Dragonfish's ARC 6.25 Office Tank

Dragonfish

Dragonfish

New member
After spending 15 years at the same company, I decided I needed to move on to move up so I jumped ship and got a new job. Now that I've been here about a year I got permission to set up a desk tank. I had seen pictures of the Petco ARC 6.25 and felt it was perfect. I actually set it up about 45 days ago and the cycled finished maybe two weeks ago. It has only one fish and a couple corals but I intend to change that this weekend at the Aquatic Experience! Lighting started as a Fluval LED I modded but it got hot so I picked up the Orbit Marine.

Equipment:
Petco ARC 6.25
Current USA Orbit Marine
Stock pump for now
Koralia Nano 240
Cheap heater until I get the Jager 50w I just ordered

Fish:
Yellow clown Goby
Cleanup crew to be ordered if I can't find any this weekend

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? Very nice looking scape. My wife and I are heading out for AE soon, also looking to pick up a few fish, maybe win a raffle or two.


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Dinoflagellates? The tank has only been up and running for a couple months now and the only livestock is the yellow clown goby, zoas and a two head frogspawn. The water quality is prestine and the rock was fully cooked before going into the tank. I'm not positive this is dinoflagellates but I'm pretty sure. The only thing missing is the air bubbles that is supposed to come with dinos. It's stringy and brown and comes off surfaces easily but it leaves super hard brown spots behind that quickly turn back into long stringy snot. How do I get rid of this crap?

I swear I've been reefing for 20 years and I still see new things all the time.

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Well it is confirmed that it is dinoflagellates and I'm 95% sure they came in on a frag I got here. The very day after I put that frag in my tank the plug it was on was covered in brown algae. The day after that my whole tank was covered! I can be pretty confident of the source because it's the only thing I have added to this tank :fire: Anyone know how to get rid of this crap?
 
Sorry that it's dino. Been a few people pulling their hair out around here lately with it. Lights out is the one thing that helps in all their cases. It may not get rid of it totally and they've used several other methods, but lights out is always a part of the treatment.
 
Yep I've been doing a lot of reading today. I'm going to start a 4 day lights out with a 2ml/10gal peroxide treatment. Sucks! Brand new tank!
 
Add and maintain pods is what i can say right now. Helped the most out of: peroxide, lights out, no water changes, ect..... I've tried EVERYTHING... (Except UV)
 
Yeah, I believe increased biodiversity decrease Dino's. I over fed huge amount to get my nitrates to even register. Added pods. I don't see Dino's til I do a water change.
The huge thread on RC about Dino's has the best info that I've come across.


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What are your water parameters reading? I had Dino a year ago and it was miserable I tried everything, massive water changes, lights out, peroxide, chemiclean (don't recommend), rinsing rocks in freshwater, and the whole time I was reading all 0s on water quality. I then read somewhere that water changes made it worse so I stopped water changes and dosed Zeovit zeobak bacteria. I also raised my nitrates to 2-5ppm (try to stay closer to 2) I also tried to brush the Dino lose and would siphon it out through a filter sick and have the return water empty into my sump which would collect a bunch of the funk. Ultimately waiting, dosing zeobak, and no water changes worked for me.
 
Well it's a new tank with virtually no bioload so I imagine the nitrates are very low. I had considered raising them as I had also read that it helps. I'm on day 3 of blackout with peroxide and it doesn't seem to have made a dent. I'll give it until tomorrow afternoon and if that still doesn't help I'll toss some pellets in there.
 
first off do not use any of them algae killers like dino-x or ultra algae x, all that will do is kill your microfauna and you need them to feed off the dinos

what you want to do is dirty up your water to promote other algaes from outcompeting the dinos...dinos bloom when your water is pristine meaning 0 NO3/0 PO4 and currently there is large debate on whether all tanks naturally have them and bloom when there is no competition...you also want biodiversity in your zooplankton...many types of copepods will feed on dinoflagellates...UV in a tank your size will definitely help but you can get away without one as long as you can get some green algaes growing...if you do decide to go UV, you should remove all your sand as dinos thrive in it...but honestly, just go the dirty route

however, since this is a new tank, i believe that your dinos might just be normal? you may want to wait it out and see if you get cyano and then some diatoms if your tank is still cycling? i think everyone gets gets dinos as a natural part of a tank cycle, no?
 
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Dragonfish said:
Diatoms came and went already actually. I don't have any pods to speak of though, I'll pick some up. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Just be aware when picking up pods what type they are. Many pods for sale on the market today won't survive and reproduce in our tanks as they are a cold water variety. Certainly a nice snack for our fish friends but not ideal if you are looking to establish a population of pods!


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