Dinoflagellates discussion thread....

[ahayes13]

I am currently experiencing a lovely dinoflagellates bloom. ive been doing a lot of reading and as much research as possible on the dinos.
has anyone here ever had them or have any experience with them ?

 

[xrayrider]

Three suggestions: phosphate/silicate removal (Rowaphos in a fluidized reactor works best for this), fresh carbon, and raise alkalinity. Also make sure your protein skimmer is working optimally. Wetwebmedia.com is a great resorse for information, if you have not looked there yet. Click the surch box at the bottom of the page to only surch Wetwebmedia, before running your surch, or it will take you outside that site. Hope that helps.

 

[UncleJT]

Here is a good article for Dinos:

Problem Dinoflagellates and pH by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

What has worked out well in the past for me is essentially the following:

Period of darkness for 48-72 hours
Raise the pH with kalk to 8.4-8.5
Add good bacteria to out compete the bad
Run a PO4 remover such as GFO
Siphon out what you can
Running a 100 micron filter will aid in capturing any free floating Dinos

 

[ahayes13]

ive read the article several times about the increased ph as a possible solution. however, am not completely sold on the idea. it seems by all the research ive done that many times you raise your alk/ph for a couple weeks and think that it is gone but upon to returning to a more normal alk reading that the dinos do return to the tank.

 

[ahayes13]

i am currently running carbon to hopefully absorb toxins.
also running rowa phos to absorb what i think silicates might possibly fuel the dinos. so the rowa phos is a phos and silicate remover.
and i am siphoning my water into a trash can through a 25 micron bag and removing as much as i can when power heads off by blowing off the rocks corals etc with a turkey baster. letting the dinos float to the surface and then skimming the surface with a filter bag to collect all the free floating material.
so far i think it looks a little better. but of course it is still there the next day on the rocks again. but i think this manual removal does be seeming to help, it appears there is less than when i started at the point.

 

[UncleJT]

pH should always be maintained high and between 8.3 and 8.4 IMO regardless if you have Dinos or not.

 

[ahayes13]

well after talking with someone i trust very much. i have decided to take a route most people say not to take. (which is to avoid water changes) ive decided not to continue trying to raise my alk . (my alk is currently 11.8.)
i will be doing large water changes weekly, to see if it might remove whatever is in my system that caused the dinos. will be doing one 45 gallon water change today( mon) and another large water change on thurs or fri. then another one the following week. i guess we will see what happens and if it makes it worse or not.
i will continue to try manual removal of the dinos as well. filtering out water thru a bag and back into the system. and also blowing off rocks and skimming the surface of the water to remove floating dinos.