Losing battle w/ Dinos

[reefapple4328]

One other thing ive noticed. The tank is adjacent to a window which is defeating the blackout. UV from sun will penetrate blinds/shades/curtains. Place Black construction paper from Walmart on the end of tank facing window- will reduce light drastically

Yes, blacking it out with a black trash bag around the outside. The girlfriend has also been forbidden to open the blinds.

 

[reefapple4328]

Have you tried filtering them? They are about 20-50 microns. You could try filtering at 5-10 microns.

What is your UV set at? Dinos are highly resistant to UV so you either need a high power bulb, low flow or both. More likely or not you are killing everything BUT the dinos.

Keep the filter socks stuffed with filter floss. I have also been siphoning into a 10 micron bag and pumping the water back in the tank.

 

[Just John]

Although I have never heard to do this, it was very helpful for me. Since dinos come out at night and then settle on the sand, etc., I put filter floss all over inside the tank for them to settle on and rinsed it out in fresh water each night before the lights went off. Normally, by the end of the afternoon the sand would be covered in dinos, but with this in they never ended up on the sand again. I think it really helped.

 

[reefapple4328]

Although I have never heard to do this, it was very helpful for me. Since dinos come out at night and then settle on the sand, etc., I put filter floss all over inside the tank for them to settle on and rinsed it out in fresh water each night before the lights went off. Normally, by the end of the afternoon the sand would be covered in dinos, but with this in they never ended up on the sand again. I think it really helped.

Interesting, so when did you put the filter floss in? At night or during the day?

 

[Just John]

Interesting, so when did you put the filter floss in? At night or during the day?

At least with the dinos I had, they seemed to enter the water column at night and begin to settle/grow on the sand after the lights went back on. As the day progressed, the gravel got more and more covered. So I decided to put it in during the day for them to settle on and after rinsing it, leave it out at night to let them get up into the water column. It might have worked better if I left it in all of the time, but I never tried that.

 

[Spare time]

What bacteria have you been dosing?

 

[Spare time]

Although I have never heard to do this, it was very helpful for me. Since dinos come out at night and then settle on the sand, etc., I put filter floss all over inside the tank for them to settle on and rinsed it out in fresh water each night before the lights went off. Normally, by the end of the afternoon the sand would be covered in dinos, but with this in they never ended up on the sand again. I think it really helped.

That's actually super interesting haha

 

[chadfish]

Although I have never heard to do this, it was very helpful for me. Since dinos come out at night and then settle on the sand, etc., I put filter floss all over inside the tank for them to settle on and rinsed it out in fresh water each night before the lights went off. Normally, by the end of the afternoon the sand would be covered in dinos, but with this in they never ended up on the sand again. I think it really helped.

This is a new approach. Did it work? If you leave the floss out, do the dinos come back?

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Although I have never heard to do this, it was very helpful for me. Since dinos come out at night and then settle on the sand, etc., I put filter floss all over inside the tank for them to settle on and rinsed it out in fresh water each night before the lights went off. Normally, by the end of the afternoon the sand would be covered in dinos, but with this in they never ended up on the sand again. I think it really helped.

That looks cool, like a fresh winter snow in the reef.

 

[Just John]

This is a new approach. Did it work? If you leave the floss out, do the dinos come back?

It was only part of what I did, but it worked - if I left out the floss they would settle on the sand by the afternoon. Unfortunately, they would also grow all over the glass. They would not grow in areas with algae though. So I ended up letting the glass get algae on it and using the floss along with a UV filter. I also kept the lights on blues only. I think it's over. Please let it be over.

 

[reefapple4328]

What bacteria have you been dosing?

Microbactor7 and seachem seed

 

[Tankkeepers]

Not sure why no one has said this but your sand is dirty you can see the stuff growing in the sand down below

You need to clean you sand or change it out

Or do as I did and go bare bottom problem solved

All your currently doing is treating the symptoms not solving the probkem

It will come back

 

[Lanny]

I have been struggling with dinos since about December and feel like I have tried everything.

Dino x

Dirty'ing the tank

3 day black out (while dosing dino x)

Running uv(I've always ran uv) as well as re plumbing it to hang off of the display.

Tried raising the temp. To +/-84⁰ F

I've been dosing beneficial bacteria, phyto and copepods regularly

And short of holding an exorcism just about every other method I have found online with no real headway.

I think I have narrowed it down to Ostreopsis dinos based off of the stringy, bubbly nature of them and looking at them under a microscope. Photos attached.

Anyone have any other ideas? I'm starting to see why people give up on the hobby after dealing with them...

Parameters are as follows..

Nitrates - 5-10ppm
Phosphate - .75 to 1
Calc - 420
Alk - 11
Mag 1400ish
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Ph hovers between 8.2-8.3 daily

If your phosphates are actually at 1.0 or .75 your nitrates would need to be at 100 or 75 to stay inside the redfield ratio. For nitrates of 5-10 you should shoot for .03-.08ish . When your phosphate is out of whack you get slimey stuff.