How to deal with the five strains of dinos?!
Let’s talk Dinos! Seems 4 out of 10 these days are people asking for help with the dreaded Dino monsters that are covering their beautiful tanks! We want to help get you through the battle and onto the other side back to enjoying your tanks like you should!
There are 5 strains of dinos. 3 that bury into sand at night and 2 that go into water column at night. If it’s a water column strain a UV plumbed directly into the display usually knocks them out quickly, If it’s a strain that buries into the sand then dosing silicates is usually the best course of action. The goal is to create benthic diatoms to starve and smother out the dinos. Dosing silicates will also feed the diatom strains of phyto and aid in their photosynthesis process! Once you have beaten dinos and can stop dosing silicates, the remaining benthic diatoms can be outcompeted for the remaining silicates with the diatom phytoplankton strains to clear your rocks, glass and sand bed.
Ostreopsis and Coolia
These 2 strains disappear into the water column at night. To combat these we recommend utilizing a uv plumbed into your display. Which means you are pulling and returning the water to your display. You need 1 watt for every 3 gallons and a very slow flow rate under 100 gph for smaller tanks and 100-200 for bigger tanks. Ostrea are toxic and you will need carbon and to change it out every 4-5 days once you put your uv online. We recommend start with a low dose if you don’t regularly use carbon. Carbon can strip out nutrients at a fast rate as well so less is more to start here.
Amphidium (LCA and SCA) and Procentrum
These 3 strains bury into the sand bed and go into the rocks at night. These 3 will take longer to beat. For these we recommend silicate dosing. Dosing silicates will cause a benthic diatom bloom. These will smother out the dinos over the course of the next month or 2. Silicate dosing is safe for corals and once the dinos are less than 1-2 per slide you can stop dosing.
With any of the 5 strains we recommend dosing live bacteria like life source, biodigest, microbelift, etc. as well as phytoplankton. Depending on the strain of dinos it’s also recommended to dose pods (some strains like ostrea are toxic and can kill the pods). Dosing pods would be especially beneficial after the silicate method as pods love diatoms! For phytoplankton we recommend our diatom blend to help outcompete the dinos for nutrients. The goal with these 3 is to help boost the systems microbiome. Boosting beneficial bacteria is key. Oceamo lab did a study on tanks microbial content. They found some evidence that tanks with more the 15 bacterial families has less issues like dinos and nuisance algae. Tanks with less were more susceptible to those types of issues. The less good bacteria the more room for the bad stuff to take over. We usually pay the most attention to our biggest critters, but it’s our smallest ones that matter the most!
There are 5 strains of dinos. 3 that bury into sand at night and 2 that go into water column at night. If it’s a water column strain a UV plumbed directly into the display usually knocks them out quickly, If it’s a strain that buries into the sand then dosing silicates is usually the best course of action. The goal is to create benthic diatoms to starve and smother out the dinos. Dosing silicates will also feed the diatom strains of phyto and aid in their photosynthesis process! Once you have beaten dinos and can stop dosing silicates, the remaining benthic diatoms can be outcompeted for the remaining silicates with the diatom phytoplankton strains to clear your rocks, glass and sand bed.
Ostreopsis and Coolia
These 2 strains disappear into the water column at night. To combat these we recommend utilizing a uv plumbed into your display. Which means you are pulling and returning the water to your display. You need 1 watt for every 3 gallons and a very slow flow rate under 100 gph for smaller tanks and 100-200 for bigger tanks. Ostrea are toxic and you will need carbon and to change it out every 4-5 days once you put your uv online. We recommend start with a low dose if you don’t regularly use carbon. Carbon can strip out nutrients at a fast rate as well so less is more to start here.
Amphidium (LCA and SCA) and Procentrum
These 3 strains bury into the sand bed and go into the rocks at night. These 3 will take longer to beat. For these we recommend silicate dosing. Dosing silicates will cause a benthic diatom bloom. These will smother out the dinos over the course of the next month or 2. Silicate dosing is safe for corals and once the dinos are less than 1-2 per slide you can stop dosing.
With any of the 5 strains we recommend dosing live bacteria like life source, biodigest, microbelift, etc. as well as phytoplankton. Depending on the strain of dinos it’s also recommended to dose pods (some strains like ostrea are toxic and can kill the pods). Dosing pods would be especially beneficial after the silicate method as pods love diatoms! For phytoplankton we recommend our diatom blend to help outcompete the dinos for nutrients. The goal with these 3 is to help boost the systems microbiome. Boosting beneficial bacteria is key. Oceamo lab did a study on tanks microbial content. They found some evidence that tanks with more the 15 bacterial families has less issues like dinos and nuisance algae. Tanks with less were more susceptible to those types of issues. The less good bacteria the more room for the bad stuff to take over. We usually pay the most attention to our biggest critters, but it’s our smallest ones that matter the most!
