My Battle with Dino has Begun....

Well, after searching through 3Reef for a solution to my Dinoflagellate problem, I have started the battle.

I have a 40g breeder that started getting the brown, air-bubbled goo that seems to return within hours of cleaning it off. My tank is only 3 months old, lighting is a Nova Extreme Pro, I have an Eshopps skimmer, I have a fuge with Chaeto, I am running GFO and carbon, I have 3 Hydors for flow, and my water parameters are normal. I did notice my pH was low (8.1) and I'm wondering if this helped the dino along.

So this week I started raising up the pH by dosing with kalk and so far I have the pH upto 8.4. Is this good enough or should I shoot for 8.6?

I completely blacked out the tank yesterday and I plan on going 4 days. When the 4 days is over, what photoperiod should I start out with? 4 hours?

Should I feed the fish during the blackout period?

I plan on scrubbing the rock daily letting the mechanical filter pull it out and cleaning the filter for the next day.

I've been doing marine aquariums for almost 30 years and I've never had such a persistent dino issue like this....

I'm thinking of upgrading to some PAR30 Boost LED's, upgrading my flow to a couple of Vortechs (or is one enough?), and adding a calcium reactor. What does everyone think about those ideas?

Things were going really well until the brown snot came; it's not like it's everywhere, there is very little of it on the sandbed. It seems to like being on the rockwork.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

I'm having this same problem right now, will be tagging along for any advice

 

Well, I have one more day before I can lift the blackness from my tank. I took a peek today and holy cow! No dino! It's actually working! I had a bit of a tough time keeping the pH above 8.6 but it looks like it was a success!

Thank goodness for the threads on 3Reef!