I have almost completely eradicated dinoflagellates overnight.

[bo0sted2g]

triple post, oops

 

[Plunker05@gmail]

My 55G tank looks almost identical to "boosted 2g's" as pictured earlier. I have tried all the things as everyone has posted above and I am at the End of my Rope. I MacGyver'ed a new Jebao 36W UV with an old Aqua Clear 802 Powerhead straight in and out of my main display yesterday. I am going the way of "Velcro". I'll let everyone know how it's working and more details to follow.

 

[bo0sted2g]

My 55G tank looks almost identical to "boosted 2g's" as pictured earlier. I have tried all the things as everyone has posted above and I am at the End of my Rope. I MacGyver'ed a new Jebao 36W UV with an old Aqua Clear 802 Powerhead straight in and out of my main display yesterday. I am going the way of "Velcro". I'll let everyone know how it's working and more details to follow.

Just an update, my 55w UV sterilizer has arrived... I went with the advice that bigger is better with UV and trying to eliminate Dino's but let me tell you this thing is HUGE!

It got here this weekend but forgot to pick up tubing and clamps for the unit.
So I will be putting it to work tonight. I will post before and after pics of the progress.

But something I should note here as this may be extremely useful to anyone going through this issue. Like many of you I have ordered this UV unit as a last resort in battling Dino's. the day I ordered it I had a bad outbreak and decided that I couldn't wait for the UV to arrive in the mail and had to take drastic measures NOW!

I got all my supplies together and blasted my rockwork off with a turkey Baster and drained the entire tank through a filter sock and into a temporary holding container. Then moved all livestock including corals, fish and inverts to a temporary tank on my kitchen counter and put all the rocks in a bucket.

***I THEN REMOVED MY SANDBED**
I feel like the Dino's wouldn't cover the rocks as fast as they populated the sand, I could siphon them off the sand bed and then 10 minutes later the sand would be covered again. So I decided to go bare bottom until we beat these suckers.

I have to say that it's been 4 days since removing the sand bed and I can say I have seen about an 85-90% REDUCTION OF DINO'S SINCE REMOVING THE SANDBED. I still have some here and there but they don't immediately show back up as soon as I'm done siphoning them out like they once did.

I am still going to hook up the UV unit since I already have it. Just to see if since now that I definitely have gained the upper hand in this battle if the UV can finish them off.

Before sand removal-

During

4-days of being sand free!

 

[Plunker05@gmail]

Great news, hope it works out for you. I was really close to starting my tank sandbedless two years ago. May have to tear down and go that route, praying the UV works.

 

[cpvince]

Hope it stays dino-free for you! The dinos in my tank stay just on the sand bed when it gets bad. I ordered the UV Sterilizer so we'll see if it really does keep them at bay.

 

[agv180]

Hello
What is the capacity you recommend for the UV filter 55watt, I put a 500gph and I think it is very powerful.

 

[revhtree]

Hey what UV would you guys suggest for about 450g of water and pump?

Great thread!

 

[landlubber]

Hey what UV would you guys suggest for about 450g of water and pump?

Great thread!

as big as you can afford both in cost and space seems to be the quick answer. i went with a 36w on my standard 120 and time will tell how things go. i am seeing marginal improvement with the uv but i've also been very diligent in keeping my nutrients in check so it could be either causing the change. at the end of the day i don't care if it takes care of it 1 week from now or 3 weeks from now, i just want it taken care of.

 

[brandon429]

UV is awesome. I would not run a large tank without it. This thread is linked to our huge peroxide thread at nano-reef.com even though its not peroxide, because UV is awesome and because its not only legit among dino attack modes, wielded correctly, it may be the best preventative and remover there is for the scourge.

This dino battle thread has rare elements I like. Sandbeds are ripped clean, hangers-on destroyed. deliberate action sets, no hesitations no delay.

Roughsiphon removal occurs, people are forcing out dinos, not just acting on the water and cross fingers/wait. The clean condition is forced here top to bottom via skip cycle work, and in the clean condition the preventative is installed, working on less biomass, it brings a digital tear to my eye and more need to see this.

Its true some strains or some cleaning runs might leave behind traces where variables enhance/reboot the colony for a headache but you w find by and large that with a thorough pre ripping, surgical quality removal of target and its hideouts, and then oversized UV with a slow pump, is the best method there is. Its hard to do on large tanks agreed, nanos really have no excuse to carry dinos any longer.

 

[Piranha_Owns]

Went ahead and ordered a Emperor 80 watt Uv sterilizer and a Sicce silent 2.0 pump today, if this dont work im going to give up.

 

[prsnlty]

Hey what UV would you guys suggest for about 450g of water and pump?

Great thread!

Hey Rev! I would say 100w uv either for marine or pond and 400-500 gph pump.

I went a bit undersized (36w pond)for the 180 because I was out of room to hook up anything larger than 24"x6"x6". It will just take longer to see results.

 

[landlubber]

Hey Rev! I would say 100w uv either for marine or pond and 400-500 gph pump.

I went a bit undersized (36w pond)for the 180 because I was out of room to hook up anything larger than 24"x6"x6". It will just take longer to see results.

i also went with the 36w jebao and its been fine on my 120g

 

[Velcro]

Hey what UV would you guys suggest for about 450g of water and pump?

Great thread!

I'd try two of the jebao 55 Watts hooked in series. That way you could shoot for 300-400gph without working about not enough contact time.

 

[Budman93]

I got a small 9w one for my nano. Hopefully it helps a bit.

Should I do lights out for a couple days?

 

[Plunker05@gmail]

Well it's been a little over a week with my 36W UV attached to my 60g cube that was full of Dino. Much better now, not eradicated, but very little on the sand at lights out. Also working everyday to get my Nitrates and Phosphates in line, NO3 =~4 and NO4 0 at this time. Trying to work them up very slowly as not to cause other problems. So far I am happy with the UV attached to my tank, think I'll keep her.
Here's a pic, Palys anyone?

 

[Budman93]

Did two things and I would say my Dinos are now at least 50% better. Added the small UV light and increased the amount of of skimmate being pulled into my protein skimmer. My corals are responding very well! Hammer is as open as it's been in months. I'm going to see if it keeps improving over the next few weeks before I consider a 3 day blackout. I also still havent done a water change in 2 weeks as suggested by some members here. No idea if the dinos will roar right back once I do.

 

[brandon429]

glad to see you are gaining any headway at all, dinos are still the hardest scourge in reefing to beat, perhaps tied with any decent neomeris annulata invasion but dinos outnumber those posts 1000:1

I don't blame anyone for trying any arrangement to beat these invaders, take what you can. But Ill add this opinion: the art of manually removing via force the offending colony repeatedly and thoroughly before treatment involves no measure of nutrients at all.

I personally would not spike nutrients in any tank with dinos, even though that's a valid mode tried by others and they do have some outcomes for sure in support. I think brute force will beat them out, UV is brute burning force for example. When people spike or try to beat dinos by raising nutrients, they're attempting to boost the competing animals against the dinos. Dinos themselves enjoy the nutrient boost, that way isn't a cure all imo

Competing articles also report starving out dinos with nutrient reduction, hard to get the nutrient industry to agree on actions.



Few agree on the ideal way to battle dinos/ and with that variation hopefully someone will find the best repeating methods.

as cure reports progress, its helpful to categorize them into group A which is just direct repeated murder of dinos by human hand or device however we want to slice it, and mode B is coaxing, cross fingers, and hoping. one is deliberate, one is intending. The larger the tank, the more sway towards mode B understandably; hand-ridding a 300 gallon setup of physical mass is a huge job.

regardless of the method or combinations chosen, any aggregate mass invader in reefing is self supporting by that mass so remove them as best as possible before any blackout, uv install, or nutrient adjusts. take away any advantage we can, these are not solitary as best they are colonial/self supportive. masses of dinos are sticky, feed prey and feed morsels stick in a catch-mat, ready access for the community. there are several modes of self support chemically and physically across the invaders we fight; and we've always been taught in the hobby to leave them alone directly while modulating only the water. That's how the A/ B modes came about, group A got mad with inconsistent outcomes for 40 yrs in the hobby.



for the outcompeters: a mass amalgamation of dinos and other matrices prevents your competitors from competing as well, they amass like a frontline against your good pods. remove the masses before trying to boost your competitors.

for the burners of dinos and the light starvers, physical actors on the actual dinos, take time to massively clean the tank beforehand and make sure your sandbed isn't the repository. I think no dino tank invasion should ever, ever be battled within a tank where we can see the dinos. someone scrubbed all weekend before the war.

this thread has neat outcomes, it seems to be edging out the others just a tad. cant wait for page 200, good data

burn the dinos, burn them out.

 

[taricha]

Few agree on the ideal way to battle dinos/ and with that variation hopefully someone will find the best repeating methods.

as cure reports progress, its helpful to categorize them into group A which is just direct repeated murder of dinos by human hand or device however we want to slice it, and mode B is coaxing, cross fingers, and hoping. one is deliberate, one is intending. The larger the tank, the more sway towards mode B understandably; hand-ridding a 300 gallon setup of physical mass is a huge job.

regardless of the method or combinations chosen, any aggregate mass invader in reefing is self supporting by that mass so remove them as best as possible before any blackout, uv

Great post. Only slight diff of opinion on a couple of things, but my views are well represented in other threads.
Part i want to chime in on is that pre-treatment removal is a big deal, and that a single-thrust approach will not be long term successful for most. A plus B plus... plus.... plus... is how I see it.
But that's another discussion.

This thread - documenting UV vs dinos - addresses some great Qs.
The ones I think would be of real value to resolve here....
1. What level of UV offers the killing power we need? The number in my head is 1 watt UV per 3 gal, but it's a first guess. (This metric may not be sophisticated enough to tell us what we need, but maybe we can get pretty far by playing dumb.) Please post power and tank size, especially for those who get clear positive results.

2. Are there other strains we can say definitively are total non-responders, by never leaving sand for any reason - Large cell Amphidinium we already know fits this. If you have clearly enough power and appropriate flow and direct in-tank UV contact - but bad results please get microscope pics/vids of your pest.

3. Can we reliably tweak environmental cues to push more cells into the water and into UV contact. I've seen this effect from shortening daylight hours and blasting surfaces - would love to see it in systems other than mine.

 

[Budman93]

So one week in and Dinos are definitely still present in my system. I bought a 7watt UV sterilizer for my 29g which I think is a bit too small to be really effective. However, it clearly has helped some. My corals for instance are no longer being smothered and slowly killed by the algae. They are opening fully and my hammer has definitely grown some in the past week. While they are not gone I think it might be easier at this point to maintain the status quo since the algae no longer seems to be having a negative impact on the animals in my tank.

It would be interesting if someone could experiment with different UV levels to see what specific wattage is ideal for killing nuisance algeas per gallon. From what I can tell, the higher wattage the better.

 

[XNavyDiver]

55w Jebao arriving this Tuesday. Gonna deploy it on my 100g cube. I don't have a microscope so I don't know my particular strain of dinos, but I have been inspecting the tank at night and the dinos are not visible on the rocks. So I guess their in the water column at night.
Crossing my fingers this does them in. I'm tired of living over my tank with a turkey baster blowing brown snot strings off my corals and rocks.