ChrisOFL
Active Member
I already know ahead of time this will sound like I'm selling snake oil. I realize that this is just based on my own personal experience. But if you've been dealing with dinos for months I think you'd be willing to try something new to get rid of them permanently. If anyone does have success with their tank in the same way I did with mine it would be great to know. If you don't want to read the whole post just follow the numbered steps for your tank and I hope it works for you like it did for me. I apologize ahead of time for not having better progress pictures of my own tank. I was never planning to make a build thread for the tank so I've only been taking photos for myself so it's mostly just closeups of fish and coral progress.
Why I don't believe UV matters:
You're rocks/sand are covered in snot and you are filtering the water for dinos. I understand they are in the water column as well but lets actually try and remove the massive mats covering everything and not focus on the small amount in the water so much.
My tank is about 4.5 months old and I started it with rock from my old tank that had sat outside on the porch, dry, for 3 months. It may not be that bone white dry rock most people start with but it was dry rock at this point. This was the tank the day before my Mimic Tang was added. Tank is 75 gallons with probably 50lbs of rock, no sand.
This rock was previously purchased as live rock and I never had dinos in my previous tanks. I had gotten dinos about 2 months in on this tank along with some purple cyano. I don't have any pictures from this stage, I wasn't planning on making a build thread for the tank, but the pictures in this post are identical to what the dinos looked like in my tank with some of my cyano mixed in. My rocks were covered in dinos on at least 2/3rds of the surface with a decent amount covering the glass panel I don't clean. I originally thought I had some nasty cyano so wasn't too concerned as the tank is so new but after about a month I concluded it was dinos. This may only work for low nutrient tanks as well. My nutrient levels at this time were nitrates around 2 and phosphates 0.00ppm on the Hannah low range. I was already dosing phosphates at the time based off my film algae growth on the glass and dosing Microbacter 7 once per week. I would dose enough to raise my phosphate to 0.015 every 3-5 days. So after figuring out it was actually dinos, I did a little research and decided the following steps would be my approach. You're going to need to buy 5 micron or smaller filter socks, a large tub for siphoning water into, a small return pump, and a big bottle of Microbacter Clean and Microbacter7. The reason I bought the Microbacter Clean is because I wanted a live bacteria source that could compete with the dinos.
1) Stop doing water changes, you can dose to maintain major/trace elements if you keep corals. You're nutrients are probably bottomed out anyway.
2) You're going to siphon as much of the dino snot as you can get off the rocks and sand and filter it through a clean 5 micron sock and into the tub. You want to get all of it off the rocks and sand. If you fill up the tub, pump the water back into your tank through another clean 5 micron sock. Repeat this until the rocks/sand are as clean as you can get them from dinos.
3) I found that a dose of 40mL of Microbacter Clean and 20mL of Microbacter7 (this is for 75 gallons of water) twice a week is what really made the difference. Take a cup with 250mL of tank water, add the Microbacter Clean and Microbacter7, stir it up and then pour it back into the tank in a high flow spot. Turn off the protein skimming at least four hours but I would go no longer than 12. I always dosed the tank after I cleaned the rocks as I mentioned above. I have continued dosing this same amount once per week after the dinos were gone for 2 weeks, never had any bacterial blooms the entire time. The Microbacter Clean needs to absolutely stink when you open the bottle, I really believe this matters. It should smell like sulfur/rotten eggs or some really smelly skimmate. If it doesn't smell then the bacteria inside is no longer live or not at a density to make the difference required.
My dinos have not come back (not even a trace) since mid February, I never did a blackout, I never used UV. All the cyano was gone too. I noticed major improvements after two weeks of dosing the Microbacter Clean with the Microbacter7 at the amounts stated above along with the siphoning of the rocks and they were completely free from dinos within 3 weeks.
Some picture proof of how it works for me with cyano:
These pictures are taken two days apart, you can see the difference in the amount of cyano. I did not siphon or clean the rocks what so ever. I haven't even done a water change in 3 weeks. But I did just open a new bottle of Microbacter Clean and it was really smelly and then I realized the last bottle I used had no odor to it like this. I also remembered how smelly the bottles were that I used for dosing when I had the dinos. I have been having some cyano issues for the past three week but it's 100% gone now after two doses with the new bottle. 40mL of Microbacter Clean with 20mL of Microbacter7 is a dose for my tank
You can see the cyano surrounding the hydnophora and even some was surrounding the base of the coral. Photo on the left was 3/29 photo on the right is 3/31
Small edit: I forgot to add, my current nutrients are nitrates at 1 and phosphate still testing 0.00. I dose nitrate to keep it around 1 and phosphate gets dosed once a week right now to raise it to 0.015 but it still tests at 0.00, I just get too much film alage if I do it anymore. I feed 3x times per day along with algae sheets for the tang.
Why I don't believe UV matters:
You're rocks/sand are covered in snot and you are filtering the water for dinos. I understand they are in the water column as well but lets actually try and remove the massive mats covering everything and not focus on the small amount in the water so much.
My tank is about 4.5 months old and I started it with rock from my old tank that had sat outside on the porch, dry, for 3 months. It may not be that bone white dry rock most people start with but it was dry rock at this point. This was the tank the day before my Mimic Tang was added. Tank is 75 gallons with probably 50lbs of rock, no sand.
This rock was previously purchased as live rock and I never had dinos in my previous tanks. I had gotten dinos about 2 months in on this tank along with some purple cyano. I don't have any pictures from this stage, I wasn't planning on making a build thread for the tank, but the pictures in this post are identical to what the dinos looked like in my tank with some of my cyano mixed in. My rocks were covered in dinos on at least 2/3rds of the surface with a decent amount covering the glass panel I don't clean. I originally thought I had some nasty cyano so wasn't too concerned as the tank is so new but after about a month I concluded it was dinos. This may only work for low nutrient tanks as well. My nutrient levels at this time were nitrates around 2 and phosphates 0.00ppm on the Hannah low range. I was already dosing phosphates at the time based off my film algae growth on the glass and dosing Microbacter 7 once per week. I would dose enough to raise my phosphate to 0.015 every 3-5 days. So after figuring out it was actually dinos, I did a little research and decided the following steps would be my approach. You're going to need to buy 5 micron or smaller filter socks, a large tub for siphoning water into, a small return pump, and a big bottle of Microbacter Clean and Microbacter7. The reason I bought the Microbacter Clean is because I wanted a live bacteria source that could compete with the dinos.
1) Stop doing water changes, you can dose to maintain major/trace elements if you keep corals. You're nutrients are probably bottomed out anyway.
2) You're going to siphon as much of the dino snot as you can get off the rocks and sand and filter it through a clean 5 micron sock and into the tub. You want to get all of it off the rocks and sand. If you fill up the tub, pump the water back into your tank through another clean 5 micron sock. Repeat this until the rocks/sand are as clean as you can get them from dinos.
3) I found that a dose of 40mL of Microbacter Clean and 20mL of Microbacter7 (this is for 75 gallons of water) twice a week is what really made the difference. Take a cup with 250mL of tank water, add the Microbacter Clean and Microbacter7, stir it up and then pour it back into the tank in a high flow spot. Turn off the protein skimming at least four hours but I would go no longer than 12. I always dosed the tank after I cleaned the rocks as I mentioned above. I have continued dosing this same amount once per week after the dinos were gone for 2 weeks, never had any bacterial blooms the entire time. The Microbacter Clean needs to absolutely stink when you open the bottle, I really believe this matters. It should smell like sulfur/rotten eggs or some really smelly skimmate. If it doesn't smell then the bacteria inside is no longer live or not at a density to make the difference required.
My dinos have not come back (not even a trace) since mid February, I never did a blackout, I never used UV. All the cyano was gone too. I noticed major improvements after two weeks of dosing the Microbacter Clean with the Microbacter7 at the amounts stated above along with the siphoning of the rocks and they were completely free from dinos within 3 weeks.
Some picture proof of how it works for me with cyano:
These pictures are taken two days apart, you can see the difference in the amount of cyano. I did not siphon or clean the rocks what so ever. I haven't even done a water change in 3 weeks. But I did just open a new bottle of Microbacter Clean and it was really smelly and then I realized the last bottle I used had no odor to it like this. I also remembered how smelly the bottles were that I used for dosing when I had the dinos. I have been having some cyano issues for the past three week but it's 100% gone now after two doses with the new bottle. 40mL of Microbacter Clean with 20mL of Microbacter7 is a dose for my tank
You can see the cyano surrounding the hydnophora and even some was surrounding the base of the coral. Photo on the left was 3/29 photo on the right is 3/31
Small edit: I forgot to add, my current nutrients are nitrates at 1 and phosphate still testing 0.00. I dose nitrate to keep it around 1 and phosphate gets dosed once a week right now to raise it to 0.015 but it still tests at 0.00, I just get too much film alage if I do it anymore. I feed 3x times per day along with algae sheets for the tang.
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