dino experiment

[t4zalews]

kzoo...go broncos..little shout out to my alma mater.

You can see in the later picture the bubbles coming off the algae, I was trying to capture a picture of the stringy algae too but it wouldnt capture it on my phone. I run BRS biopellets. The biggest sign that I know it's dinos is because my snails stopped moving one time and some started dying off.

 

[kzooreefer]

You could have both. The youtube video someone linked too was an excellent example of dinos.

I had a long time outbreak of diatoms that looked just like yours. They would dissapear at night when the lights were out and return as soon as the lights came back on. And they had bubbles coming from them and I read on here somewhere that diatoms didn't produce bubbles, which didn't make sense as they are a photosynthetic algae. I verified they were diatoms by looking at them under a microscope.

Treatment is the same as for all algae, reduce the nutrient load.

I've had freshwater aquariums since I was 6, I lived in GR most of my life and never had problems with diatoms till I moved to Kalamazoo. Difference in the water chemistry is GR has silica of 1 ppm and Kalamazoo has 13 ppm. Now with my reef aquarium the silica isn't coming from the water source, I use 18 ohm DI from work, but from the sand bed. I haven't been able to get a good reading as the method I use doesn't work well in saltwater. But you can limit its growth by limitng the other nutrients it needs, nitrates and phosphate. My nitrates are usually around 1 - 0.5 ppm and my phosphates run between 0.01 and 0.10 ppm. This has kept the diatoms in check as well as any other form of algae.

 

[sneeyatch]

This is my story and how I beat it:

It started off when I had to hypo my display due to bad QT practices. Lesson learned, never again. I was "lucky" in that I was able to remove all of my inverts and corals. I will tell you all this - hyposalinity does not help in the slightest with dino control. At first, I thought it was just a really nasty cyano outbreak since I'd never dealt with dino's before. I started vodka dosing which only made things worse. I ran my skimmer (SRO1000 INT) as wet as I could and stopped any waterchanges...

After my hypo was over, I decided to drain and sell the 2 fish I had left that survived the QT and start over. At that time, I was still fighting the dino's so I turned off my lights altogether since there was nothing in there except rock and sand. It went through a 2 week period of lights out, then I would turn them back on to see, and the dino's would come back after a few days. I decided to go barebottom since the dino's were pretty much locked up in the sand...

Then a fellow reefer told me about a peroxide thread floating around, which I read and re-read. I thought "what the hell - I've got nothing to lose". This is how I won:

1.) Lights out - period.
2.) Started dosing peroxide at 1ml / 10 gallons of water.
3.) I sucked out the entire top (maybe 1/4" - 3/8") layer of sand and anything I could find in the rock (which was minimal).
4.) As I sucked out the water, I strained the water and returned it to the tank so I actually didn't do a water change.
5.) I added a small UV, which I don't know if it helped or not, but I like it, so I like to think it helped a little
6.) I sucked more sand and water out another time, replacing it with strained water again.
7.) after about 1-1/2 to 2 weeks, it was gone.

Now - I ended up getting a small cyano bloom afterward which the peroxide took care of.

Peroxide chief - peroxide.

 

[addicted4life]

I've kept my ph up over 8.4 for 2 weeks and there is absolutely no sign of Dinos in my system. All my lighting is on schedule without any lights out period. Not sure if my tanks are cured, but Dinos is definitely gone for now. I will stop dispensing Mrs.Wages slurry this week and see what happens.

 

[t4zalews]

Been having issues hooking up my ozone unit. purchasing a sacrifice skimmer to use as an ozone reactor. There is not enough dwell time I believe in my current skimmer so it was releasing ozone into the air to much. Hopefully have it up and running at the end of the week.

Dino's suck

 

[sneeyatch]

I'm telling you bro - hydrogen peroxide. Spend the $1 (at most) and dose 1 ml / 10 gallons. Give it a couple of weeks. You'll be surprised.

 

[t4zalews]

I already bought the equipment, might as well use it. But if it is just too much of a hassle, I'll def try the hydrogen peroxide approach. On the other hand..I'm always striving for better water quality as well and ozone can acheive that.

 

[bertoni]

Be careful if you use hydrogen peroxide. It can oxidize fishes' gills, for example, and there isn't much data on using it at this point.

 

[addicted4life]

My ph has been under 8.4 for 2 days and no signs of Dinos.
You have an Apex, get some pickling Lime for under $5 at local grocery.
Mix a teaspoon of lime into a cup of RO water and add slowly with a syringe and watch your ph rise, and you Dinos go away.

 

[t4zalews]

Be careful if you use hydrogen peroxide. It can oxidize fishes' gills, for example, and there isn't much data on using it at this point.

I figured that hydrogen peroxide has similar qualities to ozone, albeit hydrogen peroxide is a liquid.

 

[kzooreefer]

I'm not a big fan of ozone or peroxide use as they both can kill beneficial bacteria.

 

[t4zalews]

I'm not a big fan of ozone or peroxide use as they both can kill beneficial bacteria.

I understand the advantages of beneficial bacteria..but this dino bacteria is slowly strangling my tank to death. I dont think I will continually run ozone when the dino's are gone. Unless they come back, if I can get rid of them and not use my ozone again...it would be well worth the money to me to get them gone.

 

[t4zalews]

BTW...I removed my BRS biopellets from my tank as my dino's have not waned and they stripped the hell out of my water and I had many sps RTN on me. It looks like after I get this dino taken care of, I'll need to replenish most of my corals.

 

[turbo21]

I was in the same boat as you with a bad dino problem in my 125.

I have been battling it for about 3 months, did a week with the lights out, running huge amounts of gfo and gac raising the ph , no water changes and nothing worked.

I dosed peroxide at 2ml/10gal for 6 days with the lights off for the first 3 and my tank is as clean as it ever was. during the dosing, i was changing a 100 micron filter sock every other day. i have been dino free for a couple weeks now

good luck

 

[addicted4life]

If my dinos does ever return I will try the peroxide, but until then, I am a believer in the high ph levels a Randy Homes Farley has suggested. It worked for me.
(Knocking on my wooden fish tank stand)
From what Randy mention, higher ph do not affect tank inhabitants as long as it is below 8.6.

For those of you that say you tried higher ph, did you keep it there 24/7 ?
Was it above 8.4 for a week or two ?
I reallize this may be difficult to do, I checked it 3 times a day, but I swear it has worked for me.
I treated almost a 500G system this way, although only one tank had the dinos. YMMV

 

[jkopp36]

I was in the same boat as you with a bad dino problem in my 125.

I have been battling it for about 3 months, did a week with the lights out, running huge amounts of gfo and gac raising the ph , no water changes and nothing worked.

I dosed peroxide at 2ml/10gal for 6 days with the lights off for the first 3 and my tank is as clean as it ever was. during the dosing, i was changing a 100 micron filter sock every other day. i have been dino free for a couple weeks now

good luck

What livestock do you have including corals and any effects on them? I've been fighting dinos for months and the only thing I haven't tried is peroxide. Through the whole thing the only livestock I've lost is all my snails and I'm petrified of the peroxide but it seems it has worked well for a few. I'm just scared of losing any of my fish or SPS. I could care less about the rogue zoos and other stuff I have.

Anybody have any livestock losses after trying peroxide?

 

[turbo21]

What livestock do you have including corals and any effects on them? I've been fighting dinos for months and the only thing I haven't tried is peroxide. Through the whole thing the only livestock I've lost is all my snails and I'm petrified of the peroxide but it seems it has worked well for a few. I'm just scared of losing any of my fish or SPS. I could care less about the rogue zoos and other stuff I have.

Anybody have any livestock losses after trying peroxide?

i have no sps just soft corals and lps.
no losses, some of my zoos are actually opening up again
my fish include
clown tang
singapore angel
firefish
2 chromis
midas blenny
sixeline wrasse
maroon clown

hermits, snails emerald crabs and pencil urchin

i have seen no strange activity after doisng, they almost seem happier now that the water is crystal clear

if you do a google search for peroxide and dinos there is another great thread on another board, no losses and they have a bunch of sps

 

[t4zalews]

my skimmer comes tomorrow that i will be using as an ozone reactor. Got media bags and carbon ready. hopefully no more ozone smell

its funny that now that you notice ozone smell..i notice it a little bit in our printer room.

 

[sneeyatch]

What livestock do you have including corals and any effects on them? I've been fighting dinos for months and the only thing I haven't tried is peroxide. Through the whole thing the only livestock I've lost is all my snails and I'm petrified of the peroxide but it seems it has worked well for a few. I'm just scared of losing any of my fish or SPS. I could care less about the rogue zoos and other stuff I have.

Anybody have any livestock losses after trying peroxide?

No losses. The only thing I noticed is that zoanthids and palythoa will close up for about a half hour to an hour, but then open up just as normal. If I dumped it in right where my longspine urchin was, he would take off pretty quick, but no livestock issues at all.

I keep gorgonians, soft corals and only a very small amount of sps. Fish at the time were a tomini tang and a true perc. Now - I use the peroxide as a maintenance dose about once a week and still no dinos, no cyano, a little patch of bryopsis that I'm dealing with by other means and still no livestock issues at all.

It does work well. The only thing I would recommend would be to use a decent to strong skimmer because you will get more skimmate - similar to vodka dosing.

I really don't think all of these people using it here and on other boards would intentionally steer someone wrong. Reef Central has a reputation of being pretty dramatic and adamant about products - both good and bad and I don't think I've seen any threads about how "Peroxide crashed my tank"...

 

[jkopp36]

Thanks sneeyatch! I am convinced to try it and will begin tonight. I'm going to dose 0.5ml/10g the first day and if all is well move to 1ml/10g the next and keep it there until I see results - good or bad. I've done a lot of searching and reading the past couple days and I agree that there hasn't been any real major issues with any of the folks that have tried it but rather lots of good results. Any recommended dosing time of the day or procedure? Seems most are just dumping it all in at once but I didn't catch a regular timing preference - i.e. night/day, lights on/off, etc. One more thing - I'm currently running a DIY ozone reactor setup - should I stop that? I'm not so sure it's working very well anyway.

Thanks again!