What is this growing in my tank?

[Acros]

Ahhhhhh

;Jawdrop

I will check that thread out now. Thank you

That is a good place to start. There are many types of dinos and each type requires a different remedy. Getting an ID is the most important step. All you need is a cheap microscope. Anything with 1000x magnification will work. This is what I use (my girlfriend scoffs at it, she has a doctorate in biology).

MMUSC Microscope Kit for Kids 8-12, Kids Microscope Science Kit for Student Beginners Educational STEM Toy with LED 100X-1200x Magnification, Preschool Science Toy, Blank Slides for Boys Girls Age 4+


There are two other test mentioned in that thread. A hydrogen peroxide test and a coffee filter test. I suggest you start with those two. That will help you determine if they are dinos or cyano or both. Hopefully it is cyano which is easier to deal with.

 

[Dani305]

Is your 'algae' slimy looking with a bunch of little air bubbles in it?

yes there’s bubbles. Almost looks a little stringy? I would say.

Mechanical filtration meaning filter floss or filter socks… how often do you replace them. If you don’t do mechanical filtration how often do you do water changes to remove detritus?
that lighting schedule is definitely long for a new tank with not much coral

Thank you! I do have a filter sock, so will be doing double time cleaning it. Right now we have been doing a water change a week for the past two weeks.

I will have to see what I can do about the lighting. I leave at 9am so I can turn them on then and then shut them off around 8? I may look in to getting a smart switch or something for the lights.

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

yes there’s bubbles. Almost looks a little stringy? I would say.

Congratulations..you have dinos....im sorry!! On the bright side, I dub thee...a reefer!!

 

[Utubereefer]

yes there’s bubbles. Almost looks a little stringy? I would say.

Thank you! I do have a filter sock, so will be doing double time cleaning it. Right now we have been doing a water change a week for the past two weeks.

I will have to see what I can do about the lighting. I leave at 9am so I can turn them on then and then shut them off around 8? I may look in to getting a smart switch or something for the lights.

Definitely get a timer for your lights. And if it’s Dino you can turn lights off for 48 hours

 

[Dani305]

Definitely get a timer for your lights. And if it’s Dino you can turn lights off for 48 hours

Will my fish be okay for 48 hours with no light?

When ever I turn the lights off they go to sleep .

 

[Utubereefer]

Lol fish will be fine! I know they’re your babies now…. It’ll be ok.

 

[Utubereefer]

My tank now

 

[Dani305]

Lol fish will be fine! I know they’re your babies now…. It’ll be ok.

thankfully I have not had a bad bloom of any kind in my freshwater tank. So I’m not used to doing such a shut down.

my blenny and gang are my newest babes!

okay so shut off lights for 48 hours. Clean filter socks. Should we do a water change?

I was planning on putting phytoplankton on Thursday. Should I still do that?

 

[Dani305]

Definitely get a timer for your lights. And if it’s Dino you can turn lights off for 48 hours

I realized that my lights HAVE timers. lol. I’m going to fix that in the morning.

should I start my lights at around 11am? Then at 830 - 9p off?

Sorry I have a lot of questions.

 

[Dani305]

Congratulations..you have dinos....im sorry!! On the bright side, I dub thee...a reefer!!

Hell to the yeah!

thanks for all the help, everyone has been very helpful here. I am learning a lot!

 

[brandon429]

@vetteguy53081

fix Gobi's first, to completion, then link that work you did here.

this repeat of advice without seeing things through is literally harming other people's reefs.

Help please... Stuck in an unbreakable cycle.

Hello. My reef is about 3.5 years old and it's been about 1.5 years since i upgraded to a 125 gallon setup. Since then, i have not been able to control the aquarium at all and the understanding i once thought i had about nutrients and chemistry is seemingly meaningless now. My rock is 100%...

www.reef2reef.com

anyone who gives fix advice needs to see that advice through to the end.

what we wouldn't do is keep posting the same info around threads, without seeing any of them through.

 

[Tonycass12]

I dont know why people still advocate waterchanges to fix this. Your tank is too clean dont do water changes, feed heavier you need to get your nitrates and phosphates back up. UV filter will help a lot as well. Change out your filter socks every day and turn your lights down or at least turn the blues down slightly and turn off any other color channels you have.

 

[brandon429]

@vetteguy53081


please respond to requests here, why haven't you responded back to Gobi's help post, he needs you to stick around until its fixed.



peroxide really has fixed some dinos invasions, that's why a fifty page peroxide thread is linked as a sticky up top.

but


actually seeing jobs through to completion is 100% different, by a mile, and you have to invest time into getting actual fixes logged before that info you paint as 100% certain becomes 25% likely.

 

[Acros]

I dont know why people still advocate waterchanges to fix this. Your tank is too clean dont do water changes, feed heavier you need to get your nitrates and phosphates back up. UV filter will help a lot as well. Change out your filter socks every day and turn your lights down or at least turn the blues down slightly and turn off any other color channels you have.

Yes UV will kill ostreopsis dinos. If it is any other type, the only real solution is to outcompete it with organisms such as algae or diatoms. Most people with dinos in their tank experience a mini bloom with water changes. It is hypothesized that dinos deplete some trace elements, which are replenished during the water change allowing dinos to bloom. However, it is important to remember that the competing organisms also depend on these trace elements. In conclusion, I do not believe that water change or no water change is an easy recommendation to make here. Regardless of water changes or not, keep the nutrients up. Dosing nitrates and phosphates is the easiest and the fastest way to get nutrients up.

I am very good at getting dinos. lol. I had to learn how to get rid of them. I would not suggest lights out to anyone who has any SPS in their tank. That will for sure make a stressed coral RTN (at least in my experience). Moreover, the benefits are not worth it. It dials down dinos a little bit but won't eliminate them. Dinos will be back in full strength within 2-3 days.

@Tonycass12 I am not trying to be confrontational, but merely sharing what I have learned from battling them twice within a year.

 

[Tonycass12]

Yes UV will kill ostreopsis dinos. If it is any other type, the only real solution is to outcompete it with organisms such as algae or diatoms. Most people with dinos in their tank experience a mini bloom with water changes. It is hypothesized that dinos deplete some trace elements, which are replenished during the water change allowing dinos to bloom. However, it is important to remember that the competing organisms also depend on these trace elements. In conclusion, I do not believe that water change or no water change is an easy recommendation to make here. Regardless of water changes or not, keep the nutrients up. Dosing nitrates and phosphates is the easiest and the fastest way to get nutrients up.

I am very good at getting dinos. lol. I had to learn how to get rid of them. I would not suggest lights out to anyone who has any SPS in their tank. That will for sure make a stressed coral RTN (at least in my experience). Moreover, the benefits are not worth it. It dials down dinos a little bit but won't eliminate them. Dinos will be back in full strength within 2-3 days.

@Tonycass12 I am not trying to be confrontational, but merely sharing what I have learned from battling them twice within a year.

No offense taken. Ive had my dino battles as well. Its just strange that waterchange is almost always suggested but that seams counterintuitive when lack of nitrates and phosphates is already the main issue. I had 3 dino blooms this last year UV was my magic bullet for getting rid of them. I would always give a package recommended amount of reef roids to boost phosphates and start feeding 2-3x what i was previously to start getting nitrates up. New people that typically get dinos usually aren't comfortable dosing just yet I know I wasn't during my first couple outbreaks.

 

[brandon429]

summary from the challenge thread posted above/dinos in a huge reef:

1. if you begin dosing nitrate or phosphate removers or boosters, you trade off dinos into a monthslong hair algae invasion. then when you dose fluconazole or vibrant for that, cyano comes in until 2023. save test-and-response habits for the very last mode applied long after the better options


2. be physical, not chemical, in approach. a giant cheap pond UV sterilizer off amazon can potentially save you two years of headaches, having to buy that is the price of large tanking with dinos. if this was a small nano we could rip clean it and dispatch with the matter. You need to be doing opposite of what you read the masses do with dinos tanks...the masses choose option one we can read it as the strongest likely outcome in any large dinos work thread/collection of challenges.


3. never allow the dinos to mass up and then be taking reactive steps from the back seat, be the up front leader in the tank. manually remove all dinos however you want to effect that; partial water changes and siphoning up mats is most common in large tanks, permit no aggregation. UV is installed in the clean condition, not the invaded condition, be opposite of the masses in every step. You can add bags of pods (in the clean condition, not the invaded condition blooming above) from places like algae barn etc and these micro creatures help in eating up the competition as it tries to regrow, from your exceptional resolve to permit no takeover.

you have the #1 toughest to beat invasion in reefing above, get resourceful now. not any invasion in reefing is harder to beat than that one seen in pics above.

as you scan the 450 page dinos thread, you can see its about 20% or so actual fixes, and 80% constant never ending invasions listed in summary #1. hardly anyone practices sandbed removal and wars in the no-sand condition; hardly anyone practices forced compliance vs total takeover and reactive actions/can that possibly factor into the 80% still invaded with something rate? its not like percentages are improving as the years go by; a steady state is in effect

in order for page #650 in the dinos thread to switch to 80% fixes, 20% ongoing invasions, what must change?

 

[Acros]

No offense taken. Ive had my dino battles as well. Its just strange that waterchange is almost always suggested but that seams counterintuitive when lack of nitrates and phosphates is already the main issue. I had 3 dino blooms this last year UV was my magic bullet for getting rid of them. I would always give a package recommended amount of reef roids to boost phosphates and start feeding 2-3x what i was previously to start getting nitrates up. New people that typically get dinos usually aren't comfortable dosing just yet I know I wasn't during my first couple outbreaks.

I did water changes during my second outbreak, and it helped. However, I had a better idea of what I was doing the second time. I was essentially doing mini rip cleans by siphoning out the top layer of sand and vacuuming the rock surface (I need to clean that sand and put it back it slowly during the next couple of weeks). I followed up the water changes with adequate nitrate, phosphate, and silicate dosing. I did 3 mini rip cleans before dinos were gone. I kept my nitrates above 10ppm, phosphates above 0.1ppm, and silicates around 1.0ppm for 2-3 weeks before the mini rip cleans, and made sure I had a diatom bloom before changing any water. Without elevated nutrients, my water changes might not have done anything to help the situation.

I was battling prorocentrum; UV was of no help to me during the first go. I did not bother with it the second time.

I agree with you that various magic potions are suggested to combat dinos all over the interest and some on this thread. As a newbie, it is very confusing and overwhelming. My best advice to newbies is to get a cheap microscope and ID the beast. Think about remedies once they have an ID. Without an ID, it is a shot in the dark.

 

[vetteguy53081]

@vetteguy53081


please respond to requests here, why haven't you responded back to Gobi's help post, he needs you to stick around until its fixed.



peroxide really has fixed some dinos invasions, that's why a fifty page peroxide thread is linked as a sticky up top.

but


actually seeing jobs through to completion is 100% different, by a mile, and you have to invest time into getting actual fixes logged before that info you paint as 100% certain becomes 25% likely.

I work for a living and some days don’t even know what time I’m getting home. He’s always welcome to pm me for which I will realize he is trying to get more info
Will check on this later when I get a free moment
Not sure who goby is ?? I respond as I can and as time allows. I have 2 back to back meetings shortly

 

[Dani305]

I have kept the lights off today decided I will do 24 hours. I fed a about half a mysis shrimp square, and some pellets. I also did a capful of phyto in my sump. I told my bf to feed the other have of the shrimp around 3pm ish.

I have the UV light on in my refugium.

 

[Acros]

I believe you will have to keep UV in/suck water directly from the display until dinos are gone.

A sump will not usually have enough turnover for UV to keep up with the rate at which Dino’s multiply. I hope that makes sense.