I Think My Dinos are gone! (No Jinx)

[RemoGaggi]

Just wanted to share - I've been dealing with Dinos (Ostreopsis to be exact) since the first week of September in my IM 20.  I haven't seen any dinos the last 3-4 days, so I think they are gone!?  Here's what I did.  I followed Clown79's method and lowered my lights to 65%RGB and 10%W.  No water changes for a month, and then changing only 2 gallons bi-weekly.  I increased my feeding to 2-3 times a day and added a bottle of tigger pods (this is all my LFS had) about 3 weeks ago.  I been feeding phytofeast each night when the lights are just about out.  I tried a UV light briefly for a couple of days a few weeks ago, but that made it worse, so I removed it.  Right now, I'm running filter floss, 2 TBS matrix carbon, and regular matrix (which I've been running since the beginning of the tank - Feb 2019.  My corals seem happy, my Trochus snails have been getting busy as I see 3 baby Trochus snails roaming around, and my fish & shrimps are happy as well.  This dino battle has changed my mindset with regards my water quality - I take a much more relaxed and less OCD approach.

 

Prior to the dino battle, I was running filter floss, chemipure blue, and GFO.  I religiously changed 3.5 gallons water each week and vacuumed the sand.  I turkey basted my rocks every other day, changed filter floss every couple 2-3 days, and cleaned out the AIO filter area every other week.  I used to really stress maintaining my tank, which ironically is probably a factor in the dino outbreak.  Now I just take it easy.  Change 2 gal water every other week, filter floss every 5 days, no more chemipure and GFO, occasional turkey baster action just cause it's fun, let my pistol shrimp landscape the sand for me, and not worry about over feeding my fish & shrimps.  

 

 

[sadie]

congrats!  tank looks great!

[seabass]

Great news.

[Clown79]

Tank looks great. Glad to hear all is going well.

 

Having dino's isn't fun, its work but the one benefit I did get from it was the same as you.

 

I learned to relax and be less ocd too and the tank has benefitted from it.

[Christopher Marks]

Great work @RemoGaggi! Sometimes I wonder if we’ve gotten too effective with filtration over the years, GFO, Chemipure Blue, and even Chaeto macro algae are so easy to add to new reefs but might be the root of this issue.

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

Great work @RemoGaggi! Sometimes I wonder if we’ve gotten too effective with filtration over the years, GFO, Chemipure Blue, and even Chaeto macro algae are so easy to add to new reefs but might be the root of this issue.

I think so. 

 

I use smaller quantities now and as needed, what an improvement

[mcarroll]

On 10/24/2019 at 6:25 PM, RemoGaggi said:

UV light

A UV light probably would make it even worse as the dino's mucus up even more than before for added light protection.

 

A UV filter, on the other hand, would just kill swimming dino's. 

 

(If you had a UV filter and it seemed to make things worse, it was a coincidence and something else was going on.)

 

On 10/24/2019 at 6:25 PM, RemoGaggi said:

This dino battle has changed my mindset with regards my water quality - I take a much more relaxed and less OCD approach.

Excellent!!!

 

Trying to "battle" nutrients got you into the problem.  Try to battle dino's and they fight right back.

 

😄 No more "battling" when it comes to the tank!  😃