Battling the dino menace

AC-WEB

AC-WEB

Member
I've been off the boards for a bit, and honestly the most discouraged i have been in four years of the hobby. I have been battling what i thought was cyano, but im now sure it is dinoflagelates. This rust colored goo has killed most of my snails and several of my coral and sps colonies like my lobo, torch, strawberry shortcake, wild aussie acro, and rainbow delight. My pink jade and aqua delight are still alive but brown.

I had been doing weekly and sometimes more often water changes with no success. Im currently trying to eliminate it by going dark a few days, raising my ph, and i added a slow flowing uv sterilizer. Hopefully this will work and i can have my beautiful tank again!

Ariel
 
Dino likes silicates it usually runs its coarse in new systems. In an older system check the water. Silicate test are available from salifert. Are you using DI water for your system.
 
Research hydrogen peroxide dosing for dinos. Alot of people in R2R have eliminated Dinos using peroxide. Dinos dont need much nutrients and light to survive, so maintenance alone wont get rid of it. Good luck.
 
With most peoples experience, plan A (maintenance) usually doesnt work. I would just do Peroxide Dosing as you are doing Plan A and not waste time. Hydrogen Peroxide is pretty harmless in correct dosages.
 
Thanks for the info, Nino. I have done an intense scraping, turkey basting or rocks, and siphoning of the tank with a water change. I added the uv sterilizer, have gone dark, am using seachem reef buffer to raise ph, and now dosing 10ml of Hydrogen Peroxide. Hopefully good results will follow.
 
peroxide is the most effective treatment i know of, but i have seen it affect more sensitive corals. If you are at your wits end go for it.
 
I was going through the dino horror on my last tank. I feel your frustration. I've since taken the tank down because I upgraded to a larger tank, but before I did I was in the process of taking out a few rocks at a time, and spraying them with hydrogen peroxide, and just wanted to share my experience. The results were pretty impressive. The dinos immediately turned white and appeared that they were on the road to dying. I didn't follow it to the end since I upgraded the tank, but there didn't seem to be any damage to my SPS or LPS corals. Some people dip the coral in the peroxide, but I sprayed it on the rock instead, less wastage. One thing to remember is that once you open a bottle of it, you need to use it immediately or it loses it's potency.
 
Thanks everyone. Its been four days of me taking the offensive on this battle. Things are looking promosing, but i have a feeling that a victory wont come easily. The are still some dinos on the sand bed, rocks, and back wall, but it is noticebly less. I will contine the h. peroxide dosing for the near future, as well as using the uv sterilizer.
 
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