Dino Dilemma!

[denise willenborg]

So, I broke down my 93 gallon cube and started a 135 peninsula tank about 6 months ago. I went to my LFS and got some chaeto and they were out but he said "here take some of this from our tanks." I questioned this bag of muck but thought he owns a fish store so he has to know what he is doing. Wrong thought! Needless to say about 6 weeks later I started getting this nasty greenish/brown slime on the rock and glass. I just figured it was a bacterial bloom and started using vibrant. About two weeks ago I started seeing like clear bubbles in that greenish/brown stuff growing on my rocks. I have been manually getting it out as much as possible. I went to my usual LFS and they gave me stability and said to use it everyday for a week. I have been using it and I threw out that Chaeto and cleaned all the stuff off of the screen on my algae scrubber. I stopped using my uv sterilizer because on the bottle of Stability it said to turn it off. I have nothing in my fuge so I am not running that. The algae scrubber is off because ??? I have sucked out as much as I can every day off the sand but I have sucked out about 10 lbs of sand so far. nitrates and phosphates were at zero. I have not done any water changes and have not checked my levels since last week. I don't have too many corals in the tank and have like 7 fish in the tank.
My question is what to do at this point. I have done some research and have read a bunch of different things people have tried. I don't know what to do at this point and could use some advice on best way to deal with this to get rid of it . It just really sucks because I took my time getting this set up the way I wanted it. I took out the wall between my office and living room to do this build. I have it set up for auto water changes from the basement, ato in the basement and bought all the equipment to make an awesome successful reef tank. I am super bummed about this and really frustrated with that dude at the fish store that gave me that crap. Just not sure what to do at this point :-(
I have to run to work I will check back when I get home to see what advice you all have.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Cory]

Sorry to see that. I got rid of mine with a small uv sterilizer at first. Green killing machine 24w. Ive got 150 gallons bare bottom. They were 90% gone with the 24w in the display tank. I liked the uv so much i bought a permanent lifegard 90watt uv i plumbed from my return pump. No more dinos and pods came back full force. Also so did the green hair algae which i had to buy some new sea urchins to keep the rocks clean of it. Dinos killed my other urchins before. What kind of uv are you using? Im curious what kind of rocks your using? I suspect a possible contaminant in dry man made rock may be fueling them just a thought though.

 

[denise willenborg]

Thanks for info. The uv sterilizer is a Auqastop sp7?? I got it a fish store. It seems kind of cheap to me but I have been using it. I shut it off because that Seachem stability stuff says to shut off uv sterilizer. Since that stability stuff doesnt seem to be doing anything I think I will run the uv sterilizer and see what happens.
Since I threw out that chaeto should I get more? Run the fuge again? I figured the dinos would just infest it so what was the point?
The rock is that Life Rock stuff that is supposed to be seeded with bacteria already. I still added some when I first had the tank set up. I only have about 100 lbs of rock but I also have those bio sphere balls in my sump.

Thanks

 

[Cory]

Thanks for info. The uv sterilizer is a Auqastop sp7?? I got it a fish store. It seems kind of cheap to me but I have been using it. I shut it off because that Seachem stability stuff says to shut off uv sterilizer. Since that stability stuff doesnt seem to be doing anything I think I will run the uv sterilizer and see what happens.
Since I threw out that chaeto should I get more? Run the fuge again? I figured the dinos would just infest it so what was the point?
The rock is that Life Rock stuff that is supposed to be seeded with bacteria already. I still added some when I first had the tank set up. I only have about 100 lbs of rock but I also have those bio sphere balls in my sump.

Thanks

If its rated at 7 watts, with 125 gallons an hour, it wont keep up. They will reproduce too quickly imo.

Youll need a higher flow rate and higher wattage uv sterilizer. Id go for at least 24 watts for your sized tank. Maybe bigger.

It does depend on the species if dinos. If its amphidium they dont leave the rocks and wont be killed by uv. Ostreopsis does. Does it seem like they go away at night? If you have a microscope you can id them

 

[Spare time]

To give the fish store some slack, dinos are practically impossible to not have at least one in a tank. It is when they get out of control that is the issue, just like cyano. They are natural parts of a tank.

Nitrates and phosphates at 0 are likely the cause. The thought behind this is dinos survive well with 0's and other microbes don't. In my tank, they quite literally appear any time I have 0 phosphates with not enough phosphate input or disrupt the biofilter.

What I would do is feed heavily, or even better dose nitrate and phosphate.

Seachem stability is probably not doing anything since that is for cycling a tank. If you want to dose something like seachem pristine, dr tims waste away, or vibrant, you need to hyave detevtable nitrate and phosphate, otherwise they will strip the tank too much and set up a nioce scenario for cyano or dinos where the two don't have much competition from other little microbes as there isn't enough nitrate or phosphate.

 

[denise willenborg]

So I just tested my nitrates and phosphates and nitrates were 0.76 and phosphates were 0.04. I stopped using the Seachem but prior to that I was using the Vibrant. As of now I have not put anything in the tank. I do feed heavily but maybe I will get something to dose phosphates and nitrates. Also, my alk has been at 5.6 for a good week or so. I don't dose the tank but guess I should start. Would I do that now or dont worry about that at this point.
It usually takes two days and the stuff covers my sand bed. I cleaned it all off the sand bed and rocks day before yesterday and so far it looks good. I will see what it looks like at the end of the day.
Should I get more Cheato or wait until i get rid of this Dino outbreak?

 

[Spare time]

So I just tested my nitrates and phosphates and nitrates were 0.76 and phosphates were 0.04. I stopped using the Seachem but prior to that I was using the Vibrant. As of now I have not put anything in the tank. I do feed heavily but maybe I will get something to dose phosphates and nitrates. Also, my alk has been at 5.6 for a good week or so. I don't dose the tank but guess I should start. Would I do that now or dont worry about that at this point.
It usually takes two days and the stuff covers my sand bed. I cleaned it all off the sand bed and rocks day before yesterday and so far it looks good. I will see what it looks like at the end of the day.
Should I get more Cheato or wait until i get rid of this Dino outbreak?

I would dose the nitrate and phosphate, and maybe alk (if you don't have stony corals I wouldn't panick). Once those are where you like them, then maybe get some more macro algae and tune the light duration to where the nitrate and phosphate are stable. It won't be an instant fix but it should go away within two weeks or so. Once nitrate and phosphate are higher, you can always dose some vibrant, waste away, eco balance, pns probio (a fantastic product), and such to help get some microbes to outspace the dinos but I can't say if this speeds it up or not, but rather that it is part of a hypothesis of mine when it comes to dinos.