NEED HELP KILLING DINOS

[FriedReef TV]

I was on vacation for 2 weeks and when I got back I found my tank is overtaken with dinos. I plan to blackout for 4 days as my only corals are gsp and palys. I don't have a sump so my heaters are in the tank, and they have small orange lights that come on when they heat. It's not bright at all, but I'm still worried it will be too much light. Will this keep the dynos alive? If so, how do I fix it?

 

[dwest]

I was on vacation for 2 weeks and when I got back I found my tank is overtaken with dinos. I plan to blackout for 4 days as my only corals are gsp and palys. I don't have a sump so my heaters are in the tank, and they have small orange lights that come on when they heat. It's not bright at all, but I'm still worried it will be too much light. Will this keep the dynos alive? If so, how do I fix it?

I don’t believe blackouts will help. If I were you I would spend about $10 on a microscope, if you don’t have one, and determine what type of dino you have. In the meantime, I would ensure that you have measurable phosphates and nitrates.

Scope
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071JQFXC4/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Dino pics and videos
http://www.algaeid.com/identification/

 

[GeoffSLC]

I was very successful using the Fluconazole treatment from a thread I found on this forum. Completely eradicated in less than a month!

 

[Scooter90254]

Dino's are the worst. Here is a current thread where I am battling what looks like the same dinos.

Good luck.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/what-do-i-do.581796/page-3#post-5947792

 

[TexasReefer82]

I killed mine using a product called Vibrant. It's excellent for killing Dino's. It's a carbon source but the real active ingredient is a bacteria that attacks and eats algae, including dinos. If I were you I'd do all of the above: dose to ensure you have measurable amounts of nitrate and phosphate, administer both fluconazole as well as vibrant, and do a blackout. Vibrant is a product that you use weekly for a matter of weeks or months.

There's a HUGE thread on R2R discussing Vibrant.

 

[Fudsey]

What worked for me was raising my NO3 and PO4, putting a bunch of tisbe pods in the tank and fed phyto every 3 days for about a month. Others have sworn by UV if the dinos are the type to go into the water column at night, mine were not but looked different than yours.

 

[FriedReef TV]

I killed mine using a product called Vibrant. It's excellent for killing Dino's. It's a carbon source but the real active ingredient is a bacteria that attacks and eats algae, including dinos. If I were you I'd do all of the above: dose to ensure you have measurable amounts of nitrate and phosphate, administer both fluconazole as well as vibrant, and do a blackout. Vibrant is a product that you use weekly for a matter of weeks or months.

There's a HUGE thread on R2R discussing Vibrant.

So basically from what I've read everyone says bacteria, pods, and blackout is the best way to go. Should I do manual removal before I blackout? I'm poor and I don't have a gravity siphon lol but I have a really small tube that works good for siphoning out small things. Also, do you think the heater lights will keep the dinos alive?

 

[brandon429]

i say this way is best

rip clean it. no delay, no waiting, no hesitation, set back up a clean skip cycled tank minus invader.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...r-a-full-rework-skip-cycle-reassembly.525310/

helps to have other options. that one is free. The only time I think the above methods are the best option is when the tank is so large that it precludes a complete, take down cleaning

why would anyone choose a rip clean, when dosing something to the water effortlessly might possibly work? cuz this is the best way to likely save your tank and rip cleaning is never harmful, its just work. the other methods don't work 50% of the time, they work some of the time...the greatest risk is inaction considering this specific invader. I believe in UV fully, but a rip clean is cheap and more likely to work. UV would go in as a preventative, when the major outbreak was already cured without $$/that's the ideal strategy vs leaving the invader in the system. there aren't a ton of corals, its ripe for a forced restoration.

The other ways require you to leave the invader in place, slowly choke it out, and remove none of the invader directly, which is why we don't like that method in nanos


There is a reason that no living pico reefs are invaded with Dinos, but large tanks are. we get our corals from the same places ya'll do, but we're willing to access.

 

[FriedReef TV]

i say this way is best

rip clean it. no delay, no waiting, no hesitation, set back up a clean skip cycled tank minus invader.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...r-a-full-rework-skip-cycle-reassembly.525310/

helps to have other options. that one is free. The only time I think the above methods are the best option is when the tank is so large that it precludes a complete, take down cleaning

why would anyone choose a rip clean, when dosing something to the water effortlessly might possibly work? cuz this is the best way to likely save your tank and rip cleaning is never harmful, its just work. the other methods don't work 50% of the time, they work some of the time...the greatest risk is inaction considering this specific invader. I believe in UV fully, but a rip clean is cheap and more likely to work. UV would go in as a preventative, when the major outbreak was already cured without $$/that's the ideal strategy vs leaving the invader in the system. there aren't a ton of corals, its ripe for a forced restoration.

The other ways require you to leave the invader in place, slowly choke it out, and remove none of the invader directly, which is why we don't like that method in nanos


There is a reason that no living pico reefs are invaded with Dinos, but large tanks are. we get our corals from the same places ya'll do, but we're willing to access.

so you're saying take everything out of the tank, clean/dip it, siphone the sand out, and put it all back in the tank

 

[MrObscura]

Just feeding the hell out of the tank with zero cleaning for 3 weeks worked for me.

 

[Doctorgori]

Just another opinion but every time I did nothing at all the stuff disappeared eventually ... not sure how long it last on average in a mature tank but I also wonder if months of outbreaks are statistical outliers

 

[BeejReef]

i say this way is best

rip clean it. no delay, no waiting, no hesitation, set back up a clean skip cycled tank minus invader.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...r-a-full-rework-skip-cycle-reassembly.525310/

helps to have other options. that one is free. The only time I think the above methods are the best option is when the tank is so large that it precludes a complete, take down cleaning

why would anyone choose a rip clean, when dosing something to the water effortlessly might possibly work? cuz this is the best way to likely save your tank and rip cleaning is never harmful, its just work. the other methods don't work 50% of the time, they work some of the time...the greatest risk is inaction considering this specific invader. I believe in UV fully, but a rip clean is cheap and more likely to work. UV would go in as a preventative, when the major outbreak was already cured without $$/that's the ideal strategy vs leaving the invader in the system. there aren't a ton of corals, its ripe for a forced restoration.

The other ways require you to leave the invader in place, slowly choke it out, and remove none of the invader directly, which is why we don't like that method in nanos


There is a reason that no living pico reefs are invaded with Dinos, but large tanks are. we get our corals from the same places ya'll do, but we're willing to access.

No great amount of experience here, but I saw dinos (that look very much like the OP's) getting started on a few of my rocks... took them out and scrubbed them down. They tried to come back a week or two later, but lost the battle to other algae and seem to be gone now. knock on wood.

 

[brandon429]

Nice
Most people read our skip cycle cleaning threads and assume we do one off cures

Nope, we reinstate accessibility. It’s the aquarist that has to make the final change away from purposefully farming the invader in a system that otherwise wouldn’t have to if it was just deep cleaned and accessed as needed

What a system does after a single focused cleaning is neat to watch, we do get some lucky 1x fixes

But it’s about changing from sitting there passively watching an invasion take over vs forcing it simply out, twice if needed, since a rip cleaned system has no clouding waste to be kicked up all invaded areas are easily accessed for direct care vs water dosing and wait

The first rip cleaning fixes the sand, it doesn’t need worked for a long time after, it’s the rocks that may need 2x work

Lift out rocks and scrape off, kill any regrowth targets, we are now the grazers in a system formerly left to choose its own destiny, which was invaded. Once we have cloudless sand that cannot cause a mini cycle, you’re free to lift/remove/access rocks to guide out the last of the alternates to coralline and coral


When our system is ran, the tank is never invaded again as direct follow up access wouldn’t leave an invader that could be photographed, our tanks are forced into compliance we don’t wait.


Large tanks have to work through the water. Any fifty gallon and below doesn’t, cuz those can be drained into a brute where you can reuse the water if you must
we purposefully invade our tanks vs purposefully not allowing it, that’s the picture of today’s reef aquarium invasion psychology. A rumor got started that water changes make dinos come back stronger, they don’t. Upwelling filth that everyone keeps in the sandbed and in rocks, detritus, is what fuels them. Water changes on normal tanks are upwelling events + a tiny bit of exchange, no wonder they boon

Our approach, a rip clean, is nothing like that so the rule doesn’t extend to us. No clouding can result from any substrate after a rip clean session, the whole point is to rid all the organic stores which house, insulate, and feed invaders


If anyone is under the impression we can’t rip clean a dinos tank into compliance, let’s run the test live time. We can. You’ll remove the bed altogether, we fix the dinos on the rocks and bare glass, you put back the bed later. This cures all strains of dinos, all of them, cyano, spirulina invasions, diatoms, any matted invader is easily beaten without ID and without knowing your tank params. the deal breaker is you need to be able to have a tank small enough you can part clean it vs kid glove clean it

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445


Throw us a dinos challenge using only those methods let’s see if strain of dinos matters vs rip cleaning

ID doesn’t matter there
Params don’t matter

Results are from action of hands only, noncompliance not allowed.

 

[Jonreefer]

so explain how you RIP clean a tank with Dino that is barebottom?

 

[brandon429]

looks like the greater portion of the work would be not required in that case, see the thread, the sandbed is usually the big job. we simply clean the rocks off in a bucket of clean sw a few times, depending on growback we have other options. The thread shows all the works

post a link of this tank w no sand and dinos

 

[Jonreefer]

looks like the greater portion of the work would be not required in that case, see the thread, the sandbed is usually the big job. we simply clean the rocks off in a bucket of clean sw a few times, depending on growback we have other options. The thread shows all the works

post a link of this tank w no sand and dinos

its my tank
JOND7988 by vadergt12, on Flickr
I have been beating them down I thought I had them beat when I had the UV running for about a month. Then after a few weeks of taking it out they returned. the UV did nothing to them on the round 2
They are a little on the rocks I was dosing DinoX and it looked like it was killing them but they are still growing on my SPS mainly and it looks to be already taken out 2 of them and more are infested.

 

[brandon429]

very nice setup, how neat to not have the full pent up detritus sandbed for once, can you close up on the invader just to see details, I think I can see light bubbling in the pic standing back, was curious about the characters of the rock up close

if you take a small section of rock that isn't connected to the structure, and go swish it around in a separate clean bucket of sw really thorough, does it cast off lots of clouding from the rock...curious to know how the substrate in there has caught and retained detritus, if any

how many gallons is that-the hallmark of our approach is being able to take a tank apart and clean it without issue, if the size permits, vs the partial work that large tanks typically have to endure. curious how hard this tank would be to access directly/take apart for testing

I think it would be much worse had you not done such preventative work so far, and had the sandbed which is major clouding area
*uv is a big help in large tank dino controls, but its never ran using our system where the invader is left in place. If at any time during uv it starts to come back, we resume focused removal/siphoning and never let the mats aggregate, where they catch and hold feed and are insulated from attacks much better in numbers. I think from reading some of Taricha's work I saw times they make armored plating or something in response lol they're insane little rascals of the reef.

 

[Jonreefer]

It’s a 40 breeder. I try to keep it as clean as I can. I blow off all my rocks to keep in suspension to filter out at least every other day.
That is an older pic when I was running the UV. I will get a pic of them on the sps when I get home from work. I just did a water change on Monday sucking out as much as I could of any Dino stands I saw.

 

[brandon429]

excellent, 40 fits in a brute can't wait to see. details and that tank is so nice~lots on the line. nice work