Dino Problem

[badams92]

We have a Red Sea 135 gallon Max S-series salt water tank. They system is 11 months old and we’ve had dinos for 4-5 months. Our fish are very happy, the weekly water tests are perfect including nitrates (trace) and phosphates (trace), which has been the case for months. We have lost some coral and a few snails over the last two months including two birds nests, a ricordea mushroom and one toadstool.

Our local aquarium store has given us a lot of advice so this is what we have tried with no luck.

- Black Out Days
- Reduced white lights & total time with lights
- ChemiClean treatments
- Vibrant treatments
- Fritz Algae Clean Out
- Ich Attack treatments

Our last solution was to use DinoX so we did 8 treatments, treating every two days. At this point the dinos are still going strong and gaining momentum.

Is there anything we can do or try differently to eliminate the dino problem? We seem to be running out of options. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[LiveWire]

Welcome to the REEF!!

It is best to have a microscope to find out which Dino you have and then treat from there.

The first time I tried a black out with dosing H202 and all that seemed to do for me was kill corals.

What worked for me was using a UV sterilizer bringing up my temperature to 82, dosing Microbacter 7, and then I would take out as much as I could by hand every day and i finally got it under control. I finally lowered my temp over a few days to 80.5 and so far have not seen them take off again. I am still running UV 24/7 and dosing MB7.

 

[badams92]

Welcome to the REEF!!

It is best to have a microscope to find out which Dino you have and then treat from there.

The first time I tried a black out with dosing H202 and all that seemed to do for me was kill corals.

What worked for me was using a UV sterilizer bringing up my temperature to 82, dosing Microbacter 7, and then I would take out as much as I could by hand every day and i finally got it under control. I finally lowered my temp over a few days to 80.5 and so far have not seen them take off again. I am still running UV 24/7 and dosing MB7.

Thanks fort the reply!

We were already thinking about adding a UV stabilizer to the system so if you have a recommendation on a unit that has worked well for you please let me know.

 

[LOVEROCK]

Is it the one that breaks off in night and comes back during lights on , some Dino’s uv can’t target because they aren’t water borne

 

[ShepherdReefer]

I had to install a UV with a higher flow to help rid of the algae problems.

 

[schuby]

What are your actual values for phosphate and nitrate? What test kits do you use for each?

 

[ReefBeta]

I took care of dino by raising phosphate to over 0.03 ppm by dosing, kept dosing for couple weeks before it stable. Then I cleaned my UV to brought it back to fill power. These two get rid of most dino. The last thing I did was carbon dosing with vodka. It gave the dino the final blow, but also killed couple frags, so I just stopped. You can read more detail on the last couple posts on my build thread.

 

[I’m Batman]

I am still running UV 24/7 and dosing MB7.

How much MB7 per gallon?

 

[LiveWire]

just using the recommended dose of 5ML per 25 Gallons.

 

[I’m Batman]

@LiveWire - I was worried about the ULN section of the Mb7 directions saying to use only 1 drop every other day... I’m pretty sure I knocked back Dino’s last year with this product but was blasting it in tank. Now I’m dosing No3 and Po4 I’m a little more careful.

Any other tips on usage?