Dino’s battle or reboot?

[burtonboy182]

Tanks been up for almost a year now. Took a nice long cycle. 2-3 months ago I had a case of Dino’s that started to take over and kill everything. Only fish survived. (Never Identified the type of Dino it was). Looks like it might be coming back. All corals are unhappy and starting to get new growth of algae/Dino on the back glass covering my coraline. Sps are all fading and lost a couple pieces to RTN. LPS (torch, Duncan’s) zoas and mushrooms aren’t opening/coming out. The Duncan’s haven’t been out in forever.
Last time I did a 3 day blackout and didn’t do anything. Then I dosed lots of MB7 and did a 3 day black out again and it was night and day. Tank looked great. I just feel like it’s starting to revert back again. I’m getting some more MB7 today but worry that the corals won’t make the black out.
I’m wondering if I should continue to fight this or do I give up and restart the tank?

 

[ZoWhat]

Use R2R search function and look up

"H2O2 dosing"
"Hydrogen Peroxide dosing"

Read where dosing that clears up Dinos

 

[Eclyps19]

I went through a reboot and they still came back. They're really tough to completely eliminate. There are also tons and tons and tons of people who have just figured out how to keep them under control in their tank. I had them in my 30g about 6mo ago, finally got them under control. When setting up my 110g, I was extremely careful about cross contamination. Well, they showed up in there anyway. I've now got a UV running and am actively dosing nitrates/phosphates to keep them at bay. Check out this thread for hundreds of other reefer's experiences: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-–-are-you-tired-of-battling-altogether.293318/

 

[Radman73]

Tanks been up for almost a year now. Took a nice long cycle. 2-3 months ago I had a case of Dino’s that started to take over and kill everything. Only fish survived. (Never Identified the type of Dino it was). Looks like it might be coming back. All corals are unhappy and starting to get new growth of algae/Dino on the back glass covering my coraline. Sps are all fading and lost a couple pieces to RTN. LPS (torch, Duncan’s) zoas and mushrooms aren’t opening/coming out. The Duncan’s haven’t been out in forever.
Last time I did a 3 day blackout and didn’t do anything. Then I dosed lots of MB7 and did a 3 day black out again and it was night and day. Tank looked great. I just feel like it’s starting to revert back again. I’m getting some more MB7 today but worry that the corals won’t make the black out.
I’m wondering if I should continue to fight this or do I give up and restart the tank?

When I had dino's I used a combo of UV, H2O2, MB7, sponge excel, higher nutrients, and no water changes. I lost all but 2 corals but haven't seen signs of dino's in months now. Finally getting ready to add more corals in the next few months.

It's key that you identify what type, or types you have. I had amp and osteo.

What's phosphate and nitrate? I have to add nitrates to my system. Not much, but if I let off adding some my nitrate will bottom out.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

My dino elimination cheat is AlgaeFix. I was super nervous the first time I did it, because there were a lot of corals/inverts in the tank. But it worked pretty well. Now, if I have dinos pop up in a tank, I just do 3-4 doses and then 2-3 days of no lights, and that’s pretty much a wrap.

I just don’t feel like wasting a bunch of time fighting them. I would do H2O2 if I could be around the tanks every day, but I can’t, so I like the 3 day period between AlgaeFix doses.

The down side is that it’s not always kind to refugium. That said, if conditions are good for dinos, they’re usually not good for macros. I don’t know that I’ve seen heavy dino growth in a tank w/a good refugium.

 

[Blacktip]

You will never win the fight. Once there, they will be always there. Reboot the tank and make sure you have clean rocks and quarantine everything.

 

[gtrider]

What would you do differently if you rebooted the tank to ensure you wouldn't have the same problem the 2nd time around?

 

[LOVEROCK]

i have some dinos issues too , was thinking about disinfecting tank, and introducing live rock from tampa bay to reboot the tank , while i move corals into a smaller QT with some tampa bay rock. I wanna see if biodiversity will work.

 

[BeejReef]

If you beat em once, I'd go another round with them before tearing it all down.

MB7 has worked very well for me as well, along with constantly changing filter socks and manually removing as much as possible each evening. Big ole turkey baster to blast them off all surfaces, vacuuming sand into filter sock, then a half hour of bubble scrubbing. Vast majority seem to get lifted to surface and skimmed out by emergency overflow.

 

[RMS18]

You really need to id them. Some species all it takes is a big UV (can also cheaper like a jeabo) for a couple of months and some h202 at night when light are out. You mention blackout work for you.. is the sand clear in the morning before lights come on? If so that means they are entering the water column and uv and h202 can zap them. I made the mistake of not clearly id-ing them for 5 months of my battle. After a proper id UV has had my tank clear visually for a couple of weeks now. They may always be in the there but as long as I don't give them the opportunity to bloom.

 

[Cbones1979]

You will never win the fight. Once there, they will be always there. Reboot the tank and make sure you have clean rocks and quarantine everything.

Sounds contradictory to everything else on the web....