The Dinos Battle Continue - Need A little More Guidance

[sanzz18]

I made a post about a month ago about battling uglies/dinos (def had some amount of Dinos) in my 220.6 WB. My nitrates and phosphates were bottomed out at 0. I started feeding heavier, stopped water changes, and turned off my t5s/only used the xr15 pros. It seems to have improved since then but it is still going on. My skimmer is on for tank oxygenation purpose and do not want to turn that off. In the post last month, I was told by a couple users that my tank is really too new to go crazy dosing phosphate/nitrate and to let it do its thing and go through the uglies.

At this point, my phosphates with a Hanna ULR Phosphate checker is 0.1 ppm, so made significant process there. My nitrates with the nyos nitrates kit still reading 1ppm and sometimes 0. So I have had no success increasing nitrates.

Should I dose my nitrates to get them up to 10ppm at this point or continue to let my tank do its thing?

I bought the Microbacter 7 for daily dosing, should I start this? I dosed it for a few days last month and stopped when I had a bacterial bloom.

I turned off my t5 hybrid again and turned off the whites of my xr15 pros, is this good enough?

Should I order pods/phyto for diversity?



Here is a video of the tank with white lights only.




Here is a microscope video from some slime collected from the sump.




Also, what the heck is this microscopic worm thing?




Here is a video of whatever slime made it to the sump. I have no lights down there. Also the slime attached to the fleece roller confused me as I just changed the fleece roll last night and the slime wasn't there.




I understand that my biggest problem is that I started with dry rock/sand and therefor have a lack of biodiversity to outcompete the dinos. What should I do to help this?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Bacter yes and don’t dose. Feed as normal and it will increase
I always recommend:
Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15%) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off.
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 - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly

 

[sanzz18]

Bacter yes and don’t dose. Feed as normal and it will increase
I always recommend:
Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15%) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off.
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 - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly

So even though it has been over a month of heavy feeding, you think eventually the nitrates will start to pick up?

Do you think it is easier to use filter socks until this under control instead of the fleece roller?

Also, how is this stuff growing in my sump with no lights?

 

[Pkunk35]

So even though it has been over a month of heavy feeding, you think eventually the nitrates will start to pick up?

Do you think it is easier to use filter socks until this under control instead of the fleece roller?

Also, how is this stuff growing in my sump with no lights?

I bet the roller keeps your nitrates very low.

I vote a big yes for adding benthic and pelagic copepods/amphipods, diversity in general. Not sure if it helps with Dino’s but I believe they make a big difference.

GL you’ll get it figured out in time!

 

[ScottB]

Your dinos are ostreopsis which are very easy to knock down with a properly sized UV.

Normally, with a "new" system I tell folks to let it ride, as some other set of organisms will displace them over time. But these are just so easy to knock off. They are also quite toxic.

1 watt per 3 gallons. It should flow TO/FROM the display itself. It is only temporary.
Super slow flow 2X to 3X per hour max.
Run some carbon to remove toxins.
No aminos for a long time.

Once they are gone, you can move it to the sump if you want or just keep it on the shelf like I do.

 

[tnw50cal]

Your dinos are ostreopsis which are very easy to knock down with a properly sized UV.

Normally, with a "new" system I tell folks to let it ride, as some other set of organisms will displace them over time. But these are just so easy to knock off. They are also quite toxic.

1 watt per 3 gallons. It should flow TO/FROM the display itself. It is only temporary.
Super slow flow 2X to 3X per hour max.
Run some carbon to remove toxins.
No aminos for a long time.

Once they are gone, you can move it to the sump if you want or just keep it on the shelf like I do.

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Aqua Man]

It should flow TO/FROM the display itself. It is only temporary.
Super slow flow 2X to 3X per hour max.
Run some carbon to remove toxins.

Good advice

 

[sanzz18]

I bet the roller keeps your nitrates very low.

I vote a big yes for adding benthic and pelagic copepods/amphipods, diversity in general. Not sure if it helps with Dino’s but I believe they make a big difference.

GL you’ll get it figured out in time!

I am definitely going to order pods this week. I need to get this tank really going with life lol. Do you think I should take out the fleece roller out until this is under control?

Your dinos are ostreopsis which are very easy to knock down with a properly sized UV.

Normally, with a "new" system I tell folks to let it ride, as some other set of organisms will displace them over time. But these are just so easy to knock off. They are also quite toxic.

1 watt per 3 gallons. It should flow TO/FROM the display itself. It is only temporary.
Super slow flow 2X to 3X per hour max.
Run some carbon to remove toxins.
No aminos for a long time.

Once they are gone, you can move it to the sump if you want or just keep it on the shelf like I do.

So it may be a little bit until I get a UV sterilizer. I don’t want to waste money on a cheap one. I am going to get the aqua ultraviolet 53 watt for my system.

In the meantime, between what you and vetteguy suggested, anything else I should be doing?

 

[ScottB]

I am definitely going to order pods this week. I need to get this tank really going with life lol. Do you think I should take out the fleece roller out until this is under control?

So it may be a little bit until I get a UV sterilizer. I don’t want to waste money on a cheap one. I am going to get the aqua ultraviolet 53 watt for my system.

In the meantime, between what you and vetteguy suggested, anything else I should be doing?

Without the UV, you will have to manually remove pretty often unless you go lights out. To help with removal, you can clamp a bunch of filter pad to the glass in high flow/light areas and rinse each evening before they release.

In my case, I had to dose liters of phosphate (DIY trisodium phosphate, not the substitute TSP!) and a fair amount of sodium nitrate or else I had 0/0/

 

[Pkunk35]

I have never used a roller before but BRS suggests that a roller is so efficient that a skimmer may not even work properly due to lack of organic s which are removed so quickly by the roller. Slowing down the removal of uneaten food should leave more in the system to break down into nitrate/phosphate.


just an opinion below on top of some really good advice given by others here:
def clean that Dino out manually (like as much as you can! Get those rock out and scrub em!) and get some other microscopic life in there to compete with em (like MB7) Might take a while but the balance must be found in the microscopic biome of your tank and I personally believe you must act as the “Dino predator” either thru UV or manual removal until the other life begins to grow enough population to outcompete Dinos (if you want it to happen in an acceptable time period to you anyway). I look at it like smashing their populations and then allowing other populations to fill in the gaps. As the environment changes to suit other life (higher nutrient level) their populations will slowly outcompete Dinos.
Some live sand or a piece of established live rock prob couldn’t hurt either to help seed more populations of this life along with the pods, etc.