Ostreposis Dinos; Very Capable Of Ruining A Tank..............And Making Me Think About Taking A Break From The Hobby

RandyC

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 25, 2016
Messages
700
Reaction score
1,014
Location
Bay Area, California
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
RedSea 260 Max E/69 gallons. 28 watt UV running slow flow
Was your experience referencing ovata species?

Thanks

You should really seek out the manual for your make and model of UV sterilizer. The actual amount of UV exposure varies between makes/model (even of the same wattage) because they are of different lengths and varying quality of quartz sleeves. To sterilize dinos, you should be targeting between 60,000-90,000 uw/cm2.

Here's an example from the Aqua Ultraviolet Classic manual. For a 25W unit, you should be targeting a flow rate between 400-600 gph. You could go less than 400gph for dinos, but make sure your particular unit doesn't have a minimum flow rate to keep the quartz sleeve and bulb cool.

3FFA88FF-CF60-47F2-BB32-F6E8D2EDCAEB.png


UV is a great tool when used correctly. If your flow rate is not correct and too fast, your UV will be acting simply as a clarifier and not help you with your dino problem.

Edit: One other thing, you should be sure that the flow rate is enough to turn over the tank volume by at least 2.5-3x per hour. If it doesn't, that means your UV unit is undersized for your needs.
 
Last edited:

Katrina71

Learn, Laugh, Love
View Badges
Joined
Mar 26, 2017
Messages
37,153
Reaction score
209,519
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
Ordered; I should have come to you in the first place! Thanks K.
Fingers crossed. I hope this works. Please document your success! (Yes, I'm optimistic)
 

Grossman90

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 29, 2018
Messages
574
Reaction score
301
Rating - 100%
6   0   0
Had ostreopsis and uv alone didnt do anything to rid it completely. This though did completely remove it. 3 day blackout with uv running from dt back to dt. Dose 1ml per 10g of water once a day. Bubble scrub using a wooden airstone next to your return pump hooked up to outside air. Make sure everything is completely blackout out. U can feed too so your nutrients dont drop. With the dino die off expect phosphates to go up. Mine went from 0.05 to .17. Used some chemipure elite to reduce it back to .06.

Good luck my friend.
 

RandyC

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 25, 2016
Messages
700
Reaction score
1,014
Location
Bay Area, California
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
UV killed it for me, blackout + UV seems to work faster, perhaps because it gets it into the water column faster.

Logically that makes sense, but for me it wasn’t necessary. I just suctioned out what I could and gave the tank a good stir and basting right before lights out and that was enough for me to rid ostreopsis in 3-4 days with UV installed.
 

MTBake

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 9, 2017
Messages
3,017
Reaction score
5,575
Location
Carpentersville, IL
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Had ostreopsis and uv alone didnt do anything to rid it completely. This though did completely remove it. 3 day blackout with uv running from dt back to dt. Dose 1ml per 10g of water once a day. Bubble scrub using a wooden airstone next to your return pump hooked up to outside air. Make sure everything is completely blackout out. U can feed too so your nutrients dont drop. With the dino die off expect phosphates to go up. Mine went from 0.05 to .17. Used some chemipure elite to reduce it back to .06.

Good luck my friend.

Dose 1ml of what per 10 gallons? H2O2?
 

MTBake

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 9, 2017
Messages
3,017
Reaction score
5,575
Location
Carpentersville, IL
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
To address the op;

I have personally been battling dinos in one form or another for the better part of a year. Thoroughly fed up with these little demons myself. I get rid of one species just to have another pop up in its place.

Let me know how the Ruby Reef Rally does. I've only used that as a bath to battle brook on a clown last year. Worked fantastic for that.
 
OP
OP
Mikedawg

Mikedawg

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 27, 2016
Messages
2,893
Reaction score
4,195
Location
Atlanta
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Hey also, I know that you are running slow flow, but I would target real slow for a while. Like 50-100 gph. You might be there already, but thought I’d mention that.

Do you have any green algae growing? Film, hair, etc? Lastly, any chance that you killed ostreopsis already and what you have left over are amphidinium?

Sorry, this just seems so unusual to me.
Wish I did see more green, believing that is a good sign of having organisms which might out compete the dinos. Do get a little hair algae.
Used a powerful microscope earlier today and confirmed that I do have Ostreopsis and got my mad scientist brother to confirm. I was hoping for amphidinium, thinking it would be easier to control.
I admit that I am really puzzled as to what is going on but will keep trying to out compete and burn up this pest.
 
OP
OP
Mikedawg

Mikedawg

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 27, 2016
Messages
2,893
Reaction score
4,195
Location
Atlanta
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Dose 1ml of what per 10 gallons? H2O2?
Thanks, I've tried that as well for several weeks and didn't see any impact; thought about uping dose to 2 ml/10 gal - any experience with that amount?
 
OP
OP
Mikedawg

Mikedawg

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 27, 2016
Messages
2,893
Reaction score
4,195
Location
Atlanta
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
To address the op;

I have personally been battling dinos in one form or another for the better part of a year. Thoroughly fed up with these little demons myself. I get rid of one species just to have another pop up in its place.

Let me know how the Ruby Reef Rally does. I've only used that as a bath to battle brook on a clown last year. Worked fantastic for that.
You must have great perseverance; they are tough and I am amazed how quickly they grow and spread. Adding some more pods tonight to try to bring about some kind of good change.

Rally instructions read like it might help, but so do some other preparations. I'll post once I have had some experience with it.
 

MTBake

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 9, 2017
Messages
3,017
Reaction score
5,575
Location
Carpentersville, IL
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Thanks, I've tried that as well for several weeks and didn't see any impact; thought about uping dose to 2 ml/10 gal - any experience with that amount?

I was wondering what @Grossman90 was dosing actually. Wasn't stated in the post made.

I also haven't had any luck with h2o2, fwiw.
 
OP
OP
Mikedawg

Mikedawg

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 27, 2016
Messages
2,893
Reaction score
4,195
Location
Atlanta
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
You should really seek out the manual for your make and model of UV sterilizer. The actual amount of UV exposure varies between makes/model (even of the same wattage) because they are of different lengths and varying quality of quartz sleeves. To sterilize dinos, you should be targeting between 60,000-90,000 uw/cm2.

Here's an example from the Aqua Ultraviolet Classic manual. For a 25W unit, you should be targeting a flow rate between 400-600 gph. You could go less than 400gph for dinos, but make sure your particular unit doesn't have a minimum flow rate to keep the quartz sleeve and bulb cool.

3FFA88FF-CF60-47F2-BB32-F6E8D2EDCAEB.png


UV is a great tool when used correctly. If your flow rate is not correct and too fast, your UV will be acting simply as a clarifier and not help you with your dino problem.

Edit: One other thing, you should be sure that the flow rate is enough to turn over the tank volume by at least 2.5-3x per hour. If it doesn't, that means your UV unit is undersized for your needs.
Thanks, very helpful advice and I'll do the calculations tonight.
 

MTBake

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 9, 2017
Messages
3,017
Reaction score
5,575
Location
Carpentersville, IL
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
You must have great perseverance; they are tough and I am amazed how quickly they grow and spread. Adding some more pods tonight to try to bring about some kind of good change.

Rally instructions read like it might help, but so do some other preparations. I'll post once I have had some experience with it.

I've been in the hobby too long to let this get me down. From bryopsis to aiptasia to bubble algae and now this. It will pass eventually. Plus, this is in only one of 3 tanks I have setup currently. I could always take this tank down and transfer live stock among the other 2. But, I want to keep up the fight.
 
OP
OP
Mikedawg

Mikedawg

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 27, 2016
Messages
2,893
Reaction score
4,195
Location
Atlanta
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I've been in the hobby too long to let this get me down. From bryopsis to aiptasia to bubble algae and now this. It will pass eventually. Plus, this is in only one of 3 tanks I have setup currently. I could always take this tank down and transfer live stock among the other 2. But, I want to keep up the fight.
Understand; and in a perverse way, these challenges make reefing a great hobby. Certainly my struggle has resulted in me being better informed about reef biology and maybe I can help another reefer along the way.
 

MTBake

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 9, 2017
Messages
3,017
Reaction score
5,575
Location
Carpentersville, IL
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I should probably post how I beat ostreposis as I'm now dealing with coolia.

Running uv, siphoning out trouble spots, dosing no3 and po4 solutions carefully, and dosing h2o2 at a rate of 1ml per 5gal of tank volume did not get rid of it completely. What did was an accidental influx of natural nutrients.

One of my tanks houses a mantis shrimp. I have always struggles to keep no3 and po4 on the charts with that tank. However, there is no nuisance algae in there besides the typical brown film in the glass, most likely due to the weak lighting. One day, I decided to change out water between that tank and my 40 breeder with the dino problem. 8 gallons later and my no3 and po4 were at 50ppm and .22 ppm, respectively. 2 days later, no dinos.

I will also say that once you think you got rid of them, do not stop what you've done to get rid of them in the first place. Another variety will most likely pop up, like happened to me.
 
OP
OP
Mikedawg

Mikedawg

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 27, 2016
Messages
2,893
Reaction score
4,195
Location
Atlanta
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I should probably post how I beat ostreposis as I'm now dealing with coolia.

Running uv, siphoning out trouble spots, dosing no3 and po4 solutions carefully, and dosing h2o2 at a rate of 1ml per 5gal of tank volume did not get rid of it completely. What did was an accidental influx of natural nutrients.

One of my tanks houses a mantis shrimp. I have always struggles to keep no3 and po4 on the charts with that tank. However, there is no nuisance algae in there besides the typical brown film in the glass, most likely due to the weak lighting. One day, I decided to change out water between that tank and my 40 breeder with the dino problem. 8 gallons later and my no3 and po4 were at 50ppm and .22 ppm, respectively. 2 days later, no dinos.

I will also say that once you think you got rid of them, do not stop what you've done to get rid of them in the first place. Another variety will most likely pop up, like happened to me.
When you siphon do you add back clean saltwater? I've read a lot about never do water changes because trace elements in clean water feed these little devils. At the same time, even using two filter socks placed one inside the other I find that dinos get through in big numbers.
Thanks
 

Jake_the_reefer

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 19, 2019
Messages
2,532
Reaction score
2,061
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
My experience with osteropsis wasnt awful I was able to cure it in like 2 weeks
I attempted dinox but that made things exponentially worse. What ended up working for me was a 3 day blackout strong uv and peroxide. I had an extremely bad outbreak in one tank and a moderate outbreak in my other tank.
What helped the blackout and peroxide the best was taking out the rocks, scrubbing them with a toothbrush (extremely time consuming) I also filtered all the water in the tank in a 5 micron filtersock then poured it back in the tank. Give it time and you will beat it.
I've included a before and after shot of my tank

20191001_201022.jpg 20191021_214213.jpg
 

MTBake

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 9, 2017
Messages
3,017
Reaction score
5,575
Location
Carpentersville, IL
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
When you siphon do you add back clean saltwater? I've read a lot about never do water changes because trace elements in clean water feed these little devils. At the same time, even using two filter socks placed one inside the other I find that dinos get through in big numbers.
Thanks

I added back fresh saltwater. Still do while dealing with the coolia actually. Maintaining nutrient levels is the main reason for not changing water while fighting dinos. I was adding no3 and po4 solutions to maintain levels. Now, I just over shoot on no3 and po4 by changing water between my mantis tank once every weekend. Been shooting for over 20ppm no3 and .15ppm po4 in my "sps dominate dino trouble tank". If I didn't have the mantis tank to 'dose' with, I would add no3 and po4 solutions to maintain 10ppm and .1ppm, respectively.
 

Victoria M

5000 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 6, 2017
Messages
5,613
Reaction score
22,726
Location
Sylvania, OH
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
@Mikedawg sorry you are going through this. I just followed this method, loosley, mind you. I documented what I did and the results. Check out this thread before you give up. Dinos and neomeris annulata made me redo my 180. Wish I had known about this method a few years ago.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 66 37.3%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 59 33.3%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 14.1%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 27 15.3%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
Back
Top