Who has won the war on dinos?

[saltyhog]

Would love to hear from those that have won this battle. It might be an encouragement to those who are still struggling with them!

How long has your tank been clear of dinos?

How long did it take to get control of them?

What did it cost you (not monetary....what corals/inverts did you lose because of them?)

One of the enemies

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Just finished the battle and have been clear of the for over a month. Thanks to a tip from a good friend! No More Dino's!!!

 

[Ling_Thing]

Oversized UV did it for me

 

[zoous]

Just finished the battle and have been clear of the for over a month. Thanks to a tip from a good friend! No More Dino's!!!

What was the tip?

 

[wesman42]

Oversized UV did it for me

Same here. This along with re-introducing different forms of biodiversity... rock from a different tank, fiji mud, pods! Some pods eat dinos!

 

[Stephers]

I had Osteo dinos. I put on an oversized UV for a week and kept my nitrates and phosphates up. Gone for 5 months now. Luckily no casualties... caught it quick. Although my corals did look like hell for several weeks.

 

[zoous]

Will adding live sand help rid dino?

 

[hdsoftail1065]

What was the tip?

Actually I got lucky. No chemicals, ran a uv and just burned through them.

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

I had them for a couple of months. Used dino-x to get them out. Then corrected the nitrate phosphate imbalance once they were cleared out. It's been 7 months and counting that I've been clear, knock on wood. I lost 5 acros due to high phosphates during that time, not from the dinos but it was part of the chain of events so I count it. Learned my lesson and shall not repeat my mistakes.

 

[zoous]

which uv sterilizer unit do you recommend?

 

[hdsoftail1065]

which uv sterilizer unit do you recommend?

I used the jebao pu-55, the thing is fairly massive and inexpensive but done the trick. I used it on a 144.

 

[Acroporaaddict]

I added a 15w UV to my 50g and increased n03 to 10ppm and po4 to .1ppm they have been gone for 5 months

 

[PigFarmer]

over did it on filtration with a skimmer and a biopellets on a 30 gallon zoe an anemone tank... Nitrates and phos testing at zeros for to long is what did it for me... Fought it for a month after it took hold with water changes which was simply compounding my issue.... Threatening to tear the tank down my reef keeping friend of 20 years advised me to take skimmer and biopellets out.... dose bacteria hard once time and start feeding more... I did and within about 5 weeeks my tank was 100% clean and free of any dinos.. I put the skimmer back in at this time and I've been clean for 8 to 9 months now... When the dinos started detaching and releasing I was changing the poly filter media daily and I think that helped also once they started dying off... In the end Id say I lost bout 30% of my schwaggy zoa polyps but all fish inverts and anemones survived and are still alive today

 

[chefjpaul]

Osteo.

Started with dry rock. Zero nutrients and "life"
Basically a dead ecosystem.

This tank started exactly one year ago this month. The dino / cyano soup started almost right away as I had them previously and this aquarium was basically a transfer.

They lasted approximately 3-4 months, along with the massive algae farm I grew. Since I went through it before went full atomic.

No testing at all. I just added a little bit more than a cap of both seachem phosphorus and nitrogen daily until GHA consumed the tank. Then stopped dosing. (Like consumed everything).

Durring this time, added more fish, corals - lots, tons of pods, snails, a few urchins, some sponges, (small cryptic zone), and more bacteria's, (not carbon dosing).

Let nature clean it up with a bit of help from my wifes toothbrush.

After it was cleaned up and coraline would stick where the urchins didn't chomp, turned on the algae reactor to keep it balanced out a bit, if balance is a true thing.....and then started testing nutrients. Now only test nutrients with ICP as an ecosystem with life seems to keep them at bay.

I like GHA and the urchin combo, if you can grow GHA, I believe you keep dino away.

 

[MrObscura]

I had them for a month or so, likely a result of low nutrient levels. I dirtied up the tank by feeding a lot more and they began to Vanish within days, after 3 weeks they were completely gone. They could have been gone longer but I let the tank get so dirty I really couldn't see through the glass.

Been dino free for about a month and a half now.

 

[Realposition]

I battled them for about about a year then installed a UV sterilizer....they disappeared in 3 days and never returned.

 

[Rockhead]

I battled them for about about a year then installed a UV sterilizer....they disappeared in 3 days and never returned.

I’m in the same boat I delt with them for a few months , I was told raise nutrients no water changes and run carbon, well did that for a month or so and I could tell it wasn’t getting worse but couldn’t get rid of them, so my last thing to try was a UV picked up a 36 watt cheap unit to run on my red sea 250 64 gal tank ran water flow rate around 250 gph ran it for less then 24 hrs and 95% were gone turned it off for a few days and then stirred up the sand and ran it for another day . It’s been a week and tank looks great to soon to say they are gone but back to loving the tank.

 

[homer1475]

Lost a few corals to Dino's before I knew what it was. Bought an elcheapo microscope to get a positive ID. Once ID'ed I slapped on a UV unit, rasied nutrients, and have been dino free for about 3 months now.

 

[saltyhog]

Those that won with UV, did you run it permanently (still running) or did you remove it once the dinos appeared to be gone? If you removed it, how long did you run it and how long has it been since you stopped running it?

 

[Ernie C]

I had/have ostreopsis dinos. Took me over a month to get it under control. I lost some lepto frags, branching monit, and other sps frags. Fish and inverts all were ok and some more established corals seemed unaffected. I saved like 6 frags of zoas, acans, plate, lepto by putting them in a 7 gallon tank i quickly set up as a hospital tank.

This is what i did, I raised no3 and po4 and maintained it 4ppm/.04ppm, then Stopped dosing anything, reduced lighting (hours/intensity), turned off wavemakers, would siphon out dinos nightly through a filter sock, added some live rock rubble to my sump from lfs to add bacteria diversity, after like two weeks of this routine the dinos would only concentrate in certain spots (since wavemakers were off) which i could siphon a lot easier. When their numbers were greatly reduced, i dosed DinoX (only did 3 doses). Seemed to work for me as i followed the directions carefully. That got them almost gone, finally i put in a monster UV (55watts) in the display and have it running since. Knock on wood, but currently can't see them any longer and corals are bouncing back. I don't have sand though so it made the siphoning part way easier. I've been dino free for a few weeks now. I still have the UV running but would like to take it offline at some point. Can anyone post how long they left their UV running? Did you take it off line eventually and after how long?