Why do I still have Dinos??

[Gernader]

So, I have been trying to defeat Dinos for 2 weeks now. I confirmed it was Dinos by the coffee filter test, bubbles on rocks, and brown strings with bubbles on sand. There aren’t many brown strings on sand and corals, but I want to take action now. The Dinos appeared when I upgraded to a 75g with 30g sump from a 29g. I used the same live rocks that are a year old from my 29g and added about 50 pounds of marco reef saver rocks. The marco rocks were already used in someone’s tank, but they were bleached, rinsed and left dry for a while. I used 30 pounds of new dry coarse sand from Caribsea (threw away my old sand).

These are the steps I tried to reduce the dinos and it seems to be working, but still present.

- Added nitrifying bacteria rated up to 75g
- Dosed tigger pods
- Blow the sand and rocks every 1-2 days
- Fed heavily to increase phosphates and nitrates
- Rinsed the filter sock every 2-3 days
- Did a 3 day blackout (came back the next day sigh...)
- Using only blues for 8 hours a day
- Skipped water changes, it’s been 3 weeks so far
- Skimmer set to dry skim
- Lots of surface agitation

Water Parameters:
Salinity - 1.026 (Refractometer)
Temperature - 79 to 80 degrees
Ammonia - 0 (Red Sea)
Nitrite - 0 (Red Sea)
Nitrate - 2 to 3 ppm (Red Sea)
PO4 - 0.11 (Hanna)

I know I can try chemicals and UV, but I want to try other stuff first before going to them. Please give me some suggestions! Thanks in advance.

Pics:

 

[MelReefer]

Bump

 

[Hydrored]

If you used new saltwater when you did the upgrade it more than likely plummeted your nutrients just long enough. Every since my dino disaster I keep my Nitrates at 5-10 and phosphates at .08-.11. Unfortunately the only way I defeated them is with UV after doing all of the same steps you did.

 

[Gernader]

If you used new saltwater when you did the upgrade it more than likely plummeted your nutrients just long enough. Every since my dino disaster I keep my Nitrates at 5-10 and phosphates at .08-.11. Unfortunately the only way I defeated them is with UV after doing all of the same steps you did.

Yes, I did make new saltwater like 70g and my old tank water went in the sump. I will try UV if nothing else is working.

 

[Algaewarrior]

I had great success with UV.

 

[Johniejumbo]

I have read of people raising their temp to 82-83 degrees for a week and having some success. It’s still being tested by some people in the big Dino thread. I have no idea if the successes are coincidence or if raising temp can actually work. I’ll see if I can find the thread I saw that in.

 

[kapnkush608]

I heard recently that you can bring your temp up to like 83°F and it will get rid of the Dino's. I think there was an article and video about it recently.

 

[Gernader]

I had great success with UV.

Guess I need to get UV sooner than later lol

 

[Gernader]

I have read of people raising their temp to 82-83 degrees for a week and having some success. It’s still being tested by some people in the big Dino thread. I have no idea if the successes are coincidence or if raising temp can actually work. I’ll see if I can find the thread I saw that in.

I heard recently that you can bring your temp up to like 83°F and it will get rid of the Dino's. I think there was an article and video about it recently.

Huh, that’s interesting. I’m at 80 degrees now and I can try bumping it up over time if it actually works.

 

[Ajayabb]

I’m battling them myself and have been off and on for months. Have tried everything including dosing with Silica without luck. UV tends to work for most strains except Amphidinium which attaches to the sand pretty heavily and doesn’t enter the water column as much. I finally pulled the trigger before I gave up and am doing a 10 day black out with Peroxide dosing twice a day. Dino X didn’t work nor did keeping nutrients raised. I believe I have Osteopsis which has proven to be very stubborn. Let us know how you make out

 

[Gernader]

I’m battling them myself and have been off and on for months. Have tried everything including dosing with Silica without luck. UV tends to work for most strains except Amphidinium which attaches to the sand pretty heavily and doesn’t enter the water column as much. I finally pulled the trigger before I gave up and am doing a 10 day black out with Peroxide dosing twice a day. Dino X didn’t work nor did keeping nutrients raised. I believe I have Osteopsis which has proven to be very stubborn. Let us know how you make out

Sorry to hear that you are going through it. I’m sure I do not have Amphidinium strain since I only get 3 brown strings attached to sand and blows off pretty easily. As of right now, it seems to be reducing. I will let you know how it goes soon!

 

[Rick5]

I have battled dinos twice in a stocked SPS tank (particularly so the first time around), so you can imagine the carnage that transpired. I definitely feel your pain. I utilized a ton of bottled bacteria (to the point of absurdity), along with a pond UV sterilizer and refugium containing sea lettuce and chaeto. I also increased nutrients and used live phtyo and pods. If you were local, I'd give you my UV sterilizer and some macro algae to try out which, admittedly, isn't much help to you now. The combination of fixes I just described resolved the first dino infestation. The second dino infestation was my fault and I should have (and really did) know better. By increasing the nutrients the first time around (for dino and non-dino related reasons), a lot of that phosphate was absorbed by my live rock and sand, pushing me to then aggressively use lanthanum chloride and I essentially lost patience, while knowing about the issues of having a yo-yo in nutrients (i.e. lanthanum, leaching of phosphate and a repetition of the cycle). The second infestation was eradicated with a similar approach to what I've described above, but I also replaced my tank's dry rock with KP Aquatics rock (which was the closest thing I could find to real live rock at the time), followed by an extremely aggressive cleanup crew (and aggressive but not completely absurd feeding).

If you search my username and "dino" you'll find a more thorough/accurate account of what I did to tackle the problem, but the above is more or less my experience and I've scoured the internet for dino solutions in the process. Having that said, you asked why you still have dinos and my opinion is it's likely your dry rock. I am not a scientist and I know many people use dry rock who haven't experienced dinos, but I've set up a number of successful tanks with real live rock (in the past, before the ban) without ever experiencing dinos and while running ULNS, as well as NSW parameters which, at the time, was what most did for SPS.

 

[Gernader]

I have battled dinos twice in a stocked SPS tank (particularly so the first time around), so you can imagine the carnage that transpired. I definitely feel your pain. I utilized a ton of bottled bacteria (to the point of absurdity), along with a pond UV sterilizer and refugium containing sea lettuce and chaeto. I also increased nutrients and used live phtyo and pods. If you were local, I'd give you my UV sterilizer and some macro algae to try out which, admittedly, isn't much help to you now. The combination of fixes I just described resolved the first dino infestation. The second dino infestation was my fault and I should have (and really did) know better. By increasing the nutrients the first time around (for dino and non-dino related reasons), a lot of that phosphate was absorbed by my live rock and sand, pushing me to then aggressively use lanthanum chloride and I essentially lost patience, while knowing about the issues of having a yo-yo in nutrients (i.e. lanthanum, leaching of phosphate and a repetition of the cycle). The second infestation was eradicated with a similar approach to what I've described above, but I also replaced my tank's dry rock with KP Aquatics rock (which was the closest thing I could find to real live rock at the time), followed by an extremely aggressive cleanup crew (and aggressive but not completely absurd feeding).

If you search my username and "dino" you'll find a more thorough/accurate account of what I did to tackle the problem, but the above is more or less my experience and I've scoured the internet for dino solutions in the process. Having that said, you asked why you still have dinos and my opinion is it's likely your dry rock. I am not a scientist and I know many people use dry rock who haven't experienced dinos, but I've set up a number of successful tanks with real live rock (in the past, before the ban) without ever experiencing dinos and while running ULNS, as well as NSW parameters which, at the time, was what most did for SPS.

I really appreciate for telling me what you did and I wish I can borrow your UV, but you are on other side of the country. I was thinking my dry rocks are the problem too. When I had my old tank, I never experienced dinos due to having live rock with coralline algae already on them. I chose not to add more live rocks due to hitchhikers, aiptasia, etc. Hopefully in a couple of months, the coralline algae will start to come on the dry rocks to stop other types of algae to grow on them.

 

[Crustaceon]

This will sound odd but...Carbon dosing with the addition of beneficial bacteria. If you look at every successful method of dealing with dinos, it involves putting another organism (typically bacteria) in the system in a better position to out compete dinos. UV light kills free-floating dinos, but not so much bacteria = stronger bacteria population which then starves dinos. Same goes for carbon dosing with adding beneficial bacteria, blackouts, removing sand, etc.

 

[Gernader]

This will sound odd but...Carbon dosing with the addition of beneficial bacteria. If you look at every successful method of dealing with dinos, it involves putting another organism (typically bacteria) in the system in a better position to out compete dinos. UV light kills free-floating dinos, but not so much bacteria = stronger bacteria population which then starves dinos. Same goes for carbon dosing with adding beneficial bacteria, blackouts, removing sand, etc.

I added beneficial bacteria plus the bacteria from my old live rocks and my old filter media too. Although, I haven’t tried carbon dosing which I will look into it.

 

[Rick5]

I really appreciate for telling me what you did and I wish I can borrow your UV, but you are on other side of the country. I was thinking my dry rocks are the problem too. When I had my old tank, I never experienced dinos due to having live rock with coralline algae already on them. I chose not to add more live rocks due to hitchhikers, aiptasia, etc. Hopefully in a couple of months, the coralline algae will start to come on the dry rocks to stop other types of algae to grow on them.

My pleasure. My recommendation is that you stay the course for a bit longer. If you can get your hands on a piece of real or aged live rock, it's worth a shot. Moreover, if your livestock isn't suffering, I'd suggest just being patient and waiting it out. That way, you aren't spending copious amounts of money on items you wouldn't otherwise purchase or need. As far as I'm concerned, you have most (if not all) of the solutions to your dino problem in this thread.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Dino’s don’t go away overnight, it generally takes weeks/months for them to be beaten back.

 

[Gernader]

My pleasure. My recommendation is that you stay the course for a bit longer. If you can get your hands on a piece of real or aged live rock, it's worth a shot. Moreover, if your livestock isn't suffering, I'd suggest just being patient and waiting it out. That way, you aren't spending copious amounts of money on items you wouldn't otherwise purchase or need. As far as I'm concerned, you have most (if not all) of the solutions to your dino problem in this thread.

Thanks, I have researched a lot before treating Dinos. My corals and fish are acting like nothing happened (must be a good sign). I just checked my tank now and I only see the brown strings and bubbles on dry rocks. For my sand, I saw just a couple of brown strings (nothing too serious). I will keep doing the same treatments.

 

[Gernader]

Dino’s don’t go away overnight, it generally takes weeks/months for them to be beaten back.

Yes, I understand. I first thought I won’t experience Dinos just from a tank transfer. After I performed the treatments, the Dinos reduced a lot. I will continue the treatment process and hope it keeps decreasing.

 

[Rick5]

Check this out https://reefbuilders.com/2020/05/11/dinoflagellate-aquarium-treatment/