chipmunkofdoom2
Always Making Something
Hello all. I've had some corals and a sixline wrasse in QT for 6 months or so and they're all doing well. I've been wanting to move them to my DT for a while now, but I'm having one heck of a dino outbreak in my QT. It's a fairly basic system, just live rock, flow, and a HOB skimmer, so I'm not really surprised that the dinos were able to take hold.
Here's the problem though. I don't want to spend a ton of time and money upgrading my QT to battle the dinos. I'll likely take the QT down once I move the corals and fish anyway. But, I also don't want to introduce dinos to my display, which has nuisance algae, but so far is dino-free.
I've read about dinos and believe I understand a good bit about them, but I'm still uneasy moving the corals to my display. It sounds like we believe that dinos are a result of some nutrient or biological imbalance, and once another organism (copepod, alga, bacterium) out-competes them for whatever it is that they eat, they die. Dinos used to be a part of the nuisance algae that cropped up when a tank was new, but they usually died down once the tank got established. Is it true that biological diversity will keep the dinos in check? If so, my display is reasonably mature (2+ years old) and I don't think the dinos will survive in the DT.
I do have a frag system which is basically empty now, which I wouldn't mind infecting with dinos. It's much more advanced than my QT and I'd have a much easier time fighting the dinos there. My only concern is nothing is living in the frag system and it's not very biologically established, so I don't know how well it would support the acros I have in QT.
I'm just not sure where to go from here. Will my biologically-mature DT be able to out-compete the dinos? It seems to me that dinos, like it or not, are a part of the hobby now, and keeping them out of a system is almost impossible. In which case, banking on biodiversity or control methods like UV sterilization seems to be the way to go. Would it be safer to put everything in an immature frag system to avoid infecting my display? What would you who have battled with dinos do?
Here's the problem though. I don't want to spend a ton of time and money upgrading my QT to battle the dinos. I'll likely take the QT down once I move the corals and fish anyway. But, I also don't want to introduce dinos to my display, which has nuisance algae, but so far is dino-free.
I've read about dinos and believe I understand a good bit about them, but I'm still uneasy moving the corals to my display. It sounds like we believe that dinos are a result of some nutrient or biological imbalance, and once another organism (copepod, alga, bacterium) out-competes them for whatever it is that they eat, they die. Dinos used to be a part of the nuisance algae that cropped up when a tank was new, but they usually died down once the tank got established. Is it true that biological diversity will keep the dinos in check? If so, my display is reasonably mature (2+ years old) and I don't think the dinos will survive in the DT.
I do have a frag system which is basically empty now, which I wouldn't mind infecting with dinos. It's much more advanced than my QT and I'd have a much easier time fighting the dinos there. My only concern is nothing is living in the frag system and it's not very biologically established, so I don't know how well it would support the acros I have in QT.
I'm just not sure where to go from here. Will my biologically-mature DT be able to out-compete the dinos? It seems to me that dinos, like it or not, are a part of the hobby now, and keeping them out of a system is almost impossible. In which case, banking on biodiversity or control methods like UV sterilization seems to be the way to go. Would it be safer to put everything in an immature frag system to avoid infecting my display? What would you who have battled with dinos do?
