Y'all I'm soooo discouraged right now....

[VelasCorals]

Thanks everyone! I battled the same algae in the summer and tried a few different things. The week before I went out of town it started to look better. When I got home it was gone. Went out of town again in Oct and by the time I got home it was back again.



Real Reef Rock



I've lost almost all of my corals. I have never worked harder on a reef tank as far as maintenance and not neglecting it. I'm not over feeding, etc..



Man no idea! What did you find out caused yours?



Thanks man. Funny thing is after the first bad outbreak ended I add a large UV and it's been running ever since. Got some algae growing in the return tube from it. HA!



Thanks man. I can get rid of Cyano quick and easy. This is a different animal!



I have pulled my socks a while back an turned all red off before this even started this most recent time.

No Vibrant will also take care of dynos!

 

[jsker]

Yes. Exactly. Doing less is more in my instance. However, I would have expected my coral to fade away or rtn. I haven't seen that yet. My thought, because I havent tested, is that the coral growth stopped or slowed. This allowing the tank to balance out or fix itself. So by doing this I'm also only running a skimmer and a small 9w UV. No GAC or any bio-media. Just the basics.

That make so much since, In the last 6 months I have gone back to the basics and my system is so much better. As someone stated the more the system matures the issues get less and less and you hit the key statement letting things balance out.

 

[jeff howard]

I would hit that sucker with Flucon and see what happens. The Flucon won't hurt anything, but it may just kill it. It is hard to tell whether they are Dinos or Bryopsis to me anyway. Last breakout of stuff that sounds like that I had the Flucon killed it. It is a shot, but in my view it can't hurt anything.

 

[dansreef]

Hey Rev.... I battled the little jerks for a long time... Tried Everything.... Yes.... I even dosed bleach at one time.... I know crazy!!! What I ultimately found is that by going dirty and letting cyano take over and outcompete the dinos that I was able to get the upper hand. I also added a ton of pods. I let nuisance algae grow... as I knew that getting rid of it was easier than the dinos. It worked for me.... I did lose some corals. I also had some corals bounce back from what I thought was dead....

I have been keeping FW and SW tanks most of my life. I remember an adage someone told me as a kid... a rule of thumb if you will.... that I violate on a regular basis. That is... a tank needs to find its balance. ... its equilibrium. Once it does...then things can normalize and things start to grow. In the hobby today, there are all sorts of potions.... additives and new processes ...together with all sorts of new equipment. We do so much to our tanks... that they never ever get to that point where they find their balance. As a result....something goes astray and there is an outbreak... of things like Dinos. It sucks! I feel for you. If you can let your tank go dirty... let other algae and cyano grow and take over.... they will outcompete the dinos.

One more point... maybe beating a dead horse.... I had three large tanks up until recently. Two I neglected... and one I didn't. Can you guess which one had the outbreak of Dinos that I fought for many months? The other two tanks I didn't do anything but top off and feed. Nothing.... I even had a pathetic 4 bulb t-5 with

2 year ​

old bulbs ...and that tank grew all sorts of corals.... no problem. It is weird... I had another reefer who will go unnamed... that told me years ago to .... "Keep your hands out of your tank and stop putting krap in it...!" I know the temptation is great to do something. Maybe the best thing you can do... is just let things take their course...

I wish you well. I know it sucks...

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

My theory is that either something in dead rock or artificial rock creates an environment that allows Dinos and Cyano to proliferate. Or, something that is missing from it, that exists in real ocean live rock. One thing that has been confirmed by hobby experts is that a reef tank takes much longer to mature and be capable of keeping more demanding corals when started with dead or artificial rock. It is my anecdotal observation after 10+ years in the hobby is that we had much more success keeping reefs and had less issues with Dinos when real ocean live rock was the primary source of biological filtration being used in the hobby.

+1. I got into the hobby just over 10 years ago, and nobody was talking about dinos. I don't remember ever seeing a single thread about them, aside from maybe one or two threads about "new tank syndrome." Bryopsis and GHA were the bad guys.

Now everyone seems to have dinos. Interestingly enough, I was looking for some actual ocean rock or cured ocean rock recently, and none of the major retailers have any. KP Aquatics and Tampa Bay Saltwater seem to be the only places. Everywhere else sells fake rock or dry rock.

I think you're right though, I don't think we know the reason, but tanks started with all dry rock appear to be the ones with issues (mine included).

 

[Maacc]

Rev, do you have room to add some real live rock into your sump? Also think about an ATS. Go to feeding heavy with the scrubber acting as a nutrient sink.
As others have said I think you may need a shot in the arm of biodiversity.
If the rock from Tampa bay isn't going to work, maybe give some garf grunge a try. They are super nice there and (knock on wood) my 187 I set up in July is covering over in coraline and I used acid/bleach washed pukani rock, but I mixed about 20# of the garf grunge into the sand bed.

 

[4FordFamily]

Do you carbon dose?

In 13 years I had my first tangle with it last year after 6 months of carbon dosing. I fought it after a long battle involving hydrogen peroxide, lights out and covering tank, giant water changes (manual removal) I finally won and stopped dosing and it’s never returned on any tank. I had it appear in two tanks while I carbon dosed. One of which was BAD.

The tank that was more stable and a reef had less trouble — fresh phosban media and big time skimmer helped as well I suspect.

 

[reeferfoxx]

...

 

[Scorpius]

Really dude? Take that elsewhere.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

Rev, do you have room to add some real live rock into your sump? Also think about an ATS. Go to feeding heavy with the scrubber acting as a nutrient sink.
As others have said I think you may need a shot in the arm of biodiversity.
If the rock from Tampa bay isn't going to work, maybe give some garf grunge a try. They are super nice there and (knock on wood) my 187 I set up in July is covering over in coraline and I used acid/bleach washed pukani rock, but I mixed about 20# of the garf grunge into the sand bed.

GARF Grunge. Didn't know it existed. Sounds like what the Dr. ordered for my dead tank. I emailed them now to get some. Thanks!

 

[Humblefish]

I've always beaten dinos by going 3-day lights out, once a month, every month. I even black garbage bag the aquarium panels to keep out ambient light. It can take awhile to win the war this way (3-4 months), but it has never failed me.

 

[Fin]

No Vibrant will also take care of dynos!

I really don't know what took over my nano for months, but it was thick, grayish green (like snot and it didn't smell very good) and it grew fast and wiped out most of my LPS corals that it overgrew. I was constantly cleaning it and doing water changes. Did the 3 day blackout (it just laughed at that). Nothing I tried worked. As a last resort (before I dismantled the tank), I tried Vibrant. The stuff is now all gone and my water is crystal clear. It made a believer out of me. I know that what you have may not be what was in my tank, but I would recommend that you at least give Vibrant a try.

 

[Palyzoa]

Keep fighting the good fight, Rev! We all know that this hobby requires patience and commitment thru the good and bad. I know you will get back to where you want to be if you if you persevere thru this rough patch!

 

[reeferfoxx]

If the ocean could speak, would it tell us to dump this in, add this reactor, test this or dose that?

 

[Scorpius]

Just remember when you do finally overcome this algae, you'll have the knowledge to helps others.

 

[Rikki Reef]

Hang on an Hang in an keep it simple, it took me putting socks in, an a ton of pods in the system an one more rock cleaning and knock on glass all gone

 

[Perry]

I know it sounds crazy, but Hurricane Irma solved my dino issue, I lost power for 6 days, only ran a powerhead and air pump. When the power restored, all of it was GONE. Now, my acro frags were already weak from the dinos, so I ended up losing them. All other livestock made it, softies, fish, and inverts. Water changes will likely fuel the problem. By running a black out, you can maybe break the cycle. Personally you could do away with skimming during this black out, instead run an air stone. The nutrients will creep, but that may solve the problem. After the black out, I would slowly ramp lighting, starting with actinics blues only for a couple of days. Look into the Redfield Ratio, follow up with testing phosphates and nitrates. If one is really low, and the other is higher than normal, that could be the issue. During the blackout, hopefully the lack of light will at least halt growth. Some might disagree with me, that is cool, I am only here to share my experience. My dino issue came from switching bio media from passive to active. I use AF Life Bio Fil. This switch took my nitrates from 20ppm, to 0.00 in 3 days. My phosphates were low, 0.00-0.02ppb. The reactor with the media was WAY too efficient. I tried to slow the effluent, feed like crazy, but could not get the nitrates up. The storm came, and since the media was no longer active, it went rancid without flow, so I pulled the reactor. When power restored, added new media back into the system, but passive in a mesh bag into the filtration compartment, I use an AIO system. The system has transitioned to softies now, and very happy with my system, I have done SPS for 12 years, so now just enjoying crazy mushrooms and zoas, they are fun too Best of luck, they are a bear, but usually it is an imbalance with nutrients or processing of nutrients, hopefully you will solve in short order

 

[FlyinBryan]

I had issues also, ended up being circulation and clean up crew also feeding properly

This!

 

[reefwiser]

Fluconazole will fix this very easily. The tank is out of balance bio VS bacteria

 

[Ashish Patel]

I don't think re-booting the tank is a good option when dealing with algaes since they'll be ready to take over in a newly booted tank with equal force. Besides you did everything carefully planned but perhaps only thing missing is enough competition. I've contemplated what I'd do if algae because unmanageable... I"d probably relocate all the livestock and add the tank LR (and some newly aquired LR) to a dark tank for a few weeks with a Large UV filter and perhaps strip nutrients- Absence of nutrients and light all algaes should die while giving the sponges and other microorganism, bacteria to gain strength. When you set up the tank again algae will be good as gone but your LR will have a good start.

3 weeks back I had my first dino outbreak.. I Blasted them with a long coral feeder and increased flow to UV, added mechanical filter, and wet skimmed. They tried making a comeback but the cheato, hair algae, and some cyano where treated with importance and dinos are blasted at first sign. This way they are constantly trying to fight for territory or being blasted by the UV light.