Controlling dinoflagellates with Metronidazole

[Frogger]

It is a protozoan parasite treatment and it appears to not have affected anything else in the tank. I have sps, lps, shrimp, snails and shrimp. I appear to have good success. Read the article I posted it is a good read. It is also a long read.

[Frogger]

Day 9 in the treatment. Its amazing my frogspawn is actually coming back. The dinoflagellates had caused the large frogspawn to decline to the point where there was only a bit of green left. In the past 4 days the frogspawn has started to fill in. On heads where there was no green left on them are starting to show some green. It is too early to be celebrating yet. The dinos aren't completely gone but they are not really actively growing. I will do the 10th treatment tonight and will keep you posted.

I had tried everything including blacking out the tank and could not stop the dinoflagellates. I am cautiously optimistic.

[emerald crab]

DinoX works on dinoflagelates. I had "Ostreopsis Ovata", probably the toughest dino around.
DinoX worked for me in conjunction with an UV sterilizer ( probably the most important piece of equipment when you have a dino outbreak) and with some minor blackouts (no longer than 48 hours). The UV sterilizer is actually more important than DinoX and the blackouts.
By the way, dinoflagelates love water changes.

[rsisvixen]

Out of curiosity, if a tank has been running for such a long time where would the dino have come from? Is it something that happens from spores in the air finding water like some algae's or is it something that needs to be introduced via corals or live rock?
Or is it something like cyno which is bacteria with the ability to photosynthesize?

[Frogger]

Originally Posted by rsisvixen

Out of curiosity, if a tank has been running for such a long time where would the dino have come from? Is it something that happens from spores in the air finding water like some algae's or is it something that needs to be introduced via corals or live rock?
Or is it something like cyno which is bacteria with the ability to photosynthesize?

How does anything we don't want get into our tanks. From the live rock, from live sand, from corals we add. Likely the dinos have been there for a long time, once conditions became ideal their population exploded.

[Frogger]

Originally Posted by emerald crab

DinoX works on dinoflagelates. I had "Ostreopsis Ovata", probably the toughest dino around.
DinoX worked for me in conjunction with an UV sterilizer ( probably the most important piece of equipment when you have a dino outbreak) and with some minor blackouts (no longer than 48 hours). The UV sterilizer is actually more important than DinoX and the blackouts.
By the way, dinoflagelates love water changes.

According to what I have read the reefers trying the metronidazole had already tried the other methods including Dino-X. The great thing about the metronidazole is I did not have to black out my tank which further stresses the already stressed corals. I have read about many failures with Dino X.
I have not tried the UV Sterilizer. Might give it a try if the dino's return.

[ReefMadness]

along with this i've also been following a couple threads on dinos that promote the use of uv. interestingly, one of the more lengthy threads outright claims that metro has little to no effect on 95% of the dino strains subjected to it.
while i don't have any visible results to show just yet in my battle, the latest strategy is simply keeping nutrients consistently above zero. the thought is that untraceable nutrients are creating a perfect environment and supposedly a big reason why dinos are taking hold the first place.
uv is also mentioned as a good strategy while doing this as well so i can see myself skimming over amazon today for an entry level model to test this out with.

[emerald crab]

DinoX alone will not do the job, if you relay on DinoX only you will loose coral color and/or corals. However used together with an UV sterilizer, it works great.
I believe that the minor blackouts and DinoX make the dinos uncomfortable enough so they get in the water column trying to relocate and the UV sterilizer does the killing.

Do not overdose DinoX !!!

[Frogger]

Originally Posted by ReefMadness

along with this i've also been following a couple threads on dinos that promote the use of uv. interestingly, one of the more lengthy threads outright claims that metro has little to no effect on 95% of the dino strains subjected to it.
while i don't have any visible results to show just yet in my battle, the latest strategy is simply keeping nutrients consistently above zero. the thought is that untraceable nutrients are creating a perfect environment and supposedly a big reason why dinos are taking hold the first place.
uv is also mentioned as a good strategy while doing this as well so i can see myself skimming over amazon today for an entry level model to test this out with.

You are probably right from what I have read they will return. It is nice to give the corals a bit of a break for a couple weeks. I will be putting a UV sterilizer to work and am going to start adding phosphates and nitrates to see if that helps.

[DKoKoMan]

I absolutely hate dinoflagellates...horrible.