If I would have known dinos existed I’m not sure I would have gotten into this hobby.

[Kingfish83]

This is wrong. They do not have armor. The issue is getting dinos that don’t go into the water column into the sterilizer. It has nothing to do with armor. That is why we allow for a longer contact time.

That would be very very hard to accomplish for the dinos that are on rocks. If you are talking about sand and not on rock, then you are doing much more harm than good.

Remembered wrong on which one from being tired. By cleaning the sand bed and having go through a 10 micro before water goes back in the tank is to bring the population done to a smaller number while dosing SI to get a diatom bloom going or if you have Ostreopsis & Coolia dinos. This way you can take out a large amount of Ostreopsis & Coolia out of the tank with out them dying and releasing toxicens while using the right UV.

Pointless thread when know it alls (not really know it all or stop to even think because they take it to a weird point in their heads on answers) when they don't help.

 

[roggy23]

Assuming it’s a dino that’s not large cell, how would you treat that specific type differently? I’d pick silicate over a black out everytime. Silicate isn’t unnatural or damning in any way.

What specifically would you do different with an ID?

I've been dosing silicates since Feb and dinos still outnumber any diatoms I've seen. So frustrated

 

[roggy23]

Large Cell Amphidiniums are the hardest to kill of the bunch. It is likely to be more than one type in the system. Starting with UV will remove the type (unknown as of now) that will enter the water column at night. Typically after 1-2 weeks of UV you should see a decrease in that Dino. You can continue to run the UV while dosing silicates to 4ppm, but the UV will have a small affect on the diatom bloom. You want the diatom bloom to show up because they will out compete the LCA if that is in fact present. This method much easier than blasting the rocks and trying to manually get them into the water column as research shows UV has little impact on them anyway. If you read Jason Mack’s direction it is all outlined exactly how to fight each type most efficiently and effectively. I am not an expert, but only giving some insight as to what worked for me fighting Ostreopsis and LCA at the same time.

In feb I had 15ppm silicates and still til this day dosing silicates and can't seem to get an aggressive diatom bloom.

 

[JNalley]

In fed I had 15ppm silicates and still til this day dosing silicates and can't seem to get an aggressive diatom bloom.

Just out of curiosity, have you attempted a different brand of silicates? I used SpongExcel and it worked wonders, but everyone's experience is different. I am just curious, maybe it's a brand to avoid?

 

[roggy23]

I'll take that bet. The problem is several in this thread are speaking in absolutes. People that beat dinos like to suggest that whatever they did to beat dinos will work for the next guy. I didnt dose anything besides DKH and Calcium. I did no water changes for 6 months. I plumbed a UV directly from the return and measured flow with an apex module. I'm sure the UV helped with free floating dinos that went into the water column from be siphoning the sand and blowing off the rocks. It's possible that the UV kept the dinos relegated to the sand as that's where 95% of mine were.

The prorocentrum I had DID NOT go into the water column and dosing up to 3x the amount of silicate never fueled diatoms, although it did something as evidenced by a tank full of sponges. I wasnt going to do more than a 3 day blackout as over half my coral already died and what was left wasnt doing great. 6 months of dosing PO4/NO3 / certainly grew a lot of GHA but it didnt outcompete dinos. Countless bottles of MB7/MB clean seemed to have only wasted a lot of money. DIY coral snow to "in theory" bind to free floating particles after siphoning sand into the filter socks which I was doing 2x daily. Dosing phyto didnt knock back dinos but it did lead to an insane amount of pods which I guess isn't a bad thing.

Again OP get a positive ID and THEN come up with a reasonable plan.

I feel like I'm in same boat. Did you say how you won the battle?

 

[aggrofish]

I feel like I'm in same boat. Did you say how you won the battle?

Dino-x. gone in less than a week.

 

[Justdrew]

Thank you for the words of encouragement. I do hope to still beat them and will definitely keep trying until I’ve exhausted all my options. Yeah I’ve been told to buy a microscope but it seems like quite an investment just to identify what type of Dino I have.

i used this one to identify mine. Was even able to take a video with my phone on the eyepiece to see the movement.

 

[roggy23]

Dino-x. gone in less than a week.

So you tried everything then decided on dino x and it worked? So strange

 

[aggrofish]

So you tried everything then decided on dino x and it worked? So strange

Pretty much. I was super fed up and after having lost most of my coral I was over it. It was either gonna work or I was breaking down the tank i siphoned the sand into filter socks and dosed on a Friday. I never saw even small patches after that. You’re supposed to dose every other day and I did two more doses. It was a very conservative dose as well.

 

[roggy23]

Pretty much. I was super fed up and after having lost most of my coral I was over it. It was either gonna work or I was breaking down the tank i siphoned the sand into filter socks and dosed on a Friday. I never saw even small patches after that. You’re supposed to dose every other day and I did two more doses. It was a very conservative dose as well.

I've been at it since Dec.. luckily I don't have many corals but tank is so ugly.

 

[Fishy888]

After battling dinos for about 6 months what finally worked were the UV sterilizer, chaeto full of pods from a friend, and two pieces of real live rock that were also in my friend's system and had been there for several years. Of course I also brought my nutrients up. If I omitted any one of those, at least in my case, I would still have dinos like crazy.

 

[roggy23]

After battling dinos for about 6 months what finally worked were the UV sterilizer, chaeto full of pods from a friend, and two pieces of real live rock that were also in my friend's system and had been there for several years. Of course I also brought my nutrients up. If I omitted any one of those, at least in my case, I would still have dinos like crazy.

How often do you run the uv?

 

[Reefahholic]

I just beat Dino’s 3x and here’s how I did it.

First it’s always best to identify the species that you have initially. UV could be a big help with some species.

So why did I battle Dino’s 3x? That is a great question, and I feel stupid to have had 3 different battles. I’ve never had them before and they’re definitely tough to beat. This took a lot of intervention on my part. Fighting Dino’s causes instability, and will set you back big time on growth, but sometimes uncontrollable things happen in this hobby so don’t get discouraged!

1st battle:

At first I tried to merely dose up the N&P and I thought this would get rid of it. It’s a little more complicated than that, but that is a big first step to elimination IMO. The problem in my case was the system was already suffering from a depleted PO4 level (dry rocks binding aggressively) and no matter how much I dosed the PO4 wasn’t coming up. I kept increasing the dose and stirring the sand-bed and blowing off the rocks. I ran a Power-filter every time I did this to help suck them up. Finally, the nutrients came up just enough to weaken their grip. Continually sucking them up in the Powerfilter also helped give me an advantage. They finally went away.

2nd battle:

Then…I got the bright idea to do (2) 30% water changes (same day- morning and evening) shortly after the Dino’s appeared to be gone. I wanted to dilute a few higher elements (Aluminum and Lithium) that came back elevated on the ICP from my initial tank startup. Both weren’t causing any problems, but I wanted to get them lower. The water changes did bring the elements down, but of course flushed some of my PO4 out of the system (even though I was dosing it back at the same time) and that destabilizing event was enough to bring back the Dino’s in full force. So I went straight back into the same routine with all the intervention again. This stuff needs to be done on daily basis to keep the tank under control. After a few weeks I gained control again and they faded out.

3rd battle:

After thinking I won the battle the 2nd time I stated to dose Iron, Vitamins, Amino’s, etc. Sure enough they came back even worse the 3rd time. I took a slightly different approach this time. I dosed up N&P more aggressively and finally got it up to about .06 and 6. Later I got it up even higher. At that point I was seeing some nice improvements. I also started to siphon every inch of the rock work by using a 1 micron sock down in the sump so I could siphon as long as needed. This really reduced their numbers and let me gain control. I even siphoned the overflow box, the Wave makers, the cords, the mats on the sand-bed, etc. Anywhere they were attached basically, but as they faded out for the third time, turf algae had already taken advantage of the low nutrients and got a strong foothold. So I ordered about 100+ snails which made quick work of that (mostly Astraea’s).


Looking back…

I think the two things that really helped the most to win the battle were getting the N&P to appropriate levels and also going a little past that. I’d say minimal… get them to at least .06 and 6. I don’t think you’d need to go much past 0.1 and 10. Also, siphoning into the 1 micron filter sock was very effective. Dino’s definitely take a lot of effort from the reefer and you must get the nutrients up. Patience is key here.

Although I do think any kind of instability could spur them on, I do believe this is mostly due to a low nutrient environment especially with dry rock tanks and new systems in general. The microfauna is lacking and the overall biodiversity just isn’t established enough to keep them at bay.


Best of luck to those fighting the battle. This is just my .02 cents in one system, so take that with a grain of salt.

 

[topjimmy]

I've heard dosing Iron has fixed dinos for a few places that culture coral. Don't have any empirical evidence myself.

 

[GarrettT]

In feb I had 15ppm silicates and still til this day dosing silicates and can't seem to get an aggressive diatom bloom.

Are you siphoning the sand bed?
Are the dinos on the rocks too?
Are you feeding any coral foods?

 

[GarrettT]

By cleaning the sand bed and having go through a 10 micro before water goes back in the tank is to bring the population done to a smaller number while dosing SI to get a diatom bloom going or if you have Ostreopsis & Coolia dinos.

But then where do the diatoms go?

 

[roggy23]

Are you siphoning the sand bed?
Are the dinos on the rocks too?
Are you feeding any coral foods?

I did some siphoning of sand in the past. Will do it again. Dinos are also on rocks. I am not feeding coral foods. I have about 4 corals in my 180 lol

 

[roggy23]

I just beat Dino’s 3x and here’s how I did it.

First it’s always best to identify the species that you have initially. UV could be a big help with some species.

So why did I battle Dino’s 3x? That is a great question, and I feel stupid to have had 3 different battles. I’ve never had them before and they’re definitely tough to beat. This took a lot of intervention on my part. Fighting Dino’s causes instability, and will set you back big time on growth, but sometimes uncontrollable things happen in this hobby so don’t get discouraged!

1st battle:

At first I tried to merely dose up the N&P and I thought this would get rid of it. It’s a little more complicated than that, but that is a big first step to elimination IMO. The problem in my case was the system was already suffering from a depleted PO4 level (dry rocks binding aggressively) and no matter how much I dosed the PO4 wasn’t coming up. I kept increasing the dose and stirring the sand-bed and blowing off the rocks. I ran a Power-filter every time I did this to help suck them up. Finally, the nutrients came up just enough to weaken their grip. Continually sucking them up in the Powerfilter also helped give me an advantage. They finally went away.

2nd battle:

Then…I got the bright idea to do (2) 30% water changes (same day- morning and evening) shortly after the Dino’s appeared to be gone. I wanted to dilute a few higher elements (Aluminum and Lithium) that came back elevated on the ICP from my initial tank startup. Both weren’t causing any problems, but I wanted to get them lower. The water changes did bring the elements down, but of course flushed some of my PO4 out of the system (even though I was dosing it back at the same time) and that destabilizing event was enough to bring back the Dino’s in full force. So I went straight back into the same routine with all the intervention again. This stuff needs to be done on daily basis to keep the tank under control. After a few weeks I gained control again and they faded out.

3rd battle:

After thinking I won the battle the 2nd time I stated to dose Iron, Vitamins, Amino’s, etc. Sure enough they came back even worse the 3rd time. I took a slightly different approach this time. I dosed up N&P more aggressively and finally got it up to about .06 and 6. Later I got it up even higher. At that point I was seeing some nice improvements. I also started to siphon every inch of the rock work by using a 1 micron sock down in the sump so I could siphon as long as needed. This really reduced their numbers and let me gain control. I even siphoned the overflow box, the Wave makers, the cords, the mats on the sand-bed, etc. Anywhere they were attached basically, but as they faded out for the third time, turf algae had already taken advantage of the low nutrients and got a strong foothold. So I ordered about 100+ snails which made quick work of that (mostly Astraea’s).


Looking back…

I think the two things that really helped the most to win the battle were getting the N&P to appropriate levels and also going a little past that. I’d say minimal… get them to at least .06 and 6. I don’t think you’d need to go much past 0.1 and 10. Also, siphoning into the 1 micron filter sock was very effective. Dino’s definitely take a lot of effort from the reefer and you must get the nutrients up. Patience is key here.

Although I do think any kind of instability could spur them on, I do believe this is mostly due to a low nutrient environment especially with dry rock tanks and new systems in general. The microfauna is lacking and the overall biodiversity just isn’t established enough to keep them at bay.


Best of luck to those fighting the battle. This is just my .02 cents in one system, so take that with a grain of salt.

My po4 acts the same way. I can get my nitrates up np but po4 takes many dosing attempts to climb. I made a mistake and dosed waste away and it bottomed out my po4 real quick as I was starting to see my dino population decrease. Now I am just trying to get my po4 to .08 atleast

 

[roggy23]

Remembered wrong on which one from being tired. By cleaning the sand bed and having go through a 10 micro before water goes back in the tank is to bring the population done to a smaller number while dosing SI to get a diatom bloom going or if you have Ostreopsis & Coolia dinos. This way you can take out a large amount of Ostreopsis & Coolia out of the tank with out them dying and releasing toxicens while using the right UV.

Pointless thread when know it alls (not really know it all or stop to even think because they take it to a weird point in their heads on answers) when they don't help.

10 micron or 1 micron sock?

 

[roggy23]

Are you siphoning the sand bed?
Are the dinos on the rocks too?
Are you feeding any coral foods?

What size micron sock do I need to siphon sand?