Dinos treatment need advice.

[Nsalter]

My tank is an 80 gallon display lagoon with a 40 sump. Total system volume 104 gallons. Running BM curve 5 wet, carbon in a bag, and an algea scrubber. Started in August 2021. Only been up for roughly 3 1/2 months. Also was recommended to try N & P smart start pellets.

0 ppm phosphate
50 ppm nitrates
8.0 alk
430 cal
1280 mag
8.1 ph

I have identified dinos in my system. From the start of this new tank I have been able to get any phosphates measurable. I am dosing neophos and about to switch to dosing disodium phosphate cause it's cheaper in an attempt to raise phosphate levels to something measurable.

I was instructed to continue running the algae scrubber to get nitrates down and keep dosing phosphates on an attempt to lower nitrates. I'm wondering my algea scrubber is growing the dinos and making the situation worse.

I was recommended to try Dino X under explicit instructions to follow the directions to the letter T. Should I turn my algea scrubber off and skimmer? Just need some advice to brake out of the dino cage. Thanks.

 

[MnFish1]

My tank is an 80 gallon display lagoon with a 40 sump. Total system volume 104 gallons. Running BM curve 5 wet, carbon in a bag, and an algea scrubber. Started in August 2021. Only been up for roughly 3 1/2 months. Also was recommended to try N & P smart start pellets.

0 ppm phosphate
50 ppm nitrates
8.0 alk
430 cal
1280 mag
8.1 ph

I have identified dinos in my system. From the start of this new tank I have been able to get any phosphates measurable. I am dosing neophos and about to switch to dosing disodium phosphate cause it's cheaper in an attempt to raise phosphate levels to something measurable.

I was instructed to continue running the algae scrubber to get nitrates down and keep dosing phosphates on an attempt to lower nitrates. I'm wondering my algea scrubber is growing the dinos and making the situation worse.

I was recommended to try Dino X under explicit instructions to follow the directions to the letter T. Should I turn my algea scrubber off and skimmer? Just need some advice to brake out of the dino cage. Thanks.

Could you show a picture of your tank? Would more bioload help (i.e. fish)?

 

[Nsalter]

Could you show a picture of your tank? Would more bioload help (i.e. fish)?

I have a juvenile one spot foxface, a juvenile sailfin Tang, 4 chromis, and 2 Banggai Cardinals. Here are the pics. Lights just turned on so dinos aren't bad yet. Usually in the evening is its worst.

 

[Nsalter]

Bump

 

[Jedi Knghit]

I am not an expert, but you want to get some measurable phosphates in the system to allow other organisms to compete with the dinos, otherwise they will just return.

How did you identify them?

 

[Panicked Reefer]

I'm far from a pro but for what it's worth this is what I would suggest. Get a microscope and ID the type you have. There are alot of methods that work on one type but not another type. I would reduce my n03 to about half of that. Either dose p04 or you could try products like reef roids as they are high in p04. Start slow. Fixing the nutrient imbalance is a fairly common trait in dino removal so I would do that from the get go. I tried dinox and the only thing it removed from my tank was a cleaner shrimp and my urchins. Some people have had great success with it. I am not one.

 

[Ramdude4G]

Let see your parameters are out of whack. I just beat a bad case of dinos in less than 2 weeks after battling them for a few months with no luck. But really looks like you have Diatoms. Either way this should work for both. Here’s what I did.

items you will need:
inexpensive microscope from Amazon about $60. At least 400x magnification.
Microbacter clean 2 bottles
microbacter 7 one bottle
Brughtwell Aquatics Neophos 1 bottle. (to bring up your phosphat)
Hanna UL Phosphate and High Range Nitrate checkers to get good numbers. You’ll be glad you did.
get you a small media reactor Amazon for about $60 w/pump run carbon in it. About 1 cup
get a UV sterilizer. Amazon I think $140. This one will work good on your tank. Plumb it in the return. (Return pump to uv, uv to return)

leave your skimmer running plumb the uv light. Take a sample from the Dino and put on a slide for the microscope and determine what Dino you have. If it’s ostriopsis follow this routine. Should work for diatoms as well. Dose phosphates to get up to around 0.05-0.10. once you get that up start dosing MB clean and MB 7 according to dirty tank directions. Your total volume is probably gonna be around 75-80 gal. The formula on the back of the bottle is for 75 gal. In their example. So it’s pretty easy. Run this dosing for 2 weeks. The UV light is gonna play a big role to help beat it. Also reduce your light schedule. To just a couple hours a day during this period. Be sure to test every day and get your numbers where they need to be. The nitrates should come down during this process and dose the phosphates to get them up. Hope this helps and good luck. My problem was so bad that I actually vacuumed all my sand out and went to bare bottom for the time being. The dinos killed most of my snails and 2 urchins and a cleaner shrimp. Just finished all this 2 weeks ago.

 

[Reef.]

What are you using to test PO4?

Chances are it’s not zero if your nitrates are really 50, If not using a Hanna checker for PO4 I would pick up, the 774 checker.

My guess is diatoms.

 

[ScottB]

Crickets? Move to the "Are you tired" thread for more action.

Curious though about disodium phosphates. I've only ever heard about using trisodium phosphates.

Phosphates bind to you rock You need to dose it in liters with a dead rock start just FYI.