Dino help

[hawk82]

I have long stringy brownish strands some with bubbles in them on my rocks and sand, Im thinking its dinos. I did a water change yesterday and added chemi-purr elite, and today it seems worse! What can I do to get it under control? My tank is not very old, 6 months at most, and I only have 1 fish, and a few crabs and snails.

 

[150 Gallon Reef]

What are your parameters? 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate are big contributors to dinos. You need more organic waste (fish poop, fish food) in your tank if your parameters stated above, are at 0. Don't do any water changes. Replenishing nutrients only make them grow faster

 

[hawk82]

Yes 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate. 5 gallon water change yesterday made it worse.

 

[150 Gallon Reef]

Yes 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate. 5 gallon water change yesterday made it worse.

Yeah same thing happened to me a little while ago. Bring those nitrates and phosphates up. No more water changes until it's under control. Increase flow in the tank also. Take out chemipure

 

[hawk82]

Should I be looking into someting like Dino X or cant I beat it without chemicals?

 

[150 Gallon Reef]

Try without chemicals. I may be old fashioned but I always try to beat the issue naturally before using chemicals. Chemicals also do not fix the root of the issue. Lack of bacteria is one of the issues

 

[taliesin]

I've battled Dino's for a little while myself. I think I'm coming out the other side of it now. I tried various water changes (only to make things worse with making the water to clean), chemical solutions (that didn't affect it at all).

My Nitrate and Phos were showing 0 for both. (keep in mind that it is actually a false positive as Dino's will out compete other bacteria for those items).

What I did was a 3 day total blackout (cardboard the entire tank so no light could get in), started dosing phyto, and added some pods and new cheeto to the fuge). while doing this, I also set my light schedule back to 0 and have slowly increased the lighting on the LED's (keeping the whites off for now).

Keep in mind when you do the lights off approach you will see a spike in Nitrates and Phosphates, which is what you want to see. Just remember to let the Cheeto and pods take up the nitrates and phosphates and do not do a water change during this time, as Dino's will thrive in a "clean" system. Ideally (for me anyway), I shoot for having 2-5 Nitrates (salifert), and .5 Phosphates (Hanna Checker). Eventually, the Phosphates will need to come down slowly and I'm now shooting for 0.02.

Hope this helps.

 

[hawk82]

What about feeding the fish when you black out the tank?

 

[taliesin]

I fed mine through a door on the canopy, I did it with the lights in the room dimmed to ensure I didn't screw up the blackout. I didn't add any Nori or other algae to the tank, just Mysis PE frozen food.

Although, your fish should be able to survive without the food for 3 or more days at a time (I just preferred to feed them).

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

I tried everything before with mine. Blackout, peroxide, bacteria, and even bleach. The only thing that fixed it for me and did so within 48-72 hrs was adding a UV sterilizer and raising nutrients. Best addition ever and won’t run a tank without one now. I blasted the rocks as often as I could and blew them off again once more before lights out to get them into the column and be picked up by the sterilizer. Worked for me.

 

[hawk82]

How can I raise nutrients? Tank size is a 40 breeder, with only 1 fish. No corals yet. If you had to pick one, would you add a UV or add a hang on refugium with chaeto. No sump, just a hang on skimmer.

 

[150 Gallon Reef]

Add more fish to the tank and turn off your skimmer to increase nutrients. I'd do the sterilizer