Thoughts On Test levels, and Dino Treatment.

[Harry g]

Hello,

I’ve been trying to rid of a Dino problem for a month now, and I’ve decided to start adding in nitrates myself after feeding heavily wasn’t working, I’m running a uv in the back chamber and I’ve been dosing 4.5 ml of neonitro daily paired with microbacter 7, in which the uv sterilizer gets turned off for 4 hours and than turned back on, I am also currently doing a blackout right now, but I’ve noticed that the dinos are still going at it, and look the same, I think I have two types, the ones that are on my rocks are long and snotty and I’ve seen them get up to as much as 6”+ before, I was thinking ostreopsis, and on my sandbed it looks like amphidium to me, not many bubbles and they stay on the sandbed, should I be doing anything differently, I probably just have to be more patient, but just wanted to check in and get some advice, tank is 8 months old but I had to move at the 5 month mark, I kept the same rock but not the sand, 2 day drive with the rocks wrapped in wet towels.

May 9th, 2026: phosphate: 0.07 nitrate: 2.0 - 2.5 ppm

May 11th, 2026: phosphate: .03 nitrate ~5 ppm






Sorry for the bad pictures, TYIA.

 

[Harry g]

Also, would you change anything in my dosing routine?

 

[Tahoe61]

So frustrating.

I have found that blowing of all surfaces (with a turkey baster) daily or multiple times a day, and than cleaning the mechanical filtration helps.
Dosing NeoNitro and Neophos helped as well. Both my nitate and phosphate values were not detectable using Salifert testing kits for the 1st 5 to 6 months.

The UV should help, I use one. I also use Coral Snow weekly now. Cleaning the mechanical filtration daily and getting the dino into the water column helped the most though. It takes a lot of patience.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I have found that blowing of all surfaces (with a turkey baster) daily or multiple times a day, and than cleaning the mechanical filtration helps.
Dosing NeoNitro and Neophos helped as well. Both my nitate and phosphate values were not detectable using Salifert testing kits for the 1st 5 to 6 months.

This is what I did to combat dinos in my tank! (never was successful due to a whole host of other issues)!

 

[Bbfeckawitts]

Are you seeing detectable nitrates? I had to use a lot of neonitro to get detectable, way more than I thought I would need. I would dose one day and then check levels the next day to ensure I wasn't overdoing it.

Something that really seemed to help was I would take a strainer and put it over a 5 gal bucket with many layers of filter floss over it. I would then siphon out the dinos with a large gauge tube and filter them over that, doing about 3gal at a time. I would then pump the cleaned water back in. NO water changes for sure. I also used the turkey baster to suck off the rocks several times a day and dispose of it. Additionally I increased the flow where they were the worst so they couldnt form the long strings.

I don't have any experience with the sand dwelling ones so this is just my experience with osteoposis dinos.

 

[slingfox]

If you need to does nitrates to keep them from going to zero then continue to do so. When I was battling Dino’s at month 5, my nitrates kept bottoming out so I mixed my own nitrate solution since I was going through bottles of NeoNitro in my 140 gallon tank.

I used a combination of nitrate dosing, silicate dosing, bacteria dosing (MicrobeLife Special Blend was far more effective to me than Microbacter7), coral snow, and UV. It is also important to constantly export the dinos and over time less and less will come back. Export involves siphoning out the top layer of sand and rinsing, and blowing off the Dino’s on the rock/siphoning from the water column. You can also buy sheets of aquarium floss and just hang it in your glass and it’ll gather Dino’s. Rinse those sheets out every so often then rehang. Eventually less and less Dino’s will come back if you keep up with the dosing. Lastly, the UV sand seeeper from 3DReefing is very effective in eliminating Dino’s and cyano growing on the sand.

 

[Jack_L]

If you need to does nitrates to keep them from going to zero then continue to do so. When I was battling Dino’s at month 5, my nitrates kept bottoming out so I mixed my own nitrate solution since I was going through bottles of NeoNitro in my 140 gallon tank.

I used a combination of nitrate dosing, silicate dosing, bacteria dosing (MicrobeLife Special Blend was far more effective to me than Microbacter7), coral snow, and UV. It is also important to constantly export the dinos and over time less and less will come back. Export involves siphoning out the top layer of sand and rinsing, and blowing off the Dino’s on the rock/siphoning from the water column. You can also buy sheets of aquarium floss and just hang it in your glass and it’ll gather Dino’s. Rinse those sheets out every so often then rehang. Eventually less and less Dino’s will come back if you keep up with the dosing. Lastly, the UV sand seeeper from 3DReefing is very effective in eliminating Dino’s and cyano growing on the sand.

you hung filter floss pads on the glass, and the dinos attached to that instead of the glass?

 

[slingfox]

you hung filter floss pads on the glass, and the dinos attached to that instead of the glass?

They attach to the filter floss generally since Dino’s are looking for any clear surface to attach too. Once attached to the filter floss you remove the floss and rinse it out to export the Dino’s. This is a very efficient way to export Dino’s in situations where they are growing all over the rockwork and sand.

 

[Jack_L]

that is a good idea, i never would have thought of it, reminds me of the lettuce trap trick for FW pest snails

 

[slingfox]

that is a good idea, i never would have thought of it, reminds me of the lettuce trap trick for FW pest snails

I once dealt with Dino’s so bad that it coated every single inch of rockscape and sand which got exposed to light. It made me want to quit but I gutted it out for 5 week and eventually got the uglies under control. I had so many Dino’s that after each cleaning it would coat all the hairs on my arm! Nasty stuff!

 

[CHSUB]

Manual removal as many suggested, cleaning floss and pumps for flow, turkey basting with removal…adding no3 is a mistake, you have plenty of nitrogen with a single fed fish.

Stop over feeding….

Adding corals is helpful, however that is not a quick fix.

Black out followed by a wc is a quick fix, however without follow up of vigorous maintenance stuff just comes back. I personally wouldn’t black out!


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/i...mistake-when-fighting-dinoflagellate.1156519/