Invasion of the Killer Dinos

[Bifferwine]

Dinos overload in my 90 gallon. Bad news. Big time. Lawnmower blenny is dead. The two urchins are balding and look like total crap. Most snails are dead. And this is all in the last two days. Only the algae-eating animals seem affected -- all corals and other fish are looking okay.

Yesterday was Day 1 of a total tank blackout -- I put blankets over it and everything, and turned the tank on for 1 hour to take livestock inventory and feed. Did the same thing today. Coral beauty and sixline wrasse didn't come out, but they were probably sleeping. I'll check for them again later.

I haven't started dripping kalk or anything. If I do, it will have to wait until next week as my parents are visiting and I have not been at home at all for the past 5 days or so.

This is such a bummer. I'm really upset. Luckily nothing I've lost so far is "irreplaceable" but I feel bad.

 

[Ted]

Sorry to see that Sarah

 

[dcantucson]

This sucks really BIG TIME. Couldn't it have waited until your parents left. WTF!!!!

 

[fastrd400]

Holy crap, you got them too? Geez, seems like alot of this stuff going around as of late. Hang in there Sarah, you can beat this crap.

 

[Smitty]

Oh wow! I'm sorry to hear that. Good luck with the treatment Biff.

 

[Cathic]

Hope it all goes well =/

 

[Bifferwine]

Well two days of blackout haven't been enough to start killing them off. I hope it doesn't take long -- I have a lot of corals and worry about them.

 

[wontonflip]

Sorry to hear, biff :( Dinos must die! die! DIE!

 

[daugherty]

it took me two blackouts and i turned my main pump down low so the water had a lot more dwell time in the uv and so far it has seemed to have worked

 

[motorcyclereefer]

Sorry to hear.

 

[BL1]

Sorry to hear it, I hope everything makes it through ok

 

[daugherty]

here is a good thread on rc

Dinoflagellates- mother of all battles! Help Please - Page 8 - Reef Central Online Community

 

[Bluespace]

How's the battle going Sarah? Any updates?

 

[bjohanson1234]

I had an outbreak of them a while ago. Did the total black out and it was when I was running an algae scrubber. They grew like mad on the screen. Cleaned it every day. Within a couple weeks, it was cleared up.

Unfortunantly, I upgraded my lights and since I had built it in the canopy, I had to dismantle the scrubber.

Now I have the fuge with Biff's CHeato. You should try it, it works miracles!!!!:mrgreen:

 

[Hiker4twenty]

That sucks Sarah. Hope you can kick the dino's ass! There seems to be a lot of people getting dino outbreaks. Is there anything in particular that will cause dino's to show up out of nowhere?

 

[andysgirl8800]

Sarah, sorry about the dinos. They are more disheartening then other algae outbreaks, particularly because they start killing fish. Hang in there and be vigillant with the black out. Good luck.

 

[Bifferwine]

Yesterday was Day 3 of the blackout. At the end of yesterday, I scrubbed my powerheads off with a dish brush, with a net placed in front of them (so anything that flew off the powerheads got trapped in the net). Yesterday was the first day that it looked like the dinos started dying.

I don't know if this is related or not, but my baby blastos also died. Only the babies -- the parent polyps look great. Maybe they were just too small to handle the lack of light.

I scraped off and removed as much of the dinos as I could (again). Today is another black day :(

 

[yote]

HOD DANG Biff.
Good luck with that.I know what you got your hands full on this one.

 

[Bifferwine]

Thanks Yote. Luckily, I'm starting this early before they're on all the rocks. It's getting better, Day 4 and I see some improvement and die-off.

 

[VAreef]

Can you document some of this with some photos? I for one would like to see what it is doing and what to expect from blackoouts etc. I hope you can get them under control. I find it weird that reefers everywhere are suddenly having dino problems. 2 years ago I wouldnt of known what a dino was.