CoralNoobDude
Community Member
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2020
- Messages
- 54
- Reaction score
- 55
- What state or country do you live in
- Florida
After months of excessive water changes, tank blackouts, UV Light sterilization, sandbed cleaning, hair pulling... I think I've finally defeated the dinoflagellate outbreak in my tank. How did I do it?
First, I stopped the excessive water changes-and by excessive I mean nearly every other night changes. My thoughts were to change the water at night when dinos are in the water column in hope's to remove them that way. With every water change my tank would just blossom with more dinos.
Second, I cleaned the sandbed deep and lifted a good majority of it out of the tank. This dropped the salinity a bit and I noticed the dinos began to lose those little gas bubbles. I put the sand in a clear container out in the sun for a few days. Now that sand is in a separate tank and I'm testing to see if any dinos will appear. So far none.
Third, I used a cocktail of Dr. Tim's Waste-Away and Ruby Reef's Rally. Don't know which one did the job best but within 2 days I noticed dinos beginning to decrease. Thought that was it... I'm winning. But not so, only a few colonies diminished and the decrease stalled so...
Fourth, I finally broke down and covered my tank for 2 weeks. I checked daily to see the progress. The dinos were holding on strong even without light. Until the middle of second week. I checked the dinos appear to be in major retreat. And after 14 full days of darkness and steady cocktail dosing...they appear to have been defeated.
I would be rejoicing but the reality is the dinos won the war. It's been about a week and I haven't seen a resurgence in them but I lost 4 corals in the dark days, my zoas and paly aren't responding well to light, they are quite shriveled. I seeded the tank with some copepods and added macroalgae so that should the dinos try to return they've got competition. But losing those corals hurts : ( Curse you dinos!!!!
If you are fighting them...I hope you have better luck.
First, I stopped the excessive water changes-and by excessive I mean nearly every other night changes. My thoughts were to change the water at night when dinos are in the water column in hope's to remove them that way. With every water change my tank would just blossom with more dinos.
Second, I cleaned the sandbed deep and lifted a good majority of it out of the tank. This dropped the salinity a bit and I noticed the dinos began to lose those little gas bubbles. I put the sand in a clear container out in the sun for a few days. Now that sand is in a separate tank and I'm testing to see if any dinos will appear. So far none.
Third, I used a cocktail of Dr. Tim's Waste-Away and Ruby Reef's Rally. Don't know which one did the job best but within 2 days I noticed dinos beginning to decrease. Thought that was it... I'm winning. But not so, only a few colonies diminished and the decrease stalled so...
Fourth, I finally broke down and covered my tank for 2 weeks. I checked daily to see the progress. The dinos were holding on strong even without light. Until the middle of second week. I checked the dinos appear to be in major retreat. And after 14 full days of darkness and steady cocktail dosing...they appear to have been defeated.
I would be rejoicing but the reality is the dinos won the war. It's been about a week and I haven't seen a resurgence in them but I lost 4 corals in the dark days, my zoas and paly aren't responding well to light, they are quite shriveled. I seeded the tank with some copepods and added macroalgae so that should the dinos try to return they've got competition. But losing those corals hurts : ( Curse you dinos!!!!
If you are fighting them...I hope you have better luck.
