420reefer365
New Member
Hello all,
In this thread I am going to go in depth on how I eliminated Ostreopsis Dinos quickly with NO coral loss. So, without further ado, lets get started.. I would like to begin with why I got these nasty dinos. Like most of us, I was doing weekly/bi-weekly water changes of around 25% in my 20g tank. I thought that with this standard pattern of normal upkeep and no algae growth everything would stay perfect in my tank (I feed once a day with a cube of frozen mysis shrimp to my 4 fish). This caused me to get lazy with testing water parameters. After about a month, I was reading 0 Nitrates and 0 Phosphates. Salinity stays at a constant 1.025, Alk is around 9.4dkh, and water temp ranges 77-80... Back in the day, these parameters for Nitrates and Phosphates would be great because of the inaccuracy of our test kits. Now, with Hanna kits, these numbers are no longer suitable.
After much research, Ostreopsis THRIVE off of these low Nitrate and Phos readings. They came in small waves at first where I did not notice they were even there. Then one day I went to work and came home to my Nano being overrun. These little devils feed off of the good food in your tank and starve out the beneficial bacteria which is why beating them can be very difficult. It ended up taking me 3 months of experiments and hundreds of dollars on new equipment to be able to come here today and tell you how you can execute these guys in 2-4 weeks at VERY low cost.
2. Next purchase will be a "UV sterilizer." Now, I put parenthesis around that for a reason. This hobby is expensive, and I am teaching you not only how to beat these jerks, but the cheapest way to do it. Go on amazon and search "UV Sterilizer Light." These WATERPROOF bulbs will pop up for no more than $20. THIS IS ALL YOU NEED. Make sure when you set the bulb up, it is inside of your hang-on filter, sump, or anywhere else where the UV CANNOT touch anything other than FLOWING water. The idea behind this is, at night, the dinos suspend themselves up into the water column. As the water is sucked through the filter or whatever you put the light in, the UV is DESTROYING their micro DNA strands preventing them from reproducing and eventually killing them directly. This is why it is so important to keep this light hidden. It can and will kill corals, fish, and BENEFICIAL BACTERIA if the light is bleeding into the tank. I threw my little 5w bulb into a little fluval hang-on filter and it worked perfect. FYI, I keep my light on constantly day/night, but it is most effective at night.
3. The last purchase you will need is Dr. Tims REFRESH and WASTE AWAY. This stuff knocks out bad bacteria and replaces it with beneficial. For small tanks, you'll need small bottles. This stuff is not very expensive either and will run you $10-$20 bucks as well. The dosing calculations are on the bottles, but for my 20g, I was dosing 7.5ml of refresh FOR THE FIRST 3 DAYS. After that, I dosed the WASTE AWAY FOR THE FOLLOWING 4 DAYS. The waste away can be tricky and there is a warning on the bottle, but really you just need to start with small doses first working your way up. I did 5ml the first day, 7.5ml the next, and then 12.5ml the last two days. MAKE SURE TO TURN YOUR UV OFF BEFORE YOU DOSE AND FOR AT LEAST 4 HOURS AFTER. If you do not, all of the bacteria you just poured into the tank will be killed by the UV.
4. Now that we have everything we need to fight the Dinos the last thing we need to do is test our parameters every few days. I had a serious problem maintaining my phosphate levels throughout this process and dosed 1.5ml EVERY DAY to increase them by .03ppm to fight the drop.
5. By day 7, if the dinos are still in the tank, restart the process each week.
I want to thank you guys for coming to my TED talk, and if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below and I will get back to you ASAP.
In this thread I am going to go in depth on how I eliminated Ostreopsis Dinos quickly with NO coral loss. So, without further ado, lets get started.. I would like to begin with why I got these nasty dinos. Like most of us, I was doing weekly/bi-weekly water changes of around 25% in my 20g tank. I thought that with this standard pattern of normal upkeep and no algae growth everything would stay perfect in my tank (I feed once a day with a cube of frozen mysis shrimp to my 4 fish). This caused me to get lazy with testing water parameters. After about a month, I was reading 0 Nitrates and 0 Phosphates. Salinity stays at a constant 1.025, Alk is around 9.4dkh, and water temp ranges 77-80... Back in the day, these parameters for Nitrates and Phosphates would be great because of the inaccuracy of our test kits. Now, with Hanna kits, these numbers are no longer suitable.
After much research, Ostreopsis THRIVE off of these low Nitrate and Phos readings. They came in small waves at first where I did not notice they were even there. Then one day I went to work and came home to my Nano being overrun. These little devils feed off of the good food in your tank and starve out the beneficial bacteria which is why beating them can be very difficult. It ended up taking me 3 months of experiments and hundreds of dollars on new equipment to be able to come here today and tell you how you can execute these guys in 2-4 weeks at VERY low cost.
HERE IS HOW I DID IT
1. Buy NeoNitro and NeoPhos. Each bottle will run you around $10-15 as of 01/22/24. Increase Nitrates to 10-25ppm. Optimally 15ppm but I know some Salifert and similar tests kits are not super accurate. Your phosphates should be anywhere from .05-.15ppm. Optimally .1. Every parameter needs to be stable throughout this process. SG 1.025-ALk-9dkh-Temp around 77. 2. Next purchase will be a "UV sterilizer." Now, I put parenthesis around that for a reason. This hobby is expensive, and I am teaching you not only how to beat these jerks, but the cheapest way to do it. Go on amazon and search "UV Sterilizer Light." These WATERPROOF bulbs will pop up for no more than $20. THIS IS ALL YOU NEED. Make sure when you set the bulb up, it is inside of your hang-on filter, sump, or anywhere else where the UV CANNOT touch anything other than FLOWING water. The idea behind this is, at night, the dinos suspend themselves up into the water column. As the water is sucked through the filter or whatever you put the light in, the UV is DESTROYING their micro DNA strands preventing them from reproducing and eventually killing them directly. This is why it is so important to keep this light hidden. It can and will kill corals, fish, and BENEFICIAL BACTERIA if the light is bleeding into the tank. I threw my little 5w bulb into a little fluval hang-on filter and it worked perfect. FYI, I keep my light on constantly day/night, but it is most effective at night.
3. The last purchase you will need is Dr. Tims REFRESH and WASTE AWAY. This stuff knocks out bad bacteria and replaces it with beneficial. For small tanks, you'll need small bottles. This stuff is not very expensive either and will run you $10-$20 bucks as well. The dosing calculations are on the bottles, but for my 20g, I was dosing 7.5ml of refresh FOR THE FIRST 3 DAYS. After that, I dosed the WASTE AWAY FOR THE FOLLOWING 4 DAYS. The waste away can be tricky and there is a warning on the bottle, but really you just need to start with small doses first working your way up. I did 5ml the first day, 7.5ml the next, and then 12.5ml the last two days. MAKE SURE TO TURN YOUR UV OFF BEFORE YOU DOSE AND FOR AT LEAST 4 HOURS AFTER. If you do not, all of the bacteria you just poured into the tank will be killed by the UV.
4. Now that we have everything we need to fight the Dinos the last thing we need to do is test our parameters every few days. I had a serious problem maintaining my phosphate levels throughout this process and dosed 1.5ml EVERY DAY to increase them by .03ppm to fight the drop.
5. By day 7, if the dinos are still in the tank, restart the process each week.
I want to thank you guys for coming to my TED talk, and if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below and I will get back to you ASAP.
