Dinoflagellates - dinos a possible cure!? Follow along and see!

[puffy127]

Ok, time for me to weigh in with an update. I did the initial 3-day metro dosing and waiting the however many days (was it 10?) after with daily removals. It did seem to clear things up a bit, but they always came back, though never as bad as before I started. I let it go maybe a month after this with daily removals and things did not get better. Then I did a 10-day regiment of H2O2 2x daily, which again, not sure if it helped (as it never helped before), but continued with daily manual removal and then I added some pods. This may have been the tipping point in outcompeting and killing off the dinos, as I started getting less and less in my manual removals. Then I started to get a little bit of cyano (which I took as a good sign in that the dinos were dying off). I did one bout of chemiclean and things looked good. I then added even more pods and no longer needed to do manual removals. A little bit of cyano came back a few weeks later and I did another round of chemiclean a few weeks ago. Things have never looked so good in my tank! I sent twilliard a water sample and he said he saw no dinos! He did note that my biological life was limited probably due to my H2O2 dosing and 2 rounds of chemiclean. I'm considering dosing some Dr. Tims to help build my bacterial population back up. Nitrates are a little high (25 ppm) whereas they are normally around (2.5-5 ppm), which kind of confirms the lack of biological life. Pictures to come.

Again, thanks twilliard for all your work on battling these dinos. I still believe the initial metro dosing helped kickstart all of this. Although not completely effective alone, after another round of H2O2 and adding pods, it seemed to eradicate them in my tank.

AGGGHHH. They're baaaaack. Tried 10 days of 2x/day H2O2 dosing and pods again, but it didn't seem to work this time. Just received some Vibrant and will start dosing tonight. I'll keep you all updated on whether it is effective or not.

 

[jason2459]

Would be interesting to see more results here. I still have my dinos but not noticeable without searching for them under a microscope. They haven't replied to my questions in that thread.

I did not do the bleach.

 

[maksim serebro]

Also dosed vibrant tonight. Expect very little from it. Worth a try though

 

[jason2459]

Also dosed vibrant tonight. Expect very little from it. Worth a try though

Do you or have you been providing a carbon source to boost bacterial levels already? Like biopellets or dosing vodka and/or vinegar?

 

[maksim serebro]

Do you or have you been providing a carbon source to boost bacterial levels already? Like biopellets or dosing vodka and/or vinegar?

Nope. Not dosing anything else.

 

[jason2459]

Nope. Not dosing anything else.

Then you may see some kind of change.

 

[maksim serebro]

Then you may see some kind of change.

There is nothing on the bottle about carbon dosing. Vinegar is listed as one of the ingredients. I want to try one thing at a time to determine effect. I don't believe it will do anything. So far the only thing that works is bleach. But is kills indeterminately

 

[maksim serebro]

Wondering if twilliard is still Dino free after bleaching

 

[jason2459]

There is nothing on the bottle about carbon dosing. Vinegar is listed as one of the ingredients. I want to try one thing at a time to determine effect. I don't believe it will do anything. So far the only thing that works is bleach. But is kills indeterminately

I didn't say it was carbon dosing. But the idea that you aren't currently pushing up the population of bacteria. So, increasing bacteria counts may show a temporary change. I don't know what that change will be or for how long after the last dose.

I don't see it wiping out your dinoflagelets completely.


The vinegar and aspartic acid is very little and I don't see how it doesn't get oxidized. I question it's usefulness of being a preservative.

 

[Reefer1978]

Not with my eyes but with microscope yes. Definitely. Honestly, I don't think hyposalinity will kill them. I'm just trying everything

Also dosed vibrant tonight. Expect very little from it. Worth a try though

Maksim, don't give up. You sound defeated. I've been battling these guys for 2 years. I have them under control now, have had them under control for a long time; and testing vibrant for the final kill.

 

[maksim serebro]

Maksim, don't give up. You sound defeated. I've been battling these guys for 2 years. I have them under control now, have had them under control for a long time; and testing vibrant for the final kill.

Lol. You are absolutely right. I had a great sps tank for 2 years and all of a sudden dinos came. They killed all sps. Most remedies either did nothing if caused more problems. I do feel defeated and thinking of getting out all together especially when I look at beautiful tanks on this site

 

[Reefer1978]

Lol. You are absolutely right. I had a great sps tank for 2 years and all of a sudden dinos came. They killed all sps. Most remedies either did nothing if caused more problems. I do feel defeated and thinking of getting out all together especially when I look at beautiful tanks on this site

DO you still have a lot of dinos in the system? Are they visible? Can you post a pic? Send it over PM if you want, we'll take the conversation there.

 

[maksim serebro]

I didn't say it was carbon dosing. But the idea that you aren't currently pushing up the population of bacteria. So, increasing bacteria counts may show a temporary change. I don't know what that change will be or for how long after the last dose.

I don't see it wiping out your dinoflagelets completely.


The vinegar and aspartic acid is very little and I don't see how it doesn't get oxidized. I question it's usefulness of being a preservative.

Would you recommend carbon dosing? I read the vibrant thread here. The manufacturer states that it can be used with or without biopellets. I not sure what to do. It almost seems to me that biopellets and aa dosing caused my initial Dino bloom a year ago

 

[jason2459]

Dinos could take advantage of a carbon source. But does need several other elements to flourish.

 

[maksim serebro]

DO you still have a lot of dinos in the system? Are they visible? Can you post a pic? Send it over PM if you want, we'll take the conversation there.

This is what I have now.

 

[Waterjockey]

Then you may see some kind of change.

I have been carbon dosing for over a year. I run a trace amount of kn03 and I also run ozone. I recently switched from straight vinegar to a vodka/vinegar mix and am experiencing my first outbreak of dinos, and some cyano at the same time. I take it you are suggesting that with the increased bacterial count in my tank, that I shouldn't expect to see any positive results from the Vibrant product?
I current have suspended all dosing and skimming while I run 500mg of metro 2x/day. I am on day 9....I intend to run for 14 days, then resume my normal dosing and see what happens.
By the end of my 14 days the bottle of vibrant should have arrived. I won't open the bottle if I don't have a re-occurrence.....but will at the first hint of dino/cyano coming back.
I had also tried h2o2 at 1.5ml/10 gallons for 7 days and it didn't faze the dino/cyano one bit.

I started metro dosing before I had read the entire thread, so I don't have any expectations for it to "cure" my dino issue (anymore) so I suspect I will be trying the product, and will post positive or negative results here

 

[jason2459]

I was just suggesting a change may be noticeable of some kind. Not specifically any reduction in dinos or even a good or bad change.

I would guess that if someone was already boosting bacterial counts that adding a bacteria from a bottle may not see as much of a change or none at all. All depends on how well that bacteria can out compete the current good and bad bacteria.

 

[Donaldf973]

Dino, hair algae, diatoms and cyano exploded after I finished a month of dosing bleach and dropped nitrates back under 20ppm so I just ordered the vibrant cleaner to try it out. As I suspected nitrates seem to make dinos go dormant in my nano once above 20-30ppm. So, I'm going to drop nitrates with water changes and maintenance to around 5ppm and once the vibrant cleaner gets here and post before and after pics.

 

[Reefer1978]

Dino, hair algae, diatoms and cyano exploded after I finished a month of dosing bleach and dropped nitrates back under 20ppm so I just ordered the vibrant cleaner to try it out. As I suspected nitrates seem to make dinos go dormant in my nano once above 20-30ppm. So, I'm going to drop nitrates with water changes and maintenance to around 5ppm and once the vibrant cleaner gets here and post before and after pics.

Hey Donald, how much were you dosing? Hair algae, diatoms and cyano is a good sign, other alges are trying to take over. Did you add pods?

 

[Donaldf973]

Almost a full ml of 8.25% chlorox it wiped out all amphipods and copepods after a week. had to stop cause the nitrate shot up to 60-80ppm and my red monti started turning white after the third week.