DINOS!!! Help me KILL THEM ALL!!!

Daniel@R2R · Jan 22, 2017

Ok...so I didn't want to admit how bad this dinos thing has been, and I was hoping I was getting it under control...but then Saturday morning came, and these guys came back with a vengeance. :mad:

Here's a bit of history...

- Tank is still pretty new. It was set up in November.
- A couple of weeks ago, I was dosing maintenance dose of vibrant aquarium cleaner and accidentally (before coffee) dosed 10x the prescribed dose

(like I said, it was BC...I read 10 ml per 10 gals instead of 1 ml per 10 gals).

- The tank rocked on for a week with no noticeable issues. (I didn't have a spot of algae.

)
- I typically do a 10% (5g) water change on Mondays, and this time I decided to do 20g just as a precaution to bring things back in line after my vibrant mishap...
- Got up on Tuesday morning, and the tank was covered in dinos.
*I'm not sure if I should blame the vibrant, but it's the only thing (well...only thing other than the water change) that seems like it might have contributed.
- I talked to a few friends and from what they shared, I thought perhaps cutting back on feeding and dosing bacteria (I bought Dr. Tim's Waste Away) might be a way to starve the dinos out of existence. My logic was that the Dr. Tim's might out compete the dinos. I dosed 3 times over 6 days and it seemed to be working. The dinos died way back after the first dose and it seemed like each additional dose was helping to win the war...until...
- This past Friday night I added some new corals, and Saturday morning...BOOM! Dinos are back in full force with renewed vengeance.

:mad::mad::mad::mad:

My current params are:

Alk 8.6
Salt 1.024
PO4 .05

That brings you guys up to speed at this point...I'm considering a black out to try to beat them back, but I'm open to other ideas too. What have you found to work?

ndrwater · Jan 22, 2017

Steve Garrett was using yeast. According to him, it works well.

Daniel@R2R · Jan 22, 2017

ndrwater said:
Steve Garrett was using yeast. According to him, it works well.

Any idea how much he was dosing or what kind?

twilliard · Jan 22, 2017

Hey Daniel we need to see what species of dino's you have. Save the tank stress as a blackout will not kill every cell.
You can't starve these guys, they are too efficient at what they do.

ndrwater · Jan 22, 2017

mdbannister said:
Any idea how much he was dosing or what kind?

I don't remember the dosage, but just regular brewer's yeast. PM me and I'll give you his #

Daniel@R2R · Jan 22, 2017

twilliard said:
Hey Daniel we need to see what species of dino's you have. Save the tank stress as a blackout will not kill every cell.
You can't starve these guys, they are too efficient at what they do.

How would I know what the strain is? Can we tell with a picture?

Jakepen · Jan 22, 2017

mdbannister said:
How would I know what the strain is? Can we tell with a picture?

Probably would have to be under a microscope.

Daniel@R2R · Jan 22, 2017

Here are a few pictures of this evil spawn...

Thankfully, so far the coral seems mostly ok (except for the three in the top pic, but they're not looking any worse than they did a week ago)...here's my ASD rainbow "frag"

Vaughn17 · Jan 22, 2017

I had the snotty brown variety. My nitrate was very low, as was PO4, so I started dosing Nitrate. Within two days they were gone and they haven't returned (been almost a year now).

d2mini · Jan 22, 2017

I've got a little bit of that snot(i have a thread in the triton forum).
I've now been dosing nitrates because I then realized I was at zero, but it hasn't gone away yet. It may be less though.

saltyfilmfolks · Jan 22, 2017

Ummm. Thinking......
Actual Dino's are REALLY rare out here. Seeing a tank like that's actually kinda rare. IME.

Rick.45cal · Jan 23, 2017

That's no home for the wrecker!

Mystery brown stuff! The bain of all newish tanks. You need a microscope (I do too, join the club). Sometimes that stuff just up and decides to disappear (not very often, but it has been known to happen).

I hope you get them under control. I'd be sending twillard a sample to see if he could tell me what they were and maybe a specific strategy.

Don't let them get you down or hurt your pride, that's the unseen damage of dinos.

Daniel@R2R · Jan 23, 2017

Thanks guys. This stuff is a bummer for sure. I'd buy a microscope to look at it, but I still wouldn't know what it was (other than lookin pretty cool)! I'm happy to send some to @twilliard or talk about other options. I just want it GONE!!

Rick.45cal · Jan 23, 2017

mdbannister said:
Thanks guys. This stuff is a bummer for sure. I'd buy a microscope to look at it, but I still wouldn't know what it was (other than lookin pretty cool)! I'm happy to send some to @twilliard or talk about other options. I just want it GONE!!

That would be my issue with the microscope too, but just like reefkeeping you have to start somewhere!

Besides you could get one with a camera and send Todd pictures

. Some microscopes make the homewrecker look affordable

Waters · Jan 23, 2017

I had good luck with an over-sized UV unit (along with the other traditional methods for eliminating Dinos such as blackouts, bacteria dosing, manual removal, etc). Once I installed the UV, that totally finished them off.

aaron23 · Jan 23, 2017

The tanks still very new let it run its course... no need to go crazy trying to find a solution time will adjust this along with good husbandry and water changes

twilliard · Jan 23, 2017

Sorry for the late reply!
Yes it needs to be seen under a scope but I do have a feeling that it is dinoflagellates. Shoot me a PM if you are interested in sending me a sample if you don't have access to a scope.

Ocelaris · Jan 23, 2017

To add to the others, I just have the brown film dinos on the glass, but if I keep my nitrates at 2-4ppm I basically don't have to clean the glass. Spectracide stump remover is cheap, readily available and you can start to see results in a week. Has the added advantage of coloring up your corals too. I was frustrated looking forever for an answer, bugger skimmer, more water changes etc... This helped me out a lot. Sorry to sound like a broken record, but it's a cheap quick fix if you have a good Nitrate test and are willing to test heavy for a week or two.

reeferfoxx · Jan 23, 2017

mdbannister said:
Here are a few pictures of this evil spawn...

Thankfully, so far the coral seems mostly ok (except for the three in the top pic, but they're not looking any worse than they did a week ago)...here's my ASD rainbow "frag"

This looks more like cyano on top of hair algae? I wouldn't go too crazy until you get positive ID. I say this because of my own experience with starting a tank with dry man made rock and the roller coaster of ups and downs.

Not to mention your semi-high PO4 with the addition of *cough*vibrant cyano starter. My guess is you depleted any NO3 and now you've created an imbalance of nutrients. My recommendation is to stop *cough*vibrant and look into getting NO3 up. Though, I could be wrong.

RMS18 · Jan 23, 2017

It's almost weekly that another dino thread pops up. Some company has to find a reef safe cure.

I got them under control in my last system right before I broke the system down and upgraded. I had a cyno break out then the sand became pure white again. Then 2 weeks later I broke it down after fighting dinos for months lol