Dino’s take over

[Dolphins18]

Good afternoon,

I am hoping to whoever is reading this that you can help me beat this battle of Dino’s . I currently have a 5 month old tank and have begun my battle with Dino’s . They have really taken off recently ( I just changed my aquarium from 29 gal to 40 ) and I think my tank upgrade may be the cause, because I am experiencing a bacterial bloom. I top off with rodi water and am using saltwater from lfs. My parameters currently are
11.8 dkh
1250 Mg
450 Ca
No ammonia /nitrites
Ph 8.2
1.026 salinity
As far as nitrates go , I think it is at 10ppm it is hard to tell with api test. I am dosing MB7 daily and babe turned off the white lights in hopes to help . I’m also feeding heavily with a cube of mysis daily and pellets. Reef roids twice a week. Any help would be appreciated! Thank you all

Do you know what your phosphates are? That is one of the single biggest factors in naturally beating Dino’s. To me, that looks like a bacterial bloom, though one shouldn’t be near that major after 5 months.
Is the initial tank 5 months old or the new tank? That is a big deciding factor, if you recently made the switch in the past month I’d say what you are experiencing is completely normal.
Please just be careful adding any chemicals. There are ways to resolve the majority of issues without chemical contaminants.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Do you know what your phosphates are? That is one of the single biggest factors in naturally beating Dino’s. To me, that looks like a bacterial bloom, though one shouldn’t be near that major after 5 months.
Is the initial tank 5 months old or the new tank? That is a big deciding factor, if you recently made the switch in the past month I’d say what you are experiencing is completely normal.
Please just be careful adding any chemicals. There are ways to resolve the majority of issues without chemical contaminants.

I don’t kno what the phosphates are, the initial tank was 5 months old , I transferred everything to 40 gal about 2 weeks ago I kept half the crushed coral and added new sand to 40 gal during transfer . I also used seachems phosguard for a couple days after the switch

 

[Dolphins18]

I don’t kno what the phosphates are, the initial tank was 5 months old , I transferred everything to 40 gal about 2 weeks ago I kept half the crushed coral and added new sand to 40 gal during transfer . I also used seachems phosguard for a couple days after the switch

To be honest that may be what started them. They absolutely love a tank that has no phosphates, they thrive in nitrate free environments as well. I would restrain from using any product like prime that reduces nitrate unless you have a nitrite or ammonia spike.
What I would do is first get a phosphate test kit. Hannas are awesome but a Salifert Will do just fine. If you have 0 or incredibly close to 0 that may be what is fueling your Dino’s. My method for this is using something to raise your phosphates, while reducing the amount carbon you are running by about half and removing ANY GFO from the system and not ever using it again unless phosphates get out of control. I run GFO with about 75 grams on a 150 system for a few days each week.
I am personally a big proponent of doing things naturally, I worry that sometimes horror stories scare people into doing things to their tank that really just isn’t necessary.
If your phosphates are indeed 0 or close to 0 seachem makes a product that helps raise them slowly, I think it is a yellow label. To mange my phosphates I just find the marine flake food highest in phosphorous and feed it to my fuge.
I hope some of this helps, my biggest advice is don’t just read something and decide to do something because it worked for someone else. Trust the process and remember a properly mature tank takes years.

 

[Funston07]

Good afternoon,

I am hoping to whoever is reading this that you can help me beat this battle of Dino’s . I currently have a 5 month old tank and have begun my battle with Dino’s . They have really taken off recently ( I just changed my aquarium from 29 gal to 40 ) and I think my tank upgrade may be the cause, because I am experiencing a bacterial bloom. I top off with rodi water and am using saltwater from lfs. My parameters currently are
11.8 dkh
1250 Mg
450 Ca
No ammonia /nitrites
Ph 8.2
1.026 salinity
As far as nitrates go , I think it is at 10ppm it is hard to tell with api test. I am dosing MB7 daily and babe turned off the white lights in hopes to help . I’m also feeding heavily with a cube of mysis daily and pellets. Reef roids twice a week. Any help would be appreciated! Thank you all

I have almost completely eradicated dinoflagellates overnight.

I posted this in the other dino thread, but wanted to get this info out to more people. My Dino's came back after I started doing water changes again (20% weekly). This was about a month ago. I took a relatively hands off approach by just dosing some phosphates to keep them around 0.1ppm and...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[DrMMI]

I got rid of mine by introducing live rock from an established tank that was covered in green hair algae, 3 weeks of elegance corals dino recipe, and then right into Dr tims recipe. Most important thing is to make sure your nitrates and phosphates never hit 0. I test nitrates 3x/week and phosphates 2x/week.

 

[dvgyfresh]

hi everyone , just thought I would post an update, went out and bought a UV sterilizer “the green killing machine” and WOW, just one day use so far and 90% of the Dino’s are gone and the water isn’t cloudy! I will keep it running for a few weeks to fully get rid of Dino’s but wow I can’t believe a Uv sterilizer is that efficient I would recommend to anyone fighting Dino’s

 

[living_tribunal]

Good afternoon,

I am hoping to whoever is reading this that you can help me beat this battle of Dino’s . I currently have a 5 month old tank and have begun my battle with Dino’s . They have really taken off recently ( I just changed my aquarium from 29 gal to 40 ) and I think my tank upgrade may be the cause, because I am experiencing a bacterial bloom. I top off with rodi water and am using saltwater from lfs. My parameters currently are
11.8 dkh
1250 Mg
450 Ca
No ammonia /nitrites
Ph 8.2
1.026 salinity
As far as nitrates go , I think it is at 10ppm it is hard to tell with api test. I am dosing MB7 daily and babe turned off the white lights in hopes to help . I’m also feeding heavily with a cube of mysis daily and pellets. Reef roids twice a week. Any help would be appreciated! Thank you all

You forgot to show us the two most important parameters when dealing with dino: nitrate and phosphate.

The pictures you showed also don't look like dino. It's easy to spot Dino a mile away (even smelling it). Long snot, dark brown, with bubbles on top. It looks like you have a bacterial bloom however.

I would get a uv to deal with this and add in bacteria to help with the ammonia/nitrite. This is usually caused by there not being enough established bacteria to deal with the incoming food. What happens is there is a swarm of bad bacteria that consumes the ammonia/nitrite/other nutrients absent good bacteria.

 

[old salt reefer]

Wow reading some of the answers given to the OP in this thread let me left me scratching my head.
Dinos grow in a low nutrient environment. How would stopping feeding reefroids help that. You feed to much reefroids and you get GHA, not Dino's.
Dvgyfresh did the right first move in battling Dinos--he got a UV sterilizer. Read what he's says--IT WORKED.

 

[Cory]

uv is the only thing that worked for my dinos. First the green killing machine. Then got a 90 watt lifegard.

 

[Jen1978]

Glad to hear. I just bought the GKM and installed yesterday to help me out with the Ugly phase. Tank water wasn't as cloudy as the OP's but I could see a lot of "particulates" in the water that would have led to a problem. I did do a blackout first which helped a lot and slowly started to retintroduce lights. Hopefully I caught it in time to keep it at bay. I know uglies are part of a newer tank, but my OCD just wouldn't allow it.

For those of you who had success, since the GKM is an in tank unit, I do not want it in there all the time. How long did you keep it in? I was thinking of running it 24/7 for a month, then 16 hour days first half of Nov. Then 8 hour days until mid December before removing it for a while. Any advise here?

 

[thedon986]

I had dinos, the sand dwelling type, when my nutrients were bottomed out and I was doing too many water changes. I raised each N and P with supplements, all kinds out there but I used NeoNitrate and NeoPhos from Brightwell. I also removed my sand because I’m planning a tank swap anyways. Bye bye dinos. Could be done without removing the sand but would’ve taken longer. The key here is raising nutrients, biodiversity (pods, MicroBacter, etc) and a good UV if you have the kind that are free swimming.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Thought I would post an update, my tank water is now crystal clear and I cannot even spot Dino’s in my system shoutout to UV sterilizer , side note the UV sterilizer is so good that some nitrifying bacteria has been killed and has caused a small nitrite spike but everything is looking a lot happier and I only run the UV during the night now

 

[brandon429]

Hey can you post your actual nitrite reading, the test in clear light next to the indicator card


it’s a misread, the tank has them fully controlled but we collect nitrite misreads in other threads and need to see the pic of the + reading on a matured system for their data pls

well done beating new tank greenwater challenge uv is a great tool agreed

there are many clues above the tank has perfect cycling params, the #1 is the nitrite axis on cycling charts, it doesn’t ever go back up. I know we attribute all test reads as accepted but in the end we study + readings in matured reefs doing fine, this one qualifies as helpful in studying nitrite reads in matured systems post cycle. Many thousands of folks click buy for more bottle bac due to these readings, but that’s not needed. UV only harms suspended bacteria not benthic ones


the way we know burning uv didn’t harm your cycle is to factor in tens of thousands of small sps and lps reefs that do 100% water changes, that’s a more thorough insult that light burning a given water column. Nitrite + readings are found on thousands of running reefs, not just yours, it’s #1 reason why we’ve excluded nitrite testing in my cycle threads though it’s helpful to see a + reading in a nice system like that. The misread makes us doubt if bacteria are safe, we click buy for a large portion of testers

 

[Cory]

Thought I would post an update, my tank water is now crystal clear and I cannot even spot Dino’s in my system shoutout to UV sterilizer , side note the UV sterilizer is so good that some nitrifying bacteria has been killed and has caused a small nitrite spike but everything is looking a lot happier and I only run the UV during the night now

I experienced the same thing, except for me phosphates are rising now that algae isnt consuming it all the time.

 

[thedon986]

Great job! Dinos are such a PITA

 

[dvgyfresh]

Hey can you post your actual nitrite reading, the test in clear light next to the indicator card


it’s a misread, the tank has them fully controlled but we collect nitrite misreads in other threads and need to see the pic of the + reading on a matured system for their data pls

well done beating new tank greenwater challenge uv is a great tool agreed

there are many clues above the tank has perfect cycling params, the #1 is the nitrite axis on cycling charts, it doesn’t ever go back up. I know we attribute all test reads as accepted but in the end we study + readings in matured reefs doing fine, this one qualifies as helpful in studying nitrite reads in matured systems post cycle. Many thousands of folks click buy for more bottle bac due to these readings, but that’s not needed. UV only harms suspended bacteria not benthic ones


the way we know burning uv didn’t harm your cycle is to factor in tens of thousands of small sps and lps reefs that do 100% water changes, that’s a more thorough insult that light burning a given water column. Nitrite + readings are found on thousands of running reefs, not just yours, it’s #1 reason why we’ve excluded nitrite testing in my cycle threads though it’s helpful to see a + reading in a nice system like that. The misread makes us doubt if bacteria are safe, we click buy for a large portion of testers

Interesting read for sure , I just ran the test please see the attached

 

[brandon429]

That’s very helpful. We can see in Randy’s thread there isnt going to be any consequence for the reading even if positive accurately.

Nitrite Toxicity

Hey guys I have an aquarium system that has about 45gallons of water cycling so I Let it cycle for about week and I added seeded marine pure ceramic balls and the bacteria in a bottle. I had no choice but to add my 2 clownfish from my quarantine into the tank.. because I needed to put a sick...

www.reef2reef.com

I cannot think of any mechanism that causes purple readings in a tank obviously converting waste. the nitrate proves it, there is no middle ground backup, uv cannot target bacteria enmeshed in biofilm they’re all lumped together converting on site. The water indeed has bacteria too, we have cycled full dry setups in 20 days by only connecting reefs, no bottle bac added. But to remove all the bacteria in a 100% water change or burn it clean with uv doesnt stop filtration keeping the tank alive, the fish breathing and eating normally, sensitive corals open and feeding every day. It is a misread or an overreport somehow.