How would you feel if I tore it all down?

[rtparty]

I've had good results with cyano and coral snow. What do you mean it's chalk?

https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/211722/

 

[hart24601]

I can't help all that much with the dinos, but I can say having a pico is one of the best things that has happened to me in the hobby. I upgraded to a 3g tank from a custom 180 and 120 (they are now FW on automatic W/C) and it has saved my interest in the hobby. I just don't like the anxiety of a big tank, so even if you do call it quit with the large tank (like I did) there is still a lot of enjoyment still to be had.

 

[lion king]

I've never had dinos, and am a bit confused as to what it even is. I'm not recommending this more than I thought I'd add to the conversation to share my experiences with a tank I was ready to tear down. It's a high waste 180 that I just could not control the algae no matter what I did, I used every method you could think of, all in combination. It's a fowlr and suddenly I thought I had a mysterious illness(ick or velvet?), I dosed copper. The great side effect of the copper, it that it is a wonderful algaeside. The tank is now beautiful, after many water changes and adding back the nutrient control methods, all the levels are down to controllable levels.

Could you separate the main system and nuke it with an algaeside, or even try copper if you would dare. I would do this at least as a last resort. I've never had an issue of removing copper from a display by running cuprizorb at least 2 weeks after registering zero in a test, then running poly filter as a mop up.

 

[rushbattle]

There are already huge amounts of suggestions, but I have a unique one to this thread.

First though, I’d agree with what Dr. RHF said, all of it.

The only thing I would like to add is mechanical filtration. @glennf DSR method advocates the use of what he calls a powerfilter. It really just a higher pressure pump with filter wool on the pumps intake, over a screen. I use quilt batting material and just cut a square once a week and wrap it around the pvc I cut slots into. Then rubber band it on and turn the pump back on. I run that pump into my UV, just because it needed flow and I didn’t want that low a flow rate to the tank. I have zero algae issues now, in part I think because of this.

 

[glennf]

There are already huge amounts of suggestions, but I have a unique one to this thread.

First though, I’d agree with what Dr. RHF said, all of it.

The only thing I would like to add is mechanical filtration. @glennf DSR method advocates the use of what he calls a powerfilter. It really just a higher pressure pump with filter wool on the pumps intake, over a screen. I use quilt batting material and just cut a square once a week and wrap it around the pvc I cut slots into. Then rubber band it on and turn the pump back on. I run that pump into my UV, just because it needed flow and I didn’t want that low a flow rate to the tank. I have zero algae issues now, in part I think because of this.

You're welcome[emoji6]
www.DSRreefing.com/powerfilter

 

[rushbattle]

You're welcome[emoji6]
www.DSRreefing.com/powerfilter

@glennf , what do you think about my UV in line with the pump all recirculating within the sump? Ok if the pump is big enough for the bio load?

 

[vetteguy53081]

This is from a member who conquered them............................
just defeated the infamous dinoflagellates a month ago. This is what I did:

1. Changed water and water source. I was using water from a drinking water dispenser and replaced it with water from a rodi unit. Manually remove as much Dino as possible.

2. Replaced media using new chemi pure elite.

3. Raised ph with water change with the addition of seachem marine buffer

4. Initiated a black out for 2 whole days, ensure a towel Is placed over tank so no light penetrates

5. Third day I did another water change with ph of 8.3 and left the tank dark for half a day

6. I dosed Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter 7 daily

afterwards, the Dino had seen better days and receded to nearly 95% contained. Follow up with water change and ensure your ph is 8.3-.4. Going forward, I now have no Dinos. Unfortunately I have no photos but if you can imagine a sand bed covered with stringy snot with bubbles and all over the rocks, then we have something in common. I did lose several snails due to the dinos and their toxicity

 

[glennf]

@glennf , what do you think about my UV in line with the pump all recirculating within the sump? Ok if the pump is big enough for the bio load?

It seems fine, why waste energy if you can use the same pump to feed the UV unit.
Maybe it's better to make a bypass to lower the flow through the UV unit.

 

[sailplanes2]

Some really good info. Hope you don't give up without trying Stump Remover.

I've had about a 2 month battle with Dinos where I tried everything, and I finally got a handle on them recently.

I believe the formula to win is actually quite simple:

Get your Nitrates to 5-10PPM. Get your phosphates to >0.1 PPM (shoot for 0.1 to 0.2). Dose nitrates with stump remover. Dose phosphates with seachem flourish or the like. Hold nitrates and phosphates at those levels for a couple weeks and your dino bloom will end. It can be difficult to get your levels this high. I literally had to dose the equivalent of 1 PPM of phosphate per day for multiple days to start to get phosphates to register. To figure out how much to dose, just test your water everyday right before the lights come on. Then dose X of nitrates and Y of phosphates (start small and ramp up from there --- there are calculators online which should give you good initial doses). Keep ramping up the doses until nitrates at 5-10 and phosphates are >0.1. Depending on your tank's chemistry that might mean more of one or the other. Then once your levels are correct, keep doing maintenance doses everyday to maintain the nitrates and phosphates at the proper levels.

The goal here is two fold:

First, you want to convince the dinos to stop blooming and starting going back to being normal dino cells. With high levels of nutrients, the dinos go back to being normal. With low nutrient levels, they bloom. Once you get the higher nutrient levels in the tank, the dinos should stop blooming.

Second, things that are "good" competition against dinos, like algae, have trouble outcompeting bacteria for nutrients. This is why carbon dosing works so well. So you need to pump up the nutrient levels in your tank so algae can start getting a foothold and outcompeting the bacteria.

So pump the nutrient levels up and hold them there for days/weeks.

At this point, hopefully your bloom will stop and you'll have tons of algae everywhere. The algae is a bit of a nuisance, but it is much better than the dinos. At this point, your goal will now be to find a balance between nutrient addition (mostly feeding and potentially dosing), and nutrient export (chaeto in a refugium, ATS, water changes, whatever), that keeps your nitrate and phosphate levels above 0. This will prevent the dinos from blooming again. I'd say the standard targets would be a nitrate level of 5 and phosphates of 0.03. These levels are actually quite easy to manage in a healthy tank.

Then the long term goal is to make it so your DT isn't full of unsightly algae. This probably means a big cleanup crew and slowly ramping up the nutrient export to match your feeding levels.

The thing about dinos is that if you have a healthy reef aquarium with non-zero nutrient levels, the dinos are easily outcompeted by a number of other things and they won't bloom. Put a small rock with a dino bloom into a large and healthy reef tank, and the dinos will all be gone in a week. It isn't the presence of the dinos that is the problem, it is whether the water chemistry of the tank is healthy or not.

But once a bloom starts, the dinos create water chemistry that is really really good for them and really really bad for everybody else. So even if you selectively kill most of the Dinos (blackouts, H2O2, UV sterilizer or whatever), the remaining ones can and probably will come back with a fury. You have to completely alter the water chemistry *away* from what the dinos like and back towards a healthy reef tank, at which point you wont even need to selectively kill the dinos, they'll stop blooming and go back to being a very small and insignificant part of your tank's microbiology.

Source with more good info


Good luck .. Peace

 

[40B Knasty]

Rev, sorry to hear man. I have not gone through dinos yet, but literally everything else. Ich, velvet, brook, aiptasia, GHA, cracked tank, black spot disease, turf algae, tank bullying from a Randall's prawn goby, aussie gold torch and yellow hammer melting, whelks snails killing 3 new nassarias snails in 2 minutes of adding them, and currently fighting a bad case of bryopsis and cyanobacteria. Yet still here I stand. Put the thinking cap on with all these ideas people have given you. You made R2R for people to help each other. Use R2R for what it is. Not just run R2R. I seen a lot of great ideas with the out competing of a different manageable algae, metroplex, and few other choices that are worth the shot for you to never give up. The towel is there to wipe the sweat off. Not to throw in. I wish you the best of luck. I know this must be heart breaking since this is probably all with your new live rock you purchased. Keep us posted and your head up!

 

[ReefBum]

I had horrible dinos, tried everything. In the end I tore down the tank ditched all LR, sand, etc, scrubbed the entire system and all equipment and started over with new lr and sand. At that point dinos had killed all of my coral and I only had a few fish so I was able to get by till the tank cycled again. Granted I only had a 40 gallon, so that might be a lot more realistic to do than a 400 gallon. My tank has been smooth sailing ever since. Good luck I definitely know the struggle.

This. I did the same thing and I am very glad I did. Tank is doing great now.

 

[revhtree]

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement and suggestions. I can't respond to them all but I read each of them and they were very uplifting.

I spent a good while scrubbing down the glass day before yesterday and cleaning up a little. Made me feel better and for now the fight is on. I'll share my progress as we go.

Thanks everyone.

 

[HolisticBear]

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement and suggestions. I can't respond to them all but I read each of them and they were very uplifting.

Just as an alternative suggestion. Life gets incredibly busy and you have incredible access to talented reefkeepers; is there someone locally you could hand tank maintenance to for awhile? Everyone gets fried. I have this imaginary vision of someone local and knowledgeable that could sit with you for awhile, come up with a plan, and just execute that plan for you for awhile.

I saw @reeferfoxx great reply to you on the Dinos thread and it crossed my mind that if someone like that could just relieve you for a few weeks or a month or two, it would allow your energy and enthusiasm to return.

 

[Bruce Burnett]

Can't say I have had a problem with Dino or Diatoms but had a terrible problem with cyano nothing took care of it, chemiclean, blackouts, hydrogen peroxide, Vibrant. I was ready to give up so I backed off on skimming heavy and added a good size ATS and just quit trying to get rid of it. It is all gone but now I have to clean my glass every 5-6 days instead of 14 days. I have not done a water change in 5 years not even after using chemiclean.

 

[ksed]

Tagging along. Battling Dino’s as well.

 

[Huge49erfan]

I too am battling Dino's (Ostriopsis). I've only been on the salty side for a little over a year now, so I don't have nearly the experience as most of the people in this thread. All of my rock and my sand and my glass was covered in brown snot. I tried raising my PH and that didn't help. The black out helped a little but they came right back. I had been using coral snow with zeobak, but all that did was remove the competition from the Dino's. A sterilizer was the next thing I was gonna try but i can't afford one right now. So I stopped trying so hard and let the tank do what it was going to do. Stopped water changes and kept my hands out of the tank and wet skimmed like a bandit. i stopped feeding coral food except for lps pellets and continued to feed my fish like normal. I did raise my MAG above 1500 because I saw that somewhere. I started seeing some more hair algae in my tank and I noticed that the Dino's that I had really liked to suffocate it. More than other areas of my tank. So every chance I got I made sure to baste the Dino's off the Hair algae. After 1 week of doing this the Dino's have really gone down. I take pictures of my tank everyday and I haven't in the last month and a half until today. Because saltwater tanks are one of the most beautiful things in the world and mine was an eyesore. It was very depressing. So...I feel your pain. But I know it will get better for you, you just have to find that 1 thing that works even just a little bit and ride it out. My Dino fighting prayers are with you.

This is the first picture I've taken since the infestation and I still have them, but I can look at my tank again and not feel so bummed.

 

[PaulS]

Following along. Have set up a frag tank hooked into my display and had to shut it down 6 times because of dynos. Never affected my display I could not figure out how that worked. Did not make any sense. It was the same LED ighting and not much ambient light.

 

[brandon429]

Revs tank should get a custom guided approach until completion
using the tenets from this thread, stickied as the sole best option for handling dino challenges:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/d...tling-altogether.293318/page-181#post-4598532


That method is independent of gallonage which makes it ideal to consider for Revs challenge, a sticky has big responsibility if it’s to be positioned as the best approach among competing views on invasion biology. That thread has evolved over 200 pages. Some element of that surely is applicable here

 

[made2rock]

I had a big problem with dino's and went round and round with them till I came across Vibrant. I Don't speak easily about any products but this one stop the Dinos. I started with a slightly larger does then they recommend for a "dirty" tank (maybe 25% more) and that did them in. Now a down side to this was it also did in my chaetomorpha and I still use but at a very low dose and chaetomorpha will still not grow in the tank (It breaks down the chaetomorpha and it falls apart into small pieces). So before you toss in the towel give this a try

 

[revhtree]

I had a big problem with dino's and went round and round with them till I came across Vibrant. I Don't speak easily about any products but this one stop the Dinos. I started with a slightly larger does then they recommend for a "dirty" tank (maybe 25% more) and that did them in. Now a down side to this was it also did in my chaetomorpha and I still use but at a very low dose and chaetomorpha will still not grow in the tank (It breaks down the chaetomorpha and it falls apart into small pieces). So before you toss in the towel give this a try

I haven’t posted but I started dosing a heavy, every other day, Vibrant regiment about a week ago and the algae seems to be abating. Still crossing my fingers! The tank looks a little better every day.