If its not one thing, Its another...

[Zack K]

Well i have spent the past 2 hr reading up even more on Dino's and seem to be deadlocked. I have seen more pictures than i can count and read more descriptions of this nasty stuff than i wanted to. I am 100% positive i have dinoflagellates. I am out of town on a business trip so pictures to come soon. I have done almost everything i can to try and take this stuff out. Reduced lights, Blackouts, daily water changes, tried to H2O2 dose but think their is too much tbh. I have not tried DINO-X. What are your guys suggestions. I have a VERY little bioload and feed once every other day, very little. Any suggestions? Should i say the hell with it and just tackle it in the fall when all my attention goes back twords the fish hobby? The tank is not new at all. its a good 10 or so years. I'm not sure how they come upon either. They come on after i hooked up my BioPellets that were rinsed and soaked before added. Anything is appreciated.

 

[brandon429]

your best bet is this: buy a several hundred dollar UV setup meant for a pond, not for an aquarium. then siphon the entire tank absolutely clean of them doing massive water changes/removal until you cant see a shed of them left in the system (they're there, but mass reduced)

then install a UV bought from amazon which you can return if you are not wowed

installing it oversized grossly, and in this order of operations, is the best non-chemical solution you can possibly get to beating them and its still less than 50% chance, with the chemical dosers being less than that + the added risk to the tank inhabitants. we've cured dino tanks with UV before using this pre cleaned approach. the item is not a waste of money for a big old tank, it can be used for more than one type of invader that has a water transition phase and these dinos can release from their mats and travel around, that's the intercept point for the UV

 

[Wiz]

If you have a sump i would start a syphon from top to sump. Get a net bag and fill it with different filter pads. Polypads, phos pad anything you can find. Run the water through the bag and rinse those pads daily. When ever you have time vacuum the dinos you can see directly with the syphon.
This process is how i and another beat them. Took about a month of running it. Been gone for 2+ years

 

[Zack K]

This **** isn't their in the morning when I wake up. The sand is a white and all the rocks just show some GHA. This **** sucks.

I also replenished my CUC with 13 red legged hermits, 2 Margarita snails, 1 cerith snail, a Mexican turbo, and a diamond goby. If your interested in the progression of how this works I will be updating my build thread regularly.

 

[Flippers4pups]

What's your maintenance routine?
RO/DI?
What's your current water parameters?
how often and how much do you feed the tank?
What lighting are you using?

Sorry for all the questions, just trying to see where your at.

 

[Zack K]

What's your maintenance routine?
RO/DI?
What's your current water parameters?
how often and how much do you feed the tank?
What lighting are you using?

Sorry for all the questions, just trying to see where your at.

Yes RODI

Temp 80
PH 8.0-8.2 depends on if the windows are open
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 160
Phosphate 2.5
Alk 8
Mag 1300
Calcium 400

I feed very little every other day. I have 2 chromis and a lawnmower Blenny. Not much to feed.

I just cut back my lights yesterday.
Blues kick on around 6 and don't get to 50% before 7 then the whites from 8-4 then blues dim from 4-8. And because I like to lay in bed and watch the tank I have moon lights (1% blue) until 10

 

[MaddyP]

Yes RODI

Temp 80
PH 8.0-8.2 depends on if the windows are open
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 160
Phosphate 2.5
Alk 8
Mag 1300
Calcium 400

I feed very little every other day. I have 2 chromis and a lawnmower Blenny. Not much to feed.

I just cut back my lights yesterday.
Blues kick on around 6 and don't get to 50% before 7 then the whites from 8-4 then blues dim from 4-8. And because I like to lay in bed and watch the tank I have moon lights (1% blue) until 10

Not trying to kick you while you're down, but with the level of nutrients and established algae you might not be able to regain control unless you reduce both nitrates/phosphates and manually remove as much algae as possible. Until you can find a way to starve the algae/bacteria, I'm afraid you are fighting an uphill battle. The nutrients are their ammunition against your efforts...

 

[Zack K]

Not trying to kick you while you're down, but with the level of nutrients and established algae you might not be able to regain control unless you reduce both nitrates/phosphates and manually remove as much algae as possible. Until you can find a way to starve the algae/bacteria, I'm afraid you are fighting an uphill battle. The nutrients are their ammunition against your efforts...

I 100% agree with you. I very much dislike the numbers here. But I am already one step ahead of you. I have done everything but carbon dose and so far no luck. He is the thread
"I need help....Still.."

https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/I-need-help....Still...303964/

 

[brandon429]

the manual work portion is missing in fixing this tank. I know its hard when the volumes are not nano level, but in the end you have final say over what colonizes your rocks and sand, and the waste you store. the work it takes to require compliance from your tank is irrelevant, the ends are 100% attainable. taking indirect action only is the cause of your problems. adding a clean up crew is an indirect action, they're for preventing invasions not removing them, that's for us. Its true you can wrestle with any number of parameter changes (indirect action) or grazer additions or lighting additions and possibly win. but that's a waiting/hoping scenario and its not the same as simply making that tank comply by Monday. You may have broken down the tank, but there are restoration moves left out that we show in tank breakdown threads, and the wastes your rock holds is a primary source and the algae needs to be killed during your work, not just mowed down.

predicted source of nitrate> Id be very curious to see a quick cellphone vid of this 10 second activity: film you reaching down into the sandbed, lifting up a handful from about halfway in the bed, then drop it down. if the resulting drop is cloudless that's awesome

if it clouds, like every other sandbed that runs this test, then you literally can see your source of high nitrates and the feed for that algae. choice time

you can also do this confirming move: use a siphon hose taped to the end of a wooden dowel...insert down to bottom of sandbed and siphon out some heavy water. *let it sit for 48 hours* then test for nitrate. I bet its double your topwater, or unreadably high. off the kit levels. the wait must happen you can't get an accurate reading without waiting 48 hours on the sample because that N is in different form than it is in your topwater. it has a whole protein complement and allowing 48 hrs for further breakdown reveals potential along with actual nitrate measures.


the things you are adding to the water are to compensate for places waste is directly being stored if that helps any. if we change your storage of waste, we drop your nitrate. direct work action is what removes the storage zones. the rocks when plugged with algae cannot expel their own waste (live rock makes waste/live/put some in a white bucket of sw for two days and check back on the waste pellets at the bottom) so they become a nitrate pump and their porosity drops. hand killing the algae restores all that, slowly, time to get started imo.

if your tank was mine it would have a new sandbed or at least correctly rinsed and reused current bed or even more popular no bed at all... all the rocks would have the algae killed in one setting, not just scrubbed off, then tank restored with a 100% water change Id pay the lfs to truck over. the reassembly protocol would be opposite to current mode... no more places to store waste. lighting would change, that white intensity dropped even more and blues upped.

if water actions don't resolve, lets add your tank to our reboot tank threads if you want to wrestle it back into compliance. they're all skip cycle reassembly setups, hard work but a shiny new tank by Monday. that killer UV will shine after a tank workover like that precedes the install

 

[Zack K]

the manual work portion is missing in fixing this tank. I know its hard when the volumes are not nano level, but in the end you have final say over what colonizes your rocks and sand, and the waste you store. the work it takes to require compliance from your tank is irrelevant, the ends are 100% attainable. taking indirect action only is the cause of your problems. adding a clean up crew is an indirect action, they're for preventing invasions not removing them, that's for us. Its true you can wrestle with any number of parameter changes (indirect action) or grazer additions or lighting additions and possibly win. but that's a waiting/hoping scenario and its not the same as simply making that tank comply by Monday. You may have broken down the tank, but there are restoration moves left out that we show in tank breakdown threads, and the wastes your rock holds is a primary source and the algae needs to be killed during your work, not just mowed down.

predicted source of nitrate> Id be very curious to see a quick cellphone vid of this 10 second activity: film you reaching down into the sandbed, lifting up a handful from about halfway in the bed, then drop it down. if the resulting drop is cloudless that's awesome

if it clouds, like every other sandbed that runs this test, then you literally can see your source of high nitrates and the feed for that algae. choice time

you can also do this confirming move: use a siphon hose taped to the end of a wooden dowel...insert down to bottom of sandbed and siphon out some heavy water. *let it sit for 48 hours* then test for nitrate. I bet its double your topwater, or unreadably high. off the kit levels. the wait must happen you can't get an accurate reading without waiting 48 hours on the sample because that N is in different form than it is in your topwater. it has a whole protein complement and allowing 48 hrs for further breakdown reveals potential along with actual nitrate measures.


the things you are adding to the water are to compensate for places waste is directly being stored if that helps any. if we change your storage of waste, we drop your nitrate. direct work action is what removes the storage zones. the rocks when plugged with algae cannot expel their own waste (live rock makes waste/live/put some in a white bucket of sw for two days and check back on the waste pellets at the bottom) so they become a nitrate pump and their porosity drops. hand killing the algae restores all that, slowly, time to get started imo.

if your tank was mine it would have a new sandbed or at least correctly rinsed and reused current bed or even more popular no bed at all... all the rocks would have the algae killed in one setting, not just scrubbed off, then tank restored with a 100% water change Id pay the lfs to truck over. the reassembly protocol would be opposite to current mode... no more places to store waste. lighting would change, that white intensity dropped even more and blues upped.

if water actions don't resolve, lets add your tank to our reboot tank threads if you want to wrestle it back into compliance. they're all skip cycle reassembly setups, hard work but a shiny new tank by Monday. that killer UV will shine after a tank workover like that precedes the install

I was actually sitting at the tank last night and realized the sandbed is double digit years old. It is cloudy. I will video it later when I am home.

 

[Wiz]

Definitely sounds like dinos to me. It is the only organism I know that can be completely non-existent after lights have been out and come in with a vengeance within 20 minutes. Unfortunately your new clean up crew will probably not make it. You will notice that they graze and then stop eating and sit alive but not moving and lethargic until they die. There is something in dinos that is poisonous to them. There are many treatment methods that people will suggest with limited success. The siphon method that I suggested will at least keep the dinos at Bay and try to avoid killing your clean up crew. The more you directly siphon the dinos the faster it will work. I know it's rough and when I had them I wanted to quit every day. But once you beat them it will be much much better and you will be happy you did not. Just my opinion

 

[JaimeAdams]

This might not be applicable, but I had a small outbreak of dins in my tank after transferring it from my tank upstairs that I gave up fighting them in and just shut it down. I went on E-bay and bought 400 snails and 100 hermits. Obviously I knew a good amount of them would die and they did, but I haven't seen dins in 2 years since doing that.

 

[brandon429]

nice call I agree there's always some arrangement of grazers that works, that's how nature does it. most of these invaders come and go in perfectly normal/acceptable water conditions in the wild, they colonize where they're allowed to in both captive and natural models. we just get that extra step of being able to control nutrient measures along with actually excluding a given invader from a certain area we don't want it to be.

If you know the sandbed will cloud I hate to see the test, it w cast more waste up and I know you have issues enough. that test was only if we're not sure, but for any bed not disturbed in +24 mos agreed don't do the test but we can factor in how to attack now, knowing that

 

[dankreef]

I battled it for a while about 4-5 months . Changing filter socks 4-5 times a day 50% water changes. Cured it in like 2 weeks with vibrant . Vibrant+pods+cuc then establish macros after they are no longer seen. Always seems like tanks w Dino have 0 no3 also. I would syphon parts of your sand bed at a time and add small amounts stump remover .

 

[Zack K]

So I did another blackout. This one was for 72 hours instead of 48. Also I scrubbed off as much algae as possible during a WC without removing the rocks. As a follow up to the black out I also shortened my lighting schedule tremendously. I am now running:
Blues 75% from 9:00- 6:00 with an hour ramp up and down.
I am running whites at 30% from 1-4.
90% of my CUC is still accounted for and have been grazing on some GHA during the blackout. I have seen my Diamond goby and he is as happy as always! I have not seen any Dino's yet. So fingers crossed

 

[Zack K]

Just wanted to give you guys a quick update. 90% of the dinos are gone. I see a very faint brown hue on the sand from time to time but my Diamond goby and my siphoning are doing good. I added another 10 pyramid snails and everything is running great. On to a calcium reactor

 

[Esquire805]

This **** isn't their in the morning when I wake up. The sand is a white and all the rocks just show some GHA. This **** sucks.

I also replenished my CUC with 13 red legged hermits, 2 Margarita snails, 1 cerith snail, a Mexican turbo, and a diamond goby. If your interested in the progression of how this works I will be updating my build thread regularly.

man your tank looks like petco tanks

 

[Zack K]

man your tank looks like petco tanks

Used to. It is completely bare rock now and I actually take GHA rocks and Nori and put them in their. Will take some update pictures when I get home

 

[sweendog87]

Used to. It is completely bare rock now and I actually take GHA rocks and Nori and put them in their. Will take some update pictures when I get home

can't wait

 

[Zack K]

can't wait

Haha thank you for reminding me! Seems to have forgot about this thread. Here are a few pictures I have saved from last week.

You can find more from the last few months in my build thread here —> https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/zacks-65-gallon-corner-reef.296423/

-Zack