I think I'm in dinoflagellates hell !!! Need advice please

[nikkinchip]

Last week I started to notice what I thought was a breakout of cyanobactertia. In a matter or a couple of days, all my corals started looking stressed out. I did a 30% water change along with syphoning the sandbed and changed my carbon filters. The next morning everything looked pretty good but a few days later, eveything looked worse again. The most hardiest of my corals, kyrotonite candy cane looked the worst. The flesh was just floating away and I thought for sure he was a goner. Now my frog spawn and hammer are not looking to hot and I can see the skeleton now from tissue loss on both. I did a coral dip (brightwell) to my candy canes and they are doing a lot better but still stressed. The hammer and frog-spawn, not so much.
I started to research online today (google image) because I started to suspect this was not cyano, but something else. The algae has snot like consistency with bubbles now. This brought up a lot of info on dinoflagellates and this honestly l think is what is happening in my tank. Has anyone tried the H202 (hydrogen peroxide method by chance?
I added a protein skimmer ( CPR bak pak) last night after my nephew found one for me. Lots of micro bubbles happening but I read this was normal.

I could just use some help from anyone that can offer some good advice.
I have a couple of pics right before it started getting bad.
1872518726

Here is my current system/specs & water parameters

46G Bow Front- 2 years running now
Aqueon 75 filteration
Ecotech vortech mp10
LED 1 55 bulbs half white half blue
CPR bak pak skimmer (recently added)

Salinity 1.025
PH 8.4
nitrites 0
nitrates < 10
Ammonia 0
KH 9
78' temp

live stock: Haven't added anything new in 3+ months
2 perc clowns (mated)
1 coral beauty
1 yellow wasse
50 lbs LR
2 Rose Bubble Tip anemone (split about 2 months ago)
30 head kryptonite candy cane
1 6 head branching hammer
2 head frog spawn
1 small frag galaxy
2 ricordea mushroom frags
1 large toadstool 1 small
different type of zoa colonys
1 orange plate coral
10 head Duncan coral
2 brain corals
1 fire shrimp
1 peppermint shrimp
a few of each on the cleanup crew..turbos, Nass snails, hermits

[Fishstix@JewelsOfTheSea]

I agree that it does sound as you are going through a dinoflagellates outbreak. From the sounds of it, it has progressed quite rapidly and require immediate attention. I would continue to do water changes about 5% per day for about a week. Continue to use the protein skimmer and crank it up. I would also recommend utilizing GFO to contain and eliminate any algae in the tank. I would also crank up the MP 10 and have continued heavy flow in the tank to keep the algae from spreading. Keep softies out of direct flow but good water circulation is needed. I would also check parameters every other day, might be overdoing it but it's better to be safe than sorry. Looking back on your set up, I know from experience that if you keep a bag of carbon and don't clean it regularly, then it tends to do the complete opposite of what it's suppose to do. It becomes a magnet for excess waste to collect and cultivate. Having a reactor to store your carbon is a better choice allowing water flow to continuously tumble over the carbon and replace once a month or as needed. In a smaller tank, utilizing a dual reactor is a good choice with gfo and carbon tumbling around to keep your water crystal clear and free of algae. LMK if you need any additional advice or help. =)

[BBQHILLBILLY]

When was the last time you changed your ro filters?

[nikkinchip]

I changed last Weds when I did the large water change. I usually replace both filters every 2-3 weeks. I also have a perigen bag running with the two filters

[BBQHILLBILLY]

huh; no my friend the ro water that you use to make sw. carbon and prefilters before the membrane. Also the water is very cold. The filters work better at 77 degrees so I read.
where do you get your ro water?

[rrasco]

Are you seeing dinos on the corals? If they are not growing over the corals, I would suspect the dinos could be an indicator of the problem you are having, but the dinos are not actually causing the corals stress.

Sherita has a documented thread using H202 on dinos. She had great success.

[nikkinchip]

Oh duh, I read that ro ? wrong. LOL
I actually use a filtered water station out in front of our LFS.
A relative and also a few others that worked at LFS would not recommend their RO water. I know of a few employees that use this same water station for their personal tanks.

Been using this same water for the 2 years I've had tank up.

[nikkinchip]

I found a link to the water I use.

http://www.watermillexpress.com/

[BBQHILLBILLY]

Get one of them TDS meters. not much. You never know.:bigsmile:

[nikkinchip]

I just read the Dino thread experiment you mention above and I say why not. I'm going to give it a shot.
My tank looks no better this evening and my hammer looks worse

[Paul28]

I found a link to the water I use.

http://www.watermillexpress.com/


there water is trash ive yoused the one off Pat Booker in front of Pollys pets 200+tds

[nikkinchip]

Crap..this is the location I get from.
But having said that, I've honestly never have had a water quality issue and my live stock has always been happy and flourishing.

[Paul28]

the ones at HEB out front are even worse dont think these people everchange filters you might as well get the water out of your toilet

[Zack]

Depends on the HEB you get them from, I used to take TDS reads from the local stores and I was getting about 10 TDS from HEB, 4 TDS from Walmart, and about 40 TDS from a local petstore.. my tap water was reading around 185.

[Paul28]

Depends on the HEB you get them from, I used to take TDS reads from the local stores and I was getting about 10 TDS from HEB, 4 TDS from Walmart, and about 40 TDS from a local petstore.. my tap water was reading around 185.

thats not bad at all

[rrasco]

I used to use the Wind Mill water on my 29 gallon, but only when my consumption was low. I never did take a reading on it, namely because I didn't have a TDS meter. Much better to be able to make water at home and store it, you won't regret that purchase.

[CoryDude]

For Dino's, I read an article written by Randy Holmes Farley. I'd suggest you check it out. I used his idea of raising the ph in the tank using a Kalkwasser slurry to keep the ph at 8.4 or 8.5. Then I manually removed as much of the snot as I could. Do not blow the stuff off of the rocks unless you want to make your problem worse. Then I would leave the entire tank dark for 2-3 days at a time. Then I would run the lights for about 4 hours a day for 3 days and then repeat the process. It took forever but I finally got rid of them after a month.

[Paul28]

use cable ties to a toothbrush to your siphon hose when you do waterchanges have fun slowly scrubbing so it dosent spread :)

[clayton]

I use R/O water from the Polly's in Universal City, seemed to help with my algae issues a lot,might try going there,only cost me about 5 bucks to fill up my 7 gallon container.(btw they also have an app with different exclusive coupons which includes a free 5 gallons of R/O water, might wanna check into it)

[Sherita]

The h2o2 worked very well for me. The first couple days you won't see any difference. Then one morning you will get up and go, hmmm, looks a little better the next day you will go WOW! Treat for 7-10 days. Dino's will be vanquished.