Thoughts on the various methodology on Dino Removal
- Thread starter Pyrogens
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Hear me out. I hope this helps. This is my experience over the past 5-6 years with dinos.
You don't need a microscope to identify them. You don't need a uv sterilizer. You don't need to dose silicates. No bacteria methods. Siphoning out dinos because they will rerurn very quick. Don't need to remove rocks, sand etc.
I've had dinos about 4-5 times now. Really struggled in the past to overcome it. Took all the steps in the world and tried different methods, etc. Now I have a collection of microscopes, uv sterilizers and bacteria and siicates sitting colle ting dust.
What worked for me every single time was to keep nitrates and phosphates elevated. Dose them (probably daily) Test them daily or at least 2-3 times a week minimum. Don't do water changes. Ive lowered my lights but not sure if it helped, imo made them less apparent, but still there. Wait until one day you realize "oh **** the dinos are gone," the more you stare and worry about them the longer it seems for them to go away
Keep this up for several months. Yes several. The quickest I ever beat it was about 2 months. All I did was dose nitrates and phosphates and tested the hell out of them to ensure they were elevated.
Dinos with slowly go away and algae will grow. Once your tank has algae, higher nitrates and phosphate readings for anout a month (with no visible sign of dinos) then you can start to work on SLOWLY lowering your nutrients. Pulling out algae, scraping rocks and making the tank look nice again.
This is a multiple month project. It will not be easy. This will likely not be your last time dealing with dinos either. Eventually it will pop back up due to low nutrients again. Just my experience.
Once you beat it a couple times dinos just becomes a nuisance to have to deal with and not anything to worry about. Similar to aiptasia or bubble algae.
I wish you the best of luck beating dinos.
You don't need a microscope to identify them. You don't need a uv sterilizer. You don't need to dose silicates. No bacteria methods. Siphoning out dinos because they will rerurn very quick. Don't need to remove rocks, sand etc.
I've had dinos about 4-5 times now. Really struggled in the past to overcome it. Took all the steps in the world and tried different methods, etc. Now I have a collection of microscopes, uv sterilizers and bacteria and siicates sitting colle ting dust.
What worked for me every single time was to keep nitrates and phosphates elevated. Dose them (probably daily) Test them daily or at least 2-3 times a week minimum. Don't do water changes. Ive lowered my lights but not sure if it helped, imo made them less apparent, but still there. Wait until one day you realize "oh **** the dinos are gone," the more you stare and worry about them the longer it seems for them to go away
Keep this up for several months. Yes several. The quickest I ever beat it was about 2 months. All I did was dose nitrates and phosphates and tested the hell out of them to ensure they were elevated.
Dinos with slowly go away and algae will grow. Once your tank has algae, higher nitrates and phosphate readings for anout a month (with no visible sign of dinos) then you can start to work on SLOWLY lowering your nutrients. Pulling out algae, scraping rocks and making the tank look nice again.
This is a multiple month project. It will not be easy. This will likely not be your last time dealing with dinos either. Eventually it will pop back up due to low nutrients again. Just my experience.
Once you beat it a couple times dinos just becomes a nuisance to have to deal with and not anything to worry about. Similar to aiptasia or bubble algae.
I wish you the best of luck beating dinos.
OP
OP
Pyrogens
Active Member
Final Update (Hopefully):
Completely got sidetracked and busy with real life projects and forgot to update this. I since completed my last dose on 07/16/23 and can happily report that my system looks 100% better. I ran the system an extra 2 days before I did a 10% water change + dosed Microbacter7 under the "Stable Low Nutrient Systems" dosage and have kept GAC running and as of today, I still have no signs of Dino's. I have slowly ramped my lighting back up to my previous settings MINUS whites and reds/greens to 60%.
Going forward, I will keep a closer eye on Nitrates and Phosphates in addition to continuing to run GAC and reduce my overall lighting schedule to 6-8 Hours daily. Thanks to @vetteguy53081 for his recommendation to dose H202 and all his help and to everyone else who have had valuable input and hope this thread might be of some use to anyone in the future!
Completely got sidetracked and busy with real life projects and forgot to update this. I since completed my last dose on 07/16/23 and can happily report that my system looks 100% better. I ran the system an extra 2 days before I did a 10% water change + dosed Microbacter7 under the "Stable Low Nutrient Systems" dosage and have kept GAC running and as of today, I still have no signs of Dino's. I have slowly ramped my lighting back up to my previous settings MINUS whites and reds/greens to 60%.
Going forward, I will keep a closer eye on Nitrates and Phosphates in addition to continuing to run GAC and reduce my overall lighting schedule to 6-8 Hours daily. Thanks to @vetteguy53081 for his recommendation to dose H202 and all his help and to everyone else who have had valuable input and hope this thread might be of some use to anyone in the future!
OP
OP
Pyrogens
Active Member
Update:
Welp, it unfortunately looks like my dino problem is back. I have to now decide if I want to do yet another 5 day round of treatment with H202 or not seeing as it apparently didn't kill it all off. I haven't yet ID'd it again, but I'm already seeing the telltale bubbles to the stringy snot appearing on my rockwork. I'm gonna guess its probably Ostreopsis again since that is what I was dealing with last go around. /sigh this hobby sometimes...
Welp, it unfortunately looks like my dino problem is back. I have to now decide if I want to do yet another 5 day round of treatment with H202 or not seeing as it apparently didn't kill it all off. I haven't yet ID'd it again, but I'm already seeing the telltale bubbles to the stringy snot appearing on my rockwork. I'm gonna guess its probably Ostreopsis again since that is what I was dealing with last go around. /sigh this hobby sometimes...
Thumbster
Active Member
Did you go back to pre Dino lighting and feeding or just stop using h2o2? I’m fighting Dino’s myself and have spent waaaay too much time reading about it.
Here’s what I KNOW about Dino’s:
You’ll get them if your nutrients are zero, except tanks with high, medium or low nutrients get them too.
Blackouts and h2o2 dosing will kill them, until they come back.
Live rock won’t allow Dino’s to grow, until it covers the live rock.
Definitely dose silicate, mb7, phyto and pods because those will DEFINITELY take care of the problem…..sometimes.
Oh and buy a microscope and the biggest UV sterilizer that you can afford because my friends cousin knew a guy who swears it’s the answer.
If you find out anything else let me know.
Edit: forgot to mention that you need to feed heavily. Just take out your sandbed and replace it with pellet food because you don’t want your phosphate to zero out.
Here’s what I KNOW about Dino’s:
You’ll get them if your nutrients are zero, except tanks with high, medium or low nutrients get them too.
Blackouts and h2o2 dosing will kill them, until they come back.
Live rock won’t allow Dino’s to grow, until it covers the live rock.
Definitely dose silicate, mb7, phyto and pods because those will DEFINITELY take care of the problem…..sometimes.
Oh and buy a microscope and the biggest UV sterilizer that you can afford because my friends cousin knew a guy who swears it’s the answer.
If you find out anything else let me know.
Edit: forgot to mention that you need to feed heavily. Just take out your sandbed and replace it with pellet food because you don’t want your phosphate to zero out.
Last edited:
Kmst80
Well-Known Member
So I battled prorocentrum dinos and what you wrote in your op was the right way, you need to be patient.
I tried blackout, peroxide and it did nothing.
Then I stuck to check nitrates and phosphates daily and dose to have at least 10ppm/0.1ppm. I sucked out the brown stuff every second day into a 5 micron filtersock hanging in the sump so water stayed in the system.
I did that for 2 month! I finally started adding silicate and that was the turning point. A word of caution though, i overdid the silicate and didn't test for it and ended up with a diatom bloom that was nearly worse than the Dinos themselves. So don't add anything you can't test for. And have patience. Let the other algaes outcompete it while you keep it in check. You will win without nuking your system. BTW apart from a 3 day blackout I never touched my lighting schedule.
Good luck
OP
OP
Pyrogens
Active Member
I have been slowly ramping back up to my pre dino lighting, but I have reduced and kept whites at 7%. So I'm not totally convinced its lighting causing it. After talking to one of my past old salts, he told me he encountered it once and he does not believe its caused by elevated nitrates and phosphates and his method of getting rid of it was a bunch of waterchanges while siphoning out what he could during said waterchanges.
I don't know...I wish there was a simple, single solution chemical or non chemical that worked on this crap. Like I stated before in my original post, this is my first time encountering it...even when I kept a SPS system with no detectable nitrates OR phosphates I never had it.
bkwonnn
Active Member
And then you grow boatloads off cyano, diatoms, GHA and all kinds of craps. I only have issues with diatoms now. Al the green stuff you get a sea hare for and cyano is easy to kill with cyanoRX.
OP
OP
Pyrogens
Active Member
Sorry, haven't been active much lately. Dinos have pretty much persisted, just not as horrible as it was. I've since gone back to once a month 15-20% WCs, feeding once to twice a day still and skipping a day here and there on food.
I've just relegated back to ignoring them on the sand bed, as the snotty crud I had growing on the rockwork dissappeared.
OP
OP
Pyrogens
Active Member
If only it was this easy.
I also wish it was as simple as these remedies, but it's not. I however am glad that this was a solution for your system.
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