Rust from pump causing Dino??

[natas]

Hey Guys,

I have been fighting Dino's since late Jan. Today I decided to do a major cleaning of all pumps. I noticed my return pump (which was replaced about 1-2 weeks before I had the dino outbreak) around the edges had a rust color to it. I took it apart and sure enough the screws and the section they screw into are rusting badly.

So is it possible that the rust leeching into my tank is causing my dino issue? I have read of people having dino issues from having to much iron in the tank. I am not a chemist but when rust (iron oxide) is leeched into the tank can it cause major issues?

Any advice on what I can do? Should I got get a Fe test and check my levels? Do I need to run some sort of media to absorb what has leeched into the tank?

 

[natas]

I guess the big question I have is should I let the Iron deplete naturally or get something like Cuprisorb? Do I have to worry about any long term effects from the rust?

 

[Mattewell]

I don’t think the extra iron would have caused your dino bloom. GFO is ferric oxide, so basically rust. As far as I know GFO, hasn't been blamed for dino blooms. In fact, I would probably suggest you run some if you aren't already to help with the outbreak.

Copper might be a concern, but it’s hard to tell what other metals could have been released from whatever rusted. Cuprisob wouldn't be a bad idea just in case.

Do a few water changes and I don't think you will have to worry about long term effects.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Many of us dose soluble iron and, as mentioned above, use rust (GFO) to bind phosphate, and none of those actions generally lead to dinos.

If inverts seem OK, I wouldn't worry about the metals.

 

[natas]

Ok I appreciate the input. I am going to remove the pump and put my backup in. Then put the new pump in once the rusting issue is fixed. Now if my Dino issue magically goes away would you guys at least consider Dino feeding off of excess iron?

And just to respond I did try gfo and it did nothing to my Dino issue. Phosphate was measuring 0. I also tried high alk/ph for two weeks, peroxide dosing, uln, big water changes, no water changes, multiple lights out and I have been siphoning the sand everyday since this occurred. I can get them down to manageable levels but they always come back. Lights out seems to be the thing to hit them the hardest.

 

[natas]

Just wanted to post what I am doing now. I was carbon dosing but I stopped about two weeks ago. I am now in the middle of another round of lights out. This time I am going to add chaeto at the end of the lights out and hope it will out compete the dino. I may also do a few large water changes after. The fear here is the water changes will make it worse. Anytime I did water changes in the past the dino spread twice as fast.

 

[Mattewell]

Everyone has dino when setting up a new tank. I'm sure this isn't a new tank, but for me the thing that works is just keeping things stable and healthy and let the dino take its course. I know it can be painful sometimes to just let things be, but sometimes thats the best answer.

Also, do you use RO/DI water? Is your TDS 0? Perhaps everytime you do a water change you introduce nutrients that the dino feed off of?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Everyone has dino when setting up a new tank.

Dinos? Are you thinking of cyanobacteria?

 

[natas]

Everyone has dino when setting up a new tank. I'm sure this isn't a new tank, but for me the thing that works is just keeping things stable and healthy and let the dino take its course. I know it can be painful sometimes to just let things be, but sometimes thats the best answer.

Also, do you use RO/DI water? Is your TDS 0? Perhaps everytime you do a water change you introduce nutrients that the dino feed off of?

This is a well established tank that has been carbon dosed....Nitrates have always been 1-2ppm and phosphates between 0.0-0.02 according to hanna meter.

Yes I use RO/DI water and TDS is 0. In fact the first thing I tried was replacing all filters to be safe (even though tds was reading 0).

I have done my homework...or should I say this is not my first rodeo? Actually it is the first time for me to deal with dino in the 12+ years I have kept reef tanks.

 

[Mattewell]

I've had a few tanks myself. Sorry I wasn't doubting your experience. I've had a dino outbreak myself, and I just let things be and it eventually went away by itself. I know that can't be too helpful, but I was guessing that it was the stability in my tank that let the "ecosystem" take over.

Just curious, for your carbon dosing, are you doing sugar, vinegar, or vodka?

 

[natas]

I was dosing Redsea nopox which is believed to be VSV equivalent.

So I was thinking of doing the same thing, just let it run its course. However it has started to creep onto my rock and I have noticed it affecting some of my corals.

How long did it take to run its course in your tank? I have seen pictures and read horror stories about this stuff. If this was cyano or anything else I wouldn't really be to concerned but I would hate for it to take over completely.

 

[Mattewell]

It really never got to the plague proportions in my tank, so that may be why I wasn't as tempted to take drastic action. It took about 2-3 months for it to go away. I did however siphon what I could see out with each water change. I have found that a Bulk Reef Supply 1/4 inch acrylic tube coupled together with an airline hose works great for siphoning little things you want out of the tank, be it Dinos, Cyano, bryopsis, or planaria. (yeah I've had it all but tank looks great now) So if it started to encroach on my coral, I'd just suck it up and come back to it the next week. I hope that helps.

 

[Squidmotron]

I have heard a couple of folks before swear a connection between iron and dinos, but I personally think it's just one of those folklores germinated because no one really has a reliable and consistent method for fighting dinos.

 

[natas]

Well if you can give me a reliable and consistent method to beat these I am all ears...and I seriously mean that. In fact I see you are located in Plano which is not to far from where I live in Flower Mound. I would love to meet you in person and pick your brain on how to fix this. I am seriously out of ideas and beyond frustrated.

 

[philosophile]

I finished battling Dinos. It was a pain and took a lot of patience. The basic strategy I used was to outcompete the Dinos. So I did the following:
1. No water changes.
2. Wet skimming and replacing skimmate with new salt water. Never more than two cups a day in my 90g.
3. Dose biodigest 1 ampule every three days.
4. Dose 2ml of sodium silicate to help diatoms bloom.
5. Cut photo period to 4 hours a day.

About a month later, Dinos were pretty much gone. I added some snails to clean up the small amount left over, and did a small 5 gallon water change and siphoned out what I could, I did another 10g the next week. I slowly ramped up lighting back to normal hours over the same two week period after the water change, and cut back dosing biodigest to once a week. Last weekend I went back to my normal routine and haven't seen the Dinos back yet. So I'm hoping they are really gone. But I won't be really comfortable until another month or two.

 

[natas]

I have done everything listed with the exception of #4. Very interesting.

 

[philosophile]

I think the sodium silicate dosing helped quite a bit to out compete the dinos. 2ml of a 40% solution of sodium silicate is a lot to dose in a week. Everything was covered in a brown dusting of diatoms. Astrea starfish went nuts and reproduced like mad. Skimmer was pulling out diatoms. Filter socks were clogged quickly. The tank looked UGLY. But the bloom would go away pretty quickly, maybe a couple of days after it started, and the next week, it was ready for another dose.

I would add that if you're going to go that route, make sure you have a way to measure out the sodium silicate easily (I was using a syringe) and make sure you mix it with RO/DI before you add it to the tank, and do it kind of slowly. You'll get a cloud of white precip, which I think Randy said was magnesium, but it isn't anything to worry about. I dosed a little bit of mag to make up for it, just in case it was being taken out by something like skimming a clogged filter sock.

I'll also add, that none of these things work by themselves.... you need a multi-pronged approach to really see results. But I think the two things that really did it for me was the pro-biotic dosing and the sodium silicate.

 

[Squidmotron]

Well if you can give me a reliable and consistent method to beat these I am all ears...and I seriously mean that. In fact I see you are located in Plano which is not to far from where I live in Flower Mound. I would love to meet you in person and pick your brain on how to fix this. I am seriously out of ideas and beyond frustrated.

Haha. As I said no one really has one. For me it's been weird in that I tend to not to see them when I have a more relaxed policy toward nutrient reduction. Lots of theories on this though.

 

[Squidmotron]

The theory of getting a competitor for the Dinos is in line with some other ideas I have seen. I would be scared of encouraging a diatom bloom since some species of Dinos literally eat them, but it's a cool idea.

 

[natas]

Where does one obtain sodium silicate?

And I agree, this was my first tank to go uln. My previous tanks I never measured anything and only took measures when things looked differently. Those previous tanks never got dino. But those previous tanks always had small amount of hair algae and occasional cyano. This tank hasn't seems algae since it started.