CRASH! Do over time!!!

[skinz78]

Alright, after a long loosing battle with my tank I am at the point that I have decided to start a complete do over.... I've been battling a terrible type of Dinoflaggelates and I have came to the conclusion that I need to start over and rethink my battle plan.

This is what it looked like 3 months ago:

Possibly re aquascape and all new sand go's in this weekend I've had a major dinoflaggeleate infestation for about 6 months now and nothing I've tried has worked. My sand is old so I am thinking that has something to do with the problem. I ordered 80 lbs of Carib Sea special grade seafloor and 40 lbs of Carib Sea crushed coral. I am going to add the crushed coral first and then the seafloor on top. I am figuring on a 30 to 40g water change with the IO salt too.

This is a quick cell phone pic of what my sandbed actually looks like...

Fts

This is a frustrating battle, it started when I was out of the house for the divorce in January 2012. I've lost all my Chalice's, most of my SPS's and a few zoa's.

I've done many different things to try and get this stuff to clear out. I started with hydrogen peroxide dosing for 2 months, then tried increasing flow, changed from Seachem's Phosguard to GFO, Changed my RO/DI filters even though I was at 0 TDS, changed from Red Sea Coral Pro to just plain ol Instant Ocean salt "haven't been doing many water changes as this fuels the dino fire", siphoned the dino's out into a filter sock, wet skimmed, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else....

I hope the mixture of new sand, new RO/DI filters, Instant Ocean, and siphoning into a filter sock works. If not I'll be tearing the tank down and starting over.

The loss of the 6" colony of ORA Joe The Coral was the worst, I grew it from a 1" frag in about 8 months.

I'll have better pic's of the do over to add to this thread as I go.

 

[Mike&Terry]

If it were me, I would hit it with chemiclean and do a 3 day lights out (complete darkness). I would then add back some good nitrifying bacteria (mb7, Special Blend, Stability for example).

We had a small issue with dino's in our first 300g tank. We used chemiclean and ended up shortening our MH photo period and have not had any issues since. We also keep several sea cucumbers in our tank. They are the only critters we've had that will eat diatoms, cyano and dinoflagellates.

 

[AJreefs]

I went through the same battle my friend and actually I went through most of the steps you have listed. Finally, My Gfo and Carbon reactor clogged so
I took it down, within days I saw change after bringing it offline. I havent really come up with a reasoning but removing those two factors really helped.

 

[Steven R]

+1 chemiclean I am getting ready to do the same thing on my 46 but for Cyano and I will not be doing the 3 days lights out but I agree with that part of it for you. I hope this work for you and sorry for the troubles you are going through. Two of my tanks crashed when the storm Debbie came through and I have been trying to get them balanced again since then my 29 is fine but my 46 is stubborn. May I also suggest if you are doing the chemiclean route to remove the top of your skimmer and set it so it produces enough bubbles to oxygenate the water but to not over flow the top of the chamber seems like I have a'lot better results when I keep the o2 levels up when treating the system. Good luck and hopefully we will be seeing nothing but smiles and a great looking tank coming from your direction in no time!

 

[RJT]

I had it worse than that. I kept the lights out for 3 days, it was gone. It came back a month later, did three days again and I haven't seen it since. If I had used chemipure it would have been gone sooner.

 

[mcarroll]

+1 chemiclean I am getting ready to do the same thing on my 46 but for Cyano and I will not be doing the 3 days lights out but I agree with that part of it for you. I hope this work for you and sorry for the troubles you are going through. Two of my tanks crashed when the storm Debbie came through and I have been trying to get them balanced again since then my 29 is fine but my 46 is stubborn. May I also suggest if you are doing the chemiclean route to remove the top of your skimmer and set it so it produces enough bubbles to oxygenate the water but to not over flow the top of the chamber seems like I have a'lot better results when I keep the o2 levels up when treating the system. Good luck and hopefully we will be seeing nothing but smiles and a great looking tank coming from your direction in no time!

+1 to Chemiclean also.

While it's hard to imagine leaving the skimmer on as you suggest causing a problem, my advice for maximum safety is to follow the ChemiClean directions to a tee - do not vary from them. Do repeat treatments - if needed - instead. (It's not expensive.) The only time I've seen a problem with ChemiClean usage is when the instructions weren't followed. (Even in that case, it was only the pods and hermits that were toast - coral and fish never noticed a thing.)

-Matt

 

[mcarroll]

I had it worse than that. I kept the lights out for 3 days, it was gone. It came back a month later, did three days again and I haven't seen it since. If I had used chemipure it would have been gone sooner.

Prolly a typo, but just in case: ChemiPure is activated carbon and DI resin (Elite adds GFO). ChemiClean is an oxidizer used to fight nuisance algae, etc.



-Matt

 

[skinz78]

I'm extremely leery to do the Chemi Clean and lights out because I have clams, very rare expensive clams at that. I have the sand and the water is almost all made up to do the massive water change. IF that doesn't work I'll look into setting up a QT for the clams and do the above suggested.

 

[Rockadile]

Starting over is not the nd of the world and in many cases is just the thing a tank needs in order to rest itself. I have done it and found I was able to fix somethings i wish I ad done in the first place.

As far as chemi clean goes. I am not an advocate of adding chemicals to my tank as I always feel they are band aids and do not get to the root of the problem.

 

[Reefing8EZ]

Skinz,
Have you ever thought of trying UAS? Upward algae scrubber? It's very cheap to make and very effective.
I would recommend to give it a shot before "do over"... (can't hurt to try)

 

[RJT]

Prolly a typo, but just in case: ChemiPure is activated carbon and DI resin (Elite adds GFO). ChemiClean is an oxidizer used to fight nuisance algae, etc.



-Matt

Thank you

 

[EmilyXLC]

Bless your heart... : (

Well, good luck with starting everything back up! If it is any consolation, your tank looked absolutely stunning in thirst picture.

 

[mcarroll]

I'm extremely leery to do the Chemi Clean and lights out because I have clams, very rare expensive clams at that. I have the sand and the water is almost all made up to do the massive water change. IF that doesn't work I'll look into setting up a QT for the clams and do the above suggested.

Certainly if you have QT facilities it makes sense to use them in such a case - always better safe than sorry! :angel:

FWIW, I haven't heard of clams getting tweaked and I know at least one tank personally with a bunch of clams (derasa, crocea mostly) that has been treated multiple times. And three days with no lights is no great shakes for any reef organism I'm aware of. Also, dose ChemiClean and do the blackout simultaneously...one, then the other after a day or so if still needed would be a good conservative application of that plan. There's a pretty good chance the ChemiClean would work on it's own. And it does sometimes take a day or two after the treatment is complete to see 100% of the results, so patience is called for I think if you do try it.

Skinz,
Have you ever thought of trying UAS? Upward algae scrubber? It's very cheap to make and very effective.
I would recommend to give it a shot before "do over"... (can't hurt to try)

If Skins has the patience (prolly pretty thin at this point, what with the water and sand waiting - mine would be I'm sure) I agree it would be a very sensible "last try" to get a handle on things. Doesn't cost too much or take too much "doin" to try.


Good luck Skins!

-Matt

 

[jonbar1]

After nearly a year of vodka dosing, my softie tank had dinos starting to take over. My solution was extremely successful and very counter intuitive. I quit dosing vodka and started overfeeding. As soon as the nitrates were over 0 the dinos died out. It took less than a week for them to disappear completely. I never had dinos during the couple years when it was a FOWLR, only when the bioload plummeted from being coral only. I think very low levels of nitrate with carbon dosing are what they needed to take over. Maybe it's just me, but I never heard of many people having problems with dinos before vodka/vinegar dosing and pellets become popular.

 

[Steelerfan747]

I'm sorry to hear of your troubles sometimes do overs are a good thing let us know how it goes

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

 

[revsgirl]

Hate to hear about your battle.. Will be watching the progress..

 

[skinz78]

Thanks for all the replies! If my sand change doesn't work I'll be trying some of the suggestions for sure.

I spent 6 hours yesterday doing the sand change. I ended up having to take out everything... So a rescape is in the works!

Ever have to scape fully coral encrusted rocks in milk? LOL it isn't easy... The sand even with rinsing made the water white as milk...

 

[skinz78]

Well here we go! This pic is right after I started, I tried siphoning out the sand and that didn't work worth beans so everything had to come out...

I have an old 45g tank so everybody in!

I thought I didn't have any worms thanks to my Wrasses, I was wrong, found this guy but he was the only one.

Bucket o sand and bucket o rocks...

Sand going in.

Lol try and aquascape in this... With 30lb rocks covered in large SPS colony's....

This is how it looked the next day with the water all cleared up. Not too bad for aquascaping in milk...

You can see that I need to add more sand under the rocks.

Blue Milli was instantly happy, the SPS's haven't had polyp extension like this for months.

That is all the pic's I have so far, I did do a rescape so I'll have to get pic's of that. I also have tons of frags that need to find homes on frag plugs so I have to clean them up.

 

[Troylee]

Nothing wrong with starting over... I do it twice a year because I get bored easily haha..:tongue:

 

[ritter6788]

I feel your pain. I just did the same thing a few weeks ago. I only broke 2 sps! You'll be shocked at how clean it is once everything settles. My sandbed was about as deep as yours but not as old and the funk I siphoned out was amazing.