Back in again. 75g sps build thread

[ScottB]

Yea I did but I would need to look about at some posts to see which dino it was. Its the kind that lives in the sand and disapears at night.

Eeeewww. Sounds like amphidium. Nasty buggers.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Eeeewww. Sounds like amphidium. Nasty buggers.

Yeah that was it I think.

 

[MrWheelock]

Sorry about all the downs you've been having! Just read the whole thing. Great setup, i love the aquascape. I've got a 75 gallon myself, going to do a little rebuild/update on it soon and try heading into the SPS realm.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Well I think I am going to do a reset on the reef. Tossing around the idea of dosing silicate to promote a diatom bloom. However that does not seem to be a sure method of defeating dinos and tends to take a long time to out compete the dinos. Plus the unpleasant bloom of diatoms that I would be intentionally causing. Small cell amphidinium dinoflagellates is not cake walk and the toxins it produces quickly wiped out all my sps. I really thought the DinoX treatment won the battle for me. It did really help to reduce the dinos and push the tank towards the right direction though.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Well I think I am going to do a reset on the reef. Tossing around the idea of dosing silicate to promote a diatom bloom. However that does not seem to be a sure method of defeating dinos and tends to take a long time to out compete the dinos. Plus the unpleasant bloom of diatoms that I would be intentionally causing. Small cell amphidinium dinoflagellates is not cake walk and the toxins it produces quickly wiped out all my sps. I really thought the DinoX treatment won the battle for me. It did really help to reduce the dinos and push the tank towards the right direction though.

Have you performed any black outs??

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Have you performed any black outs??

Never mind. Just read you did

 

[ScottB]

Feeling your grief. I came kinda late to the thread but Dino-X is a volatile treatment. I don't know what is in it, nor how it is supposed to work so have never used it. Reading threads here it is tough on SPS so I could not go there. But I had the easy stuff -- ostreopsis.

@DesertReefT4r did you review the thread?

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

I don't know what percentage of folks had luck battling dinos with any of the methods in the old Dino thread but it's obviously a very low percentage, so I'd like refresh folks on the natural alternatives and lay out three areas of info: some of the factors that contribute to a dino outbreak...

www.reef2reef.com

It is only 415 pages long so don't feel lonely but there is a branch thread for Amphidium treatment. In there. Somewhere.

Action: I don't know what you mean by a reboot, but personally I would not do a reboot that involves taking my rock/sand back to day 0. (Meaning bleach). That bacteria is an asset I would retain. How you choose among the amphidinium treatments I cannot speak to with experience. Hopefully others will chime in.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Have you performed any black outs??

Yep 4 total now.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Feeling your grief. I came kinda late to the thread but Dino-X is a volatile treatment. I don't know what is in it, nor how it is supposed to work so have never used it. Reading threads here it is tough on SPS so I could not go there. But I had the easy stuff -- ostreopsis.

@DesertReefT4r did you review the thread?

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

I don't know what percentage of folks had luck battling dinos with any of the methods in the old Dino thread but it's obviously a very low percentage, so I'd like refresh folks on the natural alternatives and lay out three areas of info: some of the factors that contribute to a dino outbreak...

www.reef2reef.com

It is only 415 pages long so don't feel lonely but there is a branch thread for Amphidium treatment. In there. Somewhere.

Action: I don't know what you mean by a reboot, but personally I would not do a reboot that involves taking my rock/sand back to day 0. (Meaning bleach). That bacteria is an asset I would retain. How you choose among the amphidinium treatments I cannot speak to with experience. Hopefully others will chime in.

Yep I have read the dino thread and am in the process of reading the amphidinium thread. Both have been very helpful and have helped me gain some ground in the fight. I wont be doing a full blown reset instead a "soft" reset. Removing all the rock so I can remove and toss the sand. The rock is clean and has matured well so it will get a rinse in old tank water, scrubbed for aptasia, stored in circulated heater tank water and reused in the tank. All the sand will be getting removed and tossed. Going to go bare bottom or use a larger crushed aragonite. Not only has the sand been the location of the dinos but its too fine grained and gets blown around buy the flow which I want more of. As for whats in DinoX all the bottle said for ingredients was ammonia so not really sure and it was for sure extremely harsh on corals and basically the treatment is lethal to acropora and montipora.

 

[ScottB]

Yep I have read the dino thread and am in the process of reading the amphidinium thread. Both have been very helpful and have helped me gain some ground in the fight. I wont be doing a full blown reset instead a "soft" reset. Removing all the rock so I can remove and toss the sand. The rock is clean and has matured well so it will get a rinse in old tank water, scrubbed for aptasia, stored in circulated heater tank water and reused in the tank. All the sand will be getting removed and tossed. Going to go bare bottom or use a larger crushed aragonite. Not only has the sand been the location of the dinos but its too fine grained and gets blown around buy the flow which I want more of. As for whats in DinoX all the bottle said for ingredients was ammonia so not really sure and it was for sure extremely harsh on corals and basically the treatment is lethal to acropora and montipora.

Yeah I've read some on amphidinium and it is tough stuff. I hear you on rebooting the sand; that seemed a common method. Glad you are keeping the rock alive; valuable stuff to me. Hang in!

 

[Rick5]

I battled dinos and lost the entirety of my SPS collection (a ton of SPS). I happened upon a YouTube video involving a guy who worked in waste water treatment. The guy, if memory serves, referred to a number of bottle-bacteria-type products including the typical/popular products (e.g. Microbacter 7 and Dr. Tim's) and one I'd never heard of, namely Fritz. I purchased all three and proceeded to dump copious amounts of the bottled bacteria into my tank. I also ordered sea lettuce from Algae Barn. The combination (at least visually/anecdotally/seemingly) got rid of the dinos. This occurred several months ago (roughly six months ago or thereabouts). Immediately after I eliminated the dinos, the tank suffered from green water (literally the kind of green water you'd experience in a pond or fresh water setting). The green water crept up on the tank and reached a point where I couldn't see through the tank. I installed a cheap UV sterilizer (10w) which broke immediately after resolving the green water. I got rid of the UV sterilizer and the green water reared its ugly head once again. I've since installed a pond UV sterilizer and haven't seen green water (or dinos) since.

 

[Hecticdude]

So after taking a 4 year break from reef keeping I have gotten the bug again. This here is my 75g build thread for my reef tank. It will be a slow build, doing what I can as funding becomes freed up to buy equipment. A little history about me and the hobby. Like many my parents had a small freshwater fiwh tank that totally fasinated me as a child. Later on in the early 90s my Dad set up a 29g saltwater tank after I bugged him to for a while. I loved going to the fish stores and see all the fish and corals back then. Fast forward a few years and the saltwater tank was toen down and forgetten about until I found it and convinced my Mom to let me setup a freshwater tank. Well needless to say I was hooked. Over the years I had a 29g, 20g, and 55g fresh water tanks. Then in my early 20s I got a job at Petco, became the fish guy and set up my first saltwater tank, a 20H softy reef. That quickly turned into a 29g mixed reef, then a 55g mixed reef, a 6g Nano Cube, 40B sps tank and a 75g sps tank. The 75g was sold and I took a step back form aquariums for a few years. In that time frame I worked at a few LFS mostly specializing in saltwater, tank maintenance and installs. I even took a job in Long Island New York for a few months doing maintenance and installs. That pretty much leads us up to today with my current reef tank build.
Here is the specs and basic plan for the build.
75g Marineland tank and stand
20L DIY sump
RO 150SSS skimmer
Jebao DC return pump
RKL controller, SL1, float switch kit, 2x PC4, iTemp and Ph probes
2x 250w PFO MH with Phoenix bukbs and T5 or led supplement
Eshopps Eclipse L overflow
Glassholes 3/4" return kit
DIY return manifold to run reactor (s)
5.5g ATO res dosing kalk
Flow is still undecided. I like the cost and function the PP-8 pumps but they seem to hit or miss. Tunze 6095 is my other pick but the price for 2 is pretty high but I know they last forever.
So that pretry much sums up build to it cureent point. I still have a lot to do, paln out and purchase. Now for the pics of the build from start to now.

Welcome Back!!, I am on a similar journey of returning back to the hobby. Good Luck and looking forward to your build.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Bui

Welcome Back!!, I am on a similar journey of returning back to the hobby. Good Luck and looking forward to your build.

Build has been done, read the thread and check it out.

Well yep still have dinos coming back. Just looked under the microscope and they are still in the sand. Now to decide what to do, remove all sand and reboot or try dosing silicates....

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Currently making a bunch of RODI water in prep for some major tank work. Either wednesday or sunday I will be draining down the tank, removing all the rock for some cleaning and aptasia removal, sucking out all the sand in the display and fuge it getting moved to the trash. Yesturday I doesed 500ml of Reef Stew to the display and added a box of Siporax to the sump to increase biofilteration in prep for the sand being removed. I really really hate and dont want to go this route but it looks like its going to be the best method at controlling the amphidinium dinoflagellates. Since nothing else has worked and amphidinium stay on the sand gains protecting them from all other know methods of control removing their perfered sanctuary seems best. DinoX did help some I think but not completely and it had the nasty side effect of killing sps. Increased no3 and po4 has not done much but I thinknit has slowed them down some. 3 day black outs are ineffective against amphidinium because they are both photosynthetic and autotrophic so they can survive with no light. I think I may have pinned down the main cause for the dino bloom, newer tank with low bio diversity, low no3 amd po4 combined with dosing ChemiClean to treat cyano was the last factor to set the stage for dinos. With already low bio diversity using ChemiClean futher killed off benifical organisms leave a large place for dinos fill, thats the theory anyways.

 

[MrWheelock]

Sounds like a sound theory to me. Sorry for all your bad luck. You have a solid plan set, however if you dont like the bare bottom look, I suggest looking into travertine tile for a false bottom. good luck, looking forward to your progress.

 

[ScottB]

Currently making a bunch of RODI water in prep for some major tank work. Either wednesday or sunday I will be draining down the tank, removing all the rock for some cleaning and aptasia removal, sucking out all the sand in the display and fuge it getting moved to the trash. Yesturday I doesed 500ml of Reef Stew to the display and added a box of Siporax to the sump to increase biofilteration in prep for the sand being removed. I really really hate and dont want to go this route but it looks like its going to be the best method at controlling the amphidinium dinoflagellates. Since nothing else has worked and amphidinium stay on the sand gains protecting them from all other know methods of control removing their perfered sanctuary seems best. DinoX did help some I think but not completely and it had the nasty side effect of killing sps. Increased no3 and po4 has not done much but I thinknit has slowed them down some. 3 day black outs are ineffective against amphidinium because they are both photosynthetic and autotrophic so they can survive with no light. I think I may have pinned down the main cause for the dino bloom, newer tank with low bio diversity, low no3 amd po4 combined with dosing ChemiClean to treat cyano was the last factor to set the stage for dinos. With already low bio diversity using ChemiClean futher killed off benifical organisms leave a large place for dinos fill, thats the theory anyways.

I believe you have accurately described the causes/effects in your situation. I had to go through dinos twice in my expanding frag system to figure it out. Going forward, any new system I build will be dirtier and more diverse until it matures.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I must be the lucky one. A few SPS lost but won the dino battle quickly and Never returned (been 3 months).

 

[ScottB]

I must be the lucky one. A few SPS lost but won the dino battle quickly and Never returned (been 3 months).

I was lucky also; my dino was ostreopsis. That amphid stuff is really tough to beat out. Which did you have?

 

[dwest]

Currently making a bunch of RODI water in prep for some major tank work. Either wednesday or sunday I will be draining down the tank, removing all the rock for some cleaning and aptasia removal, sucking out all the sand in the display and fuge it getting moved to the trash. Yesturday I doesed 500ml of Reef Stew to the display and added a box of Siporax to the sump to increase biofilteration in prep for the sand being removed. I really really hate and dont want to go this route but it looks like its going to be the best method at controlling the amphidinium dinoflagellates. Since nothing else has worked and amphidinium stay on the sand gains protecting them from all other know methods of control removing their perfered sanctuary seems best. DinoX did help some I think but not completely and it had the nasty side effect of killing sps. Increased no3 and po4 has not done much but I thinknit has slowed them down some. 3 day black outs are ineffective against amphidinium because they are both photosynthetic and autotrophic so they can survive with no light. I think I may have pinned down the main cause for the dino bloom, newer tank with low bio diversity, low no3 amd po4 combined with dosing ChemiClean to treat cyano was the last factor to set the stage for dinos. With already low bio diversity using ChemiClean futher killed off benifical organisms leave a large place for dinos fill, thats the theory anyways.

I fought small cell amphidinium about 20 months again. They were brutal. I caused very low nutrients with use of siporax, chaeto fuge with a very strong light, and heavy gfo use.

I now use none of those nutrient removal methods and make sure I have measurable nitrates and phosphate. I also use UV. The step change in my dino fight is when I removed my sand. I’m not a fan of bare bottom, but it’s sure a lot better than dinos.

Good luck.

 

[ScottB]

I have been "dino free" for a couple of months. Still having to dose phosphate.

Actually, if I take a scrape of my glass and put it under the microscope, the little b******s are still there but the slime algae is outcompeting.