How long to win the battle when using UV for dinos ?

[Bombschell]

Lol, I was serious, what is VG, I don’t know…

VetteGuy.

 

[Idech]

@vetteguy53081 do you think what I am having now could be diatoms ? It looks like it but the dinos looked like it also when they started.

When do you think I can start adding white light ?

Here is my schedule now. I started slowly increasing the blues and violets.

 

[vetteguy53081]

@vetteguy53081 do you think what I am having now could be diatoms ? It looks like it but the dinos looked like it also when they started.

When do you think I can start adding white light ?

Here is my schedule now. I started slowly increasing the blues and violets.

If you’ve had lights out for 5 or more days, you can increase blue 5% daily and white 5% every other day until desired settings
Do add .5ml of peroxide per 10 gallons at night for another week as an insurance

 

[Idech]

If you’ve had lights out for 5 or more days, you can increase blue 5% daily and white 5% every other day until desired settings
Do add .5ml of peroxide per 10 gallons at night for another week as an insurance

Yes chief, I will ! Thank you.

(my lights were at 15% blues only as you recommended with corals)

 

[Idech]

Whatever this is, it doesn’t give up easily. There is some brown dust on the sand today, even with the half dose of peroxyde still going.

Today lights were 25% blues, violets and UV. No green red or whites.

Tonight I brushed it off the sand before dosing peroxyde again. I ordered a microscope and it should be here in a few days. I need to know what it is for sure or I won’t be fighting the right battle.

 

[ScottB]

Whatever this is, it doesn’t give up easily. There is some brown dust on the sand today, even with the half dose of peroxyde still going.

Today lights were 25% blues, violets and UV. No green red or whites.

Tonight I brushed it off the sand before dosing peroxyde again. I ordered a microscope and it should be here in a few days. I need to know what it is for sure or I won’t be fighting the right battle.

Agreed. You need to know which dino specie this is. For some, a blackout makes things worse in the long run. All dinos are photosynthetic but most dino competitors are also photosynthetic. SOME dinos hunker down into cyst stage without light -- the sand based ones in particular. The competitors just die.

 

[lazlodawg]

I had a horrible case of dinos in my first tank. Nothing I did had any appreciable effect. I even did a rip clean and they came storming back in two days. After over a year long battle, I ended up nuking the tank with bleach and restarting.
I upgraded to a Red Sea 300 xl in October and had them show up again a week ago in the new tank after nitrates bottomed out suddenly. This time I used biological warfare and they're almost gone in a week. Day 1 I pulled every rock I could and scrubbed them under running tap water. I added 2 more old powerheads I had lying around and kept them pointed at the worst areas. I used Brightwell NeoNitro to raise my Nitrates to 1 ppm. Then I did a double dose of Biodigest that day (left lights alone and let my skimmer overflow for 5 hours after every Biodigest dose). Days 2,3, and 4 I added a single vial of Biodigest each day in the morning and raised nitrates by 1ppm. I still turkey basted the rocks twice a day, but it's almost entirely gone now. I have a couple small spots of cyano and a bit of hair algae that are receding as well.
I tried using bottled bacteria to fight dinos in my first tank, but it didn't work. This time I used Prodibio Biodigest and it's working wonders. I hope something in this is helpful for your battle!

 

[Idech]

I used Brightwell NeoNitro to raise my Nitrates to 1 ppm.

You’ve had horrible luck !

In my case I have 13,9 ppm nitrates and 0,04 ppm phosphates, so not 0.

The only thing I did different with my other tank that never had dinos (yet after 9 months) is feed more and add live rock. I also had a different light. So I have no clue what caused it !

 

[Viva'sReef]

You are playing russian roulette with your wallet. Buy or borrow a Microscope and get an accurate ID first. It was an easy $75 spend for me and I've even helped out another reefer since purchasing it. Not sure if it's worth anything but I saw one at FiveBelow today for $5 and says it has 450x mag on it which is plenty.

I see you are even thinking you might have Diatoms and not Dinos now. That's where I was at. Very frustrating but the positive ID you can begin the proper treatment to end it for good. Or until you stray and bottom out your nutrients again.

 

[Idech]

You are playing russian roulette with your wallet. Buy or borrow a Microscope and get an accurate ID first. It was an easy $75 spend for me and I've even helped out another reefer since purchasing it. Not sure if it's worth anything but I saw one at FiveBelow today for $5 and says it has 450x mag on it which is plenty.

I see you are even thinking you might have Diatoms and not Dinos now. That's where I was at. Very frustrating but the positive ID you can begin the proper treatment to end it for good. Or until you stray and bottom out your nutrients again.

As I mentioned earlier I bought one and it should be here in a few days.

 

[ScottB]

I probably linked this earlier, but just in case I did not, or people are tagging into this thread after. This is a consolidation of dino treatment themes collected in the dino mega-thread "Are you tired".

Sorry, it got a little long, but this is the "consensus" approach to treating dinos according to specie ID.

A Dinoflagellate Treatment Guide

docs.google.com

 

[Viva'sReef]

As I mentioned earlier I bought one and it should be here in a few days.

Oh, thats great! You'll be on track soon enough

 

[Idech]

I can’t wait to get the microscope; hopefully tomorrow. I’ve stopped dosing peroxyde as the stuff is coming back anyways.

What I was doing before is no longer working, which leads me to think it’s not dinos anymore. So far it still looks like diatoms.

I’ve also discovered I have bubble algae. I didn’t know what they were and researched. Tomorrow I’ll destroy them (I won’t pop them in water).

So yeah, this is proving to be challenging…. It reminds me of when I started with freshwater (so long ago, lol) and I was dosing fertilizers without knowing what I was doing and ended with horrible algae.

Except this time I’m not too sure what I’ve done wrong…

 

[vetteguy53081]

@vetteguy53081 do you think what I am having now could be diatoms ? It looks like it but the dinos looked like it also when they started.

When do you think I can start adding white light ?

Here is my schedule now. I started slowly increasing the blues and violets.

Looks to me like dino. Same recipe will work for Cyano

 

[Idech]

Looks to me like dino. Same recipe will work for Cyano

Are you saying this after looking at the pictures from my microscope on the other thread ? So you think it’s cyano ?

 

[Idech]

Update : I’ve been very slowly turning up the lights.

Here is my schedule now :

And whatever this is doesn’t seem to be progressing and stays on the sand bed. There isn’t much of it either (fingers crossed).

The microscope is useless, there isn’t enough of it to really show up on the slide. I wasn’t satisfied with the microscope anyways and realized it’s too much of a hassle for me to deal with so it’s going back.

I will be very cautious with the lights. The corals are doing fine as it is so I don’t really need more intensity for now.

I’m hoping they’re diatoms or cyanos that will go on their own with the tank maturing. I’m still running the UV. I plan on stopping as I don’t want to run it permanently. I will do it very gradually, like the rest.

Slow is the way to go !

 

[Screwgunner]

I put my first dose of peroxide in and my foxface started eating it.

 

[Idech]

While I‘m here, the dinos have never returned. All is well.

 

[ScottB]

While I‘m here, the dinos have never returned. All is well.

As we are too lazy to page back, remind of us of your specie and your method?

 

[jmichaelh7]

I don’t know if this was mentioned already but

I tried everything. The only thing that worked was plumbing uv straight in and out of tank. Then basting with turkey baster off the rocks. 2 weeks the Dino’s were history