New Tank... Dinos are here again.

Aquaman6410 · Jul 7, 2019

This is the part of the hobby that challenges your patience. I set up a new 75 gallon tank and currently running two radions xr15s, a nyos 120 skimmer, and an MP40. I let it cycle for 2.5 months with lights off, just an ammonia source and aDr Tim's one and only. Everything looked great so added a couple clownfish and a fang blenny. All was well after a couple weeks so lights went on and diatoms came. No big deal, added some trochus and they loved it. I was doing weekly watercl changes but then noticed a few weeks back, around 3.5 month mark, the increasing brown was dinos. The typical snot like look, air bubbles increasing as lights are on, and the nasty smell that comes with it. Needless to say, a few trochus died off after eating some of the diatom algae mixed in with in. I checked the nitrates with a red sea kit and phosphates with the hanna checker, both 0. I know that is an issue so I've been dosing phosphates and nitrates to keep them up. No luck so after 2 more weeks and it getting worse, I blacked out the tank for 3 days and the skimmer collected some reaaally nasty stuff. Uncovered the tank a few days ago keeping the levels of phosphates/nitrates up. The dinos knocked back a little but I'm concerned they are still holding on. No other algae will grow yet to out compete it. I have no corals so now is the time to get ahead of it. Tank was started with dry rock as I was trying to do the BRS/WWC 4 month cycle method.

Should I just leave everything at this point and hope something will out compete it naturally soon? Should I try Dr. Tim's dino recipe of Refresh/Waste Away? I've seeded the tank with coralline but no luck growing any yet. My goal is to get past this ugly phase and get some coralline growth before I add corals.

Scurvy · Jul 7, 2019

Coraline can take 5-10 months to get going even if you've added a starter culture.

For me when i dealt with new tank Dino I had to get Nitrate up to 10 and Phosphate up to .1 combined with manual removal via turkey baster siphoning. They gradually receded as the numbers climbed but the 10/1 ratio was when they finally quit.

Knowing your initial denitrifying bacteria has been established then trying Dr Tim’s recipe could help but I wouldn't go that route if the tank was mid “cycle”.

Aquaman6410 · Jul 7, 2019

Okay, so I'm keeping the numbers around there so maybe I need to start trying to blow them off and hopefully they get skimmed out. Otherwise, maybe using the Dr Tim's bacteria route will be the next option.

Scurvy · Jul 7, 2019

If you run socks in the evening as lights are coming down blow as much as you can up into the water column to get caught in the socks. Change/clean socks the next morning and do it again the next day.

Other option is siphoning from the display directly into a sock in the sump while the tanks running. I could never keep my overflow working normally trying it this way but many folks do.

If you have nutrients then a few days of manual removing as much as possible should go a long way.

On the bright side you aren't heavily stocked yet so most options are available to you.

Aquaman6410 · Jul 8, 2019

Scurvy said:
If you run socks in the evening as lights are coming down blow as much as you can up into the water column to get caught in the socks. Change/clean socks the next morning and do it again the next day.

Other option is siphoning from the display directly into a sock in the sump while the tanks running. I could never keep my overflow working normally trying it this way but many folks do.

If you have nutrients then a few days of manual removing as much as possible should go a long way.

On the bright side you aren't heavily stocked yet so most options are available to you.

Okay, I don't have any socks because I've running without them just a skimmer but have some on the way for my sump. I'm going to try blowing some of this off once I get the socks. Its been about a week since the blackout and seems like even with continued phosphates and nitrates, they seems to be coming back hard. Ugh, it's such a bummer.

Scurvy · Jul 9, 2019

Manual removal is a big part of beating them into submission. If you dont have corals yet you can kill the lights again once you have the socks in place.

Lukas75 · Jul 9, 2019

Tagging along, I am exactly in the same spot right now.

nly04 · Nov 11, 2019

Aquaman6410

Any update? what method did you tried? I am on the same exact state right now.

Aquaman6410 · Nov 11, 2019

I'm still battling them a little here and there but mainly no longer a big issue, as long as I dose nitrates and phosphates to keep them up. I try to keep phosphate currently around .10 ppm and nitrates around 5-10ppm. This seems to hold them back and allow other algaes to grow a little. I've taken some samples under the microscope and still see they are present. I can't let the phosphate/nitrate get low or else the brown stringy dinos come right back and they come super fast. I'm currently not using my skimmer. I tried to for a week and felt the dinos started coming back. I have 2 clownfish, a midas blenny, and a Melanarus wrasse currently. I'm trying to feed heavy every day but still can't naturally keep nutrients up without dosing. I'm going to continue to add fish bioload until I can start to see nutrients actually accumulate and need to be removed.