Why did I wait so long? Dinos are done

[TessGlo]

In my 55 gal mixed reef tank I have been dealing with stingy dinos for about 1.5 months, below is what I was dealing with. After trying all the things in the dino threads and blowing dinos off corals almost daily, I gave in and bought a UV sterilizer and within 48 hours it was at least 50% better and now I see none, and my glass also stays cleaner. I should not have waited.

The tank was about 20 months old when this happened. I probably brought the dinos on when I decided to battle some minor bryopsis and bubble algae by lowering nutrients and dosing Vibrant. LEARN FROM ME, it was a big mistake to overreact to these algae issues because they don't harm corals, they just look bad. I lost several acros, probably from letting my nutrients get too low and some from the stress caused by the dinos sticking to the acro tips. The dinos absolutely killed my Gorgonians, which are some of my favorite and hard to find in my experience. I'm just glad I did not lose more. In hindsight, I should have just kept dosing Vibrant and kept nutrients stable but I got impatient, lesson learned.

If your are dealing with a dino issue, seriously consider UV, and just win the battle already! Anyone else have amazing transformations from adding UV or wish they had got one sooner?

 

[TheEngineer]

Happy to hear things are improving

 

[jisc]

Installed a UV sterilizer last night. Anxiously awaiting results. I did the exact same thing w Vibrant and GFO. Tried to wipe out some hair algae and get nutrients lower but actually made things much much worse and Dino’s exploded in a week. I thought water changes would help as well. I’ve lost almost all lps coral, polyps and mushrooms. We’ll see what makes it. I’ll never use phosgard or purigen again unless it’s an emergency. Hard lesson learned.

 

[dwest]

Installed a UV sterilizer last night. Anxiously awaiting results. I did the exact same thing w Vibrant and GFO. Tried to wipe out some hair algae and get nutrients lower but actually made things much much worse and Dino’s exploded in a week. I thought water changes would help as well. I’ve lost almost all lps coral, polyps and mushrooms. We’ll see what makes it. I’ll never use phosgard or purigen again unless it’s an emergency. Hard lesson learned.

UV will help with many types of dinos. Be sure to also run GAC until the dinos are gone. Good luck.

 

[jisc]

Yep. Running carbon

 

[TessGlo]

Installed a UV sterilizer last night. Anxiously awaiting results. I did the exact same thing w Vibrant and GFO. Tried to wipe out some hair algae and get nutrients lower but actually made things much much worse and Dino’s exploded in a week. I thought water changes would help as well. I’ve lost almost all lps coral, polyps and mushrooms. We’ll see what makes it. I’ll never use phosgard or purigen again unless it’s an emergency. Hard lesson learned.

I'm fairly sure reefing is one good way to stay humble.

It's funny you mention GFO, I stayed away from GFO forever because I heard plenty about how it can mess with stability and just knew not to mess with things, but then I had algae and thought it might be nice to do fewer water changes. GFO is what got my nutrients to 0 even thought I started with 1/3 the recommended dose.

If you have not thought of it already, turn off your skimmer to help raise nutrients and try to feed your LPS. I aggressively fed my LPS to help them survive and raise nutrients, I only lost acros so this may have helped. Good luck and let us know how the UV works out.