus bulb made the corals pop.
This all happened just over a week ago, and as of this afternoon the cyano has all gone, and there is no new Dino. There are a few small spots on some rocks that I missed during last weeks clean, but it is looking thin and pale, like it is struggling to hold on. This is the first week in a year that I haven’t had to worry about Dino smothering and killing my corals, whilst making the tank look like a disgusting brown mess.
I don’t know why it hasn’t grown back this week, but can only think it has to do with either the UltraLife, the bulb change, or both. At the moment I’m just delighted that I can’t see any Dino in the tank without really looking hard for it.
I will continue to monitor it, and will provide updates in a week or two. I would have preferred to have waited longer than a week before posting this, but for anyone who’s been battling this problem, I’m sure you’ll understand my need to share any type of victory!
. Hoping you're lucky this time around...
