Dino 1 Man 0: Help Please

[Pikemartin]

I lost the Dino battle. Tried 72hr blackout and h2o2. Dino is on its way back. I've decided to start over since I only have 1 fish(Wyoming White clown), zoas, and plate coral. I set up a QT tank just now and will be freshwater dipping all live stock before i place them in QT. Also will be flushing out entire main tank with Freshwater. Here's my questions.

1) After running Freshwater in main display should I add new saltwater right away?
2) When should I add my livestock back to the main display?
3) Will the freshwater flush out and adding new saltwater right away cause a cycle?

Thanks everyone

 

[Small triggers]

I've never heard of doing a freshwater cleanse to get rid of dinoflagellates....where did you hear of this?
And I would not do a FW dip on anything before putting it in QT....unless you can see something sticking to them ....

 

[Pikemartin]

From a high credible reefer on nano-reef.com. Here was his response to my post.
Sorry for this post, but I'm not going to sugarcoat anything for you.


Expect significant coral death, along with your cleanup crew and any herbivorous fish, rabbitfish excluded.

Nutrient reduction does not help. Toxic dinoflagellates thrive in low nutrient conditions.

If you are carbon dosing, stop. Never start up again unless you restart your tank.

Peroxide is not a treatment, and neither is a blackout - but both will buy you time for you to figure out your next move. After a 7 day blackout (yes, a full seven days) and dosing 10mL of 3% peroxide in a tank with less than 10g of water in it twice daily, I can see snot strings on a couple of corals. Before that, I was dosing 300mL twice daily in about 70g total volume, letting it simmer for a few hours in the main tank before turning the filtration back on. This looked like it helped, but again, it only bought me time.

They will come back after a blackout. 30 days is not enough to kill them as they are not photoautotrophic, they are mixotrophic.

The only way I've seen to have a 100% success rate is extreme and immediately change in salinity, bursting the cell wall of the dinoflagellates. A freshwater dip will work, but they may still come back if there are parts of your rock that manage to not get exposed.

Give everything (corals, rocks, equipment, sand, anything that has touched your tank like nets, grabbers, etc) a pH and temperature matched freshwater dip. Then place everything into a temporary holding tank with 100% new water, do NOT use any old water. Drain your main tank and run pure freshwater through it, through all the plumbing, skimmer, etc. Drain that, and refill with saltwater. If you suspect that the first freshwater dip did not get 100% of them, repeat that process, dip everything and put it into 100% new water in a new holding tank.



It's a ####load of work and will be a fight, but it's the only way for true eradication. I would see if you can get a microscope and identify which species they are (typically one of three that reach these plague proportions in home aquaria) and you can also figure out if you've truly beaten them or not, as they exist in the water column at all times.

 

[JMSKI333]

This seems really extreme. Bump so someone with Dino experience can chime in.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Are you still dosing peroxide? Its an ongoing process, doesn't kill it overnite. Although you should have been doing it with the black out. Also, did you raise your PH up to at least 9?

But to answer your question:
Clean the tank out using vinegar
Rinse all the gear with vinegar
Bleach out your rocks. Rinse in a bucket over nite, then rinse it again.
Your basically resetting up your tank, yes its all going to cycle again.
But, set up your QT using your DT water and some Live Rock, this way your QT won't cycle. Put the lights form your DT onto your QT so your corals survive.
Set your DT back up, and run it like you were starting all over again. Use your liquid bio booster or throw a grocery store bought shrimp into a net and lay the net into the tank. Let er cycle. Good luck, start it all over. Should be fine. Dip your corals before you put them into the new set up.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Are you still dosing peroxide? Its an ongoing process, doesn't kill it overnite. Although you should have been doing it with the black out. Also, did you raise your PH up to at least 9?

But to answer your question:
Clean the tank out using vinegar
Rinse all the gear with vinegar
Bleach out your rocks. Rinse in a bucket over nite, then rinse it again.
Your basically resetting up your tank, yes its all going to cycle again.
But, set up your QT using your DT water and some Live Rock, this way your QT won't cycle. Put the lights form your DT onto your QT so your corals survive.
Set your DT back up, and run it like you were starting all over again. Use your liquid bio booster or throw a grocery store bought shrimp into a net and lay the net into the tank. Let er cycle. Good luck, start it all over. Should be fine. Dip your corals before you put them into the new set up.

I'll apologize for the person who told you what they did, as they should not be advising anyone how to run a tank. It would appear they don't really know how to go about it.

 

[Pikemartin]

Thanks guys. I'm still dosing peroxide no I didn't raise my ph high. Figure I'd rather restart to be sure it can't come back.

Reefer: I'm under the impression I shouldn't use my DT water and piece of LR from it because dino more than likely would carry over to the CT. Unless you're saying I don't move that LR back to the display tank.

 

[Pikemartin]

Cleaning out the tank with vinegar won't cause problem once I start it up again?

 

[Reefing Madness]

But you don't care about the QT, your just using that rock to keep that tank from cycling on you when you transfer your live things. After your DT cycles, then fry that piece of live rock thats in there, your not going to use alot, just a piece or 2 to get the QT up and running. Dip the corals, the fish will be ok just to transfer, but fry that rock, bleach it also when your done with the QT, then you can transfer that piece to the DT.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Cleaning out the tank with vinegar won't cause problem once I start it up again?

No, thats how we advise everyone to clean up a tank, when they buy a used one. Vinegar and water scrub down. Be advised, your tank is going to cycle.

 

[Pikemartin]

Ok I'll probably just toss the piece of rock. Just 10g QT. How about the sand? Leaning towards just replacing it.

 

[Pikemartin]

Yup I figured the cycle. Should rinsing be done with RODI?

 

[Reefing Madness]

Na, you can rinse the tank out with the hose. let it dry outside really well before set up. The sand you can remove and rinse it in a bucket until the water runs clean, and re-use it.

 

[Pikemartin]

That sand had me really nervous reusing

 

[Pikemartin]

That same reefer told me to dip my fish as well. Said they can transfer dino over too. Not too sure about that.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Yea, not sure about dinos sticking to a fishes slime coating myself. But I do know that rinsing the dinos with freshwater kills it, ya just gotta rinse it enough. Spread it out in a kiddy pool and blast it with the hose. You could always soak the sand in bleach and water also before reusing it just like the rock.

 

[Pikemartin]

Sorry for all the questions. I don't wanna screw anything up. When adding LR to QT wouldn't it be wise to fresh water dip prior to putting them in QT or will that cause a cycle?

 

[Pikemartin]

Would you guys still recommend WC of 1 gallon a day in the QT? Reminder it's 10g

 

[Reefing Madness]

You don't want to mess with the rock going into the QT, you don't want to kill any bacteria on that rock. That bacteria is going to keep that QT from cycling.
As for the water changes, just keep an eye on them, if they start to get in the uncomfortable number range, change the water. But, I would think a couple gallons a week would suffice. Maybe borrow a buddies HOB skimmer until your DT is done.

 

[Pikemartin]

Awesome man. Leaning toward purchasing a piece of LR from LFS in stead and using completely newly mixed water. You see a problem with that?