At a loss for what to do

[Currierfarms14]

Hello R2R,

I will try to be as detailed as possible with my situation without going overboard. I have had this tank running for almost 2 years. I have a mixed reef including some stony corals.

About 2 weeks ago I had such a bad cyano outbreak that I decided to use chemiclean. It worked like magic. The only problem was that the day after, it seemed like I had either Dino or diatoms. I have ALWAYS struggled with showing ANY nitrates. I would overfeed purposely and it would STILL not increase my nitrate. Instead what happened was my phosphates would increase. I tested my nitrates at my LFS and at home and the nitrates are still 0. A week ago I was told my phosphates were high, and they are now showing around .03. The diatoms/Dino is still here. I did discover I had a really old sock of carbon in my filter, and that was removed 2 weeks ago. I have done a couple of big water changes. The Dino’s are on my stones and look to be killing then. Most of my tank is ticked off besides random corals (one being an anemone). I am dosing nitrates daily and a few nitrate/phosphate probiotic into the tank.
Can someone please help me figure out why my phosphates increase but never my nitrates, and how I can get rid of this algae/bacteria I have?

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

Couple of things:

1. Sorry dude!! Dinos suck
2. Water changes actually exacerbate dinos. Dinos out compete others in a low nutrient environment. Water changes export nutrient.s
3. If you have high phosphates but low nitrates...does nitrates (sodium Nitrate). Tanks consume Nitrates faster than phsophates. Its a balance
4. Three are plenty of ways to address dinos. The best one is either UV or blackout..depending on which type of dinos you have.

 

[Currierfarms14]

I know! This hobby can get you pacing around the house thinking a million different things LOL. Do you think it’s a good idea to turn off my protein skimmer to help increase nitrates? Is it true that the Dino’s can hurt the Coral as I’m seeing in my tank? Is neo nitro okay to use?

ahould I do less water changes to increase nitrates?

 

[Lavey29]

Dinos need to be point of sale ID with a microscope. I had to double dose neonitro for several weeks before my number came up. Cut lights to 6 hours, no whites just blue and UV. Siphon out what you can during water change. You can stop skimmer for like 8 hours a day as long as 02 is ok. It's going to take many weeks to defeat this problem. May suggestion is getting stable parameters.

 

[Currierfarms14]

Okay. So zero out white lights and keep
Blues where they are for 6 hours? I was thinking of waiting at least a week before another water change to let nitrate build. If I take the collector cup out of the protein skimmer and just run it that would solve my
Problem correct? I’m thinking I will double my dose of neo nitro as well

 

[Reef and Dive]

Hello R2R,

I will try to be as detailed as possible with my situation without going overboard. I have had this tank running for almost 2 years. I have a mixed reef including some stony corals.

About 2 weeks ago I had such a bad cyano outbreak that I decided to use chemiclean. It worked like magic. The only problem was that the day after, it seemed like I had either Dino or diatoms. I have ALWAYS struggled with showing ANY nitrates. I would overfeed purposely and it would STILL not increase my nitrate. Instead what happened was my phosphates would increase. I tested my nitrates at my LFS and at home and the nitrates are still 0. A week ago I was told my phosphates were high, and they are now showing around .03. The diatoms/Dino is still here. I did discover I had a really old sock of carbon in my filter, and that was removed 2 weeks ago. I have done a couple of big water changes. The Dino’s are on my stones and look to be killing then. Most of my tank is ticked off besides random corals (one being an anemone). I am dosing nitrates daily and a few nitrate/phosphate probiotic into the tank.
Can someone please help me figure out why my phosphates increase but never my nitrates, and how I can get rid of this algae/bacteria I have?

Your nitrates certainly rise. The thing is they are being consumed at a higher rate than phosphate (bacteria, algae). You do not need for sure to keep dosing nitrates, but maybe adding a phosphate removal method such as GFO to keep a better balance.

Maybe this helps:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/redfield-ratio-revisited-–-what-are-we-doing-wrong.742503/

 

[Currierfarms14]

I don’t think I’ve had a single piece of algae (minus some corraline) in the last year. This to me tells me something is absorbing my nitrates, but I am not sure it’s algae as I don’t see any. I have had good coral growth ip
Until I had cyano and now this.. I have just always struggled with keeping my nitrates at anything below 0.. what else could be absorbing this or causing this?

 

[malfist]

Can you share a photo so we can confirm if it's dinos or one of it's look alike's?

 

[Lavey29]

I don’t think I’ve had a single piece of algae (minus some corraline) in the last year. This to me tells me something is absorbing my nitrates, but I am not sure it’s algae as I don’t see any. I have had good coral growth ip
Until I had cyano and now this.. I have just always struggled with keeping my nitrates at anything below 0.. what else could be absorbing this or causing this?

How big is the tank? How many fish? How much coral?

 

[Lavey29]

Okay. So zero out white lights and keep
Blues where they are for 6 hours? I was thinking of waiting at least a week before another water change to let nitrate build. If I take the collector cup out of the protein skimmer and just run it that would solve my
Problem correct? I’m thinking I will double my dose of neo nitro as well

This would be good initial steps in my opinion.

 

[Currierfarms14]

 

[Currierfarms14]

Tank is 65 G bowfront. I have 2 clownfish, fox faxe rabbit fish, tang (stay away tang police), purple pseudo Chromis, cleaner shrimp, bunch of snails etc.

 

[Currierfarms14]

Do you think it’s Dino based on the pic?

 

[Reef and Dive]

You most probably have dinos and they may be the “source” of your consumption. Try to put those on a microscope would help a lot to understand what is going on…

 

[Currierfarms14]

You most probably have dinos and they may be the “source” of your consumption. Try to put those on a microscope would help a lot to understand what is going on…

Gotcha. So if they are consuming it is it not wise to dose nitrates during this time? Or because there is no white light they won’t be able to consume it? Sorry confused on the matter

 

[Reef and Dive]

Gotcha. So if they are consuming it is it not wise to dose nitrates during this time? Or because there is no white light they won’t be able to consume it? Sorry confused on the matter

Not 100% sure. I could be Ostreopsidaceae for example, and for this the solution would be totally different: UV.

 

[malfist]

Certainly looks like dinos to me. Identification is generally recommended for treatment, but unless it's primarily a sandbed based one they treatments are all very similar. There's a BRS video on dinos, basically throw the kitchen sink at them.

 

[Lavey29]

I would really try dosing heavy phytoplankton too.

 

[Dburr1014]

Ostro dinos most likely

Only one more water change, only to siphon out what you can. After that do not do any more water changes until we clear these up.
Do you have a u v? Even a cheap one work, like jebao.
You can run it at night when they go into the water column or just run it 24/7. Set up as pull from tank dump back into tank. Do you want to do two or three times tank turn over an hour. I just beat these, well I think I did LOL. I just h202 at night at 1 ml / 10 gallon dose. I dosed bactor 7 in the morning along with phytoplankton.
I also did a 3-day blackout after I siphoned out what I could. After the 3 day blackout I only ran blue lights for two more days. This will not hurt to Coral. After those complete 5 days I kind of ramped my lights back up to normal for a few days.

 

[Dburr1014]

Need to get your phosphate up to like .1 and nitrates up to about 15 to 20 ppm
What we're looking to do is to help complete the Dinos with other things to push dinos out