Help! Dino in a new 14g biocube reef.

[Carazz]

I'm not sure this belongs here, if not mods please delete! I am having an issue with dino bacteria in a newer tank. Params follow:

14g biocube, tank itself is brand new, pumps, and everything are stock, I did not use the bio balls. The lights have been replaced with some aftermarket LEDs. I have no idea the power, par etc, just that they are white with a blue every other LED. I bought the stuff from a co-worker has since moved away. (reason he was selling his stuff) He cracked the tank part and I bought a new one and transferred everything to it. I tested it for leaks and scrubbed everything with vinegar and rodi and set it up. I bought about 16lbs of live rock and just some marine sand from an lfs. Reef crystals are the salt. I let it cycle for 2 weeks, and added a turban snail about the size of a dime and an emerald crab to clean up.
After the tank had it's mini cycle from the bioload, I added a royal gramma and a small orange mushroom. I suspect the spores hitchhiked with the mushroom. It was under advice of the lfs to just acclimate them and put them in the tank, no need to QT. I will not take advice from them again, it's just crucial information on what happened. I did research, and I know I should have QTed them but I figured, there are no other fish/coral in there and what do I know he has 40yrs experience.
Anyway, my issue now is dino that grows back every day. I suck what I can up with a turkey baster every day but it keeps coming back. It's ugly and I hate it. The livestock doesn't appear to be affected yet, but I fear for my snail!
I have read lots of posts on the subject in here and other forums. I have seen people that say, its a young tank, it's bound to happen and will just go away as nutrients deplete. I have read to not do any water changes. I usually do a gallon, once a week. I have read 3 day black out, lights only to feed the gramma and back out. I have read take out all the sand, live rock and boil the rock, throw out the sand. I have read turn the flow up, and point the flow at the top of the tank to oxygenate and not push things around. I have read take the rocks out spray with peroxide and rinse with rodi and put back in. Do this 2x week, do this 3x a week. I have also read to try to up the PH, get a ball of chaeto, get a uv sterilizer in the middle chamber, etc. Will changing sand just add silicates to the mix that will help the dino?
I hope you guys can see my dilemma. I'm confused as to my plan of attack. Will it go away and I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill? Do I need to nip it in the bud (no pun intended) while I can? I don't want to do water changes if thats the best line of attack. My params have been pretty stable the entire life of the tank. I keep the sg between 1.024 and 1.025. I have never tested more than .25ppm for ammonia. Nitrite has been 0 since day 1 and nitrates have never been higher than 10, even when cycling. Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates have been 0 for the past 2 weeks. My PH has been 8.2 since I started the tank, with todays measurement being 8.0(which I attribute to the dino) The temp may be a little high at 78 but everything was going fine until this so I haven't touched it. The lights were on extremely long during the period before I got the mushroom, but I dialed it back from 1PM to 8:30PM after I placed him in the tank. Maybe this is still too much? I can't individually control the blues and whites so its an on or off situation unfortunately. Sorry for the stream of consciousness nature of this post but things are coming to me as I type.
I'm not adverse to adding temporary livestock, I have read seahare might help, or hardware. I was hoping this nano would get the family interested in keeping fish and hope to go bigger at some point, but this ugly algae is not helping LOL. I have kept dwarf seahorses before and fresh water planted tanks that have survived years and years so I'm not a stranger to levels, etc. I don't have a baseline phosphate, etc. because I didn't think I would need them until now.
Any help would be appreciated. Aside from the dino, the tank seems to be thriving, the gramma eats everything it can when I feed, once every 2 days. The crab is happily chowing on everything he can find and just completed a molt 2 days ago. The snail patrols the top of the biggest rock and eats EVERYTHING on there, leaving the rock almost white. It seems that the dino isn't poisonous to him since he is still happily meandering around eating after a week. I'm sure I have forgotten some details and will answer any other questions, thanks for reading!

 

[Carazz]

I can also supply a spreadsheet with levels over the life of the tank if it will help.

 

[Entacmaea]

Hey Carazz - I hear your frustration, hang in there. Can you post a pic of what is reappearing each day?

I'm not familiar with the "stock" filtration on the biocube - does it have a small protein skimmer, etc? (if not, I would add one) Just trying to understand all the filtration and water parameters. You are using an RO/DI which is good (I assume all the components are working correctly - membrane, resin, etc.) Unfortunately, a small tank is more challenging than a larger tank usually, just because the small water volume can shift chemistry much more quickly than a larger more stable volume of water. I would siphon everything you can, do a larger (50%) water change, run fresh carbon, cut feeding to a minimum and reduce photo period. Seems like you are doing most of these already, minus the large water change. Make sure the tank isn't in direct sunlight either. If it has only been a week or two after your cycle, I would give it a month at least to run its course, making sure you are diligent on tank maintenance. Hate to say it, but it might just take time. As the saying goes in this hobby, good things happen slowly, and only bad things happen fast. I'm totally sure that last bit doesn't help in the least, but this hobby has taught me the very meaning of patience...

 

[Entacmaea]

PS - your non existent nitrates might not mean anything - in that small a water volume, it is highly likely that the dinos are consuming nitrates/phosphates completely, i.e. stripping them from the water, so they would be undetectable anyway...

 

[finewayne]

pics would help

 

[Carazz]

pic of todays growth

pic of todays growth

http://imgur.com/gDPTeu4

This is today's growth, it's pretty typical to what I see everyday. Maybe a bit longer, I had a going away party for a co-worker and got home about 4hrs later today. It doesn't look like much but it is persistant.

 

[Entacmaea]

If the only circulation you have is the return nozzle pictured, you might also consider another small/nano powerhead, which might help as well - turbelle nanostream would be a good choice...

 

[farfromsea]

I am certainly no veteran-expert in this but I had it in my tank and it was so hideous and terrible, way more prolific than yours. What I did that worked is I scrubbed it off the rocks with a dish brush (brand new) and I let the particles run away into my filter sock. Then I shut the lights off for 3 days and I didn't do a water change for a month. After the 3 day black out it had died down significantly so I scrubbed a little more and then it just never came back. I also added a little GFO. I didn't have anything in the tank that I needed to feed so cutting back on feeding wasn't an issue.

The fact that any of that worked may have just been a fluke, but if I were you I would try the easiest things first...black out...adding a powerhead as mentioned above...not changing the water...and seeing what happens. Then if you get desperate you can pursue the other more complicated things.

 

[Carazz]

Thanks guys!

Thanks guys!

Thanks for the suggestions guys. After 2 days black out, the dino has not shown any significant growth. I also skipped the water change this week, in order to not introduce another variable. Since the dinos are eating the nitrates, it's not necessary anyway. Hoping the blackout continuance tomorrow helps even more. My mushroom is shrunk to half its normal size, so I will be turning the lights on day after tomorrow. The Gramma is not happy about the feeding schedule, I'm hoping he finds some pods while the lights are out, since I cut the feedings to every other day.

 

[hotelbravo]

carazz i have battled dino and have beat it. lights out alone would not kill it off it just kept coming back so what i did was dose Hydrogen peroxide at 3mm per 10 gallons every 12 hours for 3 weeks along with a 5 day black out and then 5 days of just blue lights on.

my tank was a 180 gallon and it covered damn near every square inch. it smothered corals and was just a nightmare. this worked on the most extreme case and i am certain it will work for you.

 

[aznflyfisherman]

You only have a 14g cube, should be easier to deal with. I would do a 5g ro or rodi water change weekly, add a bag of phosguard, increase water. I had a major out break on my 110g, took me two months to rid of it.

 

[Bent]

I dunno if that's dinos. It looks pretty green in the pics. Usually dinos are brown and will form a snot mat and not grow in clumps like that. I could be wrong though. I think Dinos are over diagnosed and are more like the reef boogie man. Often times some simpler problems can look a lot like dinos.

So, my first suggestion would be to try doing some nutrient export and check your source water.

Run some ultra high resolution testing on your source water both before and after you mix the salt. I suggest using the Hanna ULR phosphorus test and converting it. I find that my algae growth will start to bloom if I get po4 numbers climbing over .04. That's often low enough that many other tests will just read zero. Also, it's pointless to do any testing on your aquarium right now for nutrients because the algae is pulling it out of the water column. You will get a false low or negative result.

So, if youve ruled the source water out as a problem, the next place to look is the rock itself. Often times the rock we use is loaded with nutrients and it takes a few months to get them to stop leeching it. That's why so many people here will buy rock, and let it sit in dark saltwater tubs for months while changing the water. It will let all those organics and nutrients come out of the rock so that when you start the tank you won't have this problem. If you didn't "cook" the rock by doing the method above, I would almost garuntee that this is the problem. So you will just have to keep doing water changes until what is stored in the rocks is exhausted and it stops leeching. Given the amount of algae that's growing off the rock itself, I'm highly suspect as mentioned earlier that this is indeed the problem. You'll just have to push through it. Keeping the lights off will help to keep it from getting out of hand.

 

[Carazz]

Thanks again!

Thanks again!

Thanks again for all the replies, they are much appreciated! At this point, i'm not 100% sure it is dino either. It's been in the tank for weeks and my snail is as alive and happy as can be still. I suppose it could be a non-toxic sub-species but it is still a major pain and very persistent.
I have tried a 3 day lights off period but i came home to the lights being plugged back in by that mysterious "I didn't do it" person So i let the inhabitants have about a week of full light cycle, and cleaned the algae as much as I could. Today I sucked up as much as possible with a turkey baster and replaced the about half-gallon of water that came with all the junk. After that I placed the box that the tank came in on top of it to entirely black it out. I'm going to leave this for 3 days to see if it helps. I may extend to 5. I have a powerhead on the way from amazon as well. I noticed that there is more where the flow is blocked by the rock, so I'm shooting to avoid those deadzones as well. It definitely grows more on the side of the tank where natural light hits for about 3 hours in a day, but this is also a deadzone. I will look into covering the window if the flow doesn't help.
Thanks again for all the help guys I'll post again if I get any more replys/suggestions or when the blackout is finished. with a little luck i'll have some nice prisitine looking rocks and sand pic to post!

 

[africangrey]

the only way to truely id the dino is under the microscope and see those buggers doing their dances.

then you will have to know what kind of dino you have, if you have ostreposis then non of the methods you mention will work because those things form cysts when condition is not favorable and survive in that states for years, but once the light is turn back or h2o2 treatment stops they will get out of the dormant state and dancing, laughing and ****ing at you while you are staring at them under the microscope.

Nothing will kill the ostes. except completely nuke the tank with bleach and start over.

 

[Carazz]

Thanks for the hopefulness!

Thanks for the hopefulness!

Heh sorry for the sarcasm! I know what you mean, and that's why my first post was "help!" I'm cautiously optimistic that is something treatable, since it wasn't brown, it was really green and my snail is still alive. That being said, I stopped the blackout tonight and gave my mushroom some much needed light. There was no algae to be seen. Here's to hoping it stays that way!
Somewhat more concerning, is the fact that i haven't seen my royal gramma since the blackout started. I feed her a bit even though she was hiding and there were many pods when I turned on the lights and removed the cover. I haven't seen any ammonia or nitrate - nitrite spikes so I'm cautiously optimistic about her ust hiding still too. Just expecting the worst and hoping for the best at this point. We'll see what happens I guess. The other inhabitants are happy as can be.

 

[farfromsea]

Nice I'm glad the blackout seems to be working for you! After my suspected-dino incident ended I cultivated a lovely bloom of green hair algae which I am currently battling. But don't be discouraged if another problem pops up just keep working at it and eventually it will even out.

How many days has the royal gramma been missing? Perhaps if it died for some reason then she/he was eaten very quickly before ammonia could spike in the tank? Fingers crossed they are alive and hiding!

 

[Carazz]

Well it's been awhile and still no sign of my Royal Gramma RIP The blackout DID kill whatever that nasty algae was and after 3 water changes, and regular light cycles, no sign of it coming back. Here's to it staying away! There were no other ill effects from the blackout period and it actually cleared the way for some more coralline algae to form. I just wish I could have kept my favorite fish.

Thanks for all the help guys!