About to call it quits,

[LardLad]

maybe clean the hell out of it (all the sand!), dose with hydrogen peroxide, then do a 5-day total blackout.

worked great for me. I had a nasty diatom then dino episode.

now I use a flocculant (Brightwell Aquatics Clarify-SW) 2 days before a very aggressive sand bed cleaning. It gets a lot of crap to settle out of the water and down into the sand. Then get aggressive with the siphon. My tank went from disaster mode to being so crystal clear people ask me how I do it.

Good luck! Don't give up!

 

[IKD]

There are a couple types of Dino’s. One stays in the sand bed, and the others can float in the water column (especially when lights are out). There is more research on other threads but generally getting parameters like Nitrate and Phosphate at certain levels encourages competing algae/bacteria to outcompete Dino’s for resources. This also paired with trying to knock back the current levels of Dino’s through UV sterilizer (for free floating Dino’s) and sandbed cleaning for the other type. It’s been a while since I checked the latest threads on other effective means of knocking it back to allow competition to get a foothold.

 

[actik]

Wow, thanks everyone. I really appreciate this, I felt like I was doing such a good job and just couldn't figure it out

 

[IKD]

Oh, and Dino’s can affect fish and coral as Dino’s can be toxic

 

[zapbap99]

prob should get your water tested you might have some really annoying metal or mineral in your rodi ..

 

[actik]

prob should get your water tested you might have some really annoying metal or mineral in your rodi ..

The really sad part is i live in the sticks, i used to buy natural spring water 5g jugs but as you could imagin it was getting very pricey just for water, then i started using my RODI system, Low water pressure and a 50 gpd system actually produces 5 maybe 7 gallons per day haha and around 30-40 tds is the best quality water i could get other then buying. But i wonder if your right and maybe this old house has copper pipes or something?

 

[PSU4ME]

I’d look into a booster pump on a good rodi with potentially 2 DI stages. Last thing you want is to be adding nasties that are tough to account for!

 

[zapbap99]

The really sad part is i live in the sticks, i used to buy natural spring water 5g jugs but as you could imagin it was getting very pricey just for water, then i started using my RODI system, Low water pressure and a 50 gpd system actually produces 5 maybe 7 gallons per day haha and around 30-40 tds is the best quality water i could get other then buying. But i wonder if your right and maybe this old house has copper pipes or something?

yea dunno just buy an icp test on brs or somethin get it tested.

 

[Lizbeli]

+1 on the rodi upgrade. Good water will make all the difference especially if you plan to keep corals. I had low pressure and got a kit from BRS and now I am producing a ton of water out of a 100gal/day system at 0 tds. Depending on whats in your water, you may need to add more stages.

 

[W1ngz]

Yes, but because my water is about 3000 tds my rodi only knocks it down to about 25 tds

Fix this and things will start moving in the right direction.
Add a second membrane to your RODI, as well as a booster pump. reefsupplies sells both, but where are you? There's a surprising number of reef shops around Qc, just not well publicised.

There may be other things to look at once you get some good clean water, but poor water quality from the start will screw up everything else you need to figure out later on.

 

[Reef.]

The really sad part is i live in the sticks, i used to buy natural spring water 5g jugs but as you could imagin it was getting very pricey just for water, then i started using my RODI system, Low water pressure and a 50 gpd system actually produces 5 maybe 7 gallons per day haha and around 30-40 tds is the best quality water i could get other then buying. But i wonder if your right and maybe this old house has copper pipes or something?

A booster pump is not too expensive, it should help with the TDS as well, might not get it down to 0 though, but should reduce it, will produce the water a lot faster.
As said a second membrane can be added if the pump doesn’t do the trick.

Have to say, is 3000 TDS even legal!

 

[ironman187]

Everyone is pointing at the water but neglected to ask you if you were using the same water on your small tank too.

 

[actik]

Morning guys, i just want to rewind for a minute because everyone does have great suggestions. I do believe its Dino so i blacked out my tank last night and im starting that process, my question is if it is dino doesnt that mean its a nutrient problem not a water problem ? but i do plan to fix my water issue as well and try to find a better RODI i just want to understand better.

 

[LegendaryCG]

Morning guys, i just want to rewind for a minute because everyone does have great suggestions. I do believe its Dino so i blacked out my tank last night and im starting that process, my question is if it is dino doesnt that mean its a nutrient problem not a water problem ? but i do plan to fix my water issue as well and try to find a better RODI i just want to understand better.

yea I’m going to suggest you remove the phosguard. The solution to Dino’s is to let algae out compete them.

 

[W1ngz]

The (somewhat ambiguous) 'nutrients' could be in your source water, any may be feeding the bad stuff, just as well as it could be suppressing the good stuff. There's no way to know what your 25-50tds from the water actually is. Could be copper or other metals, could be phosphates, could be nitrates, chlorine, chloramine or literally anything else on the periodic table.

Whichever way you choose to look at it, I think you have more than one problem and the source water is the first thing to fix so you can get a clearer idea of the next problem.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

I feel your pain man. Some dino species are aggressive but your tank looks better than mine right now.
Type and determining the type is very helpful in treatment.

Don't let your nitrate and phosphate bottom out
Aggressive vacuuming (check ammonia after!)
Biodiversity and try and let your algae out compete it.

 

[actik]

Thanks, would it be considered a bad case though if I've had fish losses ? I assume it's from that or I'm just extremely unlucky, corals don't look happy but I understand why for sure.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Personally I have never had fish loss from dinos directly but I have heard that it can happen. That alone would lead me to believe that something else may be causing the fish loss but the dinos should be corrected fairly quickly. Unless your sandbed is littered with dead snails, I would dig into would else would cause a sudden loss.

Disease is where I would start. Are the fish doing anything abnormal such as flashing against rocks/sand or swimming toward a powerhead. Sores, dark spots and stringy poop can lead to a diagnosis (if there is one).

 

[actik]

Honestly nothing, other then my yellow goby having bite marks in him 1 day from the puffer there has been no visual indications of disease or sickness that i see. Just 1 day they act strange and sort of shy away... then all of a sudden they are swimming sideways and drop. Yet my 2 clowns have been going strong since the start ? and they arent aggressive to others at all everyone gets along in this tank wonderfully. Hermits,snails and cleaner shrimp arent even bothered by the puffer.

 

[actik]

Would you guys recommend the 4 stage twist RODI ? or is it not that great, seems affordable and compact