I've got Dino, not the Jurassic kind

Just wanted to share my pain. This is my 180 that is 3-4 years old. Upgraded from my 10+ year old 90 which was an upgrade from a 15 year old 55.

All my tanks were always clean and spot on with parameters. I got 2-3 weeks behind on my monthly cleaning this month and the Dino had a chance to get a strong grip.

Everyone is fine, but gravel is ugly. Time to fight some Dino.

 

Give this a read. http://www.3reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates.152251/ It may help.

 

Have faith! You can kill those Jurassic Dino's.

 

Here is my experience. No additive helps. I've gotten rid of it three times. Each time, the trick was to avoid half measures. Go fully wrapped lights out for at least 4 or 5 days, then several weeks of low light, preferably blue.

 

+1 to Servillius
I used the same technique to get rid of my Dino. I also ran a lot of fresh GFO in my reactor. Good luck my friend Dino is a tough one to get rid of

 

Does this have an effect on coral?

 

My experience is they're not happy about it, but I've lost very few and they were probably marginal. Here's the thing. IF you go into it worrying too much about your corals, you'll tend to wimp out and give them light too early. The result is you fail to crush the dino and have to do it all over again further endangering your corals.

Your signature has a quote in it by Ron Swanson. This is one of those times.

 

Good luck with the fight. Your tank is amazing

 

I don't think it's ever been nailed down what gets rid of these things for good. I've had them a couple times over the last year. I basically didn't change anything. Many people report doing water changes made them worse. Try unplugging skimmer for a day and see what happens as it's believed by many that very clean water makes them happy. Do you have a low nutrient system?
Mine never completely went away and I suspect every tank actually has them in some form if you have corals. Occasionally I will see one single strand but it ends up going away. If they get on any SPS you may need to blow them off with turkey baster several times a day. They will kill smooth skin corals like setosa.

 

Keep fighting the good fight. I had a decent population of these boogers, then I took some of the majorly affected rock and did a fresh water dip/scrub. After that, they went back to the fuge of the same system. That piece has been perfect ever since.

Everyday, at least 2-3x a day, I'll suck out the dinos I can see. I then blow off the area where I just sucked up the dinos to loosen anything else in the area. I had a lot affecting my SPS frag rack, but I moved it and it's not so much now. It's where my 2 fav smooth skins are, so far they have been strong.

The only thing I haven't tried is a "lights out" period. Being on the verge of an upgrade. I have new live-rock in a different system curing right now. It was live to begin with, I'm just keeping it that way. I'm hoping to use as much new rock as possible, cutting away the frags from any of the old rocks. Then I'm going to put the old rock in the fuge "no-light area" to see if they will die off.

Now, if my upgrade doesn't happen soon, I'm going to go with a "wrapped-lights outs" period.