Dinos / do's / don'ts - Discussion

[GoVols]

In early 2015 my reef got dinos.
It was the worst reefing experience that I've ever had.
When it was all said and done I lost over 80% of two years worth of SPS growth

I started with making 20% daily water changes and it only seemed to fuel the dino strain that I had even more.

After about 90 days I bought some Ultra Algae-X and it did the job for that strain. Lost all inverts except my BTA. I think that product has been renamed to Dino-X.

So, What really are dino's and what is the proper treatment for them?
Do they come in from coral introduction / do they like low nutrient conditions?

And so on...

If I ever get them again. It would be nice to know what actions need to be taken from the get go.


Regards, GoVols

 

[brandon429]

-remove all invading mass always, leave none that can be seen, and then do all method of prevention only after human export makes your system seem like there is none. Be busier than ever on day 1, whereas 99% wait until full invasion to begin considering a partial removal effort.

begin all chemistry adjustments, competition adjustments and nutrient additions or balancing only in the uninvaded condition. a work component precedes everything 100% of the time if we are serious about beating them.

do opposite of what the fully invaded masses do, which is leave the early growths in the tank, to take over. nobody says you have to leave huge masses of dinos in the system while you endlessly tinker with nutrients to quell them.

tinker with nutrients to prevent their growback, you can't see any actual mats because you remove them, always.

your removal efforts will save you long before some luck combos will, or the dino threads would be shut and close cure threads and they're not, they're a bunch of trial and error and UV statements every second page

the new way is nutrient tuning, but the old way is get them the ham out of your reef and all nano reefs can be made invasion free through that attitude. sustained invasions are only for large tankers with limited water table and substrate access. big tankers better have a nice nice UV handy too, imo.

UV beats most known methods. even if you don't want to run it all the time, you are playing with doom here.

consider removing sandbeds from the harsher strain invasions, or if that sandbed is important, get ready for a very long long haul per the threads. they love to recess into the bed while you attack! or coax the waters above.

pull the sandbed, beat the dinos, stop all anti dino moves for three months, add not another living thing to that aquarium vs clean change water (stop yer vectoring, the sole cause of all dino invasions, they are not in all systems Ive never had them once in 18 years of reefing) and if that system is dino free several months later, add back a clean new sandbed and quarantine everything for the rest of your time.


aggression wins.


if at any time you can look into an aquarium and see dino mats, you are seeing someone opting in and their only hope is a lucky external locus of control.


soooo many times reefers begin nutrient changes in response to an invader that gets in by hitchhiking, set your nutrients to what corals want.

act on your invaders when you can visually spot them

 

[GoVols]

-remove all invading mass always, leave none that can be seen, and then do all method of prevention only after human export makes your system seem like there is none. Be busier than ever on day 1, whereas 99% wait until full invasion to begin considering a partial removal effort.

do opposite of what the fully invaded masses do, which is leave the early growths in the tank, to take over.

UV beats most known methods.

I did all of that from day one, except UV.

Thanks for your input.

 

[ajm83]

Complete blackouts, raising nutrients and Dino-X.


I tried lots and lots of things, those worked for me. I had (at least) two types verified using microscope.

 

[GoVols]

Complete blackouts, raising nutrients and Dino-X.


I tried lots and lots of things, those worked for me. I had (at least) two types verified using microscope.

Lol,
If I had to go back I would have used Dino-X from day one, but it might be the wrong call????

 

[Jason mack]

Don’t clean your glass for a few days let the algae get a hold .. add bacteria (I use special blend)

 

[Jason mack]

Lol,
If I had to go back I would have used Dino-X from day one, but it might be the wrong call????

I’ve heard dinoX can have a negative affect on acros and that !

 

[GoVols]

I’ve heard dinoX can have a negative affect on acros and that !

It definitely makes your LPS shrivel up and you have to dose it by the book.

Worked for my strain with no more sps damage but it sure is a wicked treatment

So, You dosed bacteria's?

 

[GoVols]

@mdbannister
What is your overall thoughts to post #1?

Seems like you helped out Rakie when he had Dinos.

 

[Jason mack]

It definitely makes your LPS shrivel up and you have to dose it by the book.

Worked for my strain with no more sps damage but it sure is a wicked treatment

So, You dosed bacteria's?

Yes , I was told that you get Dino’s when your N and P bottom out ( which is what happened to me )then the Dino’s take over and out compete the good bacteria in your tank .. so by not cleaning the glass for a couple of weeks and syphoning out as much of the Dino’s everyday and dosing peroxide .and adding good bacteria again coupled with getting N and P up again ..well this has worked for me .. and I didn’t need a 3 day blackout !
Edit
I would like too add that I added filter socks and changed them out every day !
this is what I use for bacteria

 

[GoVols]

Yes , I was told that you get Dino’s when your N and P bottom out ( which is what happened to me )then the Dino’s take over and out compete the good bacteria in your tank .. so by not cleaning the glass for a couple of weeks and syphoning out as much of the Dino’s everyday and dosing peroxide .and adding good bacteria again coupled with getting N and P up again ..well this has worked for me .. and I didn’t need a 3 day blackout !
Edit
I would like too add that I added filter socks and changed them out every day !
this is what I use for bacteria

Jason,
Thank you for all the above!!!

 

[Jason mack]

Jason,
Thank you for all the above!!!

Your welcome Freddie , anytime and I hope you can over come your Dino’s !!

 

[ajm83]

I’ve heard dinoX can have a negative affect on acros and that !

It did for me, more of a last resort thing although it did work. Definitely try raising nutrients and blackouts first.

 

[firefishalumacraft]

I had my run in with Dino in July, I tried; lights out, H2O2 @2ml/10g, cleaning sand daily, and no water changes. It was a loosing battle in my 75g SPS tank. Before all this started I had 3 xr30s at 80% AB+, heavy skimming, bio-pellets and I let my nutrients get to 0 and I did large water changes constantly. When the Dinos came I tried everything I read on the forums and from the library about them and it was a loosing battle even with my levels as high as 10ppm nitrates and .09-.1 Po4 I started reading about refugiums and pods, plus I really didn't like pellets as it was hard to control my levels. I got a microscope and ID my Dino as Osteoprosis and Amphidinium and I found out that Oseo like to live on the rock and corals and Amp live in the sand bed. Both types love light and both die from H2O2 but nothing killed them completely. So I changed out my Sump for a Trigger 39 and made it a Triton style with the fuge first, no filter socks, h380, dropped bio-pellets, and ran my skimmer wet. I did this for a week and the Dino went into my refugium. I then added 10k pods and dosed live phytoplankton ( and still do). With in 2 weeks my Dino disappeared my SPS came back to life and my tanks healthy again. Now when I did see Dinos in the fuge I grabbed some and placed it under my microscope, I have to say pods are straight up murderers!!! I watched one pod kill every Dino on the slide, that pod went from one dino to another in seconds killing them and leaving them behind.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I think the evidence is pretty good that competition of some organism (maybe algae, maybe cyano, maybe something else) is a primary factor is keeping dino's from becoming a pest.

That competition might be for space only, or for one or more trace elements that organisms need.

Driving nutrients too low seems to encourage dinos, most likely be reducing that competition. By this explanation, adding the needed trace elements might also encourage them.

 

[Velcro]

Having dealt with ostreopsis many times, the most effective and quickest method of erradication for me was dosing nitrates to >5ppm and phosphate to 0.1ppm and adding an oversized UV (55 watt) with slow flow (150gph) in my 93 gallon tank. They went away within 72 hours... it was a miracle.

 

[brandon429]

I also think that for any type of invasion battling, knowing the true origins of an organism factors along the way in war practices. all forms of biological transfer have a traceable path, and for dinos they are not involved in most reefs, they're involved with some (talking invasive strains here) depending on your chain of command/sourcing of goods. Ive never seen them in my entire reefing, this is luck only.

if I did see them, they wouldn't overtake my tank because they cannot beat tapwater bed rinsing + power external rock rinsing and full water changes. completely exporting a body of water, because a nano is accessible, is the same effect as uv on a target = target gone. I think uv matters greatest for large tankers, and any nano tankers wanting to reduce a workload. UV is the best overall weapon Id ever vote for in a true dinos challenge.

Love the idea of pod competition, that will likely lead the future as this scourge is getting transferred/vectored from more and more places now. I wonder if online trading is involved in the boom, this is not a 90s scourge, and that too means something in reflection about etiology, epidemiology of the specific strains of dinos that cause invasion.


They for sure do not come about due to any nutrient issues, they only hitch in or they do not hitch in and its most important to know they're still a minority risk hitchhiker, you are more likely to bring in valonia.

Clearly a case has been made that once simple hitchhiking brings them in, including on the slime coat of fishes, nutrient issues and competitive issues come directly into play affecting continued expression.





someone post a link to live, dino eating pods

The microbe lift above is a well-known microbial competition product as well.

ipsf going out of bus I think I read?

its neat to know that pre removal of a target, lessening of a self-supporting communal mass, is never harmful no matter what approach the keeper will use for the final move against the target. you can still nutrient alter, pod battle, and UV a tank that the keeper refuses to let grow into a huge obvious mass of invader. never lose the work component.

 

[brandon429]

I think that simple quarantine of all substrate additions for a period of 90 days covers the known variation between hitchhiking and expression in invasive dino strains. I do not think they ride in a majority of reefs, and sit idle for years, these invasive strains. I think their level of activity in reef tank invasions is indicative of organisms that don't rely heavily on dormancy, I think they like communal support. varying feed and resources a slimy matrix (group of dinos) must capture and hold nicely...grouping is also phalanx protection as well against dinoflagellate predators, the pods we add have a better chance when added against a lesser mass.

break up the groups as the core habit.

Even if we don't have super accurate data on these facts now, prediction= the time between hitching and expression is not super extended, its a quicker timeframe, ergo lack of QT is the true cause here.

Until fish vectoring is better understood, how hitching there interacts with sloughing of cellular matrix etc, that w remain a huge quarantine challenge.

DNA's dino thread at reefcentral, chem forum, one of the earliest huge dino threads, has the stuff on fish vectoring.

 

[GoVols]

Your welcome Freddie , anytime and I hope you can over come your Dino’s !!

Jason,
I got them in 2015 and hope that I never get them again

 

[GoVols]

I have to say pods are straight up murderers!!! I watched one pod kill every Dino on the slide, that pod went from one dino to another in seconds killing them and leaving them behind.

That's pretty amazing.