Dinoflagellates suck! Please advise

[Christyf5]

Ok so I've been having a hellish time with dinoflagellates for about the past month or so and my patience has come to an end with the advent of losing a goodly portion of my sps frags and all 3 cap colonies, over the weekend. I've tried: decreasing the lighting period (2x250W MH), actinics only for a few days(2x40W NO), turkey basting the crap off the rocks, run carbon, chemipure and filter floss to collect the particulates and water changes after the turkey basting and cleaning the glass on all sides. I've increased the alkalinity to 3.5meq/L, calcium is at 380 (where it has always been, not for lack of trying to get it higher ). My skimmer is pulling out some of the most disgusting black gunk I have ever seen or smelled for that matter. I have lots of flow in my tank which includes 2 802s and 2 MJ1200s. I also was doing regular water changes before this all started and increased the frequency of them during the first part of the bloom.

All of this seemed to start when I removed a lot of the rock (except for the main 4 on the sandbed) to get a foxface and bicolor blenny out. While I had them out I decided to change my aquascaping and reversed the position of two of the main rocks that sat on the sandbed. I think disturbing the sandbed was the cause of all of this.

So now I am faced with several options:

First of all I could just say to hell with it and sell off everything. I've really been waffling about this lately and I just don't think I could do it but these damned dinos just aren't going away (I'm a fence sitter on this one).

Secondly, I could remove the sandbed. Quite frankly its never been that nice white sandbed that everyone else seems to have. The first 6 months of this year it actually looked the best it ever has and had a ton of life which no doubt has been smothered by the dinos. However I have a wrasse that likes to sleep in the sandbed and I don't want him going all weird on me because he isn't getting a good nights sleep

Thirdly, I could replace the sandbed. Currently I have about 3-4" of aragonite sand (I suppose its the 1-1.7mm grade kind as listed on the J&L website). I was thinking maybe to replace that with a couple inches of oolitic sand. Or I could rinse the sandbed that I have. The sandbed that I have now has currently been with me for 3 years and has been moved 3 times. I'm sure it could use a good rinse :?:

Anyway, please post your opinions on what you think I should do. Currently I am favoring option number 3. I'd really rather not spend any more money on the tank if its going to continue to be the PITA it has been for the past, well technically I guess about 3 years , but its that 3 month happy-with-tank window that I'm going for :wink:

Christy
_________________
us economy recession

 

[Jolieve]

Dinos are a ... *cough* b**ch to get rid of. I'm having problems myself. Turning the lights off didn't work... and mine are only growing on the sand, not on the rocks. I've tried all the usual tricks.

All I can tell you is this: It may be related to the sandbed. It could be that you don't have enough flow going above the sand itself. I know that dinos are notoriously hard to get rid of, any number of things could be the culprit in your system, and it's probably something completely different for mine.

Don't tear down the tank. I'm not sure that tearing out the sandbed will get them out of the water column and stop them from coming back. From what I have read, sometimes, just manually removing a large chunk of the dinos can cause the rest of it to die off.

So... before you rip out the sandbed and rinse it, try this and see if it works:

Get some airline tube (airline should pick up the dinos without picking up very much sand, in theory)... and gently siphon as much of the stuff as you can out of your tank. Wait a week.. and see if the rest dies off.

I'll be giving this a shot tonight myself. I'll let you know how it goes.

Good luck,
J.

 

[Money Pit]

You can try a Kalk drip for a week or so and maintain a high PH, in the 8.6 range. It will clear the little bastards right up.

 

[Jolieve]

Thanks MP! I'll give that a shot as well.

 

[MNoel]

did it work?

 

[Jolieve]

No, it didn't work. So far nothing has worked. I have tried raising ca, tried running carbon and changing daily, tried lights out. I'm continually siphoning out snotballs and cleaning out the screen on my overflow to declog the tank of the stuff. It's awful... and it just will not go away!

 

[Christyf5]

The only way I eventually got rid of it (after 3 tries) was lights out with blankets on the tank so absolutely no light got in, for 6 days. All of the other tries were using the same method but not long enough I guess. I have been dinoflagellate free for 2 whole weeks now!!

Christy
_________________
Angel

 

[Jolieve]

Tried that myself. I lost two green chromis during that time, apparently my clowns got bored. Also it did nothing to kill the dinos. They came back with gusto during that period.

 

[Anonymous]

Jolieve,

Have you considered a conch or two?

 

[Jolieve]

I have actually.

I am going to check on a few other things before I decide to add more critters, and I also have a couple of aiptasia that came in on my monti that I need to nuke. I'm really beginning to think that the solution to most of my nutrient problems in the 75 is a fuge and a ca reactor but putting those on is presenting several logistic problems... like where to stick the things.

 

[heuerfan1]

I'm starting to get some as well and can't figure out how to get rid of them.

Don't know if i should get bigger skimmer or set up a fuge.

Thanks,
Steven

 

[polcat]

Option #2. Loose the sand bed. I fought this for a year and finally pulled it out and went bare bottom. With no sand you can have huge flow and then skim the heck out of it. JMHO.