5 corals died, plus dino bloom. Don't know what I'm doing wrong, looking for recommendations

[Jorda320]

Hi all,

I've posted here in the past when things have gone off course with the tank and I've generally had great advice, I'm hoping that will hold true for this as well. I have a 2-year-old tank, 36-gal bow front with mixed LPS and SPS (just the "forgiving" pavona). This tank has two clown fish, one lawn mower blenny, and for pajama cardinal fish. I keep it fairly low tech due to space constraints. I have a hang on the back CPR brand refugium which right now has nothing in it except a mesh bag of carbon, a heater and a small tunze brand skimmer. I have a two bulb t5 fixture with two 24-in aqua blues. I do not have an ATO as I typically just fill to my marked line in the morning and at night after work. The tank was overall stable however about a year ago a guy at my LFS recommended trying the zovit system for nutrient control and while that worked well my coral did not react positively to it. I discontinued that in January and things are overall okay since then. About a month ago I have experienced a massive dino outbreak and have been struggling with that since. Currently I do not have any sort of filter sock set up so I use a DIY pump with a water bottle on it and filter floss inside to stir up the dinos and remove them that way. I do that twice a week. My parameters do not seem to have changed and they are as follows:
Alk: 9.1
Cal: 410-430
Mag: 1280
Salnity: 1.025
Nitrate :25
Phosphate 0.1
Temp78

The alk, calcium, and magnesium are straight from the salt mix as ever since this started those values I have not been depleting and I stopped dosing. The nitrates and phosphates are getting a bit out of hand and water changes are not helping. I've ordered from BRS their. Dr Tim's brand Dino solution wherein I will black out the tank for days and dose the two different bacteria bottles. I also have nopox on order and I'm going to start slowly with that after the dino situation taken care of. I'm at a loss here. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong but clearly I'm doing something very wrong. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. These are some pictures of the coral that are not doing so well. I also have several chalices that are just skeletons. Not worth posting as they are completely devoid of any kind of flesh.

Here is my very unhappy alveopora

This is a frogspawn that has not opened in a month or so

Torch coral that did not open, formed a white foam near the heads and one head has completely disappeared. Presumed dead

Meteor shower coral. Was beautiful but it's now a skeleton.

Duncan Coral. Still has color but is not opened up in over a month

The only happy coral in my tank that is currently growing is this cactus pavonia. It is at the very top of my tank about 12 inches higher up than any other coral and gets the most light. And yes all of the furry strands near that coral are the dinos. This is about 2 days after I cleaned the tank last

 

[Ajayabb]

I feel your pain. Been through this before myself. Best thing to do is try to ID dino species with microscope and work on increasing nutrient levels especially nitrates and phosphates. Stop doing water changes. You want to promote growth of competing algae to overrun the Dino’s. Species ID will help to determine if UV sterilizer will be helpful. A 3 day blackout will help jump start the process in the meantime.

 

[Tamberav]

Is there less dino at night? If so, add a small UV. Some types go into the water column at night and those are fixable with UV.

I am not sure why you plan on nopox though? That seems like a good way to bring back problems on a nano. A nano just needs regular maintenance/routine, keep the sand bed clean/stirred is one people miss a lot, and nothing magical.

 

[Jorda320]

Is there less dino at night? If so, add a small UV. Some types go into the water column at night and those are fixable with UV.

I am not sure why you plan on nopox though? That seems like a good way to bring back problems on a nano. A nano just needs regular maintenance/routine, keep the sand bed clean/stirred is one people miss a lot, and nothing magical.

I do 5 gallon water changes every Saturday or Sunday. And I always try to gravel back at least half of the sand. My plan for NOPOX was to help get the nitrates and phosphates down just a bit. I'm aiming to keep the nitrates between 5 and 10 and my phosphates from what I have read are in the acceptable ranges so I am not overly focused on them to be honest. I am absolutely not looking to get at complete zero however I was just hoping that a lower to normal nitrate level would prevent any kind of outbreaks in the future

 

[sabor]

Dino X to get rid of the Dino and do small water changes everyday until it clears up

 

[ZiBiReef]

Curious.. do you use tap water or RODI water for water changes..

 

[Miller535]

I second getting a id with a microscope. I am not convinced that it is even dino yet

 

[Jorda320]

Curious.. do you use tap water or RODI water for water changes..

I use a 4 stage BRS RODI unit. I change all the filters every Black Friday when they go on sale. But really since I'm just using it for the 36-gallon tank my DI resin has not even started to change colors yet so I don't believe it's an issue of using a depleted resin or bad filter

 

[Crustaceon]

Is that .25ppm or 25ppm nitrates? There are two different methods of dealing with this depending on which number is accurate. If you have .25ppm nitrates, you’ll want to dose a little bit of potassium nitrate or seachem nitrogen. If you have 25ppm nitrates, you’re already there nutrient-wise. Step two is inducing a bacteria bloom in your tank. You accomplish this by adding beneficial bacteria to the tank and an incremental amount of distilled vinegar. I’d say 3ml of vinegar for the first dose would do the trick. Wait a few hours and hopefully you’ll have a slight haziness in the water. You don’t need the full-on cycling cloudiness where you can’t see the back panel, but don’t be alarmed if that does happen. Just run your skimmer to keep things oxygenated. When you notice clouding, stir your sandbed. Repeat this process as your water clarifies and again, make sure to run your skimmer 24 hours. The goal is to load your tank with so much beneficial bacteria that they’re snatching food out of the mouths of dinos, which will starve them out. Keep in mind, this will reduce your nitrates and phosphates, so you’ll want to test them each day until things clear up. Lastly, make sure your nitrates don’t dip below 5ppm and phosphates below .03ppm otherwise the next vinegar dose could cause bacteria to strip your tank of nutrients and bacterial propagation will stall out.

 

[Aqua Man]

If you don’t have a microscope, try the coffee filter test. Identifying the offender is 1st step.

Siphon offender through a coffee filter, shake real good. Place near light. If the offender reconstitutes in couple hrs, it’s Dinos.

 

[Miller535]

You should not assume you have dino just because it is that rust/brown color. I bought a microscope on Amazon for like $35-$40 and got an ID when I did have dino. Although again I am not convinced that you do have dinos. Both because of the way it looks and your high NO3 and PO4

 

[Jorda320]

To answer a few questions at once the nitrates are at 25 not 0.25. also, I do not have a microscope but will absolutely order one on Amazon. And I will do the coffee filter test tonight. I did read that on the Dyno thread here however I'm at work until about 8:00 or 9:00 tonight (Eastern time) with an hour and 20 minute drive home. So results will not be up for another 6 or 7 hours at least. I will make sure to update this thread with results

 

[Rjukan]

It's odd that your rock looks so new and it's in a 2 year old tank. There is hardly any coraline that I can see, and it almost looks like you're dealing with new tank uglies. Can you post a FTS? How old are those bulbs?

 

[vetteguy53081]

NO . . . . Coral food or NoPox. . . . It is fuel for Dino.
Starting today, turn off white lights and bring blue down to 5%. Add 1ml of Liquid bacteria such as Bacter 7 per 10 gallons. Take a turkey baster and the dinos loose. Either net the loose particles or siphon it. Have your overflow run into a filter sock or even stocking and clean it daily. At night, add 1ml of hydrogen Peroxide per 10 gallons to the tank. Do this for 5 days straight and on Day 5, you will see a huge difference

 

[92Miata]

It's odd that your rock looks so new and it's in a 2 year old tank. There is hardly any coraline that I can see, and it almost looks like you're dealing with new tank uglies. Can you post a FTS? How old are those bulbs?

Agree - that rock is awfully bare for 2 years old. A 2 year old tank should be covered in stuff - coralline, sponges, whatever. Something should be growing.


Tank and equipment info would be helpful.

 

[Jorda320]

Ok. I will add nothing to the tank until we figure out what it needs. And to give as much information as I can, I set up this tank around New year's two years ago with this January being year three. It's a 36 gallon bow front. I don't have space for a sump so I use a large size CPR brand fuge on back. There is a small tunes brand com line skimmer in there with a eheim Yeager heater set to 78°. I used to grow macro algae in there however when the outbreak of what I assumed was Dino started that macroalgae turned brown and basically turned into what looked like underwater dust. It started to die and I was getting sand storms in the display tank from the dead algae. At that point I pulled it all out and used the gravel vac to remove the remaining detritus. My first thought is that my lights were originally a fluval marine 3.0. it was one of those thin profile LED strips. I switched those out with the two t5s a few months ago because I felt the light was way underpowered. The only things that were growing were the leptos and duncans. my thought was that since they were low-light corals they were doing okay whereas the torch and frog spawn were all around not showing much growth. as I said before I don't have a sump and do not have any sort of filter socks so I've been using a DIY pump and water bottle with filter floss in it. I don't leave that in 24/7 only after I do cleaning of the rock work and typically I take that out within two or three hours or whenever the floss looks like it is absorbed as much as I can. In the pictures I've put above you can see how the rock does look pretty white. This is directly after I scraped off a bunch of what I assumed was dinos. I often do use a turkey baster and whatever is on the rocks does come off like fine sand or dust. I repeat that at the very least two or three times a week. I did try to do the coffee filter dyno test that was posted on the sticky however I don't have any coffee filters as I use a Keurig so that is something I'm hoping to grab today

in the pictures above the coral are not usually on the sand bed like that however some of them started bleaching and looking sick so about 2 weeks ago I put most of them on the sand bed. I was not sure at that point if the lights were too strong although they had been under those lights for a few months with no issues. And as you can see there is some Coraline growth but not much

 

[Crustaceon]

It's odd that your rock looks so new and it's in a 2 year old tank. There is hardly any coraline that I can see, and it almost looks like you're dealing with new tank uglies.

That’s the first thing I noticed and it screams “tank that hasn’t properly cycled”. My current system was started with dry florida reef rock that was pure white. A month later it was kermit green and a few months after that it was purple. And this was accomplished only using tank water from the previous system. I’m thinking if bacteria isn’t completely colonizing rock surface, it allows other stuff to move in.

 

[Jorda320]

That’s the first thing I noticed and it screams “tank that hasn’t properly cycled”. My current system was started with dry florida reef rock that was pure white. A month later it was kermit green and a few months after that it was purple. And this was accomplished only using tank water from the previous system. I’m thinking if bacteria isn’t completely colonizing rock surface, it allows other stuff to move in.

It's very possible that I messed this up from the beginning. I used about 25 lb of Marco dry rock. I did allow it to cure in a brute trash can for maybe four or five weeks. After that I had it set up in the tank with the sand and I believe I added some biospira at that time. I may be getting the name wrong but it is the live ocean brand of nitrifying bacteria. The first two fish I added were tiny little clown fish and I don't believe I added anything after that for a month or so. The next few being the pajama fish and I believe I did not add coral until maybe two or three months after the tank was set up. That was only because I was unsure about my lighting at that point. If this is due to an unfinished or bad cycling process what would I do about it? I do have microbactor 7 on hand and I have been adding that in the past but stopped when my nitrates started climbing. I focused on getting them down instead. And as far as I could tell I have no ammonia. I don't necessarily have test kits but I can grab a ammonia badge from seachem as I have a few of those in my cabinet. This is my first tank and very likely that I messed it up somehow. I'm looking for any criticism or recommendations to get me back on track. so far everyone in the threat has been saying not to dose no pox so I will not do that obviously.

 

[Crustaceon]

It's very possible that I messed this up from the beginning. I used about 25 lb of Marco dry rock. I did allow it to cure in a brute trash can for maybe four or five weeks. After that I had it set up in the tank with the sand and I believe I added some biospira at that time. I may be getting the name wrong but it is the live ocean brand of nitrifying bacteria. The first two fish I added were tiny little clown fish and I don't believe I added anything after that for a month or so. The next few being the pajama fish and I believe I did not add coral until maybe two or three months after the tank was set up. That was only because I was unsure about my lighting at that point. If this is due to an unfinished or bad cycling process what would I do about it? I do have microbactor 7 on hand and I have been adding that in the past but stopped when my nitrates started climbing. I focused on getting them down instead. And as far as I could tell I have no ammonia. I don't necessarily have test kits but I can grab a ammonia badge from seachem as I have a few of those in my cabinet. This is my first tank and very likely that I messed it up somehow. I'm looking for any criticism or recommendations to get me back on track. so far everyone in the threat has been saying not to dose no pox so I will not do that obviously.

The reason why everyone is telling you to not dose nopox is because in instances of low nutrients, dinos can pop up and dosing a carbon source like nopox will cause the bacterial population in your tank to grown, which will reduce nitrates and phosphates IF you’re also running a skimmer to export that gut-loaded bacteria. It that scenario, carbon dosing won’t help. But in your case, you started with low nutrients, which allowed dinos to get a foothold and gradually nitrates and phosphates crept up because the bacterial population had never really established itself enough to compete with the dinos. The way you resolve this is by “tipping the balance” in favor of the beneficial bacteria by dosing microbacter 7 and a little bit of “fuel” for it in the form of either nopox, vinegar or vodka. The key here is making your tank a better environment for beneficial bacteria than it is right now for dinos.

 

[Aqua Man]

Let’s get back to basics...
How are you measuring salinity? When was the last time your device was calibrated?

Temp 78, verified how?

Are you testing your water or is the LFS?
Your Params look good to me.

Are you running activated carbon?

Rodi water with a verified 0 TDS?