Congrats! Did you ever get to the root cause?
Kinda.....so to recap:
1. During the initial setup I kept lights out for 4 months then gradually brought them online. Rock was a combo of marco rock and seeded with 10 pounds of ocean live rock from KP aquatics.
2. I was very slow and gradual in introducing livestock. I went through a very minor diatom breakout early on and never had much turf algae. I did notice these non-motile brown-gold structures on my sand when looking under a microscope. ( I think they were an encysted version of Dino's waiting for the opportunity).
3. All was good, growing, and thriving as you can see in my earlier photos on this thread. Then came ich and I went fallow for close to 80 days.
4. During Fallow period I ghost fed and never saw a bottoming out of my nutrients (may have at some points between testing but I was testing weekly). The corals really took off during this time and everything looked great.
5. Re-introduced the fish slowly. Just prior to doing so, I decided to adjust my rock scape and add a bit more sand.
(I THINK THIS WAS THE TRIGGER).
6. I noticed a few days later some gold brown on the new sand area. I thought initially diatoms but when I finally looked under the scope they were a mixture of small cell amphidinium and Ostreopsis!! Around this time I also noted some green cyano in the rock crevices and starting to show up on areas of the sand. This is when the STN first showed up. Little by little it spread from one SPS to another and I lost hundreds of dollars worth of sticks!
7. I went through the usual iterations: siphon, make sure nutrients were up, fed more, dosed nitrate, add UV, increased flow, bacteria, dosed silicates....you get the idea. (Yes I had previously dealt with Dino's in my old system which had been online for over a decade and started with ocean live rock. It was after an overdose of NOPOX. Took me closed to 9 months to beat them).
8. I also tried the new Triton STN-X and Cyano treatment. In my experience they did nothing.
9. After a couple weeks the Ostreopsis under the microscope was gone (UV did its trick)- the small cell type persisted.
10. I tried the Dr. Tims recipe for Dino's with the blackouts, refresh and waste away. Things would look good then they came back.
11. I tried the increasing O2, bacteria, vodka method....same result....they came back after an initial improvement.
12. I finally said screw it and did a 4 day black out with chemiclean followed by dosing a variety of bacteria: Ecobalance, MB-7, MB clean, and Fritz-turbo start.
13. This really improved things. Cyano gone and has not come back. Small Cell amphidinum significantly less but still shows up after 7-10 day.
14. Surviving SPS started showing recovery. Interestingly it was the oregon tort that did the best. My purple tip turaki, birds nests, slime ball, all the LPS, Monti's, and zoa's weren't bothered by all the goings on. I've also noted little plaques of SPS where the nice colony/frags were in the past. I think some are starting to come back. Fingers crossed.
15. Due to my work obligations at the hospital with the COVID outbreak....I had little time for the tank. Other than feeding it was neglected. The small cell persists at a very low level and does not seem to be bothering the corals.
16. About 10 days ago I had time to do some sand bed cleaning, blast the rocks, remove dead coral skeletons, and open up the rock structure a bit. I was surprised how much detritus was in the deep areas of the rock given I have two Wav's and a gyre going pretty strongly. Nevertheless I cleaned things up and decided to give the new temperature craze a chance.
17. I increased the temp to 82.5-83 degrees. Its been at this range for about 3 days. Dino's may be receding but its too early to tell. My fish look more active and hungrier, corals all look good and my remaining SPS are showing some massive polyp extension. My tank is clearly enjoying the higher temps. Back in the day when I ran MH on my old system the temp was always 80-82 and things did great. I think I'm going to leave things were they are.
18. I have some Garf Grunge on the way and plan to setup a small refugium from the left over top off water reservoir where I will seed pods, etc.
Sooo, there you have it.....things are looking much better but still not done with the war. Hopefully I can get this to finally resolve soon. I'll give it a few months before trying to replace some of my sticks again.
Thanks for looking!
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