Dinos?

[dugthefish]

I'm currently battling dinos and before that it was cyano. This video makes a lot of sense to me. Lack of good bacteria due to low NO3 PO4 causes dinos and cyano to be able to take hold. I've started dosing macrophage bacteria, NO3, and PO4. The theory is that we got to keep those nutrients up and grow the good bacteria that outcompete the bad bacteria. Last week my tank was starting to look pretty bad but now I think I'm winning the battle.

Good video, thanks for sharing. How do you dose macrophage bacteria? I assume that is some sort of packaged bacterial product.

 

[sfin52]

Any consensus on what to do. Recently got a terrrible algea outbreak under control and now Dinos are moving in. Not sure what the consensus is on what to do to prevent them from taking over?

Ulns seem to cause an outbreak of these guys. Keep po4 .1 no3 5-10 . Keep skimmer going. Stop removing nitrates and phosphates. Please don't over feed can cause other issues. Filter water through 10micron sock and pour back into tank. Water changes seem to help fuel then. Run a uv some species go into the water colum at night others burrow to nto the sand. Also run activated carbon to absorb dino toxins .

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Good video, thanks for sharing. How do you dose macrophage bacteria? I assume that is some sort of packaged bacterial product.

I guess I misspoke the bacteria aren't all macrophages but do outcompete the dinos and also cyano. BRS has a dosing schedule for "Waste Away" that I followed.... though I doubled the dose. The bacteria may also reduce NO3 and PO4. I've been monitoring my levels and saw NO3 drop pretty fast. I'm now dosing 2ppm NO3 per day just to keep 3ppm testable.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/brsinstructions/brsDrTims/DrTims_Dinoflagellate_Recipe_BRS.pdf

 

[Ernie C]

Same here. Cleaning filter socks more often and added fresh carbon and just added some bacteria (BioDigest) LFS recommended. Also have po4 at .04 and no3 at .5. Dosing nitrogen for nitrate and going slower with po4 dosing. Dinos don’t seem to be getting any worse today so hopefully I’m on the right track. Also put a small UV in the display. Figured it couldn’t hurt. Gotta keep an eye on my snails though cause if they eat the Dino’s they’ll die from the toxins. :-/

 

[dugthefish]

What are you guys using to dose po4/no3?

 

[sfin52]

Same here. Cleaning filter socks more often and added fresh carbon and just added some bacteria (BioDigest) LFS recommended. Also have po4 at .04 and no3 at .5. Dosing nitrogen for nitrate and going slower with po4 dosing. Dinos don’t seem to be getting any worse today so hopefully I’m on the right track. Also put a small UV in the display. Figured it couldn’t hurt. Gotta keep an eye on my snails though cause if they eat the Dino’s they’ll die from the toxins. :-/

They can die from the toxins released by the dino. The toxins are not just consumed but also by the dino releasing them into the water

 

[Ernie C]

What are you guys using to dose po4/no3?

I’m using SeaChem Flourish phosphorous and Nitrogen.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

I made my own home brew with reagent grade Sodium Nitrate (NaNO3) and Trisodium Phosphate (Na3PO4). You can get a lifetime supply on Amazon for a couple bucks. I mixed them with DI water so that in my 40gallon system (including sump), 1ml = 1PPM NO3 and 1ml = 0.01PPM PO4. You can get the mixing ratios if you search Reef2Reef.

 

[Ernie C]

I’m not that brave at making my own dosing solutions. Lol

 

[dugthefish]

Hmm, I backed my skimming down to 6 hrs a day in hope of raising nutrients, but the dinos seem to be increasing. I'm thinking I should be running the skimmer 24/7 to keep O2 levels up. Reading quite a bit into H2O2 dosing, may try a round of that.

 

[Ernie C]

Decided to turn off my skimmer and see how everything reacts. Testing every other day. Still have the uv in the display and keeping no3 at 1-2ppm and po4 at .04, clean filter socks every other day and suck dinos into them right before I take them out to clean. Dinos have reduced like 80%. Going to dose bacteria again in a week or so. Hope I got this beat.

 

[Ernie C]

First day with no visible Dino activity! Hope this is it.

 

[dugthefish]

I'm told Ostreopsis, which kinda sounds like the most difficult kind to deal with. Still formulating an attack plan....

 

[._Z_.]

Agree that looks like ostreopsis. The good news is UV should be effective

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

Definitely not the most difficult to deal with. Ostreopsis go readily into the water column which makes them very easy to nuke with a powerful UV.

 

[dugthefish]

I've always been hesitant to use UV, as my understanding is that it indiscriminately kills EVERYTHING in the water column.

Right now, my tentative plan is:

1, Manually remove as much as possible
2, 25% water change
3, 3 day black out with Dr Tim's waste away and wet skim
4, Begin dosing nitrates, fresh pods, and phyto while slowing raising my lights back up.

Thoughts? My tank is far from overrun, simply reducing light intensity/duration and weekly removal has been keeping them at bay for the last couple weeks. The budget doesn't have room for a big UV at the moment, so I'm going to try a more organic solution to start with.

For the record, H2O2 did absolutely nothing, stopped after 4 days.

 

[._Z_.]

I've always been hesitant to use UV, as my understanding is that it indiscriminately kills EVERYTHING in the water column.

Right now, my tentative plan is:

1, Manually remove as much as possible
2, 25% water change
3, 3 day black out with Dr Tim's waste away and wet skim
4, Begin dosing nitrates, fresh pods, and phyto while slowing raising my lights back up.

Thoughts? My tank is far from overrun, simply reducing light intensity/duration and weekly removal has been keeping them at bay for the last couple weeks. The budget doesn't have room for a big UV at the moment, so I'm going to try a more organic solution to start with.

For the record, H2O2 did absolutely nothing, stopped after 4 days.

I had the same experience with h2o2. I found the blackout did nothing also.

Dr Tim’s has a guide for using their products and a blackout to fight dinos I remember seeing on the dino thread.

How big is the tank again? I just installed an internal UV and I’m waiting to see how effective it is. Dropped $60 on it though which I wasn’t happy about
Do you need to dose phosphate along with nitrates? Usually PO4 is the one that needs addition, but not always.

 

[dugthefish]

I had the same experience with h2o2. I found the blackout did nothing also.

Dr Tim’s has a guide for using their products and a blackout to fight dinos I remember seeing on the dino thread.

How big is the tank again? I just installed an internal UV and I’m waiting to see how effective it is. Dropped $60 on it though which I wasn’t happy about
Do you need to dose phosphate along with nitrates? Usually PO4 is the one that needs addition, but not always.

135-ish total volume. PO4 has been slightly rising as I added more fish in the last 2 weeks and increased feeding. NO3 has been difficult to even register. I've got a bottle of stump remover ordered, what is the best product to dose PO4, should I been in need of it?

I see the Jaebo 55w UV is reasonably priced, but for other reasons previously mentioned I'm holding off for now.

 

[._Z_.]

135-ish total volume. PO4 has been slightly rising as I added more fish in the last 2 weeks and increased feeding. NO3 has been difficult to even register. I've got a bottle of stump remover ordered, what is the best product to dose PO4, should I been in need of it?

I see the Jaebo 55w UV is reasonably priced, but for other reasons previously mentioned I'm holding off for now.

Gotcha some people do have no3 deficiency just making sure. I use seachem flourish phosphorus and nitrate for mine. Not sure what the best product is though

 

[dugthefish]

Sunday test day. Not sweating the bit of ammonia, as I added a new fish 2 days ago.

I've found over the last 8 days that just a quick vacuum of substrate, glass cleaning, and gentle toothbrush scrub around corals and heavy spots have been keeping the dinos from blowing up. Every 3-4 days, which is basically my regular Wednesday and Sunday schedule.

Lighting is on minimal intensity and photo period, feeding going up with new, larger fish in the system. Will take the next few days to observe and decide if a blackout is still warranted. Next weekend would be a good time cuz I'll be out of town anyway.