Dinos?

S

Scotty333!!!

Active member
Guys

Dinos have taken over my sand and rocks , last week I had a few small patches but this week I changed a few things that might have fuelled complete sand coverage

My temp went from a steady 26.5 - 27.5 after I played with the heater
My salinity was down to 1.024 so I raised it to 1.026
I turned my skimmer off for a day to try and raise nitrates from 0.5 + but don’t have a kit to know if it worked
Then I set my skimmer to off for 3 hours daily so I dose phyto
I got water on my maxspect psu so dried it out a few days and reinstalled


Now, I know it’s a lot of changes and difficult now to pinpoint but what do I do to get rid of them?
I’m waiting on my lfs to tell me if they have a microscope
 
Sometime keeping the temperature up to 82+ degree helps eradicate some, but not all, Dino’s.
 
Bottom out nutrients does not work, light out does work but they just come right back IME
 
First you need to identify for sure they are dino's and then which kind. Could be diatoms, cyano or worse chrysophyes.

There are many types of dinos out there. Just turning lights out will make them disappear but they will come back.

UV/ozone can kill the types that at leave for the water column at night so turning lights out does help with that type.

Some dinos just burn them selves out. I just went through a sever bout with dinos. I mean they coated everything I was using a fishnet to scoop them out. After a while they just burned themselves out.

What works for me the most is keeping nutrients high enough so other algae types grow and out compete them. In low nutrient environment dino's seem to outcompete other algae's.

Most dino's are toxic so I am not sure how effective pods are. Plus most of these places sell copepods that don't survive in a reef. They were selected for fish or invertebrate larvae feeding. Tisbe is the only one I seen available that will actually survive in a reef long term and amphipods. You probably already have them.
 
Scotty333!!! said:
So

Uv
Filter sock
Lights out
Run catbon
Nutrients above 0
Add bacteria
More?
Click to expand...


Like I aid you need to identify what you have. I have a large UV skimmer and it did nothing for the dinos I had and never has for any of the types I have had. Not once.

A microscope or college might be able to help you identify them or get a picture. There are people out there who can id them and what coarse of action to take. There are allot of dino's out there. Remember zooxanthellae are dinos.

You add nutrients and it is not dinos you could fuel what you have if it isn't.

You may waist time money and be more frustrated.

For me all I ever do is add or increase bacteria and increase the growth of my macro and other algae and try to remove as much as I can without replacing water. It has worked every time. I will ad a carbon source to help increase the bacteria count. My goal increase bacteria and other types of algae to out compete dino's. You can add bacteria but it wont do nothing with out fuel to grow. I usually do not add bacteria I just increase it by adding carbon and making sure there is enough phosphates and nitrogen.

Dinos seem to appear in too sterile of a tanks or when people go to extreme on getting rid of algae or use a chemical to rid algae. This is why I do not mind a little cyano and algae in my aquariums. As long as it is there you usually do not have Dinos and if need be they are far easier to control than dino's or chrysophyes.

I just do not feel low nutrients always leads to Dino's, look at how long zeovit has been around and those tanks do not. Why is that? My guess it is high bacteria system and the bacteria out compete the Dino's..
 
Last edited:
Scotty333!!! said:
Right now I’m on a 3 days blackout until the lfs opens Tuesday
Click to expand...


Again like @OrionN said the blackouts do not work.

Once the lights come back on and there still is favorable condition they will come back.

Almost all algae can produce spores so they can survive along time.

I had some live rock that I put in a bucket for a year or more twice in the dark with a pump and within days of getting light most of the algae's came back.

To me it is just unnecessary stress on a coral.
 
Well it’s bank holiday here so lfs is closed until tomorrow I plan to get a 25+w uv, pump , 5 micron sock , microbacter 7 , revive and 10 bottles of pods
I think then I’ll have a fighting chance no?
 
shred5 said:
Again like @OrionN said the blackouts do not work.

Once the lights come back on and there still is favorable condition they will come back.

Almost all algae can produce spores so they can survive along time.

I had some live rock that I put in a bucket for a year or more twice in the dark with a pump and within days of getting light most of the algae's came back.

To me it is just unnecessary stress on a coral.
Click to expand...
Well I’m doing no harm trying , had a 3 day blackout when my maxspect got wet and nothing was affected
 
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