Dinos becoming a problem... what now

[JosephM]

Okay. I know there’s a million and one threads out there on this. I’ve read tons of them. There’s just some things I’m not willing to do in my tank to eradicate them. I don’t wanna use a UV because I believe the health of my system is semi-dependent on my pod population (plus I’m getting a mandarin soon and yes I know my pods are benthic but I often see them swimming around when feeding time comes) and live phyto, i don’t want to do a black out as i have around 35 frags and bulk of those just came in Friday so they’re still stressed trying to acclimate to my tank and lights. I believe they became a problem when I couldn’t find a good control on my N03 and P04 and they kept bottoming out but now my N03 is constantly at or above 10ppm and P04 was 0.03 yesterday and Im testing and dosing every night to get to 0.1. I have an empty refuge after my chaeto started dying. It’s empty except for GHA and my sea hare that I’m letting eat the algae (still have refuge light on 12 hrs at night to not mess up the sea hares schedule.) What are my options or anyone have advice? It seems to just be getting worse every day and it’s starting to tick off some corals. It’s a 29gal tank with 20 long sump. Water runs through filter sock then into refuge that contains skimmer and 1L of matrix and then goes through bubble trap into return with GAC reactor and return pump.

 

[brandon429]

You should rip clean it then let us use the results in the sand rinse thread

29 gallon= easy deep clean

also take off all gfo and nitrate po4 scrubbing media

don’t use them until summer time. We need three mos after the rip clean of you guiding out any returning mass like a miniature game where you have to hammer through levels vs just play it five minutes and win, notice how none of this matches the common mode.

we need three tuning months using methods that don’t cause dinos for the sustained win.

the common mode is hands off, we would go hands on for the system in terms of feeding and export work like it’s a set of teeth and a mouth getting flushed and reworked into compliance. Because it’s a nano, we can do that.

the size of your system sets the best anti dinos approach. Not the species, the strain etc and especially not the nutrients once we quit scrubbing them for a while. It’s not hard to make a nano comply, it’s hard to make a 120 gallon comply.

 

[JosephM]

You should rip clean it then let us use the results in the sand rinse thread

29 gallon= easy deep clean

also take off all gfo and nitrate po4 scrubbers

don’t use them until summer time.

I don’t run any GFO or nitrate and P04 scrubbers. I accidentally built a ULNS and have to heavily feed and dose to keep them detectable. Care to share a thread to explain rip clean so I can check it out?

 

[JosephM]

Picture taken of my tank a couple weeks back just to get a visual. *this was taken before I got my big shipment of corals and before the dinos became a problem*
I also started with KPA live rock

 

[brandon429]

the reef is so nice I don’t think you have to yet


kudos for wanting to take action on the first few cells lol nice resolve. I can’t see anything bad but I know in person you’ll get those details.


here’s all the rip cleans below but we can brainstorm a bit before since things look so decent above, nice healthy reef. A cheap turbo twist uv, for example, can have a high % chance of balancing that.


but I’ll tell you this about reef cleans, watch out for assessment bias.

how we title a thread alters what we are allowed to do regarding procedure you’ll soon see. Titled: moving homes, or upgrading tanks, nobody gets mad when we list takedown steps below to affect a clean move where coincidentally nobody gets dinos on the other side for forty pages


but if we recommend a rip clean, a home move cleaning, to someone with a bac bloom or a dinos run it’s destabilizing. Somehow our hobby devalues the work in one setting and likes it in another, but reef tank disassembly and reassembly with skip cycle ordering is just a neutral science, it has no good or bad. It’s merely steps. People post for ten different reasons below, and what’s the one thing we keep doing every. single. post.


my take is different. Since 100% of people here are happy with their reef tank relocations/home moves, what truly is the harm running the steps on a reef not moving homes. Rip clean, set back where it was formerly challenged.

to blast out targets

sand rinse thread:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

We can use that as a fallback since it’s a bit of work, new water etc.

in the lead up, with that little mass above, you can try simple steps like committing to two gallons every two days as targeted siphon runs and export of all topical mass. If you bring up some sand skimming the top, rinse it and toss back in tank.


how the mass itself responds to your hand guiding reveals its strength, can be used in planning and assessment.

we can be mini hands on and see if you can avoid the takedown cleaning. When they said nothing good happens fast in reefing, that doesn’t apply above.


**there are some dino strains so mean we can’t beat them with rip cleans.

but that’s not the case 98% of the time and with a nano, you can spot slow regrowth in time to try other methods, at least you won’t be heading towards a tradeoff green hair algae invasion with our clean method. You made a nice reef!

 

[Cwentz758]

Have you confirmed dinos? If so why type do you have as this will guide people to give better ways to rid yourself of them.

 

[JosephM]

So here’s what I’m gathering from your info. I’ve got it in the early stages so not super urgent. I don’t really do water changes. I’ve done like once in the couple months my tank has been running. My N03 and P04 have only been stable for less then a weeks so I’m thinking just keep those elevated, change filter socks daily. Siphon water while targeting foreign masses and run it through a filter sock but return the water that has gone through the filter sock back into the system. What do you think @brandon429

 

[JosephM]

Have you confirmed dinos? If so why type do you have as this will guide people to give better ways to rid yourself of them.

Ive done the “coffee filter test” and it’s dinos but i do not have a microscope to confirm what type

 

[brandon429]

I 100% agree to that it’s what I’d do, not because the work is harmful but it really could be avoidable a good while.

we must expect some expression of uglies in new tanks and that’s so reasonable above. Want to also strongly recommend the simple art of reducing your overall light intensity to simulate a cloudy reef/ something with less intensity and we ramp it back up in a week or two

people rarely combine light modulation with directed tank goals, it’s a powerful trick and not harmful for any reef. Your corals will thrive just fine garanteed

 

[zalick]

Ive done the “coffee filter test” and it’s dinos but i do not have a microscope to confirm what type

Do they disappear from sand and rocks at night?

 

[JosephM]

Do they disappear from sand and rocks at night?

Hmmm. I haven’t really paid attention to that. I don’t think so because at night I see it with all the bubbles. I can blow them away and suck them up pretty easily and they always come back

 

[JosephM]

I 100% agree to that it’s what I’d do, not because the work is harmful but it really could be avoidable a good while.

we must expect some expression of uglies in new tanks and that’s so reasonable above. Want to also strongly recommend the simple art of reducing your overall light intensity to simulate a cloudy reef/ something with less intensity and we ramp it back up in a week or two

people rarely combine light modulation with directed tank goals, it’s a powerful trick and not harmful for any reef. Your corals will thrive just fine garanteed

Alright sweet. I’ll start that regimen tomorrow since I’m working late tonight. What would you recommend for a lower intensity and photo period? Right now Im at 50% blues from 9am to 11pm and 20% whites from 11am to 6pm (viparspectra 165w 9” above water surface)

 

[Nick Steele]

I’ve been in a Dino battle for about 4-5 months. I did the rip clean and it worked but for some reason they came back shortly after (2 weeks or so) never as strong but they were there even with nitrates and phos at 5-10 and .05-.1.

I have since just kept nutrients in check and they seemed to stay somewhat controlled. Last weekend I decided to up my temperature to 81F as I read a reefbuilders article where raising temp helped solve some Dino issues in reef tanks. I have seen positive results and I will keep temp raised and nutrients detectable and hope they go away completely in the next month or so. I would love to add some sand back in my tank.

 

[Cwentz758]

I mean a 15$ microscope on Amazon would do the trick. I’d choose that over ripping my tank apart or trying things that have no effect.
I’ve done two Rip cleans as Brandon presented. They’re an all day affair and a pain in the butt and I’d rather do them for other reasons.

 

[brandon429]

Just whichever degree of lighting is a bit less than this one, the feeding for the corals carries any periods of less light and it can hedge out some invasions for sure, the extreme version being the three day blackout. Blues can stay, reduce whites a bit

the neat thing about the gallonage here is you can freely go beyond average modes that are set by large tanks which can’t reverse course as easy and then fix it right back up if needed. Any way it’s sliced you can now see no form of dino or cyano will ever have the final say in a 29 that’s a neat way to see them vs inaccessible huge reefs where all actions are waited out months for assessment. a boot camp for nano reefs exists

 

[JosephM]

I mean a 15$ microscope on Amazon would do the trick. I’d choose that over ripping my tank apart or trying things that have no effect.
I’ve done two Rip cleans as Brandon presented. They’re an all day affair and a pain in the butt and I’d rather do them for other reasons.

Do you have a link to a microscope that cheap. When I looked the cheapest I found was like $40

 

[JosephM]

I’ve been in a Dino battle for about 4-5 months. I did the rip clean and it worked but for some reason they came back shortly after (2 weeks or so) never as strong but they were there even with nitrates and phos at 5-10 and .05-.1.

I have since just kept nutrients in check and they seemed to stay somewhat controlled. Last weekend I decided to up my temperature to 81F as I read a reefbuilders article where raising temp helped solve some Dino issues in reef tanks. I have seen positive results and I will keep temp raised and nutrients detectable and hope they go away completely in the next month or so. I would love to add some sand back in my tank.

Interesting. I might have to try higher temp if it gets much worse. I run at 77

 

[JosephM]

Just whichever degree of lighting is a bit less than this one, the feeding for the corals carries any periods of less light and it can hedge out some invasions for sure, the extreme version being the three day blackout. Blues can stay, reduce whites a bit

the neat thing about the gallonage here is you can freely go beyond average modes that are set by large tanks which can’t reverse course as easy and then fix it right back up if needed. Any way it’s sliced you can now see no form of dino or cyano will ever have the final say in a 29 that’s a neat way to see them vs inaccessible huge reefs where all actions are waited out months for assessment. a boot camp for nano reefs exists

Would a 10% decrease on both intensities right away harm anything or should I do 5% wait a day and then another 5%? Bring blues to 10 hrs (down from 14) and whites to 4hrs(down from 7)?And I definitely feed my corals a lot so I should be good there. I’ll leave black out as second to last resort and rip clean as last resort.

 

[KMG]

Dinos is never a small treatment. They are poisoness and often kill all corals and some fish in the tank. Acc. to what I learned and experienced, UVC and hydrogen peroxide is the most efficient way to go. Wait out or not using UVC tends to end up with major loss. The sooner the treatment is put in, the better prognosis. I've tryed DinoX and Dinoxal. Yes they work, but kill and damage your corals severe acc. to my experience. Balance up the Po4 is correct, but it will not cure if one doesn't take the long "dirty method".