Struggling with dinos

Mtb_reefer · Jan 31, 2020

So I’ve been fighting these dinos for a few months now and I’ve been working out of town, unfortunately I don’t have anyone to tanksit for me, but I do have about 20lbs of clean and cycled rock sitting in another tank. This tank runs with just a heater power head a few hand fulls of sand and the rock. It’s in my garage with no light so it’s in blackout conditions 99% of the time. The dinos seem to only be growing on the rock and glass of the DT. I’m also dosing vibrant to both systems. I’ve considered pulling the dirty rock out of the DT and replacing it with the clean rock. Does this seem feasible or would it just bring more problems?

Reefer5640 · Jan 31, 2020

The Dino’s can live on any surface area in the tank and in the water column. It is said they stick around the sand bed and inside the rock during the day and in the water column at night (there’s more to it than that but to make my point I’m simplifying it). I think it could definitely give you jump on it but that is a complicated situation. You would need to do a decent water change due to disturbing the tank so much you’re bound to get a nutrient spike. Dino’s just get worse with the water changes that are done. The argument could be made that the nutrient spike would counter the water change and prevent your levels from being so clean. Not to mention that could be pretty stressful on your tank inhabitants. Not saying it couldn’t help, just saying there are some things to consider by a complete overhaul like that. The things that have proven to help me with beating Dino’s are this, and I do them all together;
reduce photo period, implement UV, add refugium to beef up pods, vacuum out sand during the day (do not completely remove all sand. It’s just to keep the sand bed clean and Dino’s knocked down a bit), manual removal off the rocks, and keep your mechanical filtration constantly changed out. Once you start to kill them off implement carbon. So I think if you did that in addition to switching out some or all of your rock you could definitely beat it.

saltyhog · Jan 31, 2020

While it might be good to add some biodiversity (adding some new and different rock) swapping them out might make things worse. I would stop Vibrant as it tends to lower nutrients and low nutrient environments give the dinos a competitive advantage from all indications.

I would remove manually as much as you can, keep NO3 5-10 and PO4 0.06-0.12 and consider dosing silicates (seems to encourage sponges and diatoms which compete with the dinos). It would also be helpful to get a microscopic video of your dinos as different strains allow some additional approaches. There's no easy fix for dinos unfortunately.

Mtb_reefer · Jan 31, 2020

Good points made. A little background on the tank: IM 25 lagoon all I’m running on it right now is the ato skimmer and filter socks for mechanical. 4 t5s 3 blue+ 1 purple running 10 hours a day. Inhabitants are two yellow stripped shrimp gobies one small serpent star and 4 Nerite snails. A hand full of frags most of which are dying from the dinos.
It was one overdose of gfo that brought nutrient down to nothing and spiked the dino outbreak. I’ve since tried to let it get “dirty” in an attempt to let other algae out compete the dinos. I dose vibrant weekly and manually remove as much of the dinos as I can every few days unless I’m working. So the rock work gets disturbed anyway. I’ve been very diligent about keeping the sand bed clean. To the point where it can be disturbed with out any cloudiness coming out. So far the vibrant has given me a hand up and I’ve already replace a few rocks which go in the blackout tank. The blackout tank has since, seemingly killed off the dinos that were on this rocks and they are completely clean to the eye. I don’t feed much just enough for the two fish and the serpent eats anything that gets left behind.
I’m in the middle of a remodel so I don’t really have the money to get a Fuge so that is out of the park at the moment. But with aquashella around the corner I need to get the tank healthy again. I’m on week four of vibrant dosing and the Dino growth has substantially slowed but I think I’ll need the next few months to let the tank recover before adding anything back to it so I’m desperate to get rid of this outbreak and I just can’t fathom starting over. I’m hesitant to blackout out this tank because I don’t want to stress the coral anymore than what’s already been done. I really need a solution with the supplies I have on hand because of the remodel.

saltyhog · Jan 31, 2020

Black outs improve the appearance but rarely has anything to do with getting rid of them. It looks better but as soon as you turn the lights back on they're back. I may be misremembering but I believe our resident dino expert (@taricha) actually grew out a strain of dinos in complete darkness for a long period of time. I suspect they are never completely dependent on photosynthesis.

Mtb_reefer · Jan 31, 2020

Ahh. I actually just downloaded @taricha dino Id article

dwest · Jan 31, 2020

I agree with salty that an ID with a microscope is helpful.

Mtb_reefer · Jan 31, 2020

Yes definitely. Once I’m done with my remodel my energies will be put into converting my garage into a reef lab of sorts. And equipment like microscopes are on the top of my list.

Kellie in CA · Jan 31, 2020

I'm in the same boat. I've actually had them for a while but only realized what they were when dosing aminos made them explode. I just got the IM UV sterilizer installed last night.... now I'm figuring out where to go from here.

Mtb_reefer · Jan 31, 2020

Kellie in CA said:
I'm in the same boat. I've actually had them for a while but only realized what they were when dosing aminos made them explode. I just got the IM UV sterilizer installed last night.... now I'm figuring out where to go from here.

In my experience, I can say stay away from gfo. It’s just not worth it. And I wish someone would have convinced me of the same.

dwest · Jan 31, 2020

Mtb_reefer said:
Yes definitely. Once I’m done with my remodel my energies will be put into converting my garage into a reef lab of sorts. And equipment like microscopes are on the top of my list.

Just a FYI, I used a $12 scope from amazon to ID mine a while back. Good luck.

Mtb_reefer · Jan 31, 2020

Off topic but how do add a catch phrase to my profile? Like salty’s “blowing bubbles somewhere”

dwest · Jan 31, 2020

Mtb_reefer said:
In my experience, I can say stay away from gfo. It’s just not worth it. And I wish someone would have convinced me of the same.

IMO gfo is the most dangerous often used material in this hobby.

Mtb_reefer · Jan 31, 2020

dwest said:
Just a FYI, I used a $12 scope from amazon to ID mine a while back. Good luck.

Do you know of an affordable scope that can connect to a camera or computer?

zalick · Jan 31, 2020

Mtb_reefer said:
Do you know of an affordable scope that can connect to a camera or computer?

The $12 one. Just put your phone camera to the eyepiece. Works very well!

Mtb_reefer · Jan 31, 2020

zalick said:
The $12 one. Just put your phone camera to the eyepiece. Works very well!

Oh nice. I was worried the phone camera may not pick up an image.

zalick · Jan 31, 2020

Mtb_reefer said:
Oh nice. I was worried the phone camera may not pick up an image.

Will pic it up great! This is with my phone. The blurriness of the dinos is not the phone, but the focus of the scope. Each dino is at a different depth so cant focus on them all at once with this magnification. And also moving!