dino's

I've had a couple of small outbreaks on one part of my sand bed and on 2 rocks. what worked run carbon i've been running at minumum 1 Lb. added a couple of ocilating power heads this helped. I have also added a tuxedo urchin he eats every thing but has not gone on the rocks that I want him to as I have 3 rocks that have Hair algae on. I have a shortened light on time from most others this helps for alot of thing.
My fish pick at it but not much so once a month I pluck and I get quite a bit of the root matter, it will not grow back if you can get the root matter out also. I think the urchin is prity cool cleans the rock better than the sea hare I borrowed, the urchin takes it right down to rock no green tint left as compared to the sea hare. In a couple of months I maybe able to get ride of mast of the hermit crabs I will probably keep a couple of the smaller ones.

Bill

[whiteice669]

well I am still battling this, at my witts end, am running 4 liters of carbon, have tryed 5-6 periods of total darkness lasting 5-7 days, new filters in ro,tryed raising ph, as high as 8.8 for a period of 2 months, and it keeps coming back, have lost 2/3's of my coral, all shrimp and snails, zeovit does not seem to make a difference ( have tryed running with and without ) Is my only alternitive to tear down the tank and recook everything and start over ???

Get a good sand bed crew I have a slider conch, 6 Tonga snails and a sand sifting Gobi it is a orange diamond Gobi. zeovit is good for combating phosphates dinos are caused mostly from organic tissue dieing and breaking down in the tank. you can try these 3 animals they seem to work great for me if some thing dies the Tonga snails are on it in a snap and you can find it in no time they will congregate at site of death and will even pull it into the open some times if the dead critter is small so all Tonga's can eat. hermits and shrimp get the leftovers it seems. by the way if your snails, shrimp and corals are dieing then they could be causing the dino troubles. Check your water for copper you may have some rock that was treated with copper.

1. get tank parameters in check and in order before doing any thing else get a good cleanup crew and a sand bed maintenance crew.
2. once cleanup and sand bed crew are in the tank and do OK. change light cycle to 2hrs on 2hrs off 2hrs on 2hrs off for 8 hrs a day for a couple weeks leave all lights off at night. the fish will adjust and this will help combat dino's you may have to do this for some time till dino's are gone.
3. do water changes every week 10% will do till dinos are gone then you can go to every 10 days.
4. keep a log for everything to do with your tank parameters, equipment maintenance live stock added live stock deaths everything that happens to the tank should be logged. You can build a log in excel so it's not difficult to do.
I don't know what parameter you test for but you should buy all test kits and test and log them all each and every time you test for some thing even if it was only one test. This can help you solve some problems Dino's will appear about 1 day after something dies in the tank.

Bill

[whiteice669]

I have removed the entire sand bed, all corals that have died have been removed, doing water changes seem to feed it, but have done 25% 2-3 times a week, all levels appear normal with sailifert test kits

[kien]

I didn't see any mention of a UV Sterilizer.. would that not at least help ?

[whiteice669]

I have thought about one, not sure if it would help or not

[kien]

It should at least help reduce the spread of it, as it should kill the free floating spores that get pulled into the sterilizer. Meanwhile, the rest may die off with the other methods you're employing. Something like this requires a multipronged attack I think.

A UV sterilizer will help kill and control anything that is suspended in the water column. I think if you are do that many water changes in a week then you may be stuck in a constant tank cycle.
What do you have in the tank right now?
What size is the tank again?
Do you have Po4 test kit?
Do you have a Kh, Mg, Ca and copper test kits?
I consider these the basic test for a reef along with Ph, salinity, amonnia, nitrite and nitrate.
So there are 10 basic test you need to do and find out where those peramiters are to start to figure out anything.
You could test for about 100 different things but IMO these are a must.
Can you get these peramiters for us?
and slow down on the water changes you may be going more harm than good doing that many all the time. If you don't have the test right now most LFS can do them for you and get the number from them for each test. Lets get down to the bottom of this.
there is a forum in the US if you want help you have to get these parameters before anyone will help it is a known thing on that board I guess.
Your corals could be doing badly for more than one reason too many water changes they don't like to be disturbed to much or have things change to dramatical all the time.
25% water changes 2-3 time a week could be a contributing factor to corals closing up and dieing. I don't know at this point need parameters.

Bill

[christyf5]

My final kick at the cat when I had this issue was removal of the sandbed, powerwashing the rock and pretty much a complete start over. You may have to cook the rocks if they're releasing the nutrients that are fueling the dinos. For me it was the sandbed (even though it was new it had tons of detritus build up on it that looked like grey dust). After the sandbed removal and rock powerwash I was good to go and haven't had a problem since (I had a horrible cycle with caulerpa though, dinos would subside, caulerpa would grow, I'd yard out the caulerpa and then the dinos would flourish on whatever the caulerpa released during the pruning).

Sorry you're still having a time with this, dinos have sent many a reefer running screaming from the hobby.

[Werbo]

I am battling dino's currently as well. This has been going on over 2 months. I am making progress via running a high PH dripping kalk. I'd stop doing water changes and replace all your filters on your RO unit (to reduce silicates). Once dino's subside via high PH then re-try a period of darkness.

If I ever have a problem I consult reefkeeping. Here is an interesting read regarding dino's.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

Here is a nice summary with a picture as well. The picture is exactly what I am battling.

http://www.rimlessreef.com/1/post/20...eament-of.html

The main things to do are:

-Period of darkness for 48-72 hours
-Raise the Ph with kalk to 8.4-8.5
-Add good bacteria to out compete the bad (Microbacter 7/Biodigest)
-Run a Po4 remover such as GFO
-DO NOT conduct any water changes!!!
-Siphon out what you can
-Running a 100 micron filter will aid in capturing any free floating Dino's