Dino Disaster

[pasquale petrovia]

I have been keeping salt water aquariums for 34 years now. I have had reef tanks for about 25 years. I took 2 years off and broke down my 225 gallon tank. I started it up again with my old rock about 20 moths ago. I cycled it with Dr. Tim's and amazingly in about 8 days my tank cycled. I went with fish only for about 6 months then added a few sps. Things were great until a power outage flood at about 14 months started a hair algae issue due to emergency water change without RO water. In 2 months I cleared that up with cleaning and bi weekly water changes. Then came the DINO'S. I always had real live rock with coralline coverage, 0 Nitrates and low Phosphate and I guess great biodiversity. This stuff is SUCKS. In 34 years I had never heard anyone have this until I typed it in on this site. Black-outs, clean water, dirty water, Nitrates, phosphates, Peroxide, Vodka dosing,bubbling, activated carbon, Dr. Tim's method, Elegans method. I have done it all. I see why people quit the hobby. After my second 3 day black-out 2 weeks ago and a power washing of my rock and backing down my lighting cycle to 2 hours daylight 6 hours Blue plus. It looks as if maybe I am getting somewhere. Phosphates at .17 and nitrates a little high at 25. PH at 8.0 and trying to get higher with Kalk reactor on make-up. 36 watt UV sterilizer fed by about 700 gpm and filter sock changes daily. This stuff is a nightmare. I am afraid to do a water change. I am considering buying 40 pounds of Florida live rock and curing and adding ASAP. I don't might a challenge, but this stuff is relentless. Back in the day sterile water was no problem. I kept some SPS in a mixed reef in the upper areas without issues. I watched Mike Palletta videos of his new tech and dry rock issues and he had to resort to sump rock from an old tank to kick start his new setup. I used to get Tonga, Sulewesi, Marshall rock in 50 pound boxes and cure in 2 weeks, but times have changed. Nobel Peace Prize to whomever can stop the DINO PLAGUE.

 

[andrewey]

I feel your pain.

Sounds like you've thrown the kitchen sink at the problem, but just a quick thought- if you set up the 225 gallon again, your 36 watt UV is likely not sufficiently large to help eradicate the dinos (assuming it's one of the species that responds well to UV). Therefore, if I'm correct in my reading of your post, you might consider adding a second or upgrading your UV sterilizer to achieve the 0.3-0.5W/gallon suggestion in the dino thread. However, as this can be quite expensive, it might be worth IDing which dino you are dealing with to ensure you don't have a species where UV is unlikely to be effective (amphidinium).

That being said, I certaintly don't think there is any harm in purchasing Florida live rock if that's the direction that calls to you.

 

[rkpetersen]

I'm going to suggest an approach to dinos that has worked extremely well for me. However although I've described it here before, I haven't gotten feedback from anyone else as to whether it worked for them as well.

Dino's reproduce extremely fast, and if you just kill them, they release all their toxins back into the water. So my approach was to remove them and just keep removing them until they stop coming back. I did this by siphoning dinos and tank water into a bucket through a 1 micron filter sock, and then immediately putting the filtered water back in the tank. If there are still dinos visible in the tank, I'd immediately do it again. And again. And again a few hours later if I saw they were coming back. You can do this as many times a day as necessary, without affecting water chemistry, as this is a filtration and not a water change. I've done a 20% filtration as many as 5 times in one day. Just clean out the sock well between each filtration.

With this technique, combined with allowing nitrate/phosphate to climb naturally, and a low dose of Dino X to help suppress regrowth, the tank was completely free of dinos in 2 weeks. And no subsequent recurrence.

You can get 1 micron filter bags on Amazon, probably other places too.

 

[andrewey]

I'm going to suggest an approach to dinos that has worked extremely well for me. However although I've described it here before, I haven't gotten feedback from anyone else as to whether it worked for them as well.

Dino's reproduce extremely fast, and if you just kill them, they release all their toxins back into the water. So my approach was to remove them and just keep removing them until they stop coming back. I did this by siphoning dinos and tank water into a bucket through a 1 micron filter sock, and then immediately putting the filtered water back in the tank. If there are still dinos visible in the tank, I'd immediately do it again. And again. And again a few hours later if I saw they were coming back. You can do this as many times a day as necessary, without affecting water chemistry, as this is a filtration and not a water change. I've done a 20% filtration as many as 5 times in one day. Just clean out the sock well between each filtration.

With this technique, combined with allowing nitrate/phosphate to climb naturally, and a low dose of Dino X to help suppress regrowth, the tank was completely free of dinos in 2 weeks. And no subsequent recurrence.

You can get 1 micron filter bags on Amazon, probably other places too.

Do you happen to know which dino species you had by chance?

 

[rkpetersen]

Do you happen to know which dino species you had by chance?

Ostreopsis. Haven't tried it with the more stubborn species.

 

[NS Mike D]

hang in there, I was hours away from shutting down my tank after losing my will to fight dinos, when i made a left turn and nuked the tank and restarted. I am not suggesting you do that, just offering support to carry you through the journey until you can look at your tank and it makes you smile again.

But you are right. I am convinced that the hobby is turning the page on the risks sterile tanks (ie dry rock and zero NO3/PO4) pose with the infestation of dinos, and shifting the the focus how the microfauna is a key part of the CUC and overall health of a reef tank biosphere.

I felt helpless. The tank, was depressing me. The thought of throwing any more money and time into the abyss of death seemed insane.

Today, I am so glad I didn't give up.

And I am far more in tune, nay, shall I say in love, with the micro fauna in my tank and their war with the evil dinos. I feed and care for those tiny and invisible buggers just as much as I do for my fish and corals.

See you on the other side.

 

[Baronen]

I have a theory that lfs’s rarely stocking real live rock anymore has caused this outbreak of Dino’s a lot of people are experiencing

 

[Thaxxx]

I agree with above.
Not using "real" ocean live rock from the start seems to be the common denominator for eventual Dono's. Starting with dry rock with bottled snake oil is the reason we see so many Dino threads in my opinion. And coupled with no patients in letting the tank mature. If you look at all of the online vendors on here with their coral live sales, 80% or more of the traffic during the live sales are people with less than a year on this site. Many of them much less than a year. Those are the people without patience and buy acro coral and are asking a month later on here, "why are my coral all dying?" Everyday on here. It's because your tank was not established enough to support them. Same thing goes for Dino's.

 

[pasquale petrovia]

I am no scientist, but the bacteria used to be from sewage plants not from the ocean. I have been dropping in pods in and now I am adding some phyto. I am scared to kick start the dinos again. Dr Tim claims his strain is taken from reef tanks. I agree you need patience in this hobby, but all these dino stories have a common thread. No more true live rock. I used to take a flash lite at night and there was more happening than with the lights on. Worms, pods, serpent stars, and things swimming and spinning all over the tank. Not now

 

[jeffrey750750]

I agree with above.
Not using "real" ocean live rock from the start seems to be the common denominator for eventual Dono's. Starting with dry rock with bottled snake oil is the reason we see so many Dino threads in my opinion. And coupled with no patients in letting the tank mature. If you look at all of the online vendors on here with their coral live sales, 80% or more of the traffic during the live sales are people with less than a year on this site. Many of them much less than a year. Those are the people without patience and buy acro coral and are asking a month later on here, "why are my coral all dying?" Everyday on here. It's because your tank was not established enough to support them. Same thing goes for Dino's.

I used 60 lbs of premium live rock in a 60 cube and had dinos. Mine started because my tank became too clean from eradicating gha

 

[jeffrey750750]

If I were to get them again.
No water changes
Over feed my fish
Raise temp to 82
Try to keep ph at 8.4
Use microbacter7 along with biofuel, both by brightwell
Suck out and blow off as much as possible daily
I did try twillards approach with clorox bleach at the beginning which seem to help but stopped due to not wanting any of my fish to die.

 

[Thaxxx]

I used 60 lbs of premium live rock in a 60 cube and had dinos. Mine started because my tank became too clean from eradicating gha

Where did you get your live rock from? "live rock" on this forum means different things depending who you ask. I only know 2 types of live rock. Direct from the ocean and kept submerged in water then directly to your tank. And long established live rock from a long established aquarium.

 

[jeffrey750750]

Where did you get your live rock from? "live rock" on this forum means different things depending who you ask. I only know 2 types of live rock. Direct from the ocean and kept submerged in water then directly to your tank. And long established live rock from a long established aquarium.

You got me on that one, it was completely full of coraline and it was from the lfs at 9 dollars a pound. At Ieast i thought it was the good stuff.

 

[hobbyreefer]

Did yours get this bad? I introduced a regal angel without proper QT. Got Velvet in the tank and lost half my fish in one day. Removed all rock from the tank so I could capture and QT the remaining fish. I then got a terrible GHA outbreak followed by plague proportions of Dino’s. After dropping enough money in this tank to buy a decent used car this was pretty disheartening... I ended up buying a large Pentair UV and plumed it display tank to display tank. Blacked out the tank for 5 days and beat the Dino’s in about two weeks. I know there are different types of Dino’s and people seem to have different levels of success. I hope you find something that works well for you.

 

[pasquale petrovia]

I have a bare bottom tank. Yes it got as bad as yours Hobby reefer. I tried everything except bleach. I bought a microscope and saw 2 kinds of dinos Ostreopsis and Prorocentrum. I really had to look for them to find them because I got microscope after 1st blackout and saw more algae than dinos. The Prorocentrum hardly move.