It has been a while since I updated this tank thread. I will do a comprehensive update later this weekend and include some pictures. Overall, things are going well. Coraline started appearing everywhere which is a good sign. It started ans a few dots ant first and within a month started appearing on the power head, drag racks, and rock work.
For recording keeping purposes I wanted to repost some commentary I wrote in response to one of the many dino outbreak threads in February 2024. For those starting a new tank and battling the ugly stage, keep at it! Eventually the ugly stage will end and you won't have much to do other than feed the fish, scrape the glass every few days, and do a water change every week or two!
"I feel your pain. I started my tank around the same time as you and fought a massive outbreak of dinos (all over the rock and thick layer of growth all over the sand bed) for 5 weeks starting in late October. I did almost everything commonly recommended. I believe the most important were running UV, dosing bacteria and silicate every day, and scrubbing the rocks and cleaning the sand every few days. Siphoning out the top layer of sand and rinsing it in saltwater multiple times until it runs relatively clear is important since that exports a lot of the dinos quickly. I probably had to do this siphoning and rinsing 8+ times during the height of the Dinos war. I did so with tap water but if I had to do it again I with salt water since that has a better chance of preserving more of the microbiome. Before adding the sand back into the tank I poured into the sand Microbacter7, Dr. Tim's Waste Away, or the Zeovit bacteria supplement (I had all three on hand).
Dinos decimated my copepod population. Before they were swarming all over my glass, even with limited Dino's now the pod population has not returned to the prior levels but that may be because my 4 wrasse keeping the pod population in check. Most of my snails died including the Nassarius which lived in the sand. I added Trochus during the Dino outbreak and some died and or spasmed when they touched the sand likely due to the Dino toxins. I had a few tester SPS and montis and they all slowly bleached then died. The only coral which survived are my torches and hammers and single mushroom coral. No fish died thankfully. I also had a strawberry conch which hid all day long. Once Dinos dissipated it started moving around a lot more. Most of my hermit crab population died but some survived. Urchins did fine since they seemed to just avoid Dino areas on the rock. I noticed that after a sandbed rinse and water change, my surviving snails and crabs would instantly appear and be much more active.
I have been mostly Dino free for the last two months or so. Even now though I see some growing on top of GHA. Those areas my CUC avoids like the plague. I tried putting three snails in an area with a mix of GHA + Dinos today. One snail would just detach from the rock and let the powerhead blow him to the sand. The other two got out of the area as fast as they could crawl.
Given my battle with dinos I have decided to only add soft corals for now. My tank is more stable (now dealing with GHA) but has a ways to go. Good luck with your Dino battle. Looking at your setup, I suggest rinsing out the top layer of sand. Then dose bacteria and silicate daily until the dinos get out competed. After my dinos got under control, I was hit by a cyano outbreak (more scrubbing of rock and rinsing the sand) which went away after two week, and then GHA took over. Since Dino's aren't killing my livestock anymore, I have been adding CUC which has done a great job at suppressing the GHA."
