Here's the deal -

I had what I thought was an outbreak of algae until dinoflaggelates were mentioned in another thread several weeks ago... the picture and links provided made me realize that I had, without a doubt, dinoflagellates in my 90g.

I will admit that I am a sucker for quick fixes. I took a denture brush (dedicated for fish only use, of course) and scrubbed my overflow, the return nozzles, and the upper surfaces of any rocks I could reach. Most of the stuff was gone - to the naked eye, anyway. Quick & (relatively) simple, right?

Since I thought I had an algae problem, I had already cut back on feedings (once every 4-5 days) and lighting (4 hours per day). I replenished my clean-up crew (most of which died during the summer before I got my chiller). I have even tried to bump up the pH, but family demands prevent me from monitoring/adjusting multiple times throughout the day.

Sadly, none of my efforts made any difference. The dinos had soon reclaimed their territory, and it was as bad, if not worse, than before. I have lost 2 SPS and one zoa colony. I became obsessed... determined that I would beat my nemesis. I was even dreaming about this mess, lol!

Long story ends here - I turned off the tank lights for three straight days. This evening I was able to blast "shtuff" off the rocks that had laughed at me before. No joke - I had tried to blow the crap off, but it wouldn't budge (so I picked up the denture brush!) After three days in the dark, the stuff was easily coming off in chunks and sheets! I can now see the coralline on the rocks - it had been covered so completely that I am simply tickled that it's still there.

There has been only one "bad" thing ... my hammer coral looks pretty ****ed off. Everything else looks just like it normally does at night. I am confident that the hammer will be fine when I turn the lights back on tomorrow.

I really hope this helps anyone who might stumble across this post.