Peeps - I'm losing the dino battle. I'm lost - what's my next step?

[Kongar]

I'm a noob, but I'm trying my best. I've read the threads, I got a microscope, I raised my nitrates and phosphates, I installed UV, I did a blackout, clean my rocks and sand to get them into the water column, I stopped water changes. My corals are dying and I've made very little progress on the brown snot for 2.5 months. I've hesitated to use H2O2 and DinoX as that seems like a nuclear option. I don't want to kill off what little hair algae / green algae I have. Frankly speaking, I think in my case the conventional wisdom isn't holding - the dinos are out competing everything else. My tank is almost 8 months old and is an embarrassment.

What would your next step be?

• H2O2 every day?
• DinoX?
• Keep waiting? For how long?
• Set up the QT, move the corals and fish into that? break the tank down, irradiate it, buy new live rock and start over?

SIGH...

 

[dwest]

I'm a noob, but I'm trying my best. I've read the threads, I got a microscope, I raised my nitrates and phosphates, I installed UV, I did a blackout, clean my rocks and sand to get them into the water column, I stopped water changes. My corals are dying and I've made very little progress on the brown snot for 2.5 months. I've hesitated to use H2O2 and DinoX as that seems like a nuclear option. I don't want to kill off what little hair algae / green algae I have. Frankly speaking, I think in my case the conventional wisdom isn't holding - the dinos are out competing everything else. My tank is almost 8 months old and is an embarrassment.

What would your next step be?

• H2O2 every day?
• DinoX?
• Keep waiting? For how long?
• Set up the QT, move the corals and fish into that? break the tank down, irradiate it, buy new live rock and start over?

SIGH...

How big is your tank and UV? How is the UV plumbed? Did you ID the type of Dino?

 

[Kongar]

How big is your tank and UV? How is the UV plumbed? Did you ID the type of Dino?

20G IM nuvo peninsula. UV is the 11 watt innovative marine product designed to fit into the overflow chamber. My first Dino ID was LA dinos. Those actually cleared up with nothing more than getting my nitrates up. For a little bit, things were good. Then a whole different beast showed up. Actually looks like 2. Mostly ostreopsis, but I do see prorocentrum in there. What grows on the sand is different than what grows on the rocks. My nitrates haven't dropped below 5 in well over a month, and my phosphates were, are, and continue to be high. The UV is having an effect, and there was improvement. But things are slowly returning to pretty bad despite my efforts. Dinos cover all my rocks, sand, coral, and are beginning to crawl up the glass. Multiple times a day I knock em back, within 10 minutes, the brown snot starts congealing again. Very frustrating. I'm trying to wait it out, but I'm losing faith that I'm still doing something wrong, and just don't know it. Hats off to those who have fought this battle - I understand now why people say dinos are the worst battle in this hobby.

 

[vetteguy53081]

This works !!!

Dinos and time to go to war !
Prepare for a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off for 5 days and st night dose 1ml of hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights
During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as bacter 7) per 10 gallons.
Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX as it is food for dinos.
Day 5,, you can start with blue lights and work your white lights up slowly

 

[dwest]

20G IM nuvo peninsula. UV is the 11 watt innovative marine product designed to fit into the overflow chamber. My first Dino ID was LA dinos. Those actually cleared up with nothing more than getting my nitrates up. For a little bit, things were good. Then a whole different beast showed up. Actually looks like 2. Mostly ostreopsis, but I do see prorocentrum in there. What grows on the sand is different than what grows on the rocks. My nitrates haven't dropped below 5 in well over a month, and my phosphates were, are, and continue to be high. The UV is having an effect, and there was improvement. But things are slowly returning to pretty bad despite my efforts. Dinos cover all my rocks, sand, coral, and are beginning to crawl up the glass. Multiple times a day I knock em back, within 10 minutes, the brown snot starts congealing again. Very frustrating. I'm trying to wait it out, but I'm losing faith that I'm still doing something wrong, and just don't know it. Hats off to those who have fought this battle - I understand now why people say dinos are the worst battle in this hobby.

I just looked at that UV design and it doesn’t appear that you can run that directly in the display tank. That does seem to matter. It mattered when I fought dinos.

 

[vetteguy53081]

20G IM nuvo peninsula. UV is the 11 watt innovative marine product designed to fit into the overflow chamber. My first Dino ID was LA dinos. Those actually cleared up with nothing more than getting my nitrates up. For a little bit, things were good. Then a whole different beast showed up. Actually looks like 2. Mostly ostreopsis, but I do see prorocentrum in there. What grows on the sand is different than what grows on the rocks. My nitrates haven't dropped below 5 in well over a month, and my phosphates were, are, and continue to be high. The UV is having an effect, and there was improvement. But things are slowly returning to pretty bad despite my efforts. Dinos cover all my rocks, sand, coral, and are beginning to crawl up the glass. Multiple times a day I knock em back, within 10 minutes, the brown snot starts congealing again. Very frustrating. I'm trying to wait it out, but I'm losing faith that I'm still doing something wrong, and just don't know it. Hats off to those who have fought this battle - I understand now why people say dinos are the worst battle in this hobby.

This uv unit wont do much other than control some algae. Peroxide will.

 

[Kongar]

I just looked at that UV design and it doesn’t appear that you can run that directly in the display tank. That does seem to matter. It mattered when I fought dinos.

Ok this one confuses me and is new. Why does it have to be in the display tank? It's literally 2 inches behind the overflow. Is the idea to suck up the water closer to the sand bed?

This uv unit wont do much other than control some algae. Peroxide will.

It did have an effect - it slows it down and controls it somewhat. But not enough. I did your above recommendation except for two things 1) i went 3 days on the blackout, and 2) I didn't dose peroxide (I DID use bacteria).

Maybe my next step is to start dosing peroxide. I assume this will also knock back any algae I do have that could compete with the dinos (there's not much algae left at this point). Should I do anything about this?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ok this one confuses me and is new. Why does it have to be in the display tank? It's literally 2 inches behind the overflow. Is the idea to suck up the water closer to the sand bed?

It did have an effect - it slows it down and controls it somewhat. But not enough. I did your above recommendation except for two things 1) i went 3 days on the blackout, and 2) I didn't dose peroxide (I DID use bacteria).

Maybe my next step is to start dosing peroxide. I assume this will also knock back any algae I do have that could compete with the dinos (there's not much algae left at this point). Should I do anything about this?

Both. Follow steps precisely and you will win

 

[dwest]

Ok this one confuses me and is new. Why does it have to be in the display tank? It's literally 2 inches behind the overflow. Is the idea to suck up the water closer to the sand bed?

It did have an effect - it slows it down and controls it somewhat. But not enough. I did your above recommendation except for two things 1) i went 3 days on the blackout, and 2) I didn't dose peroxide (I DID use bacteria).

Maybe my next step is to start dosing peroxide. I assume this will also knock back any algae I do have that could compete with the dinos (there's not much algae left at this point). Should I do anything about this?

I don’t have a great answer for you. And I am not trying to convince you to put a UV in the display. But there are instances where reefers have moved their UV from their sump to the display tank (assuming they had non-amphidinium dinos with correct size and flow of UV) that dinos were eradicated. It happened to me, many folks in the big mcarroll dinos thread and I believe Velcro’s dino thread. Either way you go, dinos do suck and I wish you the best of luck.

 

[The_Skrimp]

Hang in there. My current tank just past the 8 month point and I battled dinos for most of it. Now, there aren’t any dinos in sight.
The UV made the biggest impact on them in my tank. Run it 24/7 if you aren’t already. What I did was try to increase biodiversity to outcompete them. I started dosing Microbacter7 every day, I started dosing phytoplankton every day, I added tons of pods (some of which I hear might actually eat dinos) and I started a refugium. Eventually my refugium got covered in dinos but there were less and less in the tank and after cleaning them out they haven’t come back. In an 8 month old tank, I wouldn’t let them discourage you. Just treat this like another ugly phase your young tank has to pass through.

 

[Hallowhead]

I just beat dinos with excessive feeding dosing nitrate and phosphate daily basting and substrate siphon and using dinox... I'm not convinced I won't see them again but I'm learning methods to get rid of them.

I believe my UV doesn't do much as well as I too have the 11 watt in the first chamber of my overflow IM 30 AIO.

I'm currently dealing with the fallout and loss of most of my corals but at least there doesn't appear to be any dinos right now..

Best of luck

 

[Kongar]

Ok well I learned some new things. That was the ultimate point of the thread.
I think I'll start with the 5 day blackout and peroxide as laid out. It's a bit more aggressive than my last blackout.
I'll look into a more traditional pond UV and rig up some PVC to hang it right in the display.

I'll give that a try and see if it works! Thanks!

 

[LiveWire]

I fought them for awhile and lost about a 3rd of my corals while do so and now they are back. Not as bad as they were before but they have returned for sure. Last time I did the temperature increase and that helped. This time I did that and they seemed to like it and took off more. I am still running UV 24/7 and am thinking about doubling that up and see if 110 watts of UV will nuke them. My system is two frag systems plumbed into one sump. The one tank has the UV pulling directly from it so i am thinking of placing the 2nd on the other tank pulling directly from it for a double dose.

Its very frustrating dealing with them. I dose MB7 daily as well. Not sure if my coral loss before was the black out stage or the peroxide or a combo of both along with the dino's that did them in but this time I would like to not loose any corals and now I have Nems in the system so a blackout is not going to work for me. I can bring the intensity down though. I am going to try double UV add more media for bacteria population dose MB7 and grab a gallon of Fritz 9 as well to dose along with the MB7 and see what happens. I can always use the UV on another system after.

 

[Kongar]

It's been almost two weeks since this post. I did a 5 day blackout, and I've been dosing 2ml of hydrogen peroxide per day (20G tank). I test my nitrates daily, and they haven't dropped below 8, usually sit around 10. Phosphates are still high at ~.25. There were no signs of dinos after 5 days. Turned my lights back on, brown spots appeared on the sand within hours. I've continued dosing the H2O2, no effect. Pulled out the microscope again, looks like prorocentrum to me - with the little circle in the middle.

As of today, I've lost my torch and my hammer is right behind it. My acans, mushroom, blasto, chalice, and leptastreas are all doing fine enough, but there is zero alk uptake (hasn't been for over a month) so they really aren't growing. My cuc has been devastated - I've got one trochus, one nerite, and two nassarius snails left. hermits, ceriths, etc. all dead.

In a nutshell, zero progress has been made. There's only two things left to try. Buying a larger UV and plumbing into the display, and/or dosing dinoX. I've tried everything else for months to no avail. Or I just let it kill all my corals, turn the lights off, and make it FOWLR tank.

 

[Hallowhead]

It's been almost two weeks since this post. I did a 5 day blackout, and I've been dosing 2ml of hydrogen peroxide per day (20G tank). I test my nitrates daily, and they haven't dropped below 8, usually sit around 10. Phosphates are still high at ~.25. There were no signs of dinos after 5 days. Turned my lights back on, brown spots appeared on the sand within hours. I've continued dosing the H2O2, no effect. Pulled out the microscope again, looks like prorocentrum to me - with the little circle in the middle.

As of today, I've lost my torch and my hammer is right behind it. My acans, mushroom, blasto, chalice, and leptastreas are all doing fine enough, but there is zero alk uptake (hasn't been for over a month) so they really aren't growing. My cuc has been devastated - I've got one trochus, one nerite, and two nassarius snails left. hermits, ceriths, etc. all dead.

In a nutshell, zero progress has been made. There's only two things left to try. Buying a larger UV and plumbing into the display, and/or dosing dinoX. I've tried everything else for months to no avail. Or I just let it kill all my corals, turn the lights off, and make it FOWLR tank.

I don't know why you have not tried dinox yet

 

[brandon429]

-removed

 

[Kongar]

I don't know why you have not tried dinox yet

Oh I know the answer to that It seems many people have beat it without using dinoX, and there's a few anecdotal stories about dinoX doing a number on their corals. I was afraid to use something so sledgehammer-like. But, now that I've run the gauntlet - I realize I should have just hit it with the sledgehammer in the first place and if a few corals were casualties, then I'd still be better off than I am now (which is a few dead/dying corals and still infested with dinos).

I've already got some DinoX on the way.

 

[Hallowhead]

Oh I know the answer to that It seems many people have beat it without using dinoX, and there's a few anecdotal stories about dinoX doing a number on their corals. I was afraid to use something so sledgehammer-like. But, now that I've run the gauntlet - I realize I should have just hit it with the sledgehammer in the first place and if a few corals were casualties, then I'd still be better off than I am now (which is a few dead/dying corals and still infested with dinos).

I've already got some DinoX on the way.

All these potential methods are so painstakingly long and are for certain to kill corals that use photosynthesis.

I went straight to dinox and it worked.. I had to use it twice too be fair.

 

[Kongar]

All these potential methods are so painstakingly long and are for certain to kill corals that use photosynthesis.

I went straight to dinox and it worked.. I had to use it twice too be fair.

I'm with you - painstaking for sure and stressing out the corals as much as the dinos. I'm going to hit it with dinoX and report back.

 

[Kellie in CA]

The IM drop-in UV Sterilizer and microbacter7 worked for me, but I had to make sure the tank was in complete darkness at night.