Dinoflagellate outbreak

[cr500_af]

Background:
My tank is cruising along happily. I added one piece of LR for aesthetic reasons. Upon examination at the source, it had only sand and detritus on it due to a goby living with it. I rinsed it well, double checked for hitchhikers and put it in the tank.

Within 24 hours it is covered in dinoflagellate... then it dawned on me that it was under basically no light to speak of... none of this algae was apparent on it but I guess when it got under some lights with real output, it went ape. Most of it was on the LR in question, but it did spread to a lesser degree around the tank. Most of my softies and my RBTA are P.O.'d right now, and my phospates went from undetecable to .5ppm overnight.

I have removed the rock and have it in a bucket of water with powerheads, and much has been washed off. I know that this won't kill it, however.

So, my two-part question is, dealing with the source: Will going through a curing cycle in darkness kill this stuff? Or do I need to nuke it by boiling or some other method?

And then dealing with the tank. I'm skimming heavily and stepping up water changes, but should I expect that (along with all the manual removal I can manage) to do the job?

Thanks in advance!

 

[jgoal55]

I just went through it. I had it pretty bad in my tank.

I shut the lights off for 3 1/2 days....total blackout....no moonlights, no anything. I put a thick comforter over the tank as well.

When I finally looked at the tank again, about 70% of it had disappeared. I went with a 4hr light cycle for about another 2 weeks and as of now I dont see any trace of it. I have only been back on a normal light cycle for about 5 days now so hopefully it doesnt come back but as of right now, its looking good.

 

[dakota9]

Manual removal of as much dino as you can. Atleast a 50% water change and lights out 3 days cured my one and only outbreak......