Dino's?

[seabass]

On 12/31/2019 at 2:09 PM, Clown79 said:

Omg when I read of bleach, it scared the crap out of me.

 

Yup it will kill dino's and a lot of other beneficial things. 

 

Everyone who was successful at getting dino's back in check used natural methods that have been backed by science and research.

 

It's an ecosystem, it all works together, 1part of the chain broken can lead to a multitude of issues. 

I know that you've done in tank peroxide treatments in the past.  Sure, it's not the same; but also, not entirely dissimilar.  Fortunately, there seems to be a move away from harsh in tank treatments.

 

People drink (and breathe) small amounts of chlorine every day.  It's the concentration which makes it dangerous.  However, I am in no way recommending intentionally dosing chlorine; but the fact that it has been done isn't absolutely unbelievable.

 

While I currently don't recommend dosing peroxide, I admit that I have tried it in the past.  It's easy to get caught up in a promise to quickly cure a difficult problem.  However, I feel that we are learning (or relearning) the lesson of using more gradual, natural methods to address our reefing problems.

[mcarroll]

30 minutes ago, seabass said:

While I currently don't recommend dosing peroxide, I admit that I have tried it in the past. 

Me too.....my excuse is/was that peroxide is at least naturally found in a reef tank/on reefs tho.   😉

 

But that is also why it's a shi*tty treatment for algae.  😆

 

Most algae and corals can easily deal with elevated oxygen levels, radicals, peroxide, etc....even in quantity. 

 

Spot treatments that allow HIGH peroxide concentrations are the only thing worthwhile....and not even sure about that for 99% of tanks. 

 

Plucking algae by hand and adding cleanup crew is #1.

[seabass]

2 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Spot treatments that allow HIGH peroxide concentrations are the only thing worthwhile....and not even sure about that for 99% of tanks.

I'll still perform peroxide dips on zoanthids (usually after manual removal of the algae).  They withstand it well, and I like to limit the introduction of new pest species of algae.

 

Speaking of harsh treatments.  I'll also confess to using Bayer dips; although I still feel a little weird about it when I do.  I try to limit harsh treatments to dips versus dosing.  Maybe we'll even get beyond this someday.  Quarantine is certainly a more natural approach.

[mcarroll]

13 hours ago, Tamberav said:

nano reef hasn't gotten that crazy yet

Indeed.   

 

When I came back here full time a little while back I fully intended on duplicating my Dino thread here.  Thing is, there just weren't enough folks here doing the things that lead to dino's to really justify it.

 

Seems fine to address folks here on a thread by thread basis.....so far at least.....so that's all I've been doing.

[justinkdenny]

6 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Indeed.   

 

When I came back here full time a little while back I fully intended on duplicating my Dino thread here.  Thing is, there just weren't enough folks here doing the things that lead to dino's to really justify it.

 

Seems fine to address folks here on a thread by thread basis.....so far at least.....so that's all I've been doing.

And I thank you for your efforts.

[justinkdenny]

Still no luck. 

Things I have changed.

 

Added im nuvo uv filter but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

 

I noticed when I siphoned sand with 200 micron sock to take out dinos but add water back i left the water in a bucket for a while and the dinos grouped back up in bucket so the sock is not working at all I guess.  

I have been vacuuming and blowing off rocks most days but it just comes right back the next day.  My idea was to get it in the water column no matter the type, Ostreopsis or amphidinium, and let the uv do its thing. I pour filtered water back into tank directly into the uv chamber.

Also, snails still falling off the walls making me think toxins are still bad even though I change carbon out frequently. 

 

I bought a 10 micron sock but it hasn't arrived yet.

Still adding phosphates and nitrates and keeping them available. 

[Clown79]

4 minutes ago, justinkdenny said:

Still no luck. 

Things I have changed.

 

Added im nuvo uv filter but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

 

I noticed when I siphoned sand with 200 micron sock to take out dinos but add water back i left the water in a bucket for a while and the dinos grouped back up in bucket so the sock is not working at all I guess.  

I have been vacuuming and blowing off rocks most days but it just comes right back the next day.  My idea was to get it in the water column no matter the type, Ostreopsis or amphidinium, and let the uv do its thing. I pour filtered water back into tank directly into the uv chamber.

Also, snails still falling off the walls making me think toxins are still bad even though I change carbon out frequently. 

 

I bought a 10 micron sock but it hasn't arrived yet.

Still adding phosphates and nitrates and keeping them available. 

The sock alone will not catch them all, they are in the water column.

It's really a method to reduce the dino's on corals and surfaces but doesn't get rid of them.

 

In order for the UV to work on dino's, it can't be in the back chambers, it needs to be in the display area.

 

Have you added pods, rotifers etc. And how much was added? Did you feed phyto for them?

 

[justinkdenny]

It is so frustrating.   I guess I should have just reset the tank when I first got dinos.  I was so excited to get back into the hobby after about a 10 year hiatus.  My first stint with my 75 gal, I never had dinos but things were different then with real live rock.  Where can a person get quality live rock in small amounts these days?  My lfs is great but they don't carry it.  They just cycle dry rock but if I could get some real diversity it might just be the ticket to winning this war.  Thoughts?

[justinkdenny]

1 minute ago, Clown79 said:

The sock alone will not catch them all, they are in the water column.

It's really a method to reduce the dino's on corals and surfaces but doesn't get rid of them.

 

In order for the UV to work on dino's, it can't be in the back chambers, it needs to be in the display area.

 

Have you added pods, rotifers etc. And how much was added? Did you feed phyto for them?

 

1. If they are in the water column which if I'm having toxins, they probably are Ostreopsis,  or at least some are,  shouldn't they go through the uv?

 

2. Yes I have added pods.  I have been raising pods and adding periodically but I never see them in there.

 

3.  I just bought the jar of pods from algaebarn.  I added about half the jar all at once and have been raising the rest and adding periodically.

 

4.  Yes I feel the tank phyto.

 

 

[Clown79]

11 minutes ago, justinkdenny said:

It is so frustrating.   I guess I should have just reset the tank when I first got dinos.  I was so excited to get back into the hobby after about a 10 year hiatus.  My first stint with my 75 gal, I never had dinos but things were different then with real live rock.  Where can a person get quality live rock in small amounts these days?  My lfs is great but they don't carry it.  They just cycle dry rock but if I could get some real diversity it might just be the ticket to winning this war.  Thoughts?

Resetting the tank isn't a guarantee to work. Many have done that to end up with the same problem within a few weeks

 

If you want to add diversity, seed the tank with pods.

 

That's what worked on both my tanks. As soon as I added them, a pod condo,  and started phyto dosing- I didn't have to do the sock routine and 2 weeks later back to bi weekly small waterchanges.

After a few more weeks no dino's found under microscope.

 

I added 24 oz of zooplankton blend from canada copepods and 8 oz of rotifers in 1 night.

 

A month later I added another 8oz of zooplankton blend.

 

Then i added tigger pods.

 

It's hard to get quality liverock today. 

 

You have to add a lot to seed a tank. A small amount won't do it.

 

You won't necessarily see them, certain pods are mostly in the rock work, like tisbe. 

They advise setting up a place for pods to reproduce safely, like in a back chamber.

[Clown79]

6 minutes ago, justinkdenny said:

1. If they are in the water column which if I'm having toxins, they probably are Ostreopsis,  or at least some are,  shouldn't they go through the uv?

 

2. Yes I have added pods.  I have been raising pods and adding periodically but I never see them in there.

 

3.  I just bought the jar of pods from algaebarn.  I added about half the jar all at once and have been raising the rest and adding periodically.

 

4.  Yes I feel the tank phyto.

 

 

If the uv isn't in your display tank where the majority of dino is, it won't work.

 

UV is also not a guarantee to work. It's worked for some and not others.

[justinkdenny]

13 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

 

They advise setting up a place for pods to reproduce safely, like in a back chamber.

I built a little removable container that goes in the second chamber of the nuvo 10 that has rock rubble in it for an, aka pod condo.

[justinkdenny]

17 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Resetting the tank isn't a guarantee to work. Many have done that to end up with the same problem within a few weeks

 

If you want to add diversity, seed the tank with pods.

 

That's what worked on both my tanks. As soon as I added them, a pod condo,  and started phyto dosing- I didn't have to do the sock routine and 2 weeks later back to bi weekly small waterchanges.

After a few more weeks no dino's found under microscope.

 

I added 24 oz of zooplankton blend from canada copepods and 8 oz of rotifers in 1 night.

 

A month later I added another 8oz of zooplankton blend.

 

Then i added tigger pods.

 

It's hard to get quality liverock today. 

 

You have to add a lot to seed a tank. A small amount won't do it.

 

You won't necessarily see them, certain pods are mostly in the rock work, like tisbe. 

They advise setting up a place for pods to reproduce safely, like in a back chamber.

do you think the toxins could be killing the copepods?

[mcarroll]

1 hour ago, justinkdenny said:

I noticed when I siphoned sand with 200 micron sock to take out dinos but add water back i left the water in a bucket for a while and the dinos grouped back up in bucket so the sock is not working at all I guess.  

It's not too likely to catch any unless they're already snotted up into "wads".  Dino's are around 50 microns or less....cysts and "swarmers" are significantly smaller...around 10 micron.

 

I would run a sock of 50 microns or less.  (Must be a different thread, but thought I put that in here already.  Too many threads!  LOL)

 

Check out https://www.thecarycompany.com/filtration/liquid/liquid-filter-bags?filter_micron_rating=1274%2C156748&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7Jv9n4b35gIVwoFaBR1-hwswEAAYAiAAEgJZBvD_BwE

 

All of the options on that search should be 10 micron socks.  You could even try a 1 micron....that would catch pretty much everything, just clogs faster.  No idea if it would be "too fast" since you're only doing a water change/cleaning.....should be fine I think.

[justinkdenny]

1 minute ago, mcarroll said:

It's not too likely to catch any unless they're already snotted up into "wads".  Dino's are around 50 microns or less....cysts and "swarmers" are significantly smaller...around 10 micron.

 

I would run a sock of 50 microns or less.  (Must be a different thread, but thought I put that in here already.  Too many threads!  LOL)

 

 

we have talked about it and i have purchased a 10 micron which is supposed to arrive tomorrow (slow Shipping).  i think i will run water through it and then add back to tank directly into uv filter.  

[Clown79]

46 minutes ago, justinkdenny said:

do you think the toxins could be killing the copepods?

Not likely 

 

Are your corals and fish dead? The toxins effect them and even humans.

 

The carbon reduces the toxins.

 

It's the 1 method that has worked for many. Pods are the competitors to dino's.

 

Snails get more effected by the toxins because they graze and ingest more. Fish that mostly get effected are grazing fish.

 

 

 

[justinkdenny]

1 minute ago, Clown79 said:

Not likely 

 

Are your corals and fish dead? The toxins effect them and even humans.

 

The carbon reduces the toxins.

 

fish are all alive.  I have lost some corals though and the rest of the corals look bad except for gsp.  i change carbon once or twice a week.

[mcarroll]

So carbon will remove toxins from the water, but not from the living dino cells themselves. 

 

We generally hope to shut off toxin production by providing nutrients so that newborn dino's might stay autotrophic (when they are mostly known to be harmless epiphytes) and stop blooming....blooming is (generally) what happens when they starve of dissolved nutrients and switch to eating particulate things (i.e. what you and I would think of as food) like bacteria or phytoplankton...or even larger things in some cases, depending on the exact dino. 

 

Bacteria, of course, make for a virtually unlimited food supply, so this is why we can get what seems to be an unending bloom of dino's.

 

Pods that eat a toxic dino will act "drunk or stunned" or they'll die.  It might be the main reason for their toxins...to deter or kill off direct predators.

 

Snails end up with the same effect as the pods, but their body mass is thousands of times (millions....dunno) larger than a copepods though, so it takes a lot more to reach the drunk or dead phase from eating them.

 

I've never heard of anyone's fish being directly affected by the presence of a dino bloom.

 

In theory it's possible,maybe for an algae eating fish that might directly consume a high number of dino's (they don't seem to like eating them in any cases I remember hearing about), but should more likely to happen to a base-level predator that would be eating things like pods and snails such as a wrasse...or bigger fish eating those smaller fish.   "Bio-magnification."

 

I think fish that are "merely" toxic are a lot more common than fish that die from it though....so I'm not sure we'd notice unless we ate our fish.   That's not recommended regardless of your tank's dino status!  😜

 

Forgot to add, it's possible that toxin production remains on in spite of nutrient levels....it's rare but possible,

[justinkdenny]

3 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

 

 

I think fish that are "merely" toxic are a lot more common than fish that die from it though....so I'm not sure we'd notice unless we ate our fish.   That's not recommended regardless of your tank's dino status!  😜

 

 

lol

[Clown79]

57 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

So carbon will remove toxins from the water, but not from the living dino cells themselves. 

 

We generally hope to shut off toxin production by providing nutrients so that newborn dino's might stay autotrophic (when they are mostly known to be harmless epiphytes) and stop blooming....blooming is (generally) what happens when they starve of dissolved nutrients and switch to eating particulate things (i.e. what you and I would think of as food) like bacteria or phytoplankton...or even larger things in some cases, depending on the exact dino. 

 

Bacteria, of course, make for a virtually unlimited food supply, so this is why we can get what seems to be an unending bloom of dino's.

 

Pods that eat a toxic dino will act "drunk or stunned" or they'll die.  It might be the main reason for their toxins...to deter or kill off direct predators.

 

Snails end up with the same effect as the pods, but their body mass is thousands of times (millions....dunno) larger than a copepods though, so it takes a lot more to reach the drunk or dead phase from eating them.

 

I've never heard of anyone's fish being directly affected by the presence of a dino bloom.

 

In theory it's possible,maybe for an algae eating fish that might directly consume a high number of dino's (they don't seem to like eating them in any cases I remember hearing about), but should more likely to happen to a base-level predator that would be eating things like pods and snails such as a wrasse...or bigger fish eating those smaller fish.   "Bio-magnification."

 

I think fish that are "merely" toxic are a lot more common than fish that die from it though....so I'm not sure we'd notice unless we ate our fish.   That's not recommended regardless of your tank's dino status!  😜

 

Forgot to add, it's possible that toxin production remains on in spite of nutrient levels....it's rare but possible,

When I researched dino's and not forum research, scientific research - grazing fish that go after algae like blennies, can be effected.

 

If snails can be effected, pods, and humans, why would fish who inadvertently ingest it by grazing algae and ingest dino's, wouldn't be?

 

They aren't immune.

[justinkdenny]

24 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

When I researched dino's and not forum research, scientific research - grazing fish that go after algae like blennies, can be effected.

 

If snails can be effected, pods, and humans, why would fish who inadvertently ingest it by grazing algae and ingest dino's, wouldn't be?

 

They aren't immune.

i have a tailspot blenny who is very skinny.   i have been trying different foods for him but he is very finicky for some reason.  

Just now, justinkdenny said:

i have a tailspot blenny who is very skinny.   i have been trying different foods for him but he is very finicky for some reason.  

i feed so much trying to get him to eat that my clownfish keeps getting fatter and fatter.

[mcarroll]

33 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

If snails can be effected, pods, and humans, why would fish who inadvertently ingest it by grazing algae and ingest dino's, wouldn't be

I agree!  Here's what I said...

 

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

I've never heard of anyone's fish being directly affected by the presence of a dino bloom.

 

In theory it's possible,maybe for an algae eating fish that might directly consume a high number of dino's (they don't seem to like eating them in any cases I remember hearing about), but should more likely to happen to a base-level predator that would be eating things like pods and snails such as a wrasse...or bigger fish eating those smaller fish.   "Bio-magnification."

 

I think fish that are "merely" toxic are a lot more common than fish that die from it though....so I'm not sure we'd notice unless we ate our fish.   That's not recommended regardless of your tank's dino status!  😜

 

 

So I said it was possible, but I'd never heard of it happening....as in my dino thread and here...and I said not to eat your fish.  😉

 

Fish Kills : Red Tide - Woods Hole Oceanographic

https://www.whoi.edu › redtide › impacts › wildlife › fish-kills

 

Fish kills aren't as uncommon as we'd like them to be in the wild, but I've never heard of anything like that in a reef tank from dino's.

 

Note what they refer to as "Ichthyotoxic" dino's. 

 

They exist, but we never (knocking very hard on wood) have those dino's in our tanks -- at least in my experience so far.  I can't speak for anyone else!  😉

 

[ReeferND]

Kinda late to the game here but I beat dinos (confirmed with microscopic examination). DinoX worked for me in collaboration with high nitrate and phosphate levels. I beat them (see my build thread) by dosing DinoX (corals hated it, expect loses) and keeping nitrate > 10ppm and phos > 0.1 (not 0.01). I haven't seen them in months after doing this. 

 

I truly appreciate the natural approaches to getting rid of dinos but dinos are tough. Once you have them,  you will probably never get completely rid of them. But you can keep them in check and unnoticed in the tank. Again, I have not read through then entire post. Are you sure you have dinos? You need a microscope in most cases...and it is obvious with a microscope if you do. You may be fighting something different so complete and 100% ID of the problem is needed. 

[Clown79]

11 hours ago, justinkdenny said:

i have a tailspot blenny who is very skinny.   i have been trying different foods for him but he is very finicky for some reason.  

i feed so much trying to get him to eat that my clownfish keeps getting fatter and fatter.

I had 2 tailspots, both were very finicky. Besides grazing algae they wouldn't eat anything else. 

 

They weren't interested in nori either

 

 

I have a bangaii that will only eat frozen mysis.

 

[Tamberav]

@justinkdenny

 

I have found some blennies to be a bit challenging to get eating good. My pictus would not touch prepared food for months and I had to grow him lots of gha and such.

 

He eventually took to nori but I had to dip it in garlic to get him to start eating it. Many months later he finally would eat frozen foods.