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Dinos. Who can help woth a Microscope?


A.ocellaris

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Hey guys,

 

looks like I will never enjoy my little reef ?. Apparently I have dinos and they are now getting over  my birdnest. 

 

Anyone with a microscope that can help me identify the type of dinos?  Alexandria  VA. 

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Don’t have a microscope, but feel your pain. It took a long time for my tank to settle in. With dinos I tried lights out, peroxide among other things. Lost most of my corals from the constant stress. I just couldn’t get rid of the dinos. It wasn’t until I read that dinos really take off when your tank is too clean. I had a new tank that I started with dry rock and was running carbon and GFO early on. What worked best and finally did them over was to cut white light out for a month. Blues were run for their full duration. I also stopped doing water changes for 1.5 months. Took carbon and GFO offline. I also siphoned dinos daily into a mesh filter sock in the sump to remove all I saw. Then removed and rinsed off the sock for the next day. Nasty stuff. Some algae started to grow in the tank and eventually outcompeted the dinos. After a month I introduced white lights for 1hr/day and extended their duration over several months. At first the dinos came back when I exceeded 4hrs/day of white light. So I just waited for about 6 months before trying to run whites longer. They didn’t come back.

 

I felt like one thing after another for the first few years of having a tank. Was a real love/hate relationship with the hobby when going through all those types of issues, but finally made it through it all. Hang in there and it will eventually be fun. 

 

Have  you verified that they are dinos? I found that if I siphoned them out into a bucket during water changes they would clump together on the bottom of the bucket. They are also very stinky and can easily be sucked off the rocks.

Edited by WheresTheReef
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13 hours ago, WheresTheReef said:

Don’t have a microscope, but feel your pain. It took a long time for my tank to settle in. With dinos I tried lights out, peroxide among other things. Lost most of my corals from the constant stress. I just couldn’t get rid of the dinos. It wasn’t until I read that dinos really take off when your tank is too clean. I had a new tank that I started with dry rock and was running carbon and GFO early on. What worked best and finally did them over was to cut white light out for a month. Blues were run for their full duration. I also stopped doing water changes for 1.5 months. Took carbon and GFO offline. I also siphoned dinos daily into a mesh filter sock in the sump to remove all I saw. Then removed and rinsed off the sock for the next day. Nasty stuff. Some algae started to grow in the tank and eventually outcompeted the dinos. After a month I introduced white lights for 1hr/day and extended their duration over several months. At first the dinos came back when I exceeded 4hrs/day of white light. So I just waited for about 6 months before trying to run whites longer. They didn’t come back.

 

I felt like one thing after another for the first few years of having a tank. Was a real love/hate relationship with the hobby when going through all those types of issues, but finally made it through it all. Hang in there and it will eventually be fun. 

 

Have  you verified that they are dinos? I found that if I siphoned them out into a bucket during water changes they would clump together on the bottom of the bucket. They are also very stinky and can easily be sucked off the rocks.

 

 

Yes. My tank is low in nutrients and Ive been using carbon dosing too. Ive been dosing nitrates as well, but looks like I need to do some adjustments. 

6 hours ago, cpu933k said:

I have a scope. I can help confirm if they are dinos or not, but can't help with species ID.

 

Great!  There are some articles in the Reef2Reef forum that may help identify them if you can take some pics. Where are you located?

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i’m in alexandria and have a cheap microscope i got for my dino battle. Also have a jeboa 55w UV. You’re welcome to borrow both. My dino battle is mostly under control now. Do you have any pics of your dinos?


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5 hours ago, A.ocellaris said:

Yes. My tank is low in nutrients and Ive been using carbon dosing too. Ive been dosing nitrates as well, but looks like I need to do some adjustments.

 

Why are you carbon dosing? It seems counter productive to have to dose nitrates that you are lowering with carbon dosing. IMHO you are doing what I did and are over stripping the tank of nutrients too early on. Carbon dosing is likely the reason why you are going through dinos. I would stop carbon and nitrate dosing and let the tank raise its levels through feeding your fish. Sometimes we add stuff to our tanks with good intentions, but end up doing more harm. 

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Why are you carbon dosing? It seems counter productive to have to dose nitrates that you are lowering with carbon dosing. IMHO you are doing what I did and are over stripping the tank of nutrients too early on. Carbon dosing is likely the reason why you are going through dinos. I would stop carbon and nitrate dosing and let the tank raise its levels through feeding your fish. Sometimes we add stuff to our tanks with good intentions, but end up doing more harm. 

+1 absolutely stop carbon dosing.


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Just wondering if anyone else noticed a difference using dry rocks.  The “only way” to start a saltwater tanks back in the days were with live rocks (and that was always the single most expensive purchase in those systems).  After the curing then cycling of tanks I never saw issues other than minor algae.  

Now fast forward to over a decade later, I started with dry rocks. Now in a single system and a fraction of the time and I’ve had dino, couple strains of cyano, random algae issues and a slew of other issues before my current system was stable enough to add corals.

Seems to me like the biodiversity available on REAL live rocks is definitely worth any hitchhikers that may make it in!

@A.ocellaris I feel your pain.  Let us know if you need help battling them.

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5 hours ago, jhOU said:

i’m in alexandria and have a cheap microscope i got for my dino battle. Also have a jeboa 55w UV. You’re welcome to borrow both. My dino battle is mostly under control now. Do you have any pics of your dinos?


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Awesome!!! Here are some pics. Do you think the UV can be used in an IM fusion 40? 

 

 

46407708554_d92d6288e7_b.jpg

 

46404137534_05913f36f4_b.jpg

 

 

46213640645_3c678fbe7c_b.jpg

 

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Awesome!!! Here are some pics. Do you think the UV can be used in an IM fusion 40? 
 
 
46407708554_d92d6288e7_b.jpg  
46404137534_05913f36f4_b.jpg  
 
46213640645_3c678fbe7c_b.jpg  

The 55w uv is quite large, but you should be able to rig it over the tank. Doesn’t have to be pretty, just a temporary fixture. UV is only effective on certain strains of dino, and you should see results in a couple days if it’s helping (some report within 24 hours). UV did not help much for mine, which I believe are amphidinium.
PM me if you want to give it a try.


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