Avoiding Dinos in New Tank

[davidwillis]

Biodiversity is definitely how I feel about dinos as long as you have enough it’s definitely help outcompete a lot of unwanted things in your tank

That seems like a logical thought. However I have had tanks with very low biodiversity, without getting dinos, and the one tank I did get dinos, had what at least seemed like a high biodiversity (at least much higher than the other ones that did not get dinos). I have had tanks for 30 years, and never had dinos until my current tank.

It is probably a combination of things if I were to guess (bright led lights, starting with fake rock, killing things with chemicals, low po4/no3, bringing in dinos on frags, etc). Maybe someday someone will take the time to figure out exactly what conditions are needed to cause an outbreak, and what conditions will reverse it.

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Through my fight I had to drive pho and not as hard and as high as I could to fuel other organisms to be able to out compete the Dinos in order to combat them. My battle lasted many many months and almost killed my tank.

In the short term, over a month or so, I tried driving phosphate by dosing. Phosphate rose just a little but never in proportion to upward dosing change. Never achieved even 0.1 ppm. I gained the impression that dinos were like some giant creature just swallowing up anything you fed them and turning it into brown gloop

Steve

 

[SaltySteven]

In the short term, over a month or so, I tried driving phosphate by dosing. Phosphate rose just a little but never in proportion to upward dosing change. Never achieved even 0.1 ppm. I gained the impression that dinos were like some giant creature just swallowing up anything you fed them and turning it into brown gloop

Steve

That is more true than you know. I over fed like crazy! That was my experience however all species of Dino’s are different and I have heard and researched a vast amount of treatments on these things so don’t just take my word for it.

 

[Mwatts12]

I’ve read this several times on R2R so I know I am not alone.

I restarted my tank in July 23’ with 120 pounds of KP rock.

I battled Dino’s like crazy…… matter of fact. Still have them right now ….. BAD

this is my third tank in the last 5 years. Each one has had Dino’s. The only real fix is time and it sucks.

Once I came to peace that literally nothing fixes it but time. I am just patiently waiting.

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Having had the bad start up experience with my sump I bought 20kg good quality real live rock for the main tank. There is also maybe twice that in Marco in there. I cleaned the Dino infested sump compartment just with freshwater, no formal sterilisation, then started the system with the main tank in the loop. The rear sump compartment was untouched. So there were definitely dinos in the system in smaller numbers at the restart, not a sterile system. Yet SO FAR after almost 2 months I have not seen a Dino repeat. One heck of a lot of diatoms on lit rock for sure, typical uglies I hope. I got a good number of fish and CUC in there ASAP and am feeding them well. So I am hoping to find that a new system with some real rock, seeded with dinos, yet having reasonable nutrient levels doesn’t actually grow them.

 

[LiquidSpace]

What I want to know is how many people that use Tampa Bay Live rock get Dinos? It looks like one person in this thread said they had them with the live rock, but I haven’t seen it said anywhere else. That’s my plan in my next aquarium, doing a ton of live rock for bio diversity.

 

[ReefGiant]

I’m pretty new to the hobby, but I started with dry rock no lights and microbacter 7 and Fritz turbo. Added a little dr time ammonia to feed for about 2 months. Then added algae barn pods then fish then corals a few months later. About 9 months in and no real problems besides a little hair algae in the beginning. It seemed to go away on its own with regular water changes.

 

[Naekuh]

no lights, fishless cycle.

I did not have dino's until cycle as completed.
And then moment i turned on lights added fish, and coral, i started getting dinos.

But i think trying to minimize is better then skipping altogther.

To minimize, i turned on my UV, and im growing / seeding copepods every 10 days.
So i grow out a colony and in 10 days, i dump half the colony into my tank, and repeat until either my phyto culture crashes or my copepods do.

Then i'll probably get more copepods and phyto to repeat.

But copepods do love dinos, and fish love copepods.

Now im starting to see some green, and then hopefully red/purple in the form of coraline.

 

[carri10]

You’d start off with no sand and live rock

Once tank is matured and mostly stocked, then add rinsed sand for a cloudless delayed install

No sand allows you to remove all growths. Dinos invasions are caused by the rules reefing peers tell each other to follow, such as leave them in the tank and do no water changes

Do opposite of what the invaded masses do to be Dino free

Hi. I’m setting up a 1000l peninsula. Keen for it to work and happy to do the prep.
Your comment interested me (they usually do!). What is your recommendation for avoiding Dinos in a new set up (not how to remove once you have them)?

I have 30%live/70% dead rock in a tub, no light, flow, water changes every ~3 weeks and feeding a few shrimp every week. At the point of setting up the tank, it will have been incubating like this for 4 months.
The goal being to get as much of the dead rock ‘live’ by the time I start tank up.
I’m then going to set up with 80% live sand.
I’m planning to go 1st month no lights + a few black mollies + Pods, 2nd month gradually increasing lights, adding CUC and more pods. After that month 3, a few softies and some more fish.

Does this seems like a good plan? What should I be careful of and change if need?

Sounds like dinos are a major reason for misery for beginners, and way you can help us avoid that would be invaluable.
Thanks.

 

[brandon429]

Beginning with 80% live sand will be a challenge. In case dinos get in and start to express having the sand will make it much harder to control and remove them

Your rock preps are good but I’d recommend waiting on adding the sand till a few months after startup. You’ll need the sand to be 100% pre rinsed so it doesn’t ruin your setup with clouding when added. This giant thread shows how to pre rinse

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

No sand let’s you lift out rocks and scrape off invasions or clean them from the bottom floor of the system. Physically removing them is the most important part, not tank params and not species ID of any invasions. Add the sand in only when some corals are growing well and stability is evident

 

[Mwatts12]

What I want to know is how many people that use Tampa Bay Live rock get Dinos? It looks like one person in this thread said they had them with the live rock, but I haven’t seen it said anywhere else. That’s my plan in my next aquarium, doing a ton of live rock for bio diversWhat I want to know is how many people that use Tampa Bay Live rock get Dinos? It looks like one person in this thread said they had them with the live rock, but I haven’t seen it said anywhere else. That’s my plan in my next aquarium, doing a ton of live rock for bio

I think it was @ScottB who posted about having Dino’s with a real live rock.

I had a water box 6025 peninsula quite a few years back. I put Marco rock in DT and loaded the sump with KP rocks.

DT and sump had Dino’s. Blew my mind

I think at this point it’s a roll of the dice.

This current tank I thought I would only do live rock to prevent Dino’s. Did not work either.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

The tank is not old enough

Not old enough for biodiversity? How old does the tank have to be?

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

What I want to know is how many people that use Tampa Bay Live rock get Dinos? It looks like one person in this thread said they had them with the live rock, but I haven’t seen it said anywhere else. That’s my plan in my next aquarium, doing a ton of live rock for bio diversity.

You need more than simple biodiversity. You need robust competition.

 

[george9]

What I want to know is how many people that use Tampa Bay Live rock get Dinos? It looks like one person in this thread said they had them with the live rock, but I haven’t seen it said anywhere else. That’s my plan in my next aquarium, doing a ton of live rock for bio diversity.

I transferred 2 year old established rock to a new tank with 8lbs of TBS rock to seed it even more and STILL got dinos lol. I let my PO4 and NO3 bottom out, and stay 0 for too long and the dinos took over. Corrected the nutrients, did a 4 day black out and they haven't been back since I resumed the lights. I will say I had a much easier time fighting dinos in a tank with TBS rock than in tanks with dry rock.

I've fought dinos a number of times now and in my experience in order to avoid it completely, you need to start with as diverse of a microbiome as possible or at least be working towards diversifying from the tank's start. This can be done with live rock from the ocean, live sand from the ocean or both. Once the system is up and running, PO4 and NO3 must be monitored like a hawk while working to massage the microbiome with phyto and pods. While doing this, NO3 and PO4 MUST remain elevated the entire time. Even brief windows where either PO4 or NO3 drops to 0 can allow dinos to take hold. I don't even like my PO4 dropping below .05, because that is when I start to notice isolated areas of dinos at times. Basically do everything you can to encourage everything ELSE to grow versus the dinos. It is a lot easier to start a tank with this mindset than it is to fix a complete dino takeover because you got lazy. You can easily deal with hair algae and cyano with a diverse CUC, but dinos not so much. Everything can grow in elevated nutrients, but the second you strip those out, dinos will outcompete everything else...and fast!

Once the tank matures a bit and coralline is becoming the dominant algae, you are at lower risk for dinos and can relax a bit although the risk is never 0, especially if you become nutrient limited again at any point.

You need more than simple biodiversity. You need robust competition.

100% agreed. Give every other organism in your tank the upper hand against dinos (keep nutrients up) and they will occupy the space the dinos so desperately want to occupy.

 

[jackson6745]

Live rock and don’t let the nitrates and phosphate bottom out, ever. IMO keep a buffer. Something like 10ppm no3 or higher and .1 po4 or higer. No cyano or Dino’s like this. Low nutrients and dry rock seems to make Dino and cyano thrive.

 

[brandon429]

Competition works best on less target mass

Competition is what will keep us from rip cleaning to eternity agreed

But one tweak: the #1 thing the masses do in the sticky threads at the top of the nuisance algae forum with very low quality outcome results from 600 pages of work is they find reasons to leave the dinos in place

Don't remove them, leave them in place is the number one advice that isn't working for the masses, that they keep doing. Don't do water changes is wrong: with siphon water changes you can remove target mass

All communal organisms, especially ones adapted to reefs that we want gone, find benefit in the collective mass

Insulated from meds and starvation, able to withstand some degree of physical insult like a cellular phalanx

Physical removal by hand, until you don't have to (by learning how to prevent) is how everyone can beat dinos

What we see in the low quality outcome work threads: before pics of wrecked dinos tanks. That's opposite of force control, that's passivity then they fight the giant mass from within

Until they change approach, the next six hundred pages of work is still going to just be tanks cycling between dinos, cyano and hair algae. Low quality results

What we should be seeing: throngs of pics from people with absolutely clear tanks, that have bad dinos problems and they're having to work daily to keep it that clean, and they want to reduce work

We never see that mode, not ever, we allow invasion without a real effort to counter it

 

[ScottB]

I think it was @ScottB who posted about having Dino’s with a real live rock.

I had a water box 6025 peninsula quite a few years back. I put Marco rock in DT and loaded the sump with KP rocks.

DT and sump had Dino’s. Blew my mind

I think at this point it’s a roll of the dice.

This current tank I thought I would only do live rock to prevent Dino’s. Did not work either.

Live rock is VERY helpful IMO, but no silver bullet versus dinos. Dinos thrive when there is a lack of other surface competitors. Think bacterial films, film algae, diatoms, algae, coralline etc etc. In a stable system (with adequate nutrients always available) the list of surface competitors is pretty darn long. Some are visible, many are not. Some of the competitors we find aesthetically appealing (coralline) and others (cyanobacteria) we do not.

Starving the competition is one way to get dinos. The will feed off of the deceased surface competitors. Another was is to use Chemiclean or some other general antibiotic.

 

[Mwatts12]

I just have to clarify. My nutrients have never bottomed out. At the time of the Dino attack my phos was .3 ish and nitrates like 50. Each of my tanks has had KP rocks one way or another (biodiversity)

I’ve sent in icp at times with Dino’s, large and multiple UV’s, lights out, hydrogen peroxide, took rock off and scrubbed weekly, no water changes, extra water changes. Fuge / no fuge etc. etc.

also this was over a period of time and not all at once. Then all at once over a period of time.

Time will fix this problem.

For the longest time I thought it was LEDs causing it. However reef central has tons of Dino threads with t5 and MH’s.

 

[carri10]

Beginning with 80% live sand will be a challenge. In case dinos get in and start to express having the sand will make it much harder to control and remove them

Your rock preps are good but I’d recommend waiting on adding the sand till a few months after startup. You’ll need the sand to be 100% pre rinsed so it doesn’t ruin your setup with clouding when added. This giant thread shows how to pre rinse

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

No sand let’s you lift out rocks and scrape off invasions or clean them from the bottom floor of the system. Physically removing them is the most important part, not tank params and not species ID of any invasions. Add the sand in only when some corals are growing well and stability is evident

Nice advice. Will follow. Thanks!

 

[carri10]

All communal organisms, especially ones adapted to reefs that we want gone, find benefit in the collective mass

Insulated from meds and starvation, able to withstand some degree of physical insult like a cellular phalanx

Biofilms, baby. Many industries deal with these, inc. healthcare, where the problem is bacteria, but I can imagine Dino can set up similar systems in dino blooms.