Ich & Dino wiped out tank!! Trying to stay positive!!

[Chris5]

Finally got back into the hobby after 10 yrs or so and bought a nice sized red sea all in one for the family -

65g Red Sea all in one
30lbs live rock,
Established water from store main display tank
T5s brand new bulbs with two LED strips / Moonlights built in and timers
Coralife skimmer
Coralife chiller

Tank went though a mini cycle and than after a week the water started turning milky white, we went through the various stages to clean, and re-filter etc. tried chemi pure which helped -

Bought a clean up crew and sand sifter goby and things were getting back to normal, than the micro bubbles and the vaguely cloudy water started again - dialed back the skimmer, poly pad in filter box etc...

Than the ich started - one fish down, than two ,than the whole tank over the course of a week (except invertebrates, and what's left of clean up crew) ... Dino started slowly on rocks, was everywhere, very stringy algae with bubbles on ends everywhere and was suffocating the few corals i have - Toadstool, two small zoas and a torch)


Had tank cleaned (ran water through filter sock) and siphoned back, tank looked very clear - dino wasn't that bad at this point - chemi pure was being used, as was the Dino X (unfortunately i believe the chemi pure was absorbing the dino x) - removed all medias -

While ich was wiping out fish, Dino started again even stronger

Started the blackout period for 4 days - dosing Dino X every other day, took out last of media and ran skimmer over and above ...

Lights went back on today , tank is immaculate no algae, even on back wall of tank all algae wiped out .. unfortunately my last fish has ich bad probably from the stress of black out etc...

Seriously frustrating :banghead: - on the flipside my tank has never been this clear i mean HD clear before - although back when i was in the hobby i never had algae and ich destroy my tank so quickly either -

I will wait about 2 weeks and see how tank responds to the last doses of Dino X and hope that all the ich is gone, and Dino ...my wife wants to sell the tank already and we never even got to enjoy it :grumpy:

 

[Spartanwarrior]

that's very frustrating. stories like these really make me worried for the next steps in my 200G. I don't want to screw it up and give up. Glad you're sticking with it though. Good luck. Much success!

 

[Niko]

I have dino right now, what should I do?

 

[Chris5]

I spoke to soon!! Not even 8 hrs in the Dino ITS BACK!! :letitallo

I'm on day 6 of tx (every other day) with Dino X and will now try to blackout at night only to make Dino X more effective (since i just started my light cycle again) and remove remaining carbon and polypad , idk what else to do .... :scratch:

I literally will have only two shrimps left after this crazyness!! The Dino treatment can be done for up to 20 days so i guess i have to keep going and pray for the best -

 

[Donewiththisplace]

Dinos were the demise of my first tank 6 years ago. A slacking maintenance schedule brought them on with a vengeance and disheartened me enough to give up on it all and broke the tank down.

This time around more diligence in the maintenance department has kept them at bay. Develop a schedule and stick with it. Nutrient export is key...skimmers, water changes and media, what ever you choose to use.

Few months ago, time was tight and unfortunately had to let the tank slide a little bit. I went from adhering to a strict schedule to literally just feeding the fish and cleaning the glass once a week. Of course on came the dinos. Fortunately around that time I was able to get back on track with the maintenance and did several water changes, every 2 days or so. I also put in a fresh chemi-pure blue. It was a slow recovery but in about 2 weeks it was back to normal.

Hit the tank with a few water changes and put in some fresh media...if any of it can be removed manually do it. Should see some improvement.

 

[Donewiththisplace]

Save your money on the dinox...dont think I've ever heard of any real positive results from its use.

 

[Chris5]

Dinos were the demise of my first tank 6 years ago. A slacking maintenance schedule brought them on with a vengeance and disheartened me enough to give up on it all and broke the tank down.

This time around more diligence in the maintenance department has kept them at bay. Develop a schedule and stick with it. Nutrient export is key...skimmers, water changes and media, what ever you choose to use.

Few months ago, time was tight and unfortunately had to let the tank slide a little bit. I went from adhering to a strict schedule to literally just feeding the fish and cleaning the glass once a week. Of course on came the dinos. Fortunately around that time I was able to get back on track with the maintenance and did several water changes, every 2 days or so. I also put in a fresh chemi-pure blue. It was a slow recovery but in about 2 weeks it was back to normal.

Hit the tank with a few water changes and put in some fresh media...if any of it can be removed manually do it. Should see some improvement.

I was told by many, including store owners and alot of reasearch on the topic that water changes only fuel the problem - is that true?? My skimmer is doing overtime, and the media i have to choose whether or not i want to stick it out with this Dino X treatment or keep doing new Chemis every week -

 

[Donewiththisplace]

I'm no scientist, but I don't see how replacing water that is loaded with dissolved organic waste with water that is clean, can possibly fuel the problem. And personally, water changes have shown the best results in my tank when any kind of algae pops up. I dont run a skimmer and rely totally on water changes for nutrient export.

Removing waste..whether it be through a water change, skimmer or with media its never a bad thing. Starving out the dinos is the goal...the blackout worked because you removed the light that makes them grow. Removing nutrients will take away what they feed on.

Chemis are good for more than a few weeks...if it's older than 2 or 3 months id replace it.

If a store owner is telling you that water changes are bad...hes probably just trying to keep you buying dinox.

When I had dinos the first time...i went to a lfs for advice...the answer was "Yeah, dinos suck". Stupid me for thinking that the speciality aquarium store would likely have better advice then the 17 year old kid working in Petco.

Needless to say that store is no longer in business.

Do your homework, from various sources and talk to people that had same problems. Be aware to that information online may be inaccurate...ive been down that road and wiped out my tank with bad dosing instructions cause i didnt verify the information. Make an educated decision on how you want to approach a problem and stick with it. If you try multiple remedies at the same time, you'll never know what worked or didn't work.

 

[Andrew9909]

The only way water changes would fuel the problem is if your source water is the underlying issue. For instance, if the "fresh" water your are adding to the tank is packed with phosphates by adding new water you are only replenishing whatever phosphates had already been taken up by the algae. There are many causes for an algae bloom and really beside lighting only one reason....Excess nutrients. The question is what's causing the excess nutrients. If you are doing water changes, have a protein skimmer and aren't feeding too much. Testing my source water would be the next logical step.

 

[albano]

Are you using RODI water?... I wouldn't recommend tank water from any LFS...way more problems than a home tank.

 

[vio]

I crash my tank around 4 years ( Dino) i lost 95% of corals ( 220 Gal.) i try everything you see in Internet , the ONLY think working was High PH, but was to late.
I use to grow SPS colony like 12" to 16"i start again from Frags, Thanks God to Tusi , he give me 20 frags (Free)

I will suggest this.

Increase water flow, much you can ( Dino love to hang up on sand , rocks, Macro Algae)
Remove snails , when die fuel Dino
NO water change.
Remove Rocks (bleach it)
Slow increase the PH ( use Kalkawaser) go up to 8.5 , try to keep it up for list 2 weeks.

PH monitor will help a lot.

The more you ignore , the more aggressive become.
Never, in future introduce water , net fish, live Rocks (unless is bleach) from NOBODY, include stores. Dip coral all the time, remove plugs before dip.
Dino is in many , many tanks depend the immunity of the tank and one day just go out of control , even now i try to keep 8.2 PH , i take the fear .



Anything else wont work , trust me.
You gone make it.

 

[Eddie7145]

I just got over a red algea and dino outbreak. Got rid if the red algea with red slime remover. The dinos took a while as i could not run my skimmer. What did work was a 4 day black out and 30 mils of peroxide for 3 nights. I have a 150 gal tank and i lost only one sps mini colony . I habe shrinp many sps and lps and NEMS. I never had dinos and i been reefibg for 20 years. Im now 3 weeks dino free.

 

[Chris5]

Problem is when fighting the dino you stress out the rest of the tank, i just replaced all my media once again and am doing blackouts at night, my last fish has ich bad right now from all the craziness - i fear the tank from the previous owner (this was a tank the owner sold to upgrade to a 120) never was maybe cleaned of the issue, idk honestly, once again i started from scratch when i was 18 with this hobby and had a fuge etc all DIY and learning on the fly, and the worst that happen to me was the tank turned green because i was to close to a window with natural sunlight - once cleaned out and restarted i had 3-4 yrs of no issues - i also used a UV sterilizer and tried all-gone which actually worked for various small water quality issues -

never did i have red or dino algae like this, barely even had brown diatoms :grumpy:

I will continue on, will be replacing chemi pure tonight as i took it out initially to dose Dino X ..which I'm very skeptical about at this point - i don't want to start over as i feel that wont help the root of the problem

 

[Donewiththisplace]

Blackouts of the tank at night might not be enough..you'd have to close the tank off to light all day too. That means no ambient sunlight from the room, no tank lights.

Honestly if the last fish dies...leave the tank void of fish for a few months. Ich needs a fish to survive on, if they don't have one they will all eventually die off.

Have you tried a UV sterilizer? Will kill off any free swimming ich and their larvae.

 

[albano]

- i fear the tank from the previous owner (this was a tank the owner sold to upgrade to a 120) never was maybe cleaned of the issue...

If you only purchased livestock from 1 LFS ... That's where the ick most likely came from.

 

[Chris5]

Blackouts of the tank at night might not be enough..you'd have to close the tank off to light all day too. That means no ambient sunlight from the room, no tank lights.

Honestly if the last fish dies...leave the tank void of fish for a few months. Ich needs a fish to survive on, if they don't have one they will all eventually die off.

Have you tried a UV sterilizer? Will kill off any free swimming ich and their larvae.

Ive done 2 separate blackouts in the last 3 weeks lasting from a weekend to 5 days now , neither one has worked for more than a day without the Dino coming right back ..

I don't have a UV running, would have to be something that could be piped into chiller or something being I have an all in one system -

If you only purchased livestock from 1 LFS ... That's where the ick most likely came from.

What place do you use Albano (we are very close neighbors!) .... and yes only used 1 LFS so far and got everything through them

Ill post pics once everything comes to a head, hopefully sooner rather than later -

 

[editour2]

Might I ask how long was the tank running before you intorduced fish/corals? I have experienced losing all my coral to dino in the past....very painful !! The only way to recover was to cut back on feeding and to perform frequent large water changes until the issue was alleviated. Did you check your phosphate level? Are you using RODI water for water changes? If all the fish have suffered the fate of ich....I would go fallow for 6 weeks and start over. It's frustrating and your situation is complicated by the fact you are battling 2 issues at the same time....this hobby is not easy....I feel your pain.

 

[Chris5]

Might I ask how long was the tank running before you intorduced fish/corals? I have experienced losing all my coral to dino in the past....very painful !! The only way to recover was to cut back on feeding and to perform frequent large water changes until the issue was alleviated. Did you check your phosphate level? Are you using RODI water for water changes? If all the fish have suffered the fate of ich....I would go fallow for 6 weeks and start over. It's frustrating and your situation is complicated by the fact you are battling 2 issues at the same time....this hobby is not easy....I feel your pain.

Was at least 4-6 weeks before anything went in, barely feeding as is now due to the one remaining fish. I am using RO water, havent done a major water change yet though , and phos levels are within normal range, most if not all my intervtebraes and clean up crew are fine which if levels were really off they would be first to go. I also am having good purple corraline growth so things are very strange on the reef!

 

[editour2]

Have you tried siphoning? Blow off the rock with a syringe and use a filter sock to capture whatever you can't siphon out. Also, are you running any GFO or GAC? Again, IMO I would do the siphoning and large water changes to eradicate the Dino issue. Ich is another story....

 

[Chris5]

Have you tried siphoning? Blow off the rock with a syringe and use a filter sock to capture whatever you can't siphon out. Also, are you running any GFO or GAC? Again, IMO I would do the siphoning and large water changes to eradicate the Dino issue. Ich is another story....

i did it once so far about a week or so ago, and got most of it out than i followed with a full 5 days blackout (covering entire tank etc) ...

Not running an reactors, most likely will do a water change ... curious though if anyone recommends one salt mix or another or go pre mixed?