Came home to major dino outbreak.

[DevilDuck]

Phosphate consumption has seem to hit a plateau, levels have been the same since 10/5 with not additional dosing.

 

10/2/2021	0.55
10/3/2021	0.65
10/5/2021	0.39
10/7/2021	0.4

 

I went ahead and dosed DinoX last night, roughly calculating my total water volume to be 70 gallons, so 13 ml of DinoX.

I took a sample today under my toy microscope, and it appears I now mainly have amphidinium dinos now. Furthermore, I didn't see any more coolia. Not sure if this was the result of the UV or DinoX.

I removed the UV sterilizer since it didn't seem to have an impact, and it was over grown with algae. Better to not have another variable indiscriminately decreasing my biodiversity.

 

Plan now it is:

•  continuing with DinoX every other day as directed 
• dosing phyto and MB7 daily
• blowing off the rocks with a turkey baster nightly
• vacuuming visible dinos on top of the sand bed every few days. 

 

 

[Kindanewtothis]

1 hour ago, DevilDuck said:

Plan now it is:

•  continuing with DinoX every other day as directed 
• dosing phyto and MB7 daily
• blowing off the rocks with a turkey baster nightly
• vacuuming visible dinos on top of the sand bed every few days. 

Don't dose phyto while you dose dino-x. I was recommanded to use MB7 only after the end of the dino-x treatment also.

[mcarroll]

On 10/7/2021 at 3:30 PM, DevilDuck said:

I removed the UV sterilizer since it didn't seem to have an impact, and it was over grown with algae. Better to not have another variable indiscriminately decreasing my biodiversity.

Dino's are the main thing circulating in the water.  (Or were.  Amphidinium don't really go that way.)   I would leave it in and running until there's no more visual sign of dino's....at least until the 6 month bulb life is used up.  (Dino's will be on the microscope long after they've disappeared from normal view....don't worry so much about that.)

 

Try to be patient and just let your tank recover in peace....the Dino X isn't going to help with that.....reset the tank's recovery timer to start counting whenever that stuff is removed from the tank.

[justinkdenny]

On 10/7/2021 at 2:30 PM, DevilDuck said:

Phosphate consumption has seem to hit a plateau, levels have been the same since 10/5 with not additional dosing.

 

10/2/2021	0.55
10/3/2021	0.65
10/5/2021	0.39
10/7/2021	0.4

 

I went ahead and dosed DinoX last night, roughly calculating my total water volume to be 70 gallons, so 13 ml of DinoX.

I took a sample today under my toy microscope, and it appears I now mainly have amphidinium dinos now. Furthermore, I didn't see any more coolia. Not sure if this was the result of the UV or DinoX.

I removed the UV sterilizer since it didn't seem to have an impact, and it was over grown with algae. Better to not have another variable indiscriminately decreasing my biodiversity.

 

Plan now it is:

•  continuing with DinoX every other day as directed 
• dosing phyto and MB7 daily
• blowing off the rocks with a turkey baster nightly
• vacuuming visible dinos on top of the sand bed every few days. 

 

 

When you used the microscope, did you see any diatoms?  When I got dinos the 2nd time, I tried silica dosing to help outcompete the dinos with diatoms and they went away pretty quickly.

[Kindanewtothis]

On 10/8/2021 at 8:49 PM, mcarroll said:

Try to be patient and just let your tank recover in peace....the Dino X isn't going to help with that.....reset the tank's recovery timer to start counting whenever that stuff is removed from the tank.

I'm not an experienced reefer, but I think that what helped me the most after using dino-x is introducing rocks from an established reef. At the first I had cyano all over but then coraline took over the tank. 

[DevilDuck]

4 hours ago, justinkdenny said:

When you used the microscope, did you see any diatoms?  When I got dinos the 2nd time, I tried silica dosing to help outcompete the dinos with diatoms and they went away pretty quickly.

I just took a sample off the top of the sand bed and they are 100% amphidium dinos, no sign of diatoms...yet. I have been daily dosing silica via Brightwell Spongexcel. I may not have hit the 1-2 ppl silica level yet for the diatom bloom.

[justinkdenny]

1 hour ago, DevilDuck said:

I just took a sample off the top of the sand bed and they are 100% amphidium dinos, no sign of diatoms...yet. I have been daily dosing silica via Brightwell Spongexcel. I may not have hit the 1-2 ppl silica level yet for the diatom bloom.

You seem to be on the right track.  I also had amphidium which I think is the hardest to defeat but it is possible.  I would also vacuum the sand bed through a high micron filter sock with filter floss in it and would return the water back to the reef since it is not good to do water changes and feed the dinos more.  I also used the brightwell sponge excel.

[Kindanewtothis]

2 hours ago, DevilDuck said:

I just took a sample off the top of the sand bed and they are 100% amphidium dinos, no sign of diatoms...yet. I have been daily dosing silica via Brightwell Spongexcel. I may not have hit the 1-2 ppl silica level yet for the diatom bloom.

Ok so once again not an experienced reefer here but I'm not following you.

 

If I understand correctly you are using dino-x right now but you are trying to create diatoms at the same time?

 

I'm a noob but I have read a lot on dino-x and what you are trying doesn't make sens to me. Dino-x kills algaes, so I suppose that includes diatoms. I don't think you should be dosing anything else than Dino-X as long as you are not done with it.

 

Then when you are done with dino-x you can resume dosing spongexcel, MB7, phyto and pods.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[DevilDuck]

17 hours ago, Kindanewtothis said:

Ok so once again not an experienced reefer here but I'm not following you.

 

If I understand correctly you are using dino-x right now but you are trying to create diatoms at the same time?

 

I'm a noob but I have read a lot on dino-x and what you are trying doesn't make sens to me. Dino-x kills algaes, so I suppose that includes diatoms. I don't think you should be dosing anything else than Dino-X as long as you are not done with it.

 

Then when you are done with dino-x you can resume dosing spongexcel, MB7, phyto and pods.

 

Just my 2 cents.

Good point, my assumption, which maybe incorrect, was that Dino X does not kill diatoms just as it doesn't kill cyanobacteria. I'm nearly done with the 20 day course of Dino X, after which I will remove it with some carbon. Once I'm at the point that the Dino X is completely removed, I'm hoping for a diatom bloom (there will be plenty of silicate at this point) to fill the space left by the dinos.

 

[DevilDuck]

19 hours ago, justinkdenny said:

You seem to be on the right track.  I also had amphidium which I think is the hardest to defeat but it is possible.  I would also vacuum the sand bed through a high micron filter sock with filter floss in it and would return the water back to the reef since it is not good to do water changes and feed the dinos more.  I also used the brightwell sponge excel.

 Where did you get your micron socks from?

[justinkdenny]

3 hours ago, DevilDuck said:

 Where did you get your micron socks from?

I don't remember if it was amazon or bulkreefsupply.  I don't remember the micron size but @Clown79 could probably tell you how small the micron number needs to be (the smaller the number, the smaller things it can catch). She helped me out a lot when I was fighting dinos.

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, justinkdenny said:

I don't remember if it was amazon or bulkreefsupply.  I don't remember the micron size but @Clown79 could probably tell you how small the micron number needs to be (the smaller the number, the smaller things it can catch). She helped me out a lot when I was fighting dinos.

Oh boy, i can't remember but i know the micron size wasn't available here in cda.

 

I used the IM socks stuffed with floss when i sucked out the dino's daily and then replaced the water to tank

[justinkdenny]

18 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Oh boy, i can't remember but i know the micron size wasn't available here in cda.

 

I used the IM socks stuffed with floss when i sucked out the dino's daily and then replaced the water to tank

Whichever one I bought, I remember it was so thick that I would have to pause the siphon so the sock could drain.  We would fill the sock with floss and my daughter would hold the sock and tell me when to pause the siphon so it wouldn't overflow.  I just remember the lower the micron number, the more stuff it would catch.  I didn't see any super small micron ones on bulk reef supply so I bet I got them on Amazon.  We vacuumed the dinos pretty much every night.

[DevilDuck]

50 minutes ago, justinkdenny said:

Whichever one I bought, I remember it was so thick that I would have to pause the siphon so the sock could drain.  We would fill the sock with floss and my daughter would hold the sock and tell me when to pause the siphon so it wouldn't overflow.  I just remember the lower the micron number, the more stuff it would catch.  I didn't see any super small micron ones on bulk reef supply so I bet I got them on Amazon.  We vacuumed the dinos pretty much every night.

Thanks! I just ordered a couple of 10 micron and a couple of 50 micron socks from Amazon. My current set of 200 micron socks need changing every 3 days.

 

Last night I added my 5th dose of Dino X, I am halfway through their program of 10 doses over 20 days. Since I've already proceeded down this path, I'll continue it until the end.

 

Phosphate consumption has slowed down considerably now, hopefully due to the amphidinium dinos dying off. My nitrate hasn't budged, at around 25-30 ppm.

The sand bed has clear up considerably. 

 

10/2/2021	0.55
10/3/2021	0.65
10/5/2021	0.39
10/7/2021	0.4
10/9/2021	0.42
10/12/2021	0.38

 

 

• I started backing off the temperature from 83 back down to 80 since a few of my corals were not fully extending. They are back to normal now with the lowered temps.
• UV is running during lights off
• Skimmer is running 24/7 (per Dino X instructions) and producing some dark nasty skimmate
• Sand shifter goby, Larry the Conch, and my 2 pistol shrimps have become very active since the sand has less visible dino. They are moving the sand around and I hope pushing the amphidinium dinos into the water column so that the UV can kill them.  
• Lighting period has been at 6 hours / 60% intensity on Radion XR15's, 100% blues / 10% Red, green, and whites. My BTA is NOT happy about the lighting change and is back to moving around everyday.

GHA is starting to take hold on some frags and covering the back wall. I also noticed long white wispy threads that are slimy to the touch on the return flows. These are probably bacterial.

 

 

 

[mcarroll]

9 minutes ago, DevilDuck said:

hopefully due to the amphidinium dinos dying off.

...due to the bacteria not starving for phosphates.  They are simply managing the breakdown of old dino shells now....no backlog.

 

Whether or not the bloom has changed may or may not be in sync with this.

 

See what you think in practice, but I think the 10µ sock is the only one that will make much progress for you.  Some individual cells may still filter through.  5µ or less would be more of a sure thing.  (10 is certainly much better than 100 or 200 tho!  100µ would look like an open hanger door to a dino cell.)

[DevilDuck]

 

  19 hours ago, Tamale said:

It seems like almost of the problems you’ve encountered have really been out of your control and you handled them really gracefully. The Dino’s have definitely been a trip. But again you’ve been super on it!
 

 I don’t think it was ever discussed in that thread but would you attribute them invading due to the lack of phosphates? How could that have been prevented? Does your no water change experiment come into play at all do you think? 

 

Good point, I didn't do a postmortem on what I think contributed to the dino outbreak. Thinking back, with 20/20 hindsight, I think I know the main reasons and they were all within my control. Mistakes were made mainly due to my lack of experience.

 

• Not catching it early on and misidentifying the problem - There was some dis-coloration in the sand bed back in Aug. You can actually see the dinos in my post on Aug. 30th The Great Wave - Waterbox Peninsula 3620 - Page 2 - Large Reef Journals - Nano-Reef Community. First picture of the barnacle shells. I initially mistook this for cyano or diatoms since this was a young tank, I attributed it to new tank uglies. I was in denial. Sometime in early Aug. I didn't notice the DI gel in my RODI unit was expended and was at about 2ppm. My ICP water test showed some silicates. I honestly thought the silicates were causing a minor diatom bloom. I should have positively ID'ed them with a cheap microscope and started treatment early. Now I know that the amount of silicate showing in the ICP water test was not enough to produce a large diatom bloom. 
   
• Chasing numbers and not keeping things stable - I kept forcing the often seen target of "0.03-0.05 ppm for phosphate" cycling between using PhosGuard to lower and dosing to increase phosphate too quickly. I should have let the tank mature and settle into its natural phosphate range. Keeping both nitrate and phosphate both detectable and stable instead of chasing some arbitrary number. You can clearly see the swings and my attempts to "force" the amounts looking at my phosphate and nitrate graphs from July to early Sept, leading to a huge crash in phosphate that went on uncorrected for over 2 weeks when I was out of town. This was when the dinos really gained steam and took over.
   

 

• Lack of Patience - It remains to be seen if I took the right approach when I choose the nuclear option and started dosing Dino X. I did a ton of reading on the giant Reef2Reef thread and was scared off by reports of people battling dino and not making progress over at all for 6 months to years. Many threw in the towel and restarted from scratch. This tank is in the middle of my living room and honestly, the thought of having an ugly tank for months in such a visible area of the house after investing so much into it wasn't appealing at all. I picked the riskier, easy and quick route. It will not suit every one. Time will tell if I can make it work and put the dinos into an extended remission.

[mcarroll]

I can understand taking the route you did.  As long as your eyes are open about it, then there won't be any bad surprises no matter how it turns out.  👍

 

Speaking of that big Dino thread...

 

At 11,000+ posts, it's too big for the whole thread to be read in one sitting.  😵‍💫

 

Because of that I tried to keep the first post updated with all the crucial info – reading the whole thing isn't very necessary.  😇  Just focus on that one page of info and on getting conditions in your tank corrected.  (Which, if you read through much of the thread you see is almost always the same set of corrections...eliminate overfiltration, restore nutrient and diversity levels.)  The object of posting in the thread is usually just to get assistance with ID of your dino strain and (if needed) with fixing your system, such as recommendations for UV filters.  

 

The thread IS HANDY to be searched though....such as for "dinox" or "dino-x".   (Or for the name of your dino.)  LOTS of folks who tried dino-x have chimed in there since 2017, and R2R has a pretty good thread search if you want to see any of those examples.  (I got 8 pages worth of search results on that thread for "dinox" just now.  11 pages for "dino-x".  ...combined, something like 500 posts on it maybe?)

 

For what it's worth, most cases of dino's mentioned on that thread resolve for the most part on the scale of weeks or months.  

 

Of course some cases never resolve.

 

But some cases resolve as quickly as overnight...outliers are inevitable.  

 

Among other factors, resolution time seems to depend a lot on how bad the outbreak was when it was noticed, and how quickly problems with the tank were rectified.

[DevilDuck]

I think the best way to show the tank's progress is with a video update:

 

 

7 out of 10 Doses of Dino X complete. It's mostly back to white sand at this point 4 hours after lights on. So far the journey to dino remission is going steady. The video also shows a few of the lps that are showing some signs of stress. My green hammer and my purple frogspawn do not have full polyp extension. 

 

A major livestock casualty today was my blood red fire shrimp. This was a chance according to some user experiences I've read about Dino X. Shrimp and urchins are often possible casualties.

 

Update - fire shrimp found alive !

 

In preparation for the next stage in the battle I have ordered some items that should help with biodiversity and to bring in some competition for the remaining dinos. 

 

Next steps:

 

1. Remove all visible dino on sand bed
2. Remove all traces of Dino X by running a reactor full of carbon
3. Shut off UV
4. Dose MB7 and Phyto
5. Finish my dosing bottle of SpongeExcel (silicate)
6. Add biodiversity with MiracleMud and Live Sand Activator from : : : : Indo-Pacific Sea Farms : : : : (ipsf.com)
7. Add biodiversity with live sand from 1 CUP LIVE Sand Aragonite Fine- SEED YOUR SALTWATER TANK!! – Addictive Reef Keeping
8. More prayers and sacrifices to Cthulhu 

 

I have to say, my "mistake" purchase of a sand sifting Diamond Watchman Goby, turn out to be the hero of this ordeal. He single handled sifts the entire sand bed of visible dinos daily. Which really helps the way the tank looks and perhaps turning over the sand so that the dinos will enter the water column to be killed by the Dino X and UV combo. 

 

A shot out to Octo Aquatics for nice and secure frag rack to get some of my frags off sand, so the goby can do his thing. Octo Fracks (Frag Racks) – Octo Aquatics

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by DevilDuck
Shrimp alive

[Kindanewtothis]

1 hour ago, DevilDuck said:

• Add biodiversity with MiracleMud and Live Sand Activator from : : : : Indo-Pacific Sea Farms : : : : (ipsf.com)
• Add biodiversity with live sand from 1 CUP LIVE Sand Aragonite Fine- SEED YOUR SALTWATER TANK!! – Addictive Reef Keeping
• More prayers and sacrifices to Cthulhu 

The advice that was given to me at this step, get a rock from someone else.

 

Also what to you plan to sacrifice? 😀

[mitten_reef]

1 hour ago, DevilDuck said:

I think the best way to show the tank's progress is with a video update:

 

 

7 out of 10 Doses of Dino X complete. It's mostly back to white sand at this point 4 hours after lights on. So far the journey to dino remission is going steady. The video also shows a few of the lps that are showing some signs of stress. My green hammer and my purple frogspawn do not have full polyp extension. 

 

A major livestock casualty today was my blood red fire shrimp. This was a chance according to some user experiences I've read about Dino X. Shrimp and urchins are often possible casualties.

 

In preparation for the next stage in the battle I have ordered some items that should help with biodiversity and to bring in some competition for the remaining dinos. 

 

Next steps:

 

1. Remove all visible dino on sand bed
2. Remove all traces of Dino X by running a reactor full of carbon
3. Shut off UV
4. Dose MB7 and Phyto
5. Finish my dosing bottle of SpongeExcel (silicate)
6. Add biodiversity with MiracleMud and Live Sand Activator from : : : : Indo-Pacific Sea Farms : : : : (ipsf.com)
7. Add biodiversity with live sand from 1 CUP LIVE Sand Aragonite Fine- SEED YOUR SALTWATER TANK!! – Addictive Reef Keeping
8. More prayers and sacrifices to Cthulhu 

 

I have to say, my "mistake" purchase of a sand sifting Diamond Watchman Goby, turn out to be the hero of this ordeal. He single handled sifts the entire sand bed of visible dinos daily. Which really helps the way the tank looks and perhaps turning over the sand so that the dinos will enter the water column to be killed by the Dino X and UV combo. 

 

A shot out to Octo Aquatics for nice and secure frag rack to get some of my frags off sand, so the goby can do his thing. Octo Fracks (Frag Racks) – Octo Aquatics

 

 

 

The diamond goby is quite possibly the hardest working sand stirrer/sifter/MOVER of all gobies I’ve owned. 

[DevilDuck]

I haven't seen any changes to the dino population after my 7th dose Dino X. Their number have declined significantly, but progress has slowed significantly.

Multiple samples from the water column show no sign of dinos, they just seem to inhabit the sand bed for now. 

 

These sand dwelling Amphidinium sp. are not as toxic as other varieties of dinos. I have resolved at this point to stop fighting them full force with chemicals and instead start a more natural approach. I am hoping now that the dinos are weakened, a big increase in competition will knock them out. 

 

2 days after my 8th dose, I loaded up my reactor with activated carbon and let it run all day to clear out any remaining traces of Dino X.

Turned off skimmer for the next 48 hours. UV will be left off.

I dosed some MB7 and tossed in the remaining live phyto I had and dosed some more SpongeExcel.

 

My order from Indo-Pacific Sea Farms(ipsf) also arrived, which contained the following:

• WonderMud -- find sand/mud silt mixture with a bunch of hermits, snails worms and ocean life in it
• Live Sand Activator -- pea sized gravel with snails, hermits and bristleworms in ocean water
• 2 bags Live Reef Amphipods in sea water
• Pod Mat - Large portion of ulva and red ogo macroalgae
• Sea grapes - medium portion of edible Caulerpa lentillifera macroalgae
• Some more CUC - 6 Nerites, 6 microhermits, 6 littorinid snails
• Coralline Algae Booster - playing card size plastic plate about 70% covered with corralline algae
• Sargassum sp. Macroalgae (freebie)
• Decorative Hippopus Clam Shell (freebie)

 

Everything arrived within 2 days from Hawaii. Packaging was very nice, and you get a lot for your money. The two freebies are nice, just not too sure what to do with the Sargassum yet. My fish got a feast of amphipods and the tank got a huge dose of biodiversity!

 

After 15 mins of temp acclimation. I added the WonderMud, which clouded the tank for a day. Pour everything in sea water and all.

 

 

Live Sand Activator after some of the WonderMud silt settled. There most of the hermits and snails that were included already scooted off and around the tank.

You can see pieced of ulva and red ogo included for the hermits to cling on to. My tiger pistol shrimp's hideout is betweent he RFK rock and the back wall. I'm sure he'll appreciate all the new building material.

 

Micro-hermits already getting to work on the gha.

 

One of the two plastic panels coated in coralline. Time will tell if it will spread.

 

An unfortunate tragedy also occurred when I was adding in the live sand and mud into the tank. It startled my green clown goby, which dove into my mini maxi carpet anemone.

I managed to free him but he is in very rough shape. I don't think he will make it through the night. 😞

 

[Tamale]

How is the clown goby?? Did they make it 😢

[mcarroll]

I've got my fingers crossed🤞since these guys are a little bit built for getting stung by corals.  (Not by these corals tho!  Little guy doesn't look very happy at all in the photo...)

[rough eye]

very sad about the clown goby but otherwise looks like a really cool idea and a way to add a lot to the tank. 

[DevilDuck]

Looks like the little goby didn’t make it. Could not find him the next morning. He probably died during the night and the CUC made short work of them.