Struggling with Dino

[Manuel935]

I have had my 210 gallon reef tank for about 3 months and I am seriously struggling with dinos, Is there anything i can do to get rid of them, btw I have recently added about 200 snails to the tank to start eating the dino.

 

[CoralClasher]

Microscope ID for starters. UV helps some kinds of Dino. Make sure No3 is 5-10ppm then get phosphate to 0.12

 

[Cole.mormon]

Get an in tank UV sterilizer, and manually remove what you can

 

[CoralClasher]

Diatomaceous earth filters help with removing them then add competitors. Bacteria method from elegant corals has worked pretty good for me.

 

[CoralClasher]

Some Dino are toxic to fish and snails run GAC carbon changing weekly.

 

[Silly clownfish]

Sadly, snails will not help with Dinos and may even die from trying to consume them. There are a lot of threads and suggestions, but some of the mostly widely agreed upon tactics include:

• maintain pH at 8.2 or above
• increase nitrate and phosphate as noted above
• stop or cut back on water changes
• UV - reportedly works for some strains, hence trying to identify what you have
• some swear by dosing something like micro after or vibrant

the first 3 items eventually worked on my 30g sumpless. I also ran a micron canister filter during this process and cleaned it every couple of days. I used water changes form my 75g that was running high nitrates to help bring up nitrate, but the 30g was consuming NO3 faster than I could keep up with, so I started dosing No and PO From bottles. The water change do tactic did let em siphon dinos out without doing a water change using new water.
when you get the dinos under control, you will likely have a bloom of GHA and actually be happy to see it.

 

[CoralClasher]

Hang a filter pad in high flow and in light the free swimming Dino will collect on it then rinse every night.

 

[Manuel935]

Microscope ID for starters. UV helps some kinds of Dino. Make sure No3 is 5-10ppm then get phosphate to 0.12

My nitrates are about 6 ppm and my phos is at 0.08 ppm.

 

[Cole.mormon]

It is said that trochus snails will go after dinos

 

[Cole.mormon]

It is said that trochus snails will go after dino

 

[Cole.mormon]

But sadly you have sent 200 snails to their deaths

 

[Cole.mormon]

Do you have any corals you can give away

 

[CoralClasher]

Do you have corals yet? Three day blackout will temporarily knock the numbers down but is not a cure.

 

[Cole.mormon]

Not yet I do have a lot of adequete lighting and plenty of space

 

[Clownfishy]

As has already been mentioned above, a list of actions to implement for consideration -

• Buy a cheap microscope and identify your Dinos
• If you do not have any corals, blank out your tank for 3 days
• If you do have corals (you could try the above but some risk to corals), turn lights to only blue and set to approx 50% - 70% for 6-8 hours
• Implement UV
• Dose MicroBacter7
• Stop water changes
• Let other algae grow
• Stop dosing of amino acids (if you are dosing them)
• Stop all Carbon dosing (if you dose it)
• Depending on what type of Dino, blast them off the rock so the UV kills them
• Add GAC (carbon)
• Raise Nitrates and phosphates higher (I had to raise Phosphates to 0.3 before I saw a difference)

Hope that helps.