My continuing battle with dinos

[Rowboman]

So I’ve been running my first reef tank for about 4 months now. 30 gallon with 10 gallon sump. About 5 gallons of the sump space is setup as a refugium. Never really had much of an ugly phase until a month and a half ago when I had a huge dino outbreak. Within a few days everything was covered in brown bubbly snot strings. My phosphates were at about 0.15 and my nitrates had dropped to 0.

I tried changing my filter socks, cleaning the glass, and blasting the rocks daily, stopped dosing aminos, fed heavier, started dosing Neonitro on a dosing pump (which did bring my nitrates up to about 3 ppm), and none of it made any difference. Starting to get frustrated, I did a 4 day blackout while treating with Dr. Tim’s and my tank looked amazing afterwards……. For a week. Then they started coming back. Only this time my phosphates had dropped to 0 and my nitrates had risen to over 20 because I forgot to turn off the dosing pump while the tank was in blackout which lowered its nitrate uptake.

I tried dosing NeoPhos and it only made things worse. I dosed 4.3 ml at a time to raise levels to 0.04 and within half a day or less they would be back to 0.0. It seems like the Dino’s might be a different type this time because they’re not forming nearly as many long snotty strings and seems almost powder like when I scrape them off the glass. They come back FAST though after I scrape them. After scraping it’ll only take about 8 hours before the glass is so covered that I can barely see through it again. I tried stopping the phosphate dosing yesterday and they’re growing back much slower. I’m kinda at wits end right now because the only options left in my bag are installing UV and/or trying carbon dosing in the hopes that the bacteria produced will crowd out the Dino’s. Any suggestions?

 

[Timfish]

Stop messing with it, be patient. It sounds like you started off with dry everything and just relied on bottled stuff to start your nitrogen cycle? You don't mention what livestock you have in you're system, hopefully you have some fish and easy corals? As far as the algae on the glass if you don't remove it from the system and just wipe it off with a magnet or scraper it's still in the system and will resettle quickly, here's what I do occasionally. Here's a couple links to help understand wetting up healthy microbiomes:

Establishing a Healthy Microbiome in a New Aquarium Using Live Rock

Studying the effects of live rock in a newly established aquarium shows that high-quality live rock promotes the rapid establishment of an effective biological filter and a microbial community similar to those found in mature reef tanks.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Rowboman]

Actually I started with about 15 Lbs of live rock from a lfs to kickstart the nitrogen cycle. Wouldn’t do it that way if I did it all
over again, but I never got any pests from it. Added another 15 Lbs of cured dry rock later on. As to the stocking of the tank I’ve got a Purlple fire fish, 2 clowns, a yellowtail damsel, 10 dwarf hermits, 2 torches snails, 5 nassarius snails, 5 bumblebee snails, a tiger snapping shrimp, a skunk cleaner shrimp, and a pencil urchin. As for coral I’ve got 16 frags in the tank. Mostly LPS and softies with 1 montiapora and a green bird nest. All the corals we’re doing really well and had good coloration and growth until about 2 weeks ago when the Dino’s came back strong. Now their growth seems to of slowed down. Also, it’s worth noting that all of this started after I began dosing iodide for the soft corals. It seemed to help with coloration a lot, but the iodide levels seemed to swing wildly in the tank from 0.06ish one day to 0.2 the next when dosing no where near enough to account for this. Not sure if that was a testing inaccuracy issue or if it really was swinging that high that fast. I stopped dosing it, but I’m thinking if the iodide levels really got that high it probably nuked the micro fauna in the tank allowing the Dino’s to take over

 

[Rowboman]

Stop messing with it, be patient. It sounds like you started off with dry everything and just relied on bottled stuff to start your nitrogen cycle? You don't mention what livestock you have in you're system, hopefully you have some fish and easy corals? As far as the algae on the glass if you don't remove it from the system and just wipe it off with a magnet or scraper it's still in the system and will resettle quickly, here's what I do occasionally. Here's a couple links to help understand wetting up healthy microbiomes:

Establishing a Healthy Microbiome in a New Aquarium Using Live Rock

Studying the effects of live rock in a newly established aquarium shows that high-quality live rock promotes the rapid establishment of an effective biological filter and a microbial community similar to those found in mature reef tanks.

www.reef2reef.com

Actually I started with about 15 Lbs of live rock from a lfs to kickstart the nitrogen cycle. Wouldn’t do it that way if I did it all
over again, but I never got any pests from it. Added another 15 Lbs of cured dry rock later on. As to the stocking of the tank I’ve got a Purlple fire fish, 2 clowns, a yellowtail damsel, 10 dwarf hermits, 2 torches snails, 5 nassarius snails, 5 bumblebee snails, a tiger snapping shrimp, a skunk cleaner shrimp, and a pencil urchin. As for coral I’ve got 16 frags in the tank. Mostly LPS and softies with 1 montiapora and a green bird nest. All the corals we’re doing really well and had good coloration and growth until about 2 weeks ago when the Dino’s came back strong. Now their growth seems to of slowed down. Also, it’s worth noting that all of this started after I began dosing iodide for the soft corals. It seemed to help with coloration a lot, but the iodide levels seemed to swing wildly in the tank from 0.06ish one day to 0.2 the next when dosing no where near enough to account for this. Not sure if that was a testing inaccuracy issue or if it really was swinging that high that fast. I stopped dosing it, but I’m thinking if the iodide levels really got that high it probably nuked the micro fauna in the tank allowing the Dino’s to take over

 

[Timfish]

Do you know how the live rock was shipped and where it came from? Keep in mind colration can't be used to determine whether a coral is healthy or not, often bright colors can indicate a stressed coral. So dosing products to brighten colors may be detrimental. We're learning more and more just how complex microbiomes are at the system level as well as the species and genotype level and minor changes in maintenance can have significant changes in the microbiome. If overall your system seemed to be doing better before you started dosing iodide I'd stop dosing. Unfortunately it may take awhile for your system's equilibrium to adjsut to something like it was before so be patient. For what it's worth my main method for dealing with any kind of nuisance algae is manual removal. Here's a video on using steel straws, for "dinos" occasionally (I do weekly) siphoning off a thin top layer of sand and rinsing well in tap water or soaking in H2O2 works well for reducing the amount in your system until things shift in your system to outcompete them.

 

[Dinkins Aquatic Gardens]

Stop messing with it, be patient. It sounds like you started off with dry everything and just relied on bottled stuff to start your nitrogen cycle? You don't mention what livestock you have in you're system, hopefully you have some fish and easy corals? As far as the algae on the glass if you don't remove it from the system and just wipe it off with a magnet or scraper it's still in the system and will resettle quickly, here's what I do occasionally. Here's a couple links to help understand wetting up healthy microbiomes:

Establishing a Healthy Microbiome in a New Aquarium Using Live Rock

Studying the effects of live rock in a newly established aquarium shows that high-quality live rock promotes the rapid establishment of an effective biological filter and a microbial community similar to those found in mature reef tanks.

www.reef2reef.com

I strongly agree with the BRS videos on this - add live phyto and live pods. Increasing your biodiversity is an incredibly important part of healthy reefing. We have great deals on live phyto and pods, and other vendors offer them too. Wherever you get them, get them!

 

[Who me?]

Are you feeding frozen mysis or similar by chance?

 

[Duffybubbleboy]

So I’ve been running my first reef tank for about 4 months now. 30 gallon with 10 gallon sump. About 5 gallons of the sump space is setup as a refugium. Never really had much of an ugly phase until a month and a half ago when I had a huge dino outbreak. Within a few days everything was covered in brown bubbly snot strings. My phosphates were at about 0.15 and my nitrates had dropped to 0.

I tried changing my filter socks, cleaning the glass, and blasting the rocks daily, stopped dosing aminos, fed heavier, started dosing Neonitro on a dosing pump (which did bring my nitrates up to about 3 ppm), and none of it made any difference. Starting to get frustrated, I did a 4 day blackout while treating with Dr. Tim’s and my tank looked amazing afterwards……. For a week. Then they started coming back. Only this time my phosphates had dropped to 0 and my nitrates had risen to over 20 because I forgot to turn off the dosing pump while the tank was in blackout which lowered its nitrate uptake.

I tried dosing NeoPhos and it only made things worse. I dosed 4.3 ml at a time to raise levels to 0.04 and within half a day or less they would be back to 0.0. It seems like the Dino’s might be a different type this time because they’re not forming nearly as many long snotty strings and seems almost powder like when I scrape them off the glass. They come back FAST though after I scrape them. After scraping it’ll only take about 8 hours before the glass is so covered that I can barely see through it again. I tried stopping the phosphate dosing yesterday and they’re growing back much slower. I’m kinda at wits end right now because the only options left in my bag are installing UV and/or trying carbon dosing in the hopes that the bacteria produced will crowd out the Dino’s. Any suggestions?

I’m no expert but all these options work, eBay UV light , carbon dosing even 1ml a day will work, adding a ton of pods will work or just simply stop doing every thing , stop water changing and feed more until you get hair algae(I really did this before willingly) . I also believe Kalk mix in the top off water kills nearly everything it touches when first mixing in. For sure stop dosing phos, I would be dosing carbon and N, no pox dosing is reallly cheap. Dinos are one of those things you have to commit to fighting with all the tools you have, BRS showed how pods for sure work . You will probably have another “ugly stage “ after the Dino’s but that’s when the clean up crew comes into play,

I would also turn the lights down and the whites, reds, low as possible for now, but for sure carbon dose, think about Kalk in the top off, it seems to do magical things for P. No pox is cheap easy and the long term final fix in my opinion. It takes a tiny amount each day and will also help with the huge dump of N and P when the Dino die off. Get the no pox and or pods and it will be gone in no time.

 

[brandon429]

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

Look how well a rip clean would fix a 30 gallon dinos tank

1 day turnaround

Old thread I see

 

[Rowboman]

I’m no expert but all these options work, eBay UV light , carbon dosing even 1ml a day will work, adding a ton of pods will work or just simply stop doing every thing , stop water changing and feed more until you get hair algae(I really did this before willingly) . I also believe Kalk mix in the top off water kills nearly everything it touches when first mixing in. For sure stop dosing phos, I would be dosing carbon and N, no pox dosing is reallly cheap. Dinos are one of those things you have to commit to fighting with all the tools you have, BRS showed how pods for sure work . You will probably have another “ugly stage “ after the Dino’s but that’s when the clean up crew comes into play,

I would also turn the lights down and the whites, reds, low as possible for now, but for sure carbon dose, think about Kalk in the top off, it seems to do magical things for P. No pox is cheap easy and the long term final fix in my opinion. It takes a tiny amount each day and will also help with the huge dump of N and P when the Dino die off. Get the no pox and or pods and it will be gone in no time.

UV and carbon dosing are the only 2 things I haven't tried yet. Upon identification with a microscope, I didn't find them to be the free floating species of dinos. H2O2 made a huge difference overnight, and I'd say they've about 90% gone now. I'm thinking I'm gonna start carbon dosing to get rid of the last 10% and bring my nutrients down to fight the algae that has sprung up in the dinos absence. I've been dosing kalk in my ATO for a while now. Also I've been trying to get my pod populations up by dosing phyto to feed a Dragonface Pipefish I have anyways. Algae Barn accidentally sent me a free jar of 5120 pods with my last phyto order, so I added those in a few days ago to bump up the pods even more

 

[Rowboman]

Are you feeding frozen mysis or similar by chance?

I feed dried Mysis that I rehydrate with RODI water in a squirt bottle. I keep that in my fridge for about 5 days at a time