A way to beat dinos without UV or blackouts. If this works for you please reply to this thread.

pasquale petrovia · Jun 20, 2021

2 weeks in on the MB clean and 7 regimen. I turned off the uv and micron filter for 2 days and saw the dinos come on stronger so I turned them back on. Skimmer has been off for 5 days now and UV and filter back on for day and half. tank looks clearer today. Hopefully next weeks bacteria dose will show more progress. Keep cleaning and urchins still working overtime. Microscope shows more diatoms than dinos, but they are still there. Keeping you posted

Gup · Jun 21, 2021

ChrisOFL said:
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 I just didn't along with algae sheets for the tang.

I had a dino issue early on, just like probably everyone else in the hobby, that didn't start with live rock. I just didn't trust live rock and its potential hitchhikers. So I purchased DinoX and it worked wonderfully.

Last week, purple cyno crept in. So I ordered some chemiclean specifically for purple cyno. I'll be a happy camper when it arrives

pasquale petrovia · Jun 27, 2021

3 weeks down and things are looking better. Sand is getting cleaner, PH slowly coming up and dinos decreasing. Decreasing the silicate dosing to see what happens. Staying the course slow and steady.

pasquale petrovia · Jul 14, 2021

Week 6 and tank looks much better. I did a 10% water change due to low kh. All other parameters in check dosing microbacter clean and seven weekly instead of twice a week. Still running UV and micron filter. Started Skimmer back up yesterday because phosphate creeped up to .17. That promped small water change to avoid nuisance algae bloom. Stopped silicate dosing last week with no adverse issues. Sorry missed updating. Got busy at work. Still have dinos at top and bottom of glass and slightly on overflow. Processing nicely so far.

ChrisOFL · Jul 16, 2021

pasquale petrovia said:
Week 6 and tank looks much better. I did a 10% water change due to low kh. All other parameters in check dosing microbacter clean and seven weekly instead of twice a week. Still running UV and micron filter. Started Skimmer back up yesterday because phosphate creeped up to .17. That promped small water change to avoid nuisance algae bloom. Stopped silicate dosing last week with no adverse issues. Sorry missed updating. Got busy at work. Still have dinos at top and bottom of glass and slightly on overflow. Processing nicely so far.

Glad to hear things are progressing well. I've been extremely busy myself so no worries.

Maureen Hey · Aug 21, 2021

ChrisOFL said:
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.

Chris...thanks so much for posting this...i just stumbled across it last week....I have been battling/winning but always re-bounding back into the dino wars....started in March with Coolia - Uv'd them...not a week later had large cell amph showed up...started dosing silicate and within a few days ostreo showed up - uv'd them out of the tank within a week or so but still had large cell as they began to diminish to only a few per sample I started seeing small cell show up - at this point we are in June - no water changes since March and a couple of good siphons of the sand weekly. I did an ICP (Triton) with no shockers with no water changes - they recommended 15% water changes each week for 6 weeks which I have done while continuing to dose silicate as well as adding full dose of Rebiotic each week always finding between 10 and 20 sc and lc per sample. Well when I read your post I started dosing MB clean and 7 as you outline except I dosed it every night for 5 nights now and today's samples have found only 1 small cell ( I took samples from 6 areas of my tank). I am still dosing silicate and tank is at about 2ppm so plan to continue all dosing for another 3 or 4 days before switching to twice a week... Sooo a HUGE thank you as I can finally imagine my tank dino free completely!