Idea and trends on Dino treatment

[SoSublime]

From my last thread where we achieved the discovery I have Ostreopsis, this has lead to hours of research and quite a few commonalities I believe would be a good idea tackling. If this is the inappropriate place for this thread, please move to the proper area

Since I have such a new tank, I have quite a bit of leeway with experimentation as a ground up restart is always possible.

Commonalities I see, particularly for Ostreopsis.
1. Many Dino blooms reported on this forum originate with sterile starting environments (i.e. New tanks with dry rock, dry sand and no "seeding" material beyond maybe a bottle of nitrifying bacteria). I see this theorized as a lack of biodiversity. Could adding seeding material such as live sand, live rock, or other products such as Fiji mud be a key point in establishing a biodiverse environment giving Dinos less of an edge?

2. Lack of nutrients. This is an obvious one. Dinos are what I would consider like an "apex predator". They can bloom in some pretty extreme situations, where most competitors will die off.

3. They need light.

4. They return to the water column at night

I'm attempting a multi-pronged approach right now, and will keep the status updated and hopefully add to a catalog of successful experiments to help others fight dinos.

My entire regiment is:
- Upping nutrients: 5ppm Nitrate & 0.1ppm phos.
-Going to add some LR from my older tanks sump as well as mixing some of my Fiji mud into my sand to hopefully help seed this tank with some much needed biodiversity.
-Manual removal with daily filter floss changes and keeping rocks blown clean.
-Running a UV sterilizer in "lights off" hours.
-Reduced whites, lowered light intensity, and shortened schedule to 6hrs.

 

[Old Fritz]

Honestly what I always did was throw in a ton of snails. Typically about 2 per gallon. It seems like a lot because... well it is lol. I typically do a bunch of trochus, nerite, astrea, and cerith snails. I stay away from turbos because they never seem to last for me. With that many in there typically they'll keep your tank at least semi-nice to look at. Once the diatoms start dying off on their own (I've only had them in new tanks for about a month max) I start to remove snails.

Is this method perfect? No. Is it kinda stupid? yes, but hey it's worked for me

 

[taricha]

Commonalities I see, particularly for Ostreopsis.
1. Many Dino blooms reported on this forum originate with sterile starting environments (i.e. New tanks with dry rock, dry sand and no "seeding" material beyond maybe a bottle of nitrifying bacteria). I see this theorized as a lack of biodiversity. Could adding seeding material such as live sand, live rock, or other products such as Fiji mud be a key point in establishing a biodiverse environment giving Dinos less of an edge?

check this article by aquabiomics on this question.

Establishing a Healthy Microbiome in a New Aquarium Using Live Rock

Studying the effects of live rock in a newly established aquarium shows that high-quality live rock promotes the rapid establishment of an effective biological filter and a microbial community similar to those found in mature reef tanks.

www.reef2reef.com

see Fig 10 & 11 for the night and day difference in what initially grew on surfaces based on different live rock seed.

Your points are a pretty accurate depiction of where our thinking is on Dinos, (Ostreopsis being our model species so to speak).

 

[SoSublime]

Incredible resource you linked too. Appreciate that

That's just inline with my thinking as well. I think sourcing some actual live rock from some reputable sources may be beneficial for anyone starting with dry rock, even if only temporary to seed the sand and scape.

 

[SoSublime]

Update:

Lights on today - Dinos have definitely been hit hard by the constant nutrient dosing, 18hrs of darkness, daily filter floss, and UV alone.

Dinos still around seem to be almost grayish in color, and ragged. Not the snotty brown they were.

Fiji Mud will be arriving tomorrow and going to give it a shot. Going to mix a small amount into my sand, and then dose by weight twice a week straight into the water column.

 

[SoSublime]

Adding alittle fiji mud to the tank today (sorry its so blue, only that way due to altered schedule for dinos)

Dinos have been beaten back hard. Little to no strands anywhere. Rocks are turning green, some algae growth on sand, some chrysophyte growth, and some GHA growth on opposite side of rock. Filter floss also isn't completely brown and clogged, which it usually is by this time today. Corals look fantastic compared to just 4-5 fays ago.

Plus something that showed up today in force, Copepods!

 

[SoSublime]

Next update:

Dinos are completely "gone" at this point with some GHA growing in some spots.

Filter floss change interval is back to normal twice a week.

Slowly bringing lights back to normal spectrum, and will slowly bring them back to full timing.

Nutrient levels have stabilized and arent plummeting to zero.

Some pics of before, and today. (Water looks alittle murky due to progressively stirring fiji mud into sand)

Before:

Today:

Plus copepods galore:

 

[Cory]

Which uv did you use?

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Good discussion!

 

[brandon429]

I want to add support for rip cleans to beat and fight dinos, where practical.


the size of the reef determines ideal treatment modes, params dont matter below a certain gallonage size among tanks


handy info because it means some tanks do not have to wait or hesitate to be dino free. large tanks have to do that.


#gallons matters because people aren't willing to deep clean giant tanks, they're willing to deep clean smaller tanks though once they see the threads of collected outcomes (no dinos, 35 pages, five years still running)

if anyone ever owns a tank you are willing to take fully apart with us, clean the sand and rocks, put it all back skip cycle and clean, for sure message me or post here. homework: try and find one single pico reef with dinos challenge. I already looked before typing that lol, my fully accessible brothers and sisters have not let down.


check all of nano-reef.com for tiny reefs with dinos, nope. thats for large tankers.


we rip clean up to 40 gallon systems pretty easily, larger nanos also do not have to wait to battle dinos, they can simply act/clean and direct compliance vs coax. most pico reefers were trained hands on, not hands off.

 

[SoSublime]

Which uv did you use?

Sorry been slammed at work lately!

I just use a green machine 24w.

And alittle update on the tank, I would say Dinos have been beaten. I cannot locate them under microscope off any surface, small algaes have taken hold and green coraline has begun to spread on the rocks.

I will say my water quality dramatically improved after adding Fiji mud, and my tank also has biodiversity I did not see before. Pineapple sponges popping up, polyp extension great, and zoas spitting out new heads regularly. Another thing to note with the Fiji mud, and while probably coincidence it was fairly distinct. During Dino treatment, I was trying to grow algaes to outcompete the Dinos, and grew some fairly long tufts of GHA (one tuft was up to 4-5" long). After adding the Fiji mud, the GHA tufts practically disappeared in under 4-5 days, as well as areas with nuisance algaes on frag plugs, rocks, back wall, etc, yet nutrient levels stayed similar and dinos did not return.

Tank today. Battle started Aug 3rd.

 

[Snoopdog]

Sorry been slammed at work lately!

I just use a green machine 24w.

And alittle update on the tank, I would say Dinos have been beaten. I cannot locate them under microscope off any surface, small algaes have taken hold and green coraline has begun to spread on the rocks.

I will say my water quality dramatically improved after adding Fiji mud, and my tank also has biodiversity I did not see before. Pineapple sponges popping up, polyp extension great, and zoas spitting out new heads regularly. Another thing to note with the Fiji mud, and while probably coincidence it was fairly distinct. During Dino treatment, I was trying to grow algaes to outcompete the Dinos, and grew some fairly long tufts of GHA (one tuft was up to 4-5" long). After adding the Fiji mud, the GHA tufts practically disappeared in under 4-5 days, as well as areas with nuisance algaes on frag plugs, rocks, back wall, etc, yet nutrient levels stayed similar and dinos did not return.

Tank today. Battle started Aug 3rd.

Too add to thread, keeping the conversation going...

Was your tank started with live or dead rock?

How long was your tank setup before dinoflagellates took hold?

Name everything you tried before they went away.

I also see where you said you saw copepods, but you added the fiji mud after you said you saw the copepods, what do you think the source of the copepods were?

One last thing, how many fish do you have and how many gallons of water.

 

[SoSublime]

Tank was started with dry rock.

Approximately 1 1/2 months after initial cycle Ostreopsis broke out.

I used a combination of dosing NeoNitro and NeoPhos as well as running a UV sterilizer in the display, no water changes, changed filter floss religiously, and added Fiji mud.

I have some corals in the tank that did get brought over from my established display, which was likely the source, and the growing algae provided a source for a population boom.

Also 2 small Ocellaris clowns in a fluval 13.5g

 

[Picoflreefer.]

I beat Dino by manually removing everyday, lights out for 3 days, dosing vibrant, and finally dosing bright well microbacteria everyday .