- Today on the five minute saltwater aquarium guide
you got dinos,
it seems like doom,
but we're gonna turn that all around,
this is a battle that can be won.
(upbeat music)
Hey I'm Ryan, your host at BRStv,
and the five minute saltwater aquarium guide.
This is a clear, simplified,
and direct path to setting
up that first successful reef tank.
Today if you're watching this it's probably,
because you've realized what you're dealing with
is not cyano
but dinos which tend to look a little bit more
like bubbly snot than slime.
Depending on the type that you have,
reduce or disappear at night,
and then come back when the lights are
on but most importantly,
nothing you seem to do sets them back,
or eliminates them from the tank.
However the community has produced some paths
which seem to work in a pretty high percentage of cases.
The most important thing here is to respect
this won't be a quick process.
Let it take its time,
and understand this is just one of the lessons of reefing,
it took months for this problem to develop,
and it might take months to get out.
If you're satisfied with progress
rather than quick wins you'll be more successful.
There is one caveat to that,
a properly installed and tuned UV sterilizer
can actually be an end game solution on its own
or even preventative measure but there are no guarantees.
UV sterilizers are most effective when the dinos
appear to disappear a night,
break up into the water column,
and then reappear when the lights come on.
If you go with a UV sterilizer,
I strongly recommend the Pentair units
which have distinct flow ratings for bacteria and protozoa.
A UV sterilizer actually has to be tuned to the system,
for instance a 25 watt Pentair is good for
up to 130 gallons,
it needs 470 to 780 gallons an hour,
meaning that it processes most of the water
in the tank every 10 to 15 minutes
to keep those populations of dinos down.
That said, other types of dinos stay
on the surface of the rock and sand and unaffected by UV,
and why some reefers find UV to be an instant solution
and others don't.
So, outside of UV we're gonna look at,
this is a four step process.
First step is test nitrate and phosphate,
if you're looking at double zeros,
that might be part of the problem.
While not proven,
the current general consensus is dinos
are at least partially caused by very low nitrate
and phosphate in the system.
It's believed in this environment that their able to
out compete other organisms for resources
and just tend to take over surfaces
and explode their population.
Zero nitrate and phosphate levels
at least seems to be one of the very common characteristics
of those who run into dino problems.
If you are reading double zeros,
raising nitrate
and phosphate can be done by increasing feedings,
decreasing the efficiency of various filters
or simply dosing nitrate directly
with something like Brightwell's NeoNitro or NeoPhos.
In any case make adjustments until your levels
are consistently anything above zero.
My favorite nitrate test kit is the NYOS,
and Hanna ultra low range phosphate checker
is my favorite testing tool for phosphate.
Special note for any of you that are carbon dosing
or using anything like biopellets,
I would stop during this process,
if only to let the nutrient levels rise
but also because some theorize
the organic carbon levels could play a role on this.
Step two is now that you're reducing the populations
and maintaining nutrient levels
where the other organisms have a fighting chance,
it's time to start dosing competitive organisms,
in this case dosing heterotrophic bacterias
like Dr. Tim's Waste Away, Microbacter7 or Vibrant.
It's hard to definitively say how these work,
but some are believed to out scavenge nutrition.
Some likely outcompete surface area or territory,
and some may even be aggressive enough
to consume other organisms.
But in any case when used properly,
these have all been used to beat dinos very effectively.
In fact, often used as a cocktail together
or dose on alternate days.
I wish I could give you the perfect recipe here,
but it hasn't been commonly agreed on yet
and almost certainly different
between the different types of dinos in individual tanks.
Other than that,
it's likely gonna take an aggressive approach,
my suggestion is try one,
and scale it up with the frequency of dose over time,
and then add another if that doesn't work,
but these are types of bacterias
that seem to be the ultimate solution for many reefers.
Step three, you're going to physically remove
as much as possible as often as possible,
preferably daily until you win the battle.
Some types of dinos only live in colonies in the rocks
or sand, so removal means siphoning it out,
stirring it up will probably not have the desired affect.
Other types of dinos can be filtered
out of the water column particularly when they tend to break
up at night when the lights are off,
in this case changing
out your filter socks every morning will help.
Automatic filter media rollers like the Rollermat
are very affective at keeping populations down as well.
On our XXL750 we had dinos,
we were going through a roll every few days,
but it was actually when we added
the temporary UV sterilizer
which really changed the whole thing.
We also want to consider using something like a BRS reactor
in a five micron depth sediment filter
like the ROSave.Z to reduce the populations
as much as possible.
This kind of thick sediment filter
will be much more affective than a filter sock.
Step four is once you
and your army of bacteria start winning the battle,
one of the things you can do to help them win
is wrap the tank in something black,
and do a three to four day total blackout.
We're looking to block out as much light
as humanly possible,
dinos are photosynthetic
and will have a major setback during that period
with no light.
At this point you'll give your bacterial troops time
to takeover some of that much needed territory.
After that keep doing what you're doing
and simply be patient,
nothing good in a reef tank happens fast,
so it took you months to get to this point,
it's helpful to think that it might take as long to get out.
With this overall approach,
you should see progress in a matter of weeks.
Learning everything about dinos
can be a science project of its own
and really beyond what a first year reefers really gonna dig
into but if you're game,
one of the best things you can do
is join the hashtag ask Brstv group on Facebook,
and ask for help.
I also post a link to the research the team put together
on the video description,
so you can check out that if you're ready to put
in a few hours of research.
There are people on Reef2Reef really digging
into this if you're ready for this next level,
so there's a lot of discussion out there,
and it evolves everyday,
because this topic is not fully understood yet.
These last few episodes have been some of my favorites,
because it really gets past what to do
when things are going great
and deals with what to do when they aren't.
In the next episode,
what to do when the corals are dying
or simply don't look healthy,
it's probably not what you think, in fact, I know it isn't.
And the entire five minute guides always available here,
but if you wanna know what to do about
less than stellar coral health and you should,
because it will happen at some point, this is it.