I've been vacuuming the sand bed every couple days to get as much as I can which results in maybe 5% water loss that I replace with new saltwater. Other than that, i haven't done any significant water changes in about a month to try to dirty it up naturally as much as possible.
Here is a pic of the dinos shortly after lights came on.
ok i c, here's what my experiences have been after successfully getting rid of dinos multiple times in my 4 year tank.
first off, i think there's a lot of misconception that "nutrient dropping out" somehow causes dino so the first reaction is to bring nutrient back up. what's actually happening is the other way around - "something" caused dinos to explode, and since they are a very efficient nutrient absorber, the dinos explosion is causing the levels to drop off. The real cause is generally a change anything that absorbs nutrient, or anything that produce nutrient that tipped the balance and caused extra nutrient in the system that caused dino to proliferate. in more nature tanks due to the biodiversity, temporary imbalances are more easily corrected because there's a lot more organisms absorbing the extra nutrient so dino doesn't take hold. In newer tanks such as yours, since dinos is a very fast nutrient absorber and you dn't have a lot of other biodiversity, its exploding.
I think if you've read a lot of posts, you probably already know most of the common treatment. However, you should understand the underlying mechanisms of these them b/c some are anti-synergistic. These generally fall in two categories - a "reduce growth condition to limit dino growth" vs "increase growth conditions to increase competition to keep dino in check". Since most of the treatments are not specifically targeting dinos and instead targets the entire biodiversity/microfauna, if you are "trying everything to see what sticks", some of the treatments are actually canceling themselves out. This is why dino's hard to beat for some people. Below is what i think of each of the common methods and when it's effective vs not effective:
1) raising nutrients - this is a "increase growth condition/raise competition" method. This only works if you actually have competition that you are trying to raise. Looking at the pictures of your rocks. it looks like its very bare so i'm guessing your system doesn't have a lot of competition yet. In cases like this, raising nutrient just means its more food to feed the dinos. Manual removal helps only if there's competition in the system that you are trying to nurture. Bacteria, cyano, algae, corals, are all competitors. So raising nutrient + manual removal of ONLY dinos will work. how long it takes depends on how small your starting population of competitors are.
2) Dosing Macrobactor or other bacteria bottles is another "raising competition" method, so it has synergies with raising nutrients.
3) reducing lighting period - this is a "reduce growth condition" method so it has anti-synergies with the two above. even tho dino need light, so does your corals/algae, which compete for nutrient. The organisms that need light the most would be most severely impacted so is that dinos vs something else depends on the specific make ups of individual tanks but generally b/c the reduced growth condition applies to all photosynthetic organisms, its has a bigger function of REDUCING competition.
4) UV - another "reduce growth" method - yes, it kills dinos, but it also inhibits algae and other bacteria competitors. Again, depends on what specific microorgansm is more susceptible to UV.
5) vaccuuming sandbed - manual dino removal is "increasing competition" but the nutrient removal is "reduce growth". so its hit or miss depending on which one of the two changes has a greater impact on your tank.
6) filter socks/increase nutrient export/skim - "reduce growth condition" method - has anti-synergies with any methods that try to increase competition.
As you can see from above, the key to effectively treating dinos depends on the specific combination of treatments you use.
