A sad day for ReefQueen

ReefQueen · May 23, 2016

This has got to be one of the most depressing things I have had to do to a tank.

Ok I guess it could be worse, but for me it is pretty upsetting. Can you guess what I am dealing with for the first time in my almost 6 years of reefing? If you guessed dinos, you would be correct!

I have been dosing h2o2 for a few days and it has been getting worse, so after I got home from work today I got the courage to start a 3 day black out.

I knew I was saving these old baby shower bags for a reason lol. I WAS going to use garbage bags, but the new box my hubby picked up were thin white instead of the black ones we had just finished using. I left a small area on top open so the fish had a little light to see. I am so worried about the fish and the anemones. I know I will be peeking in there 100 times a day to make sure they are ok and the bta isn't going towards the powerhead. I am fully expecting it to move and that is what worries me the most. Once we get past the "newbie" stage (if that ever even ends in this hobby lol) we don't like to admit our mistakes it seems. Well I am admitting mine, at least what I think contributed to the dinos appearing. Too many water changes too quickly! I was taking water from the tank and using it for the QT every other day to battle ammonia spikes. This is not a fact, but I feel this is the main reason, but I am open to any other suggestions

. So I am going to try and not have a panic attack for 3 days, continue to dose h2o2, and stop doing WCs for at least another week. Wish me, and more importantly my tanks inhabitants, luck

JaimeAdams · May 23, 2016

Dinos suck. I had dinos in a tank. After awhile I just gave up and emptied the tank. Good luck with it, I hope that they go away for you.

ngvu1 · May 23, 2016

Sorry to hear; why not use ChemiClean red slime remover? 3 days black out might not work as fast as the ChemiClean....Just a thought.

ReefQueen · May 23, 2016

JaimeAdams said:
Dinos suck. I had dinos in a tank. After awhile I just gave up and emptied the tank. Good luck with it, I hope that they go away for you.

Thanks, me too! I am hoping I do not have to resort to tearing it down and starting over, I really like my aquascape lol

ReefQueen · May 23, 2016

ngvu1 said:
Sorry to hear; why not use ChemiClean red slime remover? 3 days black out might not work as fast as the ChemiClean....Just a thought.

Does chemiclean work on dinos? I thought that was for cyano?

JaimeAdams · May 23, 2016

chemiclean kills dinos?

ngvu1 · May 23, 2016

Cyanos only. I looked at the picture and I thought you had Cyanos....

Shoot, I re-read and you did say Dino

sorry

ReefQueen said:
Does chemiclean work on dinos? I thought that was for cyano?

Tahoe61 · May 23, 2016

Fish and corals will be fine. I did the 3 day black out for dino about 6 or 7 years back. Look at it as reaching a goal, returning to your tank to pre dino era.

ReefQueen · May 23, 2016

Tahoe61 said:
Fish and corals will be fine. I did the 3 day black out for dino about 6 or 7 years back. Look at it as reaching a goal, returning to your tank to pre dino era.

Thank you, that is reassuring

did you only have to do the black out, or did you do something afterward to keep it at bay?

hybridazn · May 23, 2016

That stinks, I think after 3 solid days of total darkness and afterwards do a nice size water change and I think you will be ok. Just make sure you don't reintroduce it ever haha.

ReefQueen · May 23, 2016

hybridazn said:
That stinks, I think after 3 solid days of total darkness and afterwards do a nice size water change and I think you will be ok. Just make sure you don't reintroduce it ever haha.

Thanks, definitely a downer. I can see how it turns off people who are just starting out and end up tearing down their tanks. So you think a WC right after is ok? I have been reading and reading about dinos and it seems mixed on this topic. Some say that dinos love water changes (which makes sense since mine showed up after all the WCs i was doing) and they often come back after one if done shortly after the lights are back on, others don't have not issue. I guess the only way to know is to actually do one lol. I am running carbon to help with the toxins the dinos release and my gfo is still going too. My skimmer is turning way down now though because it was going nuts shortly after I started the black out for some reason. I am going to give it a good scrub tomorrow. It also sucks that I just replenished my CUC right before the dinos showed up and I lost a lot of the snails

ReefQueen · May 23, 2016

Oh does anyone know if I need to acclimate everything to the lights again after the 3 days is up? Should I turn the intensity down or would everything be fine at the intensity it was set at? I can turn them back on Wednesday at night when the moons are on and let the lights ramp up normally Thursday if that won't cause any issues.

Arron209 · May 23, 2016

I had dinos once and used fauna marin's algae x (dino x). They went away after the first treatment and never returned

Salty1962 · May 23, 2016

There's a golden reef at the end of the rainbow, soon you'll have yours. Sorry to hear, I also had something for the first time in 20+ years of reefing, AEFW:mad:

4FordFamily · May 23, 2016

I fought it for over a year ukrunsteky huge water changes and then copper treatment in the tank for ich did it. More of an accident that it's gone but I'm glad it's over

Waters · May 23, 2016

You will read there are MANY different methods of ridding a tank of dinos....in my experience no one method works. You need to combine multiple methods to totally remove it from your system. Also, what works for one tank, may not work for another. In my case, it was doing blackouts along with installing an efficient UV sterilizer.

4FordFamily · May 23, 2016

Waters said:
You will read there are MANY different methods of ridding a tank of dinos....in my experience no one method works. You need to combine multiple methods to totally remove it from your system. Also, what works for one tank, may not work for another. In my case, it was doing blackouts along with installing an efficient UV sterilizer.

Oh yeah I added a UV also. Peroxide helped at first and then it seemed to become resistant to it over time

Salt-Lick · May 23, 2016

I've had to do the same thing. It sucks. Keep us posted on resultes. I'd make sure to do a water change when u r done with the black out.

twilliard · May 23, 2016

It sure looks like spirulina to me which h2o2 does not work well against

brandon429 · May 23, 2016

I was going to write, 90% chance that is not dinos at least as an exclusive community invasion, that's not the exact morphology we see in those kinds of invasions. The approach taken is ok for these nonfixed invaders though.

continued from any tank invasion thread, adding X to the water or taking action X on the water while an invader is purposefully left in the tank is not the same chance of sealing a positive outcome as meticulous removal of the invader using the most thorough techniques, including external rock cleaning and sand top layer siphoning, and then taking action X to the water from a perfectly clean state. that was the direct causative of the takeover as well, the mass spreading and giving support to members in the mass (catching feed, chemical benefits etc) so a key trick in restoration is the work required to reverse that growth, along with the cheats mentioned like UV, blackout and peroxide.