Dino getting worse?

[vetteguy53081]

I just started my fight against Dinos but from what I understand, you need to Identify them first. There are many different kinds and each one responds to things differently. For example, ostreopsis responds to UV because it moves into the water column at night. Others do not respond at all because it moves into the rock work and substrate.
To identify, you need a microscope of at least 400x. This is usually a 10x eye piece and a 40x lense giving you the 400x. Take pictures through the microscope (your phone will work). Also take a video because the movement of the Dino can help identify it. They move in different ways.
Another reason it is critical to ID with a microscope is because they are often mistaken with chrysophytes and diatom blooms which can also look snotty and have bubbles but are not Dinos at all. Good luck.

I’ve had several persons without id use my method and won the battle regardless of type. Yes it helps to know what type but not critical in not being able to fight the war

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

I just started my fight against Dinos but from what I understand, you need to Identify them first. There are many different kinds and each one responds to things differently. For example, ostreopsis responds to UV because it moves into the water column at night. Others do not respond at all because it moves into the rock work and substrate.
To identify, you need a microscope of at least 400x. This is usually a 10x eye piece and a 40x lense giving you the 400x. Take pictures through the microscope (your phone will work). Also take a video because the movement of the Dino can help identify it. They move in different ways.
Another reason it is critical to ID with a microscope is because they are often mistaken with chrysophytes and diatom blooms which can also look snotty and have bubbles but are not Dinos at all. Good luck.

Made that mistake thinking DINOS were Diatoms and purchased a tiger conch which cleared out the diatoms in two nights, then I place him into tank that has the real thing, Dinos. He taste it and gets a stomach ache and digs himself into the sandbed for the whole day. After I do a coffee filter test, I see it is Dinos and then the cheap microscope reveals it is not diatoms. So, place the little conch back into my 30 gallon that had the diatoms and he becomes so happy digging and eating what he can find on the sandbed.

Tiger conchs at least mine, destroy diatoms to turing your sandbed crystal white again, they will not touch Dino's mine got a stomach ache.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

To fix dino
*stop water changes
* stop carbon dosing ,gfo or any nitrate and phosphate removing agent
* raise phosphates and/or nitrates if undetectable
*don't do a black out or turn off skimmer.
Grab a 5 micron sock 5 gal bucked and a pump to pump water back into the tank.
Siphon water out of tank through sock into bucket and pump water back in the tank. This will remove the dino. May have to do this a few times.

Get ready for a plague of gha. Don't use gfo or phosphates nitrate removal agent. Greatly increase cuc.
Thats how I beat mine.

I have cheato growing nicely in my media basket, set on 8 hour reverse lighting should I shut that off reduce hours, since it has been what keeps my nitrates low and phosphate in check? I want to do the siphon trick you did and place water back in. Easy since I have only a 12 gallon tank.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

I enlisted the Micron sock to battle amphidium dinoflagellates. I must have called 15 LFS all over Tampa Bay looking for the 50 micron and instead found the 25 micron sock!

Came home and the dinos were all over the sand bed.

I vacuumed with sock connected and poured my return water in the back of the AIO which has 100 percent by pass through my UV.

I did that three times until the gravel looked white again

I will post video of before and after 1 hour.

 

[sfin52]

I have cheato growing nicely in my media basket, set on 8 hour reverse lighting should I shut that off reduce hours, since it has been what keeps my nitrates low and phosphate in check? I want to do the siphon trick you did and place water back in. Easy since I have only a 12 gallon tank.

Yes till you beat dino.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Yes till you beat dino.

Okay, so I didn't shut off my cheato yet. I am first trying the vacuuming with the 25 micron filter. I saw a difference already.

When I would only turn the dinos with a rack the white sand would last 15 minutes and by one hour be full blown madness exactly before I racked it.

Now, I vacuummed the sand 2 times in one take, that is let the bucket fill up with 25 micron sock attached. Pour water back into the UV compartment, which is 100 bypass to Display area repeat twice.

Here are the videos aftre 2 hours of letting my lights full blast, no change in intensity.

1st video was taken without my filters because I was in a rush to get into vacumming (I was too excited)


2nd video taken exactly 2 hours apart from the 1st video after vacuuming (filter was placed to identify the true color of the sandbed)


Conclusion, they are still very much there but not to the degree that I had on the surface before, I hit the vacuum on them. Water temp is still controlled at 82F degrees 3 days in.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Exactly 3 hours from the 1st video Dinos coming back but not like before with simple stirring sand. The 25 micron bag did get a lot.

 

[sfin52]

25 micron filter

You need a 5 micron sock.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

You need a 5 micron sock.

I read all these post on R2R that 50 would work and 100 doesn't.

So no LFS had 50 but one had the 25 micron so I got it.

Did you see my videos 2 and 3 hours after using the 25 micron sock?

Don't get me wrong tonight I will order online a 5 micron, 25 is working imagine what 5 would do for me!

BTW do I need to remove cheato? Or just lower hours? It is set for 8 hours reverse lighting.

Thanks

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

You need a 5 micron sock.

Just ordered 5 micron filter sock from Amazon, thanks!

 

[sfin52]

Just ordered 5 micron filter sock from Amazon, thanks!

No problem

 

[sfin52]

I read all these post on R2R that 50 would work and 100 doesn't.

So no LFS had 50 but one had the 25 micron so I got it.

Did you see my videos 2 and 3 hours after using the 25 micron sock?

Don't get me wrong tonight I will order online a 5 micron, 25 is working imagine what 5 would do for me!

BTW do I need to remove cheato? Or just lower hours? It is set for 8 hours reverse lighting.

Thanks

Try lowering lights to 1/2 hour.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Try lowering lights to 1/2 hour.

I run lights 12 hours what does 1/2 mean?

 

[sfin52]

I run lights 12 hours what does 1/2 mean?

Only run refugium lights for 1/2 hr.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Only run refugium lights for 1/2 hr.

So my normal run is 10pm to 6am. So, only run it for 30 mins? Like 10pm to 10:30pm?

Will 30 mins keep my cheato alive? And when do I go back to my normal schedule?

 

[sfin52]

So my normal run is 10pm to 6am. So, only run it for 30 mins? Like 10pm to 10:30pm?

Will 30 mins keep my cheato alive? And when do I go back to my normal schedule?

It will

 

[Phistergosh]

I have been battling dinos so I have read everything and anything about them. It seems like the more I read, the more contradictory advice I see. I don't think there is a one size fits all solution.

It seems like they are brought on by keeping the tank too clean and not having a diverse enough biome. In the age of dry rock tanks, overskimming, a briopsis cure, highly configurable full spectrum led arrays, refugiums, carbon dosing, bacteria additives, reduced feeding, dipping, and killing off everything we see, we have brought this upon our selves. That's proabbaly why they are so prevalent now vs 10 years ago.

You won't get rid of them by just vacuuming them out. Some will stay and reproduce extremely fast. The will be back in a day. You need to get your nitrates and phosphates to be detectable. You need to start letting other organisms compete with the dinos. You need to do manual removal.

You will proabbaly need to vacuum frequently for weeks, keep nitrate and phosphate detectable for weeks or months by dosing nitrates and phosphates directly, and try getting a more diverse biome going. Use UV if yours are releasing into the water column at night. All this seems to be what's consitent in everyone's dino solution.

The other stuff seems to be more opinion than fact. Some say to increase temp. Some say to not do water changes, others say it doesn't matter. I think people say that in order to dirty up the tank. It's better to just test nitrates and phosphates and keep those detectable.

Microbacter seems to be hit or miss. If your tank is super clean, microbacter may be stripping more phosphate or nitrate out of the water and hurting your progress. If you keep them detectable, the additional bacteria can help the biome of the tank. So maybe it's more conditional. Microbacter alone did nothing for me.

It seems like getting the biome going is where a lot of us get stuck. I've read people adding in phytoplankton, copepods to help eat the dinos, adding all sorts of bottle bacterias. I feel like introducing live rock and sand from a pest free fully matured tank would do wonders. I feel like we will start seeing fully seeded man made live rock, fully seeded bio media, or more sludge options for sale soon. It's an untapped market at this point.

My UV sterilizer arrives tomorrow. I haven't been able to get phosphates above zero so I finally started using a phosphate additive yesterday. Tank at 82 did nothing. Reduced whites but it didn't help much. I haven't tried a full blackout but that might be on the agenda if nothing changes after the UV. I have been filling up filter floss with dinos daily for weeks (manual removal) but that hasn't been enough. Hopefully things will start turning around.

Good luck and don't lose hope. This is beatable. Just need to make sure you are doing the right things.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

I have been battling dinos so I have read everything and anything about them.

You won't get rid of them by just vacuuming them out. Some will stay and reproduce extremely fast. The will be back in a day. You need to get your nitrates and phosphates to be detectable. You need to start letting other organisms compete with the dinos and then eventually they will win out.

You will proabbaly need to vacuum frequently for weeks, keep nitrate and phosphate detectable, and try getting a more diverse biome going. Manually remove them. Use UV if yours are releasing into the water column at night. All this seems to be what's consitent in everyone's dino solution.

The other stuff seems to be more opinion than fact. Some say to increase temp. Some say to not do water changes, others say it doesn't matter. I think people say that in order to dirty up the tank. It's better to just test nitrates and phosphates and keep those detectable.

Microbacter seems to be hit or miss. If your tank is super clean, microbacter may be stripping more phosphate or nitrate out of the water and hurting your progress. If you keep them detectable, the additional bacteria can help the biome of the tank. So maybe it's more conditional instead of a one size fits all solution.

I raised my temp bit decided to bring it back down to 78F my digitata didn't like 82F.

So, am dosing bacteria but not Microbacter some other brand name complete start my LFS used it to beat his dinos .

My Cheato is keeping my phosphates at .06 and nitrates at 6ppm. This is a sps tank so can my corals handle the higher nitrates and phosphates if I cut my cheato to half hour it?

 

[ggNoRe]

After 3 months of getting an absolute butt kicking from dinos I have realized there's only 4 things proven to consistently help/work. Thankfully I have been dino free for a month now by doing #1 and #2.

#1. Raising nitrates to 5-15 if lower than that. And raising phosphates to .05 - .1 if lower. Don't be scared to dose them directly.

#2. Elegant Corals Dinoflagellates Regimen

#3. UV sterilizer

#4. Dosing silicates (waterglass, excel)

Good luck!

 

[attiland]

I raised my temp bit decided to bring it back down to 78F my digitata didn't like 82F.

So, am dosing bacteria but not Microbacter some other brand name complete start my LFS used it to beat his dinos .

My Cheato is keeping my phosphates at .06 and nitrates at 6ppm. This is a sps tank so can my corals handle the higher nitrates and phosphates if I cut my cheato to half hour it?

I would say you have a long fight ahead so as long as you have a positive Amphidinium ID do the thing works
Don’t mess with h lights as corals don’t like it and Amphidinium don’t care.
Don’t mess wit temperature as corals don’t like it and for most Amphidinium don’t care.
Reduce phosphate and nitrate export and or dose till both detectable
Look into silicates dosing - worked for me
Add bacteria - not more microbacter 7
Manual export can be part of your strategy but the important thing is you don’t want to disturb the sand. When vacuuming do with just picking the vey top layer - the idea is you want other organisms to stay and compete with Dinos