How much MicroBacter7 to help combat Dinos

[Weaverjay101]

What were your results?

 

[nano reef]

I dont understand how dosing these bacterias get rid of dinos if you got them from low nutrients. I started dosing nopox from nitrates hiting 80 from adding to many frags at once like 15 then 2 weeks later 15 more. Stupid yeah BUT I won about half. Now my nitrates are 3 and phospates 0. I have been dosing neophos but I hear that takes a while but I dont know how it can work at all if i am dosing MB7 and vibrant since they lower nutrients.

I read you should use 2 bacterias. One a sludge busting and one a denitrifying. I believe Vibrant is a sludge busting and MB7 is denitrifying. I spent 40 bucks on the dang vibrant too but if anyone know a better solution.

Also how do you identify the type or even if it is dinos? Mine looks alot like diatoms. Dosnt appear snotty or weblike but I noticed when I vacuumed today it wanted to clump up like a big chuck of snot and when i had my wavemakers off a while cleaning them I noticed tiny bubbles on my rock and attched to a corals thats losing flesh and thats the only time it looked like dinos. Most of the youtubes show it long and snotty. Mine just looks like a dusting in the sand of diatoms here and there there are some short hairs mixed in but I do vacuum it so maybe the you tubes havnt been vacuumed in a while! The glass gets real bad and has tiny bubbles attched to a lot of the film on glass few days after waterchange I havnt had this long, noticed after 2 water changes ago when it got crazy on sand rocks and glass, wavemakers. The problem is i have to keep doing waterchanges to up my alk. It keep dropping since I added all the frags and at a very unpredictable rate. It may maintain for 4 days after change then drop 0.3 next day 0.1. Dosnt follow a pattern so how can I dial in a daily dose?

Can anyone advise what to do about the alk so I can quit changing water and tackling this every 10 days because I am sure I am making it worse..

 

[Uncle99]

Kill whatever jumps into the column with UV.
Solves a ton of pest algae problems and makes water absolutely crystal clear.

 

[I’m Batman]

I had the same question, I feel like last november I completely disregarded the directions and just started pouring MB7 in the tank daily. I used a reactor with chaeto and after a few weeks they went away, no vacuuming sand, just blasting rocks, reef roids and didn’t do a water change for 8 months.

This time around, I’m a lot more conscious as this is my 2nd in winter in 3.5 years this 20g AIO tank has been up and want to have a strict regiment for next winter.

Brightwells directions are clear but have many applications. After reading this I’m wondering if I need to switch to MicroBacter Clean.

My fight this time around has been IM AquaShield UV, NeoPhos, heavy feeding reef roids/ LRS reef frenzy and one drop of MB7 every other day... would love to see more opinions on this topic.

 

[Sanya]

Kill whatever jumps into the column with UV.
Solves a ton of pest algae problems and makes water absolutely crystal clear.

How powerful your UV ?

 

[I’m Batman]

Yeah how powerful UV?

 

[ScoobyFish]

Yeah how powerful UV?

What size tank you got? If its 75 to 100 gallons get a 90 watt. Anything above go higher. With UV bigger is better , to match tank minimum turnover GPH. So to make it easy for ya 90 watt UV sterilizer run it at nigh at 700 gph no higher for level 2 sterilization to kill off the nasties. Daytime like i do, you can run it a little higher. The lifeguard aquatics 90 watt UV unit is in the realm of nicely priced and works great.

 

[Kfactor]

I had bad dinos and what helped me is dosing phyto

 

[Boss]

What were your results?

Microbacter7 ended up doing the trick for me. Along with raising nitrates and phosphates. Next time I would use MicroBacter Clean though based on what Brightwell told me.

 

[Boss]

Yeah how powerful UV?

This is the best video overview I've found on Dinos. It is a lot of data in just 5 mins, so watch it carefully. Here is a link to the part about UV sterilizers, but I'd watch the whole video if you are battling dinos.

 

[Tuffloud1]

So what is the consensus on dosage amount of Microbacter7 to fight dinos?

How much and how often?

 

[Clownfishy]

I can provide my experience now having been through the Dino nightmare. I continued to does MicroBacter7 for well over a year at the level they state for a new tank. I became a nervous wreck contemplating on when I should stop dosing as I could still see Dinos under a Microscope. Although these Dinos were no where near as active as they had been and there was a lot less of them. The turning point for me was just making the decision to actually just stop! At the same time I added more fish to ensure I have more continuous bio load in the system. That and continuing with the UV and heavy feeding is what I think was needed. I personally feel I extended the Dino problem longer than it should have continually dosing and not adding enough bio load.

I am now approx 1 year on and have only now started to attempt to lower my nutrient levels. I have been running Nitrate at 50ppm and Phosphate at 0.3 - 0.35 with my lighting cranked back up to my previous levels. So, after approx 2 months and daily testing of Phosphates, using daily dosing of NOPOX (again!), I now have Nitrates down to 25ppm and Phosphates down to 0.11. I am not going to go any lower than that as some of my Candy canes do not look as happy as they did with the higher nutrient levels. I will get the microscope out again at the weekend to test some samples as there are a couple of low flow areas which look like the start of Dinos. If that is the case and it does not appear to increase to other areas, I will hold at that point for a few months, continue daily testing to see if I the system adjusts to the new lower nutrient levels without starting Dinos. I dont think I will dose any more MicroBacter7 unless it gets out of hand but before then, I would just let my nutrients increase back to their previous levels and feed the tank heavily.

Hope some of that helps?

 

[DrMMI]

I've had a lot of success using elegant corals dino method. It calls for 3mL/20g of Dr. Tims waste away (macrophagic bacteria that eats waste) and atm colony or similar beneficial bacteria plus siphoning out the dinos through a very fine micron filter sock.

 

[Japoy013]

Hey guys, so I've gotten Ostreopsis and Amphidinium Dinos early this year because I've neglected the tank. My No3 went to zero and I started to see stringy dino stuff in the tank and rust colored matts on the sand bed. I quickly dose some KNO3 to up my nitrates which eliminated the Ostreopsis dino completely. The second fight right now is with Amphidinium dinos on the sand bed. I saw this thread and followed Boss reply about using Microbacter 7 weekly as per High nutrient system. I dosed it for a week and seen a great improvement on the sand bed. It seems that the dinos are receding. After the first week, I switched to Microbacter Clean because Boss's reply said Microbacter Clean should get rid of dinos faster as Brightwell stated. I've dosed Microbacter Clean for 4 days but I noticed that the dino matts became darker when Microbacter 7 made it lighter. I then saw a video on youtube were WWC interviewed Brightwell about Microbacter 7, Microbacter Start and Microbacter Clean. The person from Brightwell said that if fighting against dino, Microbacter 7 should be used haha. I got a little confused now....so I'm going to just keep using Microbacter 7 until dinos are gone from the sand. Here's the link for WWC Brightwell interview

 

[ssster2020]

This is my first battle with dinos. It's a new tank, 4 months old, started with some new dry rock and older rock transferred from another tank. I seeded the tank using Microbacter 7. Everything was going peachy to the point where I added some SPS. Then I got hit with cyano. I increased the flow down on the sandbed and eventually treated with Chemiclean, which I have used in the past successfully. However this time my nutrient levels dropped to 0-0. I tried to feed but no matter how much the levels would not rise. I am really not sure why unless the bacteria in the microbacter7 was scavenging it. Anyway Dinos hit with a vengeance.

Here's what I've done, lowered light intensity as is advised on this form. And I've blacked out the tank. I also raised the tank temperature to 82 F. There is some anecdotal evidence again on this form that seems to indicate that it might help the fight. I have not added Hydrogen Peroxide as some suggest.
This morning the sand bed is much better! I'm not saying I've beat them because I'm still struggling getting my nutrients up. Oh and I stopped adding microbacter7, again I'm not sure if that was the right thing to do but it's counter intuitive to me to add something that lowers nutrient level when I'm trying to raise the levels.

Yesterday I ordered a UV sterilizer and some Nitrate to add, can't remember the brand.

So far coral wise I lost a birdsnest and my torches aren't happy. In fact none of the LPS are partying now. The 2 Monti's I added are hanging on.

I hope this helps and I will try to keep everyone informed on the progress or lack of progress whichever the future holds

 

[ssster2020]

This is just a followup to the previous post. First of all I have decided to add the Microbacter7. I have been adding the recommended amount as per the instructions on the bottle, except I am adding it every 2 days. It kind of makes me feel better to be adding some beneficial bacteria. And hopefully with an increasing nutrient level it can out compete the dinos.
Sampled today and Nitrate is now up to .75 ppm and phosphate is .13. I have been feeding way too much in an effort to get these up so I'm quite happy. Also all the corals have cheered right up.
The sand bed is dirty but most of the long stringed dinos have disappeared. I am going to take the blackout stuff off tonight and go back to my normal light schedule.
I'm wondering if I should do a water change and syphon the bed. Ill decide later.

The one mistake I made is I should have lowered the Alk dosing, alk is sampling a little higher than I had it. I suppose if I'd have thought about it I'd have guessed that if I lower the lighting the coral growth would slow.

I am not an expert at this, in fact it's my first time with this problem. I only documenting it in the hopes of maybe giving someone some ideas of what to do or not to do.

 

[Clownfishy]

Reference your lighting. I went to all blues and cut out all other lighting. Over several months, I then added the intensity of the colours a few percentage at a time. I am not saying this works for DInos but I did notice Dino's coming back if I added white colour too quickly. It is over 1.5 years of me beating Dino's and I am only now adding red and green for 1 hour at 1%! I will be adding 1% each week and take them to 15% over time.
Hope some of this helps.

 

[Sean83]

Regarding the original question that was posted, I just talked to brightwell aquatics. Here's their guidance. On the bottle there are instructions recommended dosing daily for a medium to high nutrient system, and instructions for dosing weekly for a low nutrient system. Take a look at the bottle to see what I mean. Most reef tanks with a nitrate level of 10 PPM and a phosphate level of 1 PPM approximately are considered low nutrient systems. However, instead of following the low nutrient system instructions on the bottle, when you have a low nutrient system and you are battling dinos, you should dose per the medium to high nutrient system instructions on the microbacter7 bottle. This involves dosing daily. You would follow those instructions for the first week, and then for the second week dose every other day. By the end of the second week you will see a drastic reduction in dinos, or at least that's what they told me. In the third week go to dosing weekly per the low nutrients system instructions.

Having said all that, they suggested if you're battling dinos to use microbacter clean instead of microbacter7 as it is designed for knocking out issues like dinos and just a matter of days instead of weeks. I haven't heard any other threads mention this so I thought it was worth mentioning what they told me. They said that microbacter7 is more of a maintenance tool where microbacter clean is better for dinos.

So if you're using microbacter7, hopefully these instructions help. That's what I have and what I'm going to use. I have not yet used microbacter clean but if microbacter7 doesn't work for me I'll probably resort to it. Hope this helps

Hey did they suggest a dosing schedule for clean ? Or just go by what the bottle says ?

 

[boomeraudio]

UV, removing all the sand, nomwater changes and heavy bacteria dosing worked for me against amphidinium and ostreopsis. UV was a god send in the battle. Oh and DinoX did not work and it does kill or at the least weakens corals.

Interested to hear about your battle specifically with amphidinium (in the sand). I have them in the sand bed and from what I understand, they don't release into the water column at night but instead recede back into the sand bed. This would render a UV relatively useless against the battle wouldn't it?

I'm thinking of a rip clean this weekend and cleaning all of the sand. The rock is showing signs and small spots of coraline so that's positive but it has certainly been a bumpy ride!

Would love your thoughts on it.

 

[boomeraudio]

Hey guys, so I've gotten Ostreopsis and Amphidinium Dinos early this year because I've neglected the tank. My No3 went to zero and I started to see stringy dino stuff in the tank and rust colored matts on the sand bed. I quickly dose some KNO3 to up my nitrates which eliminated the Ostreopsis dino completely. The second fight right now is with Amphidinium dinos on the sand bed. I saw this thread and followed Boss reply about using Microbacter 7 weekly as per High nutrient system. I dosed it for a week and seen a great improvement on the sand bed. It seems that the dinos are receding. After the first week, I switched to Microbacter Clean because Boss's reply said Microbacter Clean should get rid of dinos faster as Brightwell stated. I've dosed Microbacter Clean for 4 days but I noticed that the dino matts became darker when Microbacter 7 made it lighter. I then saw a video on youtube were WWC interviewed Brightwell about Microbacter 7, Microbacter Start and Microbacter Clean. The person from Brightwell said that if fighting against dino, Microbacter 7 should be used haha. I got a little confused now....so I'm going to just keep using Microbacter 7 until dinos are gone from the sand. Here's the link for WWC Brightwell interview

How is the battle going? Did MB7 do the trick?