Help please... Stuck in an unbreakable cycle.

[brandon429]

many are still there, hidden in rocks for sure we track those for pages in the sand rinse thread as they emerge

you could easily boost with algae barn shipped pod mix

 

[Jase4224]

I have one of those jebao pond UV sterilizers. I used to use it for Dino’s, but I would get the kind that go into the water column at night and that sterilizer would zap them in 2 days. But the last few times I’ve been getting the Dino’s that stay on the sand and rocks. A couple months ago I hooked up the Uv sterilizer on a permanent loop in the sump and for a long time the glass stayed clear of film algae pretty well but I think the cheap sterilizer is getting worn out. Either it’s rusting or the lights are encrusted with gunk or whatever eventually happens to the cheap ones. What I really need is a plan to keep the water under control. I don’t know if that means dosing nitrate and phosphate, or just doing water changes or what. When I upgraded to the 125, I really wanted to keep nitrate and phosphate controlled with the ATS and start dosing micronutrients back in with a doser so I could do less water changes. But you saw how that worked out. In the previous setup I basically had the same types of filtration and corals grew like crazy. I had massive chunks of birds nest and monti digitata that were filling up the space. Then I don’t know how it changed so much with the new setup. Both setups had a hand-made ATS as the main source of nutrient reduction. I went through a long period of depression and wasn’t doing much of anything as far as tank maintenance and that’s for the most part probably how it got to the point where it was. But it’s hard to know what’s exactly going on when you can’t measure phosphate and nitrate. I was afraid to do big water changes because it t made the Dino’s come back. I have a 4 part doser but I don’t know where to start with it. What to measure, how to know what I need to dose etc.

The Bulk Reef Supply YouTube channel can definitely help you in regards to where to begin testing, dosing etc. just keep in mind your sand bed will use up Alk so I would just start with testing/maintaining that. Then nitrate and phosphate.

 

[Aqua Man]

the new cuc skipped fallow is a direct velvet fish disease vector for potential fish harm, posts in the disease forum show

While this is technically true, I’d say it’s very rare.

@Gobi-Wan
Looks great! A good CUC will help keep those rocks clean. I like blue and red leg hermits. They can reach into those places where snails can not.

Saltwater aquarium.com has CUC in a fish less system, in house, if worried.

 

[brandon429]

We wouldn’t take advice from non quarantine advocates on whether adding wet items from a pet store is a marked disease risk


we’d start a thread on the matter and ask Jay in the disease forum, if the ten pages of search return examples wasn’t convincing. Non quarantine advocates are always trying to lower other’s vector control standards in ways the fish disease forum says is a real concern.



adding new groups of wet items, clean up crews, is a straight up risk. Adding one single cerith or two drops of water from a lfs bag is much lower, but if we read reefcleaners CUC loss threads, there’s many, adding 100 snails sure can be a concern

 

[Aqua Man]

We wouldn’t take your advice as a non quarantine advocate on whether adding wet items from a pet store is a marked disease risk

Lol… i didn’t know I was a non QT advocate??!!

adding new groups of wet items, clean up crews, is a straight up risk.

Sure, I agree there is a risk. I was just speculating that the risk is very low.

Of course if I was at petco and bought snails from a tank that had fish with visible ick, very high risk!!

 

[Gobi-Wan]

1.5 weeks later I have not touched the sand or back glass, only cleaned the front and sides once. Very small amounts of diatoms are starting to form but what I would call normal for a reef tank with nothing touching the sand. Thanks to @vetteguy53081 and his h202 method the Dino’s are completely gone. I am now quarantining a new diamond goby to keep the sand turning over. The algae turf scrubber has taken over now and the fish and snails have cleaned up any remaining algae in the rocks. Phosphate was finally high enough to do a big water change and get some fresh salt mix in there. Phosphate is rising slowly. With the big water change I am ready to finally run the skimmer again and tune the ATS so that phosphate rises slowly enough to do small water changes. Looks like the “hard reset” was enough to stabilize the tank again and if I pay attention and do my testing I should be able to keep it stable now. Thanks everyone for the advice! Finally back to enjoying the hobby again.

 

[vetteguy53081]

1.5 weeks later I have not touched the sand or back glass, only cleaned the front and sides once. Very small amounts of diatoms are starting to form but what I would call normal for a reef tank with nothing touching the sand. Thanks to @vetteguy53081 and his h202 method the Dino’s are completely gone. I am now quarantining a new diamond goby to keep the sand turning over. The algae turf scrubber has taken over now and the fish and snails have cleaned up any remaining algae in the rocks. Phosphate was finally high enough to do a big water change and get some fresh salt mix in there. Phosphate is rising slowly. With the big water change I am ready to finally run the skimmer again and tune the ATS so that phosphate rises slowly enough to do small water changes. Looks like the “hard reset” was enough to stabilize the tank again and if I pay attention and do my testing I should be able to keep it stable now. Thanks everyone for the advice! Finally back to enjoying the hobby again.

Tank looks good !!!

 

[Gobi-Wan]

Well, it’s been a couple weeks and the rocks are completely bare of algae, behaving normally again finally. I have been able to run the skimmer and I have been working on tuning the ATS and I’ve got it where the phosphate has gone from .19 to .15 over the last week. I am turning the photoperiod down. Ideally phosphate would be somewhere between .05 and .1 after a water change, and rise very slowly in time for the next water change. Everything looks great and corals are improving I. Health. However I have a pretty good amount of what looks like diatoms on the sand now. Is this pretty normal after a rip-clean mixing the sand all around? Or do I need to get out the microscope and see if Dino’s are back? It doesn’t look like several of the types of Dino’s I’ve had in the past and with phosphate relatively high that’s not what I’m thinking but it’s also been a while since I’ve seen diatoms.
@brandon429

 

[brandon429]

Excellent updates I’ve sent this work example to about fifteen people to copy. Your rocks were blocked from expressing waste out of the pores (from the living organisms inside) for months, and after unplugging they will not only express the backup but in addition the daily fares from the tenants which are numerous in this many pounds of rocks. That is substrate any colonizer can use if left in place. It is one reason why staggered sandbed addition (waiting some weeks or months to re input sand) can be beneficial in large jobs, because siphoning up waste + capitalists on the new substrate is easier when there’s no catch pockets for a while.


the reason ID doesn’t matter in rip cleans, dinos vs diatoms, is because we don’t ascribe to non physical controls for a while to break the habit of being hands off. The nuisance algae forum is literally full of examples of non rip clean tradeoff invasions: dose nitrate or phosphate in response to dinos? Get a tank full of gha for a year. Dose vibrant or fluc in response to gha? Get cyano for half a year. Buy chemiclean for cyano? Maybe it works maybe it kills some stuff

rip cleans trade off kills and losses for manual work and gallons of water exchanged, always a cost it seems.

I recommend siphoning up all mats all expressions as mini sectional rip cleans to save having to do it all at once as things accumulate. a strong, oversized uv can help in growback issues but in the end we need repeat manual work or the tendency will be for the system to shift back to invasion since we intercepted it that way but the major systems that grow algae are still in place. UV sized for bigger systems with nice slower flow through the unit would be a marked change from prior settings and one of the easiest physical changeups I can think of. If you already have uv, add another, do something different in order to head off invasions but for now inserting a siphon hose and bed suction large diameter tube would pull up top growths of sand quick and easy.

additional creativity would be inserting siphon hose and just siphoning up sand with the top matting, till it’s all clean. Rinse off the sand in the bucket with tap water and put it clean back into the tank.



the fact that much growth is back in the system means the tendency to be hands off which produced the initial invasion is still strong, I recommend be opposite at all times and never permit any form of takeover. you would only get to stop working in increments less than it takes to maintain the non invaded condition when you find a change that causes less regrowth. This tank may be too large for you to own, and a downsize needed, so that all animals live in tip top conditions at all times. If you’re able to keep cleaning the system to command compliance and have no invasions in pics, then it’s the right size.

reef invasions are permitted, it’s psychology and resolve before it’s biology and lucky tuning to save work. A mat of organisms only gets to exist where it’s allowed to exist. rip cleaning allows a cloud free setup where expected ongoing work doesn’t transmit clouds of waste as we access rocks and sand for expected guidance.


if there was a way we could reef that didn’t require ongoing work the nuisance forum wouldn’t be constantly busy fixing tanks with various experiments, keep up your resolve to keep the tank clean and be brainstorming changes you can make to supports in the tank to lessen regrowth


do not permit any remassing of any invader at any time. I would have never recommended dosing peroxide into the tank, that’s a form of hands off work avoidance and the reason we don’t use it in our huge peroxide threads is because it doesn’t last very long.

 

[Gobi-Wan]

Excellent updates I’ve sent this work example to about fifteen people to copy. Your rocks were blocked from expressing waste out of the pores (from the living organisms inside) for months, and after unplugging they will not only express the backup but in addition the daily fares from the tenants which are numerous in this many pounds of rocks. That is substrate any colonizer can use if left in place. It is one reason why staggered sandbed addition (waiting some weeks or months to re input sand) can be beneficial in large jobs, because siphoning up waste + capitalists on the new substrate is easier when there’s no catch pockets for a while.


the reason ID doesn’t matter in rip cleans, dinos vs diatoms, is because we don’t ascribe to non physical controls for a while to break the habit of being hands off. The nuisance algae forum is literally full of examples of non rip clean tradeoff invasions: dose nitrate or phosphate in response to dinos? Get a tank full of gha for a year. Dose vibrant or fluc in response to gha? Get cyano for half a year. Buy chemiclean for cyano? Maybe it works maybe it kills some stuff

rip cleans trade off kills and losses for manual work and gallons of water exchanged, always a cost it seems.

I recommend siphoning up all mats all expressions as mini sectional rip cleans to save having to do it all at once as things accumulate. a strong, oversized uv can help in growback issues but in the end we need repeat manual work or the tendency will be for the system to shift back to invasion since we intercepted it that way but the major systems that grow algae are still in place. UV sized for bigger systems with nice slower flow through the unit would be a marked change from prior settings and one of the easiest physical changeups I can think of. If you already have uv, add another, do something different in order to head off invasions but for now inserting a siphon hose and bed suction large diameter tube would pull up top growths of sand quick and easy.

additional creativity would be inserting siphon hose and just siphoning up sand with the top matting, till it’s all clean. Rinse off the sand in the bucket with tap water and put it clean back into the tank.



the fact that much growth is back in the system means the tendency to be hands off which produced the initial invasion is still strong, I recommend be opposite at all times and never permit any form of takeover. you would only get to stop working in increments less than it takes to maintain the non invaded condition when you find a change that causes less regrowth. This tank may be too large for you to own, and a downsize needed, so that all animals live in tip top conditions at all times. If you’re able to keep cleaning the system to command compliance and have no invasions in pics, then it’s the right size.

reef invasions are permitted, it’s psychology and resolve before it’s biology and lucky tuning to save work. A mat of organisms only gets to exist where it’s allowed to exist. rip cleaning allows a cloud free setup where expected ongoing work doesn’t transmit clouds of waste as we access rocks and sand for expected guidance.


if there was a way we could reef that didn’t require ongoing work the nuisance forum wouldn’t be constantly busy fixing tanks with various experiments, keep up your resolve to keep the tank clean and be brainstorming changes you can make to supports in the tank to lessen regrowth


do not permit any remassing of any invader at any time. I would have never recommended dosing peroxide into the tank, that’s a form of hands off work avoidance and the reason we don’t use it in our huge peroxide threads is because it doesn’t last very long.

Thank you. I have no problem siphoning the sand I just didn’t know if it was akin to “new tank ugly phase” where it would just go away again on its own.

 

[brandon429]

No we cant risk it, main goal is to prevent a second rip clean as long as possible but the only guaranteed way is physical vs chemical


you can see in the nuisance algae forum there’s a trend to blame invasions on lack of nitrate or phosphate, read by cheap non digital kits, and the vast majority of those who dose and adjust the tank simply trade off invasive mats for gha forests so the only method I’ve seen which doesn’t have tradeoff invasions is physical work

(there is validity in the experiments they’re getting quite good at killing off the initial target, it’s the secondary infestations that are the challenge, when they hone that technique into perfection rip cleans wont always have to be the go-to but they’ll always be a strong method for whole waste removal compared to others)

all alignments we take such as clean up crews (new clean up crews are disease vectors because they’re wet from another system, buy carefully) or lighting intensity changes or UV systems are designed at reducing the work it takes to remain invader free. But they’re not used to remove the invader, that’s all done by hand unfortunately until we get lucky on a preventative control. I honestly think buying a bag of gammarids and mixed pods, big ones not tiny dustlike invisible ones, may help overall

those tend to come from fish less production system (to prevent grazing on pods) so hopefully theyre less disease risk than other clean up crews we can buy. In the disease forum I don’t know of any new pods killed all my fish threads. I honestly know it’s a big tank and physical work is a huge hassle but you’ve made it look so good as an example tank I simply don’t have a better method handy. You’re using exactly what I’ve used for sixteen years to cheat a little pico reef into lasting, it’d be long dead without some cheat rips. I’m here to admit I’ve cheated my pico into forced compliance it wouldn’t have worked by artistic coaxing - am not that lucky

 

[Sump Crab]

Replace most of your rock with good aquacultured rock from kp aquatics. To me it sounds like a tank void of any competition to keep the algae in check. Diversity is key when combating a monoculture.

 

[i_am_mclovin]

1.5 weeks later I have not touched the sand or back glass, only cleaned the front and sides once. Very small amounts of diatoms are starting to form but what I would call normal for a reef tank with nothing touching the sand. Thanks to @vetteguy53081 and his h202 method the Dino’s are completely gone. I am now quarantining a new diamond goby to keep the sand turning over. The algae turf scrubber has taken over now and the fish and snails have cleaned up any remaining algae in the rocks. Phosphate was finally high enough to do a big water change and get some fresh salt mix in there. Phosphate is rising slowly. With the big water change I am ready to finally run the skimmer again and tune the ATS so that phosphate rises slowly enough to do small water changes. Looks like the “hard reset” was enough to stabilize the tank again and if I pay attention and do my testing I should be able to keep it stable now. Thanks everyone for the advice! Finally back to enjoying the hobby again.

Just curious can you elaborate or link to Vetteguy's h2o2 method?

 

[Gobi-Wan]

Just curious can you elaborate or link to Vetteguy's h2o2 method?

Directly from @vetteguy53081 :
“Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15%) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off.
During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as bacter 7) per 10 gallons.
Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX as it is food for dinos.
Day 5,, you can start with blue lights - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly”

it’s a good way to get rid of the Dino’s which are notoriously hard to get rid of even after you fix the nutrient problems that cause them. The important thing is that you get the nutrients under control and build back the populations of organisms that out-compete the Dino’s. For example, AFTER I removed all my rocks and deep cleaned them with a wire brush (removing the surface layer where the roots of the algae are) and removed my whole sand bed and thoroughly washed it, when I got it all back together there was just a very small amount of Dino’s lingering after a couple days. The h202 got rid of them but only after I exported all the nutrients and algae out of my system, that was causing the algae to grow out of control and then strip the water of nutrients allowing Dino’s. The method also includes dosing a high quality bacteria in small amounts each day to help replace the micro fauna that were killed by lack of nutrients in the water, allowing the Dino’s to flourish. (At least from my limited understanding)

 

[brandon429]

-bacteria from a bottle has nothing to do with replacing microfauna, its for cycling and when very very lucky increased detritus breakdown via heterotophic bacteria.


any reading of aquabiomic's dna testing thread shows bottle bac initial strains being quickly replaced by resident strains over a short period of time. the recommend is purely made up, and not a product of any testing and especially work thread outcome testing for other's invasions.

I'd also add that dosing things to the water for dinos is 100% against the physical removal method, and blending the two is against the tenets of both methods. I would sub in direct work, siphon hose removal for small recurring mats, vs any form of dosing the water and leaving them in.

Its one reason I wish Vette would just build a work thread of say 20 pages showing his method working in other's tanks. then you'd link that thread as a proof model Vette.

the h202 thread in the nuisance algae forum by Troylee (ten years ago) is the method Vette is recommending to others, and to use those doses in place of hand removal is why the method didn't win out above all other dinos tricks.

if you really were determined to use peroxide dosing in a tank that began with the efforts of a rip clean such as this one, you'd remove all mats by hand causing a clean-condition tank. dose the peroxide in the clean condition, and if it fights growback, its working. As soon as someone is dosing X to a mess of mats seen in the tank, the rip clean effort has been subverted/those strands aren't allowed to persist/hand removed.

hands off folks assess a doser by its ability to kill a target allowed to mass


rip cleaners assess a doser by its ability to maintain the uninvaded condition, so we don't have to

internal vs external locus of control, of responsibility for the invasion, is the ongoing duel between rip cleaners and hands off advocates.

this is one reason why work threads are so humbling, its easy to make recommends off limited peroxide posts but as soon as we start a peroxide work thread via water dosing/the humbling begins. it comes from reports in the thread: hey that didnt work. Its easy to keep up the recommendations without being accountable to the outcomes of a work thread in my opinion.

 

[i_am_mclovin]

Directly from @vetteguy53081 :
“Prepare by starting with a water change and blow this stuff loose with a turkey baster and siphon up loose particles.
Turn lights off (at least white and run blue at 10-15%) for 5 days and at night dose 1ml of hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons for all 5 nights. If you dont have light dependent coral- turn all lights off.
During the day dose 1ml of liquid bacteria (such as bacter 7) per 10 gallons.
Clean filters daily and DO NOT FEED CORAL FOODS OR ADD NOPOX as it is food for dinos.
Day 5,, you can start with blue lights - ramping up and work your white lights up slowly”

it’s a good way to get rid of the Dino’s which are notoriously hard to get rid of even after you fix the nutrient problems that cause them. The important thing is that you get the nutrients under control and build back the populations of organisms that out-compete the Dino’s. For example, AFTER I removed all my rocks and deep cleaned them with a wire brush (removing the surface layer where the roots of the algae are) and removed my whole sand bed and thoroughly washed it, when I got it all back together there was just a very small amount of Dino’s lingering after a couple days. The h202 got rid of them but only after I exported all the nutrients and algae out of my system, that was causing the algae to grow out of control and then strip the water of nutrients allowing Dino’s. The method also includes dosing a high quality bacteria in small amounts each day to help replace the micro fauna that were killed by lack of nutrients in the water, allowing the Dino’s to flourish. (At least from my limited understanding)

Nice stuff! I know vetteguy has been around a long time. I've met him personally since he is (or at least was?) part of WI reef society.

 

[Jen1978]

Hello. My reef is about 3.5 years old and it's been about 1.5 years since i upgraded to a 125 gallon setup. Since then, i have not been able to control the aquarium at all and the understanding i once thought i had about nutrients and chemistry is seemingly meaningless now. My rock is 100% carpeted in gha and a small layer of ongoing dynoflagellate infestation. I can not raise my nutrients because the gha explodes, and i can not do a water change because the dinos explode. I don't know where to start but i'm really really sick of watching this thing get worse and worse. It's been a long time since i enjoyed watching the reef. Thanks in advance, sorry for not including many details but i'm so beaten by this stupid thing i just don't know where to start.

If you have Dinos currently, the GHA will be your temporary friend. It will out compete the Dinos. Have you gotten a proper ID on the type of Dino it is?

 

[i_am_mclovin]

I'd also add that dosing things to the water for dinos is 100% against the physical removal method, and blending the two is against the tenets of both methods. I would sub in direct work, siphon hose removal for small recurring mats, vs any form of dosing the water and leaving them in. Vettes recommendation has no fifty page work threads we can scan for outcome patterns.

Its one reason I wish Vette would just build a work thread of say 20 pages showing his method working in other's tanks. then you'd link that thread as a proof model

you can see the results won't work well in a work thread if you took time to assemble a hands off, peroxide dosing only work thread Vette. mats should have never been left in the tank from the start of the clean fix. it would be ideal in large tank setups to delay adding the sand back in anticipation of this ongoing access need for the toughest invasion in reefing.

Results speak volumes. Talk is cheap.

 

[brandon429]

Gobi, too many competing / non work thread interests here I'm out. I never see blended approaches working in my threads, not worth arguing here with those perpetually in the sidelines like McL. McL brings down fish disease threads in the same way but won't respond when linked to work threads, nor produces his own after many requests. simply not worth it.


the number one alarm is when you get recommends that don't come with pages of work you can scan for proof of claims.

Gobi I dont blame you for considering dosing options, this is a huge setup its not like its a nano/understood.

 

[i_am_mclovin]

Gobi, too many competing / non work thread interests here I'm out. I never see blended approaches working in my threads, not worth arguing here with those perpetually in the sidelines like McL. McL brings down fish disease threads in the same way but won't respond when linked to work threads, nor produces his own after many requests. simply not worth it.


the number one alarm is when you get recommends that don't come with pages of work you can scan for proof of claims.

I have no idea what you're talking about. You praised my examples after searching my post history and fish quarantine process, etc. I think you're confusing me with someone else. You bring down more threads than anyone as you just hate to have anyone question you are say anything that disagrees with you.