Dinos or Cyano Treatment

[hube]

So I've been battling this battle for months now, I have had my tank for 7 months now, in the past I posted pictures of my tank and people told me that I had cyano. After a lights out phase and dosing peroxide, the cyano subsided, then came back. I tried mitigating but I just did manual removal when I could, then all of a sudden my snails started immobilizing/dying. I say immobilizing because they don't smell putrid when I check if they're dead.

I did some research and now I truly think it may be dinos, especially since I started keeping track of my phosphate and nitrate levels, that were close to, if not, 0. I started dosing both and have my nitrates up to 15ppm, however I am being careful while dosing my phosphate (brightwell) and dosing 0.01ppm every 24 hours and testing with a Salifert kit, it's still reading 0 but I am hoping it will change as time continues.

I am also dosing DinoX, had to stop for a couple days, but began again. I am dosing this alongside micro7 and no longer dosing nitrate as it is stable. After totally removing the algae off a rock but not being able to dose DinoX, this grew back on it. The back wall is covered with it too, as seen in the pictures it looks like fur, it looks like a mix of dinos and cyano. I am planning to continue treatment but doing a lights out phase and dosing hydrogen peroxide. I cannot obtain a microscope right now, but am searching. I will try to follow VetteGuy's treatment he wrote in different posts, but I am here for more advice as my snails are suffering except for maybe my nassarius, I have a Fluval Canister so should I buy a UVC Clarifier? I want to do this right, anything helps.

 

[Dan_P]

So I've been battling this battle for months now, I have had my tank for 7 months now, in the past I posted pictures of my tank and people told me that I had cyano. After a lights out phase and dosing peroxide, the cyano subsided, then came back. I tried mitigating but I just did manual removal when I could, then all of a sudden my snails started immobilizing/dying. I say immobilizing because they don't smell putrid when I check if they're dead.

I did some research and now I truly think it may be dinos, especially since I started keeping track of my phosphate and nitrate levels, that were close to, if not, 0. I started dosing both and have my nitrates up to 15ppm, however I am being careful while dosing my phosphate (brightwell) and dosing 0.01ppm every 24 hours and testing with a Salifert kit, it's still reading 0 but I am hoping it will change as time continues.

I am also dosing DinoX, had to stop for a couple days, but began again. I am dosing this alongside micro7 and no longer dosing nitrate as it is stable. After totally removing the algae off a rock but not being able to dose DinoX, this grew back on it. The back wall is covered with it too, as seen in the pictures it looks like fur, it looks like a mix of dinos and cyano. I am planning to continue treatment but doing a lights out phase and dosing hydrogen peroxide. I cannot obtain a microscope right now, but am searching. I will try to follow VetteGuy's treatment he wrote in different posts, but I am here for more advice as my snails are suffering except for maybe my nassarius, I have a Fluval Canister so should I buy a UVC Clarifier? I want to do this right, anything helps.

Snails could be starving to death. The immobile ones might be goners.

 

[BairCorals]

Might be time to try a chemiclean treatment. I had the same issue when I started with dry rock and dry sand. Did chemiclean and it all went away and it's been 6 months now and hasn't returned. I know a lot of people will put my post down but sometimes it's just time to try. There's a lot of reefers that use it like twice a year just to get rid of certain strains of bacteria and it works.

If you don't want to do this (technically an antibiotic) then water change water change water change. That's all I got lol

 

[Lavey29]

If you keep dosing harsh chemicals you will have never ending problems. Your killing your biome and just opening the door for the bad guys to take over.

 

[manaman]

What is your NO3 PO4 sitting at?

 

[Humphreix2]

Snails could be starving to death. The immobile ones might be goners.

I’ll risk another smell test, but I’m afraid you may be right, I’ll see once I get home.

 

[Humphreix2]

If you keep dosing harsh chemicals you will have never ending problems. You’re killing your biome and just opening the door for the bad guys to take over.

By harsh chemical are you referring to DinoX? Or supplements as well?

 

[Humphreix2]

Might be time to try a chemiclean treatment. I had the same issue when I started with dry rock and dry sand. Did chemiclean and it all went away and it's been 6 months now and hasn't returned. I know a lot of people will put my post down but sometimes it's just time to try. There's a lot of reefers that use it like twice a year just to get rid of certain strains of bacteria and it works.

If you don't want to do this (technically an antibiotic) then water change water change water change. That's all I got lol

Yeah you wouldn’t be the first to recommend this, does it only target cyano or dinos as well?

 

[Humphreix2]

What is your NO3 PO4 sitting at?

My Nitrate is sitting at a steady 15ppm, Phosphate is at around 0, I’m going to check again today after dosing a little more last night but I’m hoping to keep dosing till I get to .03ppm. I’m using the Salifert kit for testing.

 

[Lavey29]

By harsh chemical are you referring to DinoX? Or supplements as well?

Yes and your proposed upcoming chemiclean use. You have a new tank that is in early development and you are going to kill off that beneficial early development hoping to beat the bad guy when you should be correcting your unstable parameters and focused on fundamentals.

 

[Humphreix2]

Yes and your proposed upcoming chemiclean use. You have a new tank that is in early development and you are going to kill off that beneficial early development hoping to beat the bad guy when you should be correcting your unstable parameters and focused on fundamentals.

What would you advise? Supplement and wait? The reason I’m thinking about using chemicals is because my tank is overrun and I wanted to mitigate because I understand it’s not a long term solution but I’m trying to supplement nutrients and supplement with beneficial bacteria so they can compete and get a foothold.

 

[dwest]

What would you advise? Supplement and wait? The reason I’m thinking about using chemicals is because my tank is overrun and I wanted to mitigate because I understand it’s not a long term solution but I’m trying to supplement nutrients and supplement with beneficial bacteria so they can compete and get a foothold.

Old timer here. I would add a piece of liverock or two. Do 10% weekly water changes. Then add calcium and alkalinity supplement as required to maintain desired levels. That’s it.

The pictures sure looked to me like cyano but it’s always hard to tell.

 

[Uncle99]

What would you advise? Supplement and wait? The reason I’m thinking about using chemicals is because my tank is overrun and I wanted to mitigate because I understand it’s not a long term solution but I’m trying to supplement nutrients and supplement with beneficial bacteria so they can compete and get a foothold.

I think that’s a great idea.
You can reset the system with Chemi if overun, but, it will just come back as you have noted.

You need to stabilize your chemistry and ensure your nutrients are available and consistent at all times. This favors the good guy algae and bacteria which will, if waters remain stable, will outcompete the pest stuff which includes Dino’s.

Dino-x at the end of the day is algaecide and kills both good and bad.

So while it does kill Dino’s, it lowers the stuff you need as well.

Peroxide treatment is the same.

 

[mike89t]

Your tank is still in the ugly phase. This dry rock is difficult to work with compared to the live rock that we used to get back in the day. My new tank went through a similar cyano phase at about your same time frame and looked like this:

Here is what I did:

Cube Build - Mike89t's 45gal Cube Build

And my new Candy Apple Red decided to open up and join the party

www.reef2reef.com

Not saying this is the correct course of action but it got me through the cyano phase and onto the dreaded hair algae phase. Note that for my tank it took about a year and a half for it to stabilize and get through the ugly phase. After I finally beat the hair algae phase I started seeing purple coraline algae growing and my corals started to really take off.

 

[hube]

Old timer here. I would add a piece of liverock or two. Do 10% weekly water changes. Then add calcium and alkalinity supplement as required to maintain desired levels. That’s it.

The pictures sure looked to me like cyano but it’s always hard to tell.

I was always considering adding live rock, but also kind of scared to add hitchhikers, I'll definitely consider it if the problem persists. And I'll try to get my hands on the supplements, thanks!

 

[hube]

I think that’s a great idea.
You can reset the system with Chemi if overun, but, it will just come back as you have noted.

You need to stabilize your chemistry and ensure your nutrients are available and consistent at all times. This favors the good guy algae and bacteria which will, if waters remain stable, will outcompete the pest stuff which includes Dino’s.

Dino-x at the end of the day is algaecide and kills both good and bad.

So while it does kill Dino’s, it lowers the stuff you need as well.

Peroxide treatment is the same.

Thank you for your input! I'll make sure to stabilize my chemistry as well, in other news my Phosphate readings are above 0 after dosing for 4 days so that's a great sign, hopefully, I can start the stabilization process soon and cut back on the Dino-x.

 

[Idech]

Who is the OP here ? I’m confused…

 

[hube]

Your tank is still in the ugly phase. This dry rock is difficult to work with compared to the live rock that we used to get back in the day. My new tank went through a similar cyano phase at about your same time frame and looked like this:

Here is what I did:

Cube Build - Mike89t's 45gal Cube Build

And my new Candy Apple Red decided to open up and join the party

www.reef2reef.com

Not saying this is the correct course of action but it got me through the cyano phase and onto the dreaded hair algae phase. Note that for my tank it took about a year and a half for it to stabilize and get through the ugly phase. After I finally beat the hair algae phase I started seeing purple coraline algae growing and my corals started to really take off.

Looks like I'm in the same boat, I'll definitely try to learn from your experience and purchase Chemiclean if the tank starts looking overrun with more cyano.

 

[hube]

Who is the OP here ? I’m confused…

Whoops, I have two accounts, Daepull and this one, I am logged in on different accounts depending on my phone and laptop, I apologize for the confusion, I'll log into the correct one on my phone.

 

[Kurt Hammel]

Thank you for your input! I'll make sure to stabilize my chemistry as well, in other news my Phosphate readings are above 0 after dosing for 4 days so that's a great sign, hopefully, I can start the stabilization process soon and cut back on the Dino-x.

I have been using KZ Cyano Clean for several months now and the Cyano has stayed away. It is a good bacteria that feeds on the Cyano's food source and does not mess with the tanks chemistry.