Reef nutrition

Advice on treating Dinos

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yngplo

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Hey folks,

I noticed a red carpet take over the floor of my tank so I picked up dr Tim’s waste away and refresh thinking it was Cyanobacteria.

I’ve followed dr Tim’s instructions the past two weeks treating my tank for cyano, but it turns out, my red algae became brown over this two week period and I now believe I’m fighting dinos.

Does anyone have any advice on beating dinos?


Thanks in advance!


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Im also dealing with Dinos rn, you can look at my recent tank journal to see what people have recommended to me to help beat it. Will be updating it soon to list out the steps I'm taking to beat it. But the first thing I was told to do was to get it under a microscope to identify the specific kind and if it is even dinos, and then go from there because different types have different treatments.
 
Like what Luke said above: you can't get a definitive ID on stuff at a macro level, and that lets you figure out how to treat it. (E.g. if it's cyano, lower phosphates/nitrates help; if it's dinos, lower phosphates/nitrates can hurt.)

If you're ever in San Jose, let me know. I have a microscope and I'd be happy to take a sand/water sample and let you know what you have (and send pictures, too!). That'll let me and others help you figure out how to treat it.
 
I always get the feels for those dealing with dinos. Super-frustrating. And I remember the words of advice I got thru BAR that helped me thru.

There are sooo many variables that come into play.

You have a tank journal or can you tell us a little more? How long has tank been up?
 
Squist said:
I always get the feels for those dealing with dinos. Super-frustrating. And I remember the words of advice I got thru BAR that helped me thru.

There are sooo many variables that come into play.

You have a tank journal or can you tell us a little more? How long has tank been up?
Click to expand...
Honestly, I suck at keeping this updated, but my tank has been running since July 2020. I'm gonna start documenting this fight against Dinos here.

My tank has consistently been running at:

8.8 alk
450-470calcium
1450 magnesium.

Falling into cyano or dinos is definitely my fault because I was ONLY trying to keep my main alk and calcium consistent. I would manually dose two-part and change my water bi-weekly, and I feed pellets in an auto feeder, so I know I wasn't purposely pumping my phosphates up.

My game plan right now is:
-Testing nitrates and phosphates regularly to determine what I should do next.
-getting a microscope to determine the kind of dinoflagellates they are
 
switch to 100% blue lights, dose hydrogen peroxide 1mL per G twice a day. UV doesn't hurt either.

Do this for about 1 week, and problem solved... raising your nitrates during this time will also help.
 
yngplo said:
Honestly, I suck at keeping this updated, but my tank has been running since July 2020. I'm gonna start documenting this fight against Dinos here.

My tank has consistently been running at:

8.8 alk
450-470calcium
1450 magnesium.

Falling into cyano or dinos is definitely my fault because I was ONLY trying to keep my main alk and calcium consistent. I would manually dose two-part and change my water bi-weekly, and I feed pellets in an auto feeder, so I know I wasn't purposely pumping my phosphates up.

My game plan right now is:
-Testing nitrates and phosphates regularly to determine what I should do next.
-getting a microscope to determine the kind of dinoflagellates they are
Click to expand...
Solid plan. Depending on which type of dino you have the next steps can vary. For some variants UV works well as they go to the water column after lights out - some hide in the substrate instead and UV isn’t as effective.

Another anecdotal & safe thing I’ve “had success with” is feeding phyto & adding more pods. At some point I heard/read somewhere that certain types of pods will eat dinos. I’ll see if I can dig it up. Its far from being 100% proven but its rather harmless making it decent tool to keep in your back pocket.

but let’s see what you catch on a scope before throwing the kitchen sink at it.
 
Your tank is young. All of the layers of microfauna and such are balancing out too. Keep on keeping-on. The hydrogen peroxide strategy (mentioned above) was part of my fix. It weakens the structure of the dino, as I remember. “Less is more” with hydrogen peroxide (like most things we add) remember.

It’ll correct and balance out in what seemed as fast as they appeared. Hang in.
 
phatduckk said:
Solid plan. Depending on which type of dino you have the next steps can vary. For some variants UV works well as they go to the water column after lights out - some hide in the substrate instead and UV isn’t as effective.

Another anecdotal & safe thing I’ve “had success with” is feeding phyto & adding more pods. At some point I heard/read somewhere that certain types of pods will eat dinos. I’ll see if I can dig it up. Its far from being 100% proven but its rather harmless making it decent tool to keep in your back pocket.

but let’s see what you catch on a scope before throwing the kitchen sink at it.
Click to expand...
This is the normal competition between different species - I had similar story and feel like once I started to feed algae with more nutrients and accidentally introduced diatoms it out-competed dino. Along with UV and manual removal this helped but each story is a little different. Dinos are really good in getting all available nutrients but once there are excess the other kinds of life can compete.
 
Super handy guide that I used to identify and beat a full blown dino infestation I had: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eiGqNCpZB53wIZSvvipL57NE8ljAIGb2/view?usp=sharing

I had the coolia variety which goes free swimming at night. An appropriately sized UV with the correct flow rate was the key for me. Moving the feed pump to an area low in the display tank where a lot of flow passed through made a big difference on the UV effectiveness.

If you're near the Dublin area I also have a microscope I can take sample pictures of
20200530_203259.jpg


https://imgur.com/l0k8mpt
 
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NanoCrazed said:
switch to 100% blue lights, dose hydrogen peroxide 1mL per G twice a day. UV doesn't hurt either.

Do this for about 1 week, and problem solved... raising your nitrates during this time will also help.
Click to expand...
i second this. i dosed h202 every day for a week. first 4 days was also a black out. ran uv.
 
If you’re going the path of UV and your dino strain leaves the substrate for the water column, I’d recommend just trying UV alone to start. It’s very likely UV will take care of the problem quickly by itself especially if you stir up the substrate at lights out.
 
Is there any specific concentration of hydrogen peroxide to be using?

Also, correct me if I’m wrong,

I used a Hanna HI736 phosphate checker and I got a reading of 59. The HI736 is the model you have to do a separate calculation for since it’s in ppb not ppm yeah?

I still need to go and pick up a separate nitrate test.


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Broadcast here too. There’s a method, as I’ve read, to gently inject it under the water surface so that it doesn’t aerate or splash into the water.
 
NanoCrazed said:
switch to 100% blue lights, dose hydrogen peroxide 1mL per G twice a day. UV doesn't hurt either.

Do this for about 1 week, and problem solved... raising your nitrates during this time will also help.
Click to expand...
Squist said:
The 3% type at your drugstore. You’ll find a ton of info in search.

I used the 0.1 ml per 10 gal recipe.
Click to expand...
Eugene said:
I used 1ml/10gal recipe without problem. More can hurt shrimps.


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Click to expand...
This is a really wide range of dosing suggestions... For a 100g tank this would be 200ml/day, 1ml/day, 10ml/day....

Y'all got your decimals right?
 
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