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mstockmaster
Active Member
This is not great advice. If you have vermetid you can see them. Do you see vermetid snails? If you're not familiar with them Google a photo, they're pretty recognizable. Kalk paste will not kill them. If it is in fact vermetids your best bet is manual removal (crush them with hemostats) or super glue them shut. Cutting down on feeding will help control their population and some have had some success with bumblebee snails.
Really though a better picture is needed for proper ID.
Really though a better picture is needed for proper ID.
I’ve dealt with vermetid snails in the past and that’s not the issue here. I’m currently fighting a Dino outbreak but didn’t see this suspended mess until my return was shut off during a water change. I realize the picture isn’t the greatest but the entire volume of the tank turned into a soup of this floating mess. So much that it almost instantly turned into a thick film on the surface. When I turned my return pump back on it was all sucked into the overflow and trapped in my filter sock. I repeated this several times to collect as much as I could.
mstockmaster
Active Member
This is fairly normal Dino behavior.
Bret Brinkmann
Well-Known Member
From what I read, dinos will bloom after a water change. If you are able to collect them in your sock, then great. Get all you can. Your picture does sort of look like a stringy snot like substance with bubbles, which is classic dino symptoms. They typically clump together even after breaking them apart. I suspect they are a type that goes into the water column based on your observations. Do you have a positive ID on the genus or spices? If it's one that enters the water column, consider a UV unit to help get rid of them.
MarineMalecki
Community Member
Hard to tell exactly what it is from the picture, but if you’re already fighting dinos, this could just be more of them. Especially after a water change when you’ve added more nutrients to the water for them to feast on.
I beat them in my tank through 2 things:
1) 4 day complete blackout.....get as much of the dinos out with a net (skim off water, scrape off rocks) as you can and then completely cover all sides of the tank with a material thick enough to prevent any light getting in (i.e. cardboard, not a sheet or newspaper). Dinos need light to thrive, so depriving them of light will knock them out
2) To keep them at bay, i actually increased my phosphate and nitrates. I read in multiple places (included R2R) that having measurable PO4 and NO3 in the water will help keep them away. Seemed counterintuitive to me, but I can vouch that it works. Someone smarter than me can explain the actual chemistry behind this
. A few times that I’ve neglected to add supplements or NO3/PO4 (I used Seachem), the dinos would appear after a few weeks. Once I started dosing again, they disappeared pretty quickly. The dosing was just manual - no need for a pump. With my water volume (~600 gallons), I’d add ~30mL / week of each NO3 and PO4.
I’ve also read that many people have had success with using UV sterilizers to eradicate dinos. I haven’t used it since I don’t want to kill anything else beneficial in the water column. But that’s a personal preference - much like most of this hobby, personal preference wins
Hope this helps!
I beat them in my tank through 2 things:
1) 4 day complete blackout.....get as much of the dinos out with a net (skim off water, scrape off rocks) as you can and then completely cover all sides of the tank with a material thick enough to prevent any light getting in (i.e. cardboard, not a sheet or newspaper). Dinos need light to thrive, so depriving them of light will knock them out
2) To keep them at bay, i actually increased my phosphate and nitrates. I read in multiple places (included R2R) that having measurable PO4 and NO3 in the water will help keep them away. Seemed counterintuitive to me, but I can vouch that it works. Someone smarter than me can explain the actual chemistry behind this
. A few times that I’ve neglected to add supplements or NO3/PO4 (I used Seachem), the dinos would appear after a few weeks. Once I started dosing again, they disappeared pretty quickly. The dosing was just manual - no need for a pump. With my water volume (~600 gallons), I’d add ~30mL / week of each NO3 and PO4. I’ve also read that many people have had success with using UV sterilizers to eradicate dinos. I haven’t used it since I don’t want to kill anything else beneficial in the water column. But that’s a personal preference - much like most of this hobby, personal preference wins
Hope this helps!
Bret Brinkmann
Well-Known Member
Blackouts will work only if you have a photosynthetic species. If nothing else will be negatively impacted by the blackout, then give it a try. It's free after all.
UV units work only if your species is in the water column. This is one reason why it is important to get and ID, so you don't buy equipment that will be ineffective. But if it is a species that goes into the column, then I hear UV units are VERY effective.
The reason nutrient dosing works has to due with how well the different life in your tank can take in nutrients at a given concentration. Dinos do it better in low concentration conditions. Other competitors due it better when the nutrients are higher. So they can hold their ground against the dinos and not die, leaving their real estate open for dinos to move in. The competitors are stronger than dinos but they have a higher minimum amount of nutrients needed for survival.
UV units work only if your species is in the water column. This is one reason why it is important to get and ID, so you don't buy equipment that will be ineffective. But if it is a species that goes into the column, then I hear UV units are VERY effective.
The reason nutrient dosing works has to due with how well the different life in your tank can take in nutrients at a given concentration. Dinos do it better in low concentration conditions. Other competitors due it better when the nutrients are higher. So they can hold their ground against the dinos and not die, leaving their real estate open for dinos to move in. The competitors are stronger than dinos but they have a higher minimum amount of nutrients needed for survival.
