Dino outbreak...here's my attack plan. Opinions wanted!

[CanYouHearMeMeow]

My tank has seemed to develop the infamous dino outbreak guys... I've also noticed they've wiped out my copepod population and I've lost 2 out of 3 snails which has solidified my diagnosis...unfortunately I thought I had a diatom bloom in the earlier stages. I want no chemicals and no peroxide involved whatsoever, I'm trying to go all natural and then if that isn't successful then I will result to chemicals / tank breakdown and restart.

 

 

My plan of attack is this:

 

I'm currently on day 1.5 of blackout out of 3.I took a tiny peek and can see that the algae on the sand is 50% eliminated. (I'm also running an airstone).  My theory is, at the end of the day I need to replenish my copepod population to prevent these kinds of outbreaks from happening again.

 

On day 3, I plan to add the copepods (at night) and then dose phytoplankton according to package instructions. I'm figuring I'll be attacking the dino's while they're weak and hopefully the copepods will finish the job..

 

What are your opinions ? Have any of you tried this method of attacking dino's?  What have your best method's been to eliminate this pesky algae?

 

[ninjamyst]

How big is your tank?  Whats your nitrate and phosphate?  Blackouts did nothing for me when I had dino.  They come back as soon as you turn lights back on.  

[CanYouHearMeMeow]

I have a 10g. I took my water to my LFS and they did a full test and they said everything looked good. I don't have a number for you (yes rookie move) but I trust their word since my frogspawn is thriving and huge and I've seen no change in the tank otherwise.

I haven't tested water since the beginning of blackout.

 

If it makes any difference, back when I thought it was diatom, I wrapped my filter intake in floss and scrubbed the rock with a toothbrush and the filter floss sucked up a lot of gunk.. then about 2 days later algae was back (obviously haha) I'm hoping copepods and phyto will nip this issue in the bud now that I'm starting to resolve the underlying issue and not band-aid'ing it.

 

 

[Zach W]

Check out Vibrant by UWC. Did an amazing job on a Dino outbreak that I had! I would highly recommend it, and it didn’t have any negative impact on coral or anything. Blackouts never worked for me 

[btmedic04]

I would add microbacter 7 to your plan as well.  Adding that will increase your nitrifying and de-nitrifying bacteria which will compete with the dino for nutrients. Ive read that fresh water or very low salinity (think 1.08-1.10sg) dips can kill dinos on rock work. Just don't do them all at once otherwise you may have an ammonia spike from the die off