UV sterilizer suggestions for Dino's

pledosophy

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I knew it was gonna happen, I kept increasing feeding but levels still stayed at 0. Now the Dino's have started.


Part of my plan will be to add a UV. My tank is only a 50g so I am thinking a 8w or so might work, but also might look at a 15w because, for the small amount more in cost, you get a lot more UV.

My concern is the affect on Pod life really.

Does anyone have a UV that they love? I can T it off my manifold or run a second pump easy enough. Just looking for recommendations. I haven't bought one since 03' and would like to order soon, as in today or tomorrow.

Thanks for the recommendations!

Also the rest of my plan for Dino's is something like daily 10% water change, changing sock out daily, and adding 30x with another in tank powerhead to bring it up to 100x at the peak (3 PH's all running on random).

Really apprecaite the help. 20 years in reefing, never had Dino's.
 

ReefDuke

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I had Dino’s on my 90 gallon zeo tank and installed a 80 watt emperor aquatics uv and it did not help one bit. Have you tried blacking out the tank? This seemed to help the most on top of water changes.
 
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pledosophy

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Won't that help keep them at zero? Think about it.
The theory behind the water changes is that if you suck the dino's out everyday you will dwindle their population. The higher flow gets them in the water colum where the UV would kill them.

The water changes are for dino export, not nutrient export.

Dino's can only replicate so fast, so the more of their population you eliminate the less of a problem they are. This leaves room for other things, such as different bacterias to populate the space where the Dino's were.
 
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pledosophy

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I had Dino’s on my 90 gallon zeo tank and installed a 80 watt emperor aquatics uv and it did not help one bit. Have you tried blacking out the tank? This seemed to help the most on top of water changes.
I have done a three day black out on tanks before, and I might on this again but I want to have the other things in place first. Otherwise they will just come back.

If the 3 days takes it away completely usually it is cyano no?

80W's on a 90g is a big UV. I am surprised you got no help there.
 

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I have done a three day black out on tanks before, and I might on this again but I want to have the other things in place first. Otherwise they will just come back.

If the 3 days takes it away completely usually it is cyano no?

80W's on a 90g is a big UV. I am surprised you got no help there.
I would ID the type with a microscope. I bought a cheap one on amazon for about $12 and it was good enough. UV will really help with some types and not as much with others. If you go UV, I would get at least 25 watts and plumb to and from display tank.
 

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Find out the species first. I bought a UV and it did nothing bad I had the “Amp” dinos or “large cell” I beat them back by letting diatoms out compete them and dosing nitrate
 

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The theory behind the water changes is that if you suck the dino's out everyday you will dwindle their population. The higher flow gets them in the water colum where the UV would kill them.

The water changes are for dino export, not nutrient export.

Dino's can only replicate so fast, so the more of their population you eliminate the less of a problem they are. This leaves room for other things, such as different bacterias to populate the space where the Dino's were.
But they grew in the first place because your nutrient level hit zero. I've beat Dinos before and water changes would be the last thing I'd do. The first thing will always be to run my UV sterilizer(own 2 of them).
More than 5 decades in saltwater I'd rather fight Dinos than GHA.
 
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Dj City

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Read this...

 

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UV won't effect your pods. They are generally too big and not exposed long enough to be consequential.

Many believe typical aquarium dinos are a symptom of too clean of water. The theory being that at low nitrate and phosphate levels dino plankton can outcompete corals/algae for excess nutrition as it appears in the water column. The "fix" in this case is to dirty up the water a bit (raise nitrates and phosphates above 0) and run chaeto or similar then vacuum up as much of the dino as you can. A UV may help depending on the dino species. Doing water changes at night after the lights have been off for a while also helps. Afterwards be patient since the nutrient cycle takes time.

I am not a fan of the blackout method for controlling dinos.
 
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pledosophy

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This is the first time I have heard of doing the water changes at night.

I have been doing them during the day so I can suck up as many of the dino's as possible. Can you help me to understand why at night is better?

I upped my dosing of amino's and added a feeding on my auto feeder to help with the nutrients. Also been adding some live phyto.

My case is a little better but the UV I was hoping for is still not in stock. If it is not in soon I may go for a different unit.
 
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pledosophy

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UV won't effect your pods. They are generally too big and not exposed long enough to be consequential.

Many believe typical aquarium dinos are a symptom of too clean of water. The theory being that at low nitrate and phosphate levels dino plankton can outcompete corals/algae for excess nutrition as it appears in the water column. The "fix" in this case is to dirty up the water a bit (raise nitrates and phosphates above 0) and run chaeto or similar then vacuum up as much of the dino as you can. A UV may help depending on the dino species. Doing water changes at night after the lights have been off for a while also helps. Afterwards be patient since the nutrient cycle takes time.

I am not a fan of the blackout method for controlling dinos.
Forgot to quote you above. Thanks in advance for explaining it for me.
 
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pledosophy

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Read this...

Will do.
 
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