Hehe, BCOG, yep there was a thread about it a year ago. That was ME
Jaws,
I can sympathize with you. I've been sporadically fighting this @#^%! since April of last year. It only ever disappears for about a month at a time. Just enough time for a new crop of yellowy algae to grow and a new batch of snails to be introduced before they're all wiped out by the next wave of dinos.
Here are the things I've tried that didn't really work:
water changes/no waterchanges - it didn't seem to matter
decreased photoperiod (down to about 6 hours)/actinics only(12hrs/6hrs/2 hrs)/no photoperiod (including blankets over the tank) - 7 days seems to do the trick in some cases (also cures that nasty SPS problem as well
) but they are only gone for a week or so)
increased alkalinity via Calcium reactor/kalkwasser
increased pH (to about 8.6) - at this point I had no corals to worry about
increased skimming - well as much as my skimmer could handle (time for a new skimmer
)
turkey basting/carbon/filter floss to catch particulates - not so good, not only is it labor intensive but a complete waste of time as they're back in a couple of hours
increasing flow - swapped out 2 MJ1200s for 2 802s and bought a 3/4"seaswirl which runs off my mag 9 return pump
replaced sandbed - I currently have a 1" sandbed instead of 2-3". Of course this involved me tearing the tank down and scrubbing all the rocks etc. etc. (as Tony mentioned, a serious upset to the tank can sometimes drive the little buggers off) however the dinos were back in about 3 weeks.
adding ROWAPHOS - I like to think its helping out but I'm not holding my breath, either it helped out really slowly or it just helped me relieve my pocketbook of alot of money
chemipure - see above
replaced Ca reactor media
Eventually I just gave up and let them do their thing. Magically they disappeared (just enough to tick me off after all that work). Of course they have come back since then. Currently I am in a dinoflagellate free period (since jan 18th) and am just about done with the yellow goo that is tasty to snails. I have absolutely no idea what I've done right this time. I just finished up my expected caulerpa bloom which always follows the snail pigout and am pretty sure my tank is gearing up for another round. I'll place my bets on sometime within the next 2 weeks.
I did talk to Eric Borneman about this. He speculated that it could be some sort of toxin from caulerpa (caulerpines or something??) that could be contributing to the bloom since I prune caulerpa usually right before the dinos return. But I've talked to a few people that have dinos and no caulerpa so who knows??
Good luck!
Christy
