Dino gone, when to water change?

[loweryphil]

So it looks like I've finally beaten dino! Dirty method and UV. only now my nitrate is sky high at 35ppm, and phosphate 0.25. Green algae everywhere and pod explosion. My blasto and mini maxi seem a little stressed but my GPS bubble tip and torches look fine!

At what point can I water change to bring perams back in check?

 

[Jonify]

Unfortunately, there may not be a "best" answer. That said, Dinos are not so easily removed, and even if you did no water changes for a year, and then started doing them, it's possible Dinos would come roaring back. So ignore that and just practice proper husbandry, once you have Dinos under control, for the good of the rest of your tank. 10-20% water change a week, with water matching your tank's parameters. Try and not let your nutrients bottom out and you should be fine.

 

[loweryphil]

I see, I want to get the nitrate down, but last time I carbon dosed, a few days later, light covering on the sand.

If I do a 80L water change on a 525l system would this be a bad idea? As I know this would get nitrate phos and calcium back in line tgat aren't too out of whack, but don't want to make the dino exode.

 

[REEFTIDE]

Have you tried raising the temp a little? thats what we did and it worked out well

 

[Kongar]

I've recently fought a long dino battle, over 6 months, and nothing worked except dinox. Blackouts, dirty water, UV, etc. might have even made them not visible at all - but as soon as I started doing things "normally" again - the dinos would come roaring back. With the dinox, I did a water change two days after the 8th and last dose. That was two weeks ago - no dinos in sight, and now I'm fighting more predictable algae issues due to the high nutrients (which is a dream compared to dinos).

My vote would be to go ahead with the water change and see what happens. Worst case - the dinos will come back, and that to me, is confirmation that you hadn't really beaten them back. (try something else or a longer whatever you did).

But I'm a noob, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

 

[loweryphil]

I have been doing the dirty method along with bubble scrubbing and UV. I haven't seen any on the sand bed or rocks In over a week now. I know if I carbon dose, they reappear so I'm avoiding that, so my next route would be maybe a water change and see if that brings them back or not.

 

[vetteguy53081]

You can change when ready and I would as a precaution add .5ml of liquid bacteria daily and .5ml of peroxide at night for 2 more weeks

 

[Jonify]

I see, I want to get the nitrate down, but last time I carbon dosed, a few days later, light covering on the sand.

If I do a 80L water change on a 525l system would this be a bad idea? As I know this would get nitrate phos and calcium back in line tgat aren't too out of whack, but don't want to make the dino exode.

Yes, 80L is a fine place to start.

I've recently fought a long dino battle, over 6 months, and nothing worked except dinox. Blackouts, dirty water, UV, etc. might have even made them not visible at all - but as soon as I started doing things "normally" again - the dinos would come roaring back. With the dinox, I did a water change two days after the 8th and last dose. That was two weeks ago - no dinos in sight, and now I'm fighting more predictable algae issues due to the high nutrients (which is a dream compared to dinos).

My vote would be to go ahead with the water change and see what happens. Worst case - the dinos will come back, and that to me, is confirmation that you hadn't really beaten them back. (try something else or a longer whatever you did).

But I'm a noob, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Good advice, though I would say Dinos could come back at any time, even if you completely eradicated them the first time

You can change when ready and I would as a precaution add .5ml of liquid bacteria daily and .5ml of peroxide at night for 2 more weeks

Solid advice, full stop.

 

[Kongar]

Good advice, though I would say Dinos could come back at any time, even if you completely eradicated them the first time

Agreed. Elaborating a bit: I would do “a thing” (whatever method it was), and I often would see a visible reduction of the number of dinos. Obviously any sort of blackout would make it seem like they were eradicated. But as soon as normal routines resumed, they exploded.

From my limited experience, you can’t say you’ve gotten dinos under control by looking at the dinos (or lack thereof). Rather, the true measure is in your parameters, and the behavior of your corals and algae.

Right now, I’ve seen a pronounced difference in overall tank behavior that tells me something has shifted, the balance has changed away from a Dino controlled system. Examples: alk uptake is back, nitrates for the first time ever - hard to keep low, my phosphates skyrocket, algae is growing that I’ve never seen before in the tank (hello bubble algae), spots of coraline algae are growing on my rocks for the first time ever.

My point is - in my experience - the tank takes a dramatic and fairly quick turn for the better once dinos have been put on the back burner. There’s no magic timeframe for starting water changes again. Either your tank has turned that corner (and you can probably see it), or those little buggers are simply lying in wait for an immediate ambush. Doing a water change just confirms which path your on, so I vote do it.

And yes it appears they are always around in every tank and could always come back. Keeping parameters up, adding biodiversity, maintaining stability seems to be the way to keep them at bay.

good luck to all - battling dinos sucks big time

 

[King Turkey]

Do you have sps? I would not worrie about high nitrates right now I would let things be make sure things are stable and dinos don't come back. Add Dr Tim's once a week. He has a thing for dinos also. 35ppm nitrate not to bad but might slow coral growth a little maybe brown the color a bit till you feel it's right getting em down slowly.

 

[loweryphil]

Hi all. Thank you for the input. My system is quite new and I lost a lot of coral from my old tank due to dinos so I only have a bubble tip, gsp, torch and a blasto. As mentioned above, green algae sky rocketed and coraline took off over my rock.

 

[loweryphil]

Hi all. Thank you for the input. My system is quite new and I lost a lot of coral from my old tank due to dinos so I only have a bubble tip, gsp, torch and a blasto. As mentioned above, green algae sky rocketed and coraline took off over my rock.

I went ahead and did the water change, no Ill effect as yet, but my perams didn't even move!! I think adding some bacteria might help seed my marine pure in sump to bring it down. Calcium is quite low at 340

 

[mommbass]

Y'all I need help 180 gallon tank had Dino's Advised by LFS to remove/replace sand, black out tank and do no water changes The way I was told this was to stop all water change. So now here I am 8 weeks later Nitrates are 160-200! I did a water change of 30 gallons on Saturday, today is Monday. Because of the amount of rock in my tank total water is about 150 Gallons. Tank is 11 years old. 2 days after water change nitrates haven't budged! Do I do another water change now? Or wait?

 

[Kongar]

Water changes proportionally affect levels (roughly). If your nitrates are at 200, and you do a 50% water change, I'd expect you to be somewhere around 100. Do it again and you'll be at 50. etc. This isn't exact science as you'll still be feeding and whatnot, but it's ballpark. You might want to consider a larger volume. You have to balance how big of a water change you think your corals can handle versus how many water changes you'll have to do get your levels down. Remember you're changing other parameters too like alk and phosphate - big swings there could hurt your corals. I think the common advice is wait a couple of days between each water change, and then go for it.

Did the treatment work? Honestly, it sounds like your LFS gave you some bad advice. Not sure I'd have removed 11 year old sand. Dinos are hard enough to deal with without another major disturbance like removing the sand. I mean, you made it 11 years with the sand right, how was that the problem? Seems to be a TON of helpful people on this forum, I'd take their advice from now on (in my opinion). Check out the "are you sick of..." mega thread on dinos. Good luck - dinos suck.

 

[mommbass]

Thank you . Dino's mostly gone another water change done today Someone has recommended NO3 PO4-X to dose. Apparently it helps reduce nitrates and phosphates. I've also upped protein skimmer a bit, doing so in moderation

 

[DrMMI]

Thank you . Dino's mostly gone another water change done today Someone has recommended NO3 PO4-X to dose. Apparently it helps reduce nitrates and phosphates. I've also upped protein skimmer a bit, doing so in moderation

Be careful dropping about your nitrates too quickly. When fighting dinos, I didn't do water changes for over 4 months. Dinos finally cleared using elegant corals dino treatment several weeks in a row and dosing nitrate to keep it around 10ppm. Well due to faulty results from a reefbot, turns out I was well over 100ppm nitrates when it was all said and done. I did 30% water changes everyday for a week straight. The following week, my dinos came back. Did another week of elegant corals method and got rid of 90% of them. I'm going to try a water change tomorrow and keep my fingers crossed that they don't get worse again.

I would be careful about doing nopox. Some people think it fuels the dinos.

 

[mommbass]

Be careful dropping about your nitrates too quickly. When fighting dinos, I didn't do water changes for over 4 months. Dinos finally cleared using elegant corals dino treatment several weeks in a row and dosing nitrate to keep it around 10ppm. Well due to faulty results from a reefbot, turns out I was well over 100ppm nitrates when it was all said and done. I did 30% water changes everyday for a week straight. The following week, my dinos came back. Did another week of elegant corals method and got rid of 90% of them. I'm going to try a water change tomorrow and keep my fingers crossed that they don't get worse again.

I would be careful about doing nopox. Some people think it fuels the dinos.

Thank you. Watching closely. Dosing at 1/2 dose right now. Fingers crossed