rockstarta78
Well-Known Member
I will log my progress on this thread so I can see what I did and what the result will be when it's all said and done.
Background
I have been battling Dino for a while now (8+ months). I think I have an idea where it came from. I believe, (I could be wrong though), it came with a Pink Birdsnest frag that I got from a local reefer. During that time I had a slight nutrient issue (tank neglected due to work) which caused GHA. I did several water changes over 2 weeks, ran GFO, over skimmed, and manually removed the gha. My tank was cleared of GHA. Doing all these caused my NO3 and PO4 to hit rock bottom, 0 ppm. This is the beginning of dino.
At first I was little surprised thinking it might be diatom. This tank has been setup for almost 2 years. I went through the uglies like everyone else. Things settled down, I started growing some zoas, euphyllias, Acros etc etc etc. Everything was going as well as it could. So seeing these brown stuff on the sand had me surprised. I was trying to figure out if my tank was going through a 2nd cycle.
I did what I always do, I ran to R2R and finally got an ID. What you know, I have dino. Before I could tackle dino, I had to go out of state for work. When I returned after 3 weeks my tank was covered in Dino, GHA and a new addition - Bryopsis. At this point dino wasn't looking too bad but the bryopsis and GHA was taking over my tank. I started dosing fluconazole to battle bryopsis, which worked, but Dino took over with Cyano. I was ready to take a sledge hammer to the tank and call it quits. As much as I like this hobby, I was done with it. I couldn't manage time or patience to deal with this. During this time I was speaking with @mcarroll who kept encouraging me not to quit the hobby. I guess he could tell, how much I really like this hobby even after all the pain and suffering. In between all these I have seeded the tank 2 or 3 times with pods, since I believe dinos kept killing all the pods.
I took care of Cyano, I got rid of GHA, killed off bryopsis. I was left with Dino. And in last 7 ~ 8 months I have tried everything from multiple lights out, vacuuming sand, scrubbing rocks, dosing H2O2, 4 hrs lighting period, 6 hours lighting period, lower intensity, higher intensity. Ran crabon, no crabon, GFO, no-GFO.
Finally something seem to work, which was NO3 and PO4 dosing. The rock started clearing out but sand was still fully covered. I was trying to maintain NO3 between 8-10ppm and PO4 between 0.03 - 0.10ppm. Well that made GHA and Bryopsis comeback (I guess fluco never fully cured bryopsis even after 3 weeks). So back in August I dosed Fluco AGAIN. Past Monday was end of 3 weeks. 99% of my Bryopsis are gone. Now this is the last battle I fight before I really break everything down.
Battle Plan
I am doing 3 days lights out right now, after that I plan on vacuuming the sand on Sunday. I will siphon out as much as I can on Sunday. I am also doing a big (40%) water change on Sunday. I know I am not supposed to do a water change. But the way I see it, I am starting my fight against dino on Sunday, and also the fact that I have dosed fluconazole over 3 weeks ago I want that out of my system. I am leaving the UV running during the lights out. Wet Skim and UV from then on with H2O2 dosing (2ml/gl). I know I am going to catch a lot of flack for the H2O2 dosage amount. Honestly, I am nervous myself.
The way I see this, I don't have a whole lot of coral left, since I lost most of it to Dino. I actually do not have a lot to lose right now. I believe my fishes will be fine. I will probably break up the dosage and do half in the morning, and half at night during lights out. We will see how that works out. Hopefully my ORA Red planet, Rainbow Pocci and ORA Frogskin frags will survive this. These are only 3 frags I care about. My main concern (don't laugh) is my Ocellaris pair, since the kids picked em. I have a run of the mill ocellaris paired with a darwin ocellaris, which is how the kids wanted it. The way I understand it, no fishes should be effected. SPS might RTN, LPS should be unhappy but survive.
My Current Params:
Salanity: 1.026
PO4: 0ppm
NO3: 3ppm (we will assume 0ppm)
Alk: 9
Cal: 390 (Need to look into this, but not worried right now)
pH: fluctuating a lot lately between 7.8 ~ 8.1 ( Not worried right now, but not good either)
After hearing all the horror stories I don't want to go the DinoX route yet. But if nothing works, that will be my last option before I go get the sledge hammer.
Background
I have been battling Dino for a while now (8+ months). I think I have an idea where it came from. I believe, (I could be wrong though), it came with a Pink Birdsnest frag that I got from a local reefer. During that time I had a slight nutrient issue (tank neglected due to work) which caused GHA. I did several water changes over 2 weeks, ran GFO, over skimmed, and manually removed the gha. My tank was cleared of GHA. Doing all these caused my NO3 and PO4 to hit rock bottom, 0 ppm. This is the beginning of dino.
At first I was little surprised thinking it might be diatom. This tank has been setup for almost 2 years. I went through the uglies like everyone else. Things settled down, I started growing some zoas, euphyllias, Acros etc etc etc. Everything was going as well as it could. So seeing these brown stuff on the sand had me surprised. I was trying to figure out if my tank was going through a 2nd cycle.
I did what I always do, I ran to R2R and finally got an ID. What you know, I have dino. Before I could tackle dino, I had to go out of state for work. When I returned after 3 weeks my tank was covered in Dino, GHA and a new addition - Bryopsis. At this point dino wasn't looking too bad but the bryopsis and GHA was taking over my tank. I started dosing fluconazole to battle bryopsis, which worked, but Dino took over with Cyano. I was ready to take a sledge hammer to the tank and call it quits. As much as I like this hobby, I was done with it. I couldn't manage time or patience to deal with this. During this time I was speaking with @mcarroll who kept encouraging me not to quit the hobby. I guess he could tell, how much I really like this hobby even after all the pain and suffering. In between all these I have seeded the tank 2 or 3 times with pods, since I believe dinos kept killing all the pods.
I took care of Cyano, I got rid of GHA, killed off bryopsis. I was left with Dino. And in last 7 ~ 8 months I have tried everything from multiple lights out, vacuuming sand, scrubbing rocks, dosing H2O2, 4 hrs lighting period, 6 hours lighting period, lower intensity, higher intensity. Ran crabon, no crabon, GFO, no-GFO.
Finally something seem to work, which was NO3 and PO4 dosing. The rock started clearing out but sand was still fully covered. I was trying to maintain NO3 between 8-10ppm and PO4 between 0.03 - 0.10ppm. Well that made GHA and Bryopsis comeback (I guess fluco never fully cured bryopsis even after 3 weeks). So back in August I dosed Fluco AGAIN. Past Monday was end of 3 weeks. 99% of my Bryopsis are gone. Now this is the last battle I fight before I really break everything down.
Battle Plan
I am doing 3 days lights out right now, after that I plan on vacuuming the sand on Sunday. I will siphon out as much as I can on Sunday. I am also doing a big (40%) water change on Sunday. I know I am not supposed to do a water change. But the way I see it, I am starting my fight against dino on Sunday, and also the fact that I have dosed fluconazole over 3 weeks ago I want that out of my system. I am leaving the UV running during the lights out. Wet Skim and UV from then on with H2O2 dosing (2ml/gl). I know I am going to catch a lot of flack for the H2O2 dosage amount. Honestly, I am nervous myself.
The way I see this, I don't have a whole lot of coral left, since I lost most of it to Dino. I actually do not have a lot to lose right now. I believe my fishes will be fine. I will probably break up the dosage and do half in the morning, and half at night during lights out. We will see how that works out. Hopefully my ORA Red planet, Rainbow Pocci and ORA Frogskin frags will survive this. These are only 3 frags I care about. My main concern (don't laugh) is my Ocellaris pair, since the kids picked em. I have a run of the mill ocellaris paired with a darwin ocellaris, which is how the kids wanted it. The way I understand it, no fishes should be effected. SPS might RTN, LPS should be unhappy but survive.
My Current Params:
Salanity: 1.026
PO4: 0ppm
NO3: 3ppm (we will assume 0ppm)
Alk: 9
Cal: 390 (Need to look into this, but not worried right now)
pH: fluctuating a lot lately between 7.8 ~ 8.1 ( Not worried right now, but not good either)
After hearing all the horror stories I don't want to go the DinoX route yet. But if nothing works, that will be my last option before I go get the sledge hammer.
