dinoflaggelates and spa tissue necrosis

maksim serebro · Apr 23, 2016

good luck culturing them! In my tank they grow right in front of my eyes!

Beardo · Apr 23, 2016

Good luck in your dino battle. I fought them for a year trying any and every solution I read about and never was able to defeat them (minus dino-x) and never did defeat them. I had periods of time I thought they were gone but sadly they always came back. I experienced similar issues as you; fish were fine but tissue necrosis on my sps and some lps as well. In the end I set up a new tank and started over. I was moving so the timing worked for a reset.
Not trying to discourage you as there is a good thread on reef central with some being successful in getting rid of them.

maksim serebro · Apr 23, 2016

Beardo, did you use any corals or live rock or fish from old tank when you started over? I heard that dinos can live in tissues of corals and slime coat of fish.. Did you get dinos in the new tank?

Beardo · Apr 23, 2016

I used all new rock, a 50 - 50 mix of live rock from tampa bay saltwater and cured rock i bought from another tank.
I transferred my remaining coral and clam into the new tank only after dipping and/or QT. LPS were all dipped in peroxide/water mix (I didn't measure so can't provide an exact ratio, followed by rinse then dip in lugols, rinse then into QT. SPS was dipped in Revive, rinse, lugols, rinse and into tank. I also scrubbed any skeleton, rock or plug with a toothbrush dipped in peroxide. For fish I matched salinity and temp in 3 different buckets and transferred fish from bucket to bucket to try and rinse any dinos and to ensure no old tank water was transferred in. I didn't dip the clam and just scrubbed shell in bucket of fresh saltwater, followed by transfer to another bucket and another scrub then into another bucket let it sit to flush water thru then into QT. I followed the same procedure when transferring from QT to new tank.
This all may be overkill but I wasn't taking any chances.

So far I have seen no signs of dinos in the new tank. I am a firm believer that ultra low nitrate/phosphate with an imbalance between the 2 along with a lack of biodiversity allow dinos to get a foothold. In the new tank I am trying to be more careful to maintain some nutrients and only will run GFO when there is a need. I did get into a low nutrient level for a short time when fighting hair algae due to the rock I had purchased from another reefer leached phosphates but after shutting the GFO off and upping the feedings all is well.

As far as methods for fighting, the most successes I have seen on the forums have been with the "dirty method". Which includes no GFO, skimmer off for some period of time, heavy feedings, regular photo additions and adding pods.

maksim serebro · Apr 23, 2016

I completely agree with you. Im trying the dirty method now. I need other algae to over compete dinos. This already happened in my fish only tank and no sign of dinos for a year now. I will follow your advise. The hardest thing is watching you SPS die in front of your eyes.

Beardo · Apr 23, 2016

I hear you, it was very disheartening to lose most of my nicest SPS. I wish you all the luck

mcarroll · Oct 28, 2016

@maksim serebro dunno if you saw that "bacterivory" link I posted in the other Dino's thread, but you don't want to mess around with these critters.

They aren't dependent on dissolved nutrients in an even worse way than cyanobacteria, so that's not a very good avenue for handling them....unless you hate your cleanup crew!

Keep PO4 non-zero for this and other reasons.

What you need is for this stuff to remain non-toxic so the CUC can help.
Keep after manual removal to the extent possible.
Encourage competition for nutrients and competition for space rather than trying for "eradication".

I've got something like the same thing going on....no scope to verify anything, unfortunately...but they also seemed to be toxic to CUC until I raised nutrients. H2O2 and Chemiclean did nothing in my case either.

Are you dosing PO4 and/or NO3 now?

maksim serebro · Oct 28, 2016

mcarroll said:
@maksim serebro dunno if you saw that "bacterivory" link I posted in the other Dino's thread, but you don't want to mess around with these critters.

They aren't dependent on dissolved nutrients in an even worse way than cyanobacteria, so that's not a very good avenue for handling them....unless you hate your cleanup crew!

Keep PO4 non-zero for this and other reasons.

What you need is for this stuff to remain non-toxic so the CUC can help.

Keep after manual removal to the extent possible.

Encourage competition for nutrients and competition for space rather than trying for "eradication".

I've got something like the same thing going on....no scope to verify anything, unfortunately...but they also seemed to be toxic to CUC until I raised nutrients. H2O2 and Chemiclean did nothing in my case either.

Are you dosing PO4 and/or NO3 now?

Dosed nitrate. Dinos got worse. At this point I tried everything just ask and I tried it. Including bleach. I just can't get rid of them. I have a microscope so I know they are present