LPS / Softy Tank Going Downhill - Need Advice

[NanoReef303]

I'm only a couple months older than u.
Sounds like you're taking a very rational and incremental approach to me.

Tank chemistry hasn't seen any huge swings. Maybe nitrate a touch low. Would bet your increased feedings will sort that.
A lot of firsts in the first year. Check little things. Are the lenses on your light clean or salt encrusted? Have you kept up with powerhead and return pump cleanings? Flow can fall off a lot.

I clean my lights weekly as part of my normal maintenance routine. I have not cleaned my return pump or wavemaker. I’ll check those.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

I think your nutrients are too low for an lps softie system. I run my phosphates at .15 and nitrates at 20 ppm

I learnt this the hard way now I'm dosing both

 

[NanoReef303]

Are your white lights up high? How long do you keep your whites on and what intensity? Whites can fuel algae growth too? Are you getting flow in all areas of the tank? Good flow will also help prevent it

I have my blues at 100%, whites at 30%, reds and greens at 16%. I have the current USA ic pro dual LEDs. I have them on for 11 hours total, but 3 hours of that is ramp up and down, so 8 hours at peak intensity. I think I have pretty good flow. I have the return pump running at 220 gph. I have the wavemaker running on wave mode with 1 sec intervals and probably 300 gph or so. It’s rated for a max of 660 gph and I have it set at 50%. It seems like I’m getting good flow in all parts of the tank.

 

[NanoReef303]

See if you can gently remove the algae yourself. Suck up with a turkey baster and blow off detritus. And algae off the rocks on a water change day and just try to manually clean it instead on fully relying on clean up crews. Then once you blow It into water column take a small net to take it out.

Yeah, that’s my plan.

 

[NanoReef303]

Dino's are tough...they thrive in low nutrient environments, however you don't want to mess with your chemistry too much. Dino X & Hydrogen Peroxide didn't work for me. The only thing that worked for me was everyday to use a long feeder syringe and loosen up the Dino's off rocks & sand & coral and let them flow into my overflows and be trapped by the filter floss. I would immediately remove and replace the filterfloss. Doing this EVERYDAY for about 2 weeks should decrease the amount of Dino's reproducing in your tank. In the meantime, I would continue to diversify the good bacteria in your tank by adding some live rock or those spheres that some LFS stores sell. You want your good bacteria to take back over.

I didn't like adding the Dino X, because although its "coral safe" it killed all the coraline, and likely killed a lot of other beneficial bacteria. It worked for a little bit for me, but until i started doing daily cleaning and replacing the floss it was still constant.

Yeah, I’m hesitant to add anything. I’m planning to battle it through increasing nutrients in the tank.

 

[NanoReef303]

Update. So 1 week in, my nitrates are still at 0ppm and phosphates at 0.06ppm. I haven’t done a water change in 2 weeks and my increased coral feedings don’t appear to have helped all that much, or I’m just not seeing it in the readings because the algae are consuming it. The Dinos are a bit worse than previous. I’m planning to keep up on my increased feeding and start to dose Brightwell NeoNitro to get my nitrates up more quickly.

Corals are looking worse. I’m on the verge of losing 2 chalice frags, I think they’re done. My Duncan, bowerbanki, and mummy chalice have been looking good but now are showing some signs of recession around the edges. Hoping the nitrate dosing will turn things around.

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Update. So 1 week in, my nitrates are still at 0ppm and phosphates at 0.06ppm. I haven’t done a water change in 2 weeks and my increased coral feedings don’t appear to have helped all that much, or I’m just not seeing it in the readings because the algae are consuming it. The Dinos are a bit worse than previous. I’m planning to keep up on my increased feeding and start to dose Brightwell NeoNitro to get my nitrates up more quickly.

Corals are looking worse. I’m on the verge of losing 2 chalice frags, I think they’re done. My Duncan, bowerbanki, and mummy chalice have been looking good but now are showing some signs of recession around the edges. Hoping the nitrate dosing will turn things around.

Nope. You need carbon ASAP. The high nutrient method doesn’t work for all species of dinos.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

I'm going to follow along with you on your journey. I was advised to not do water changes and just siphon water and the crud out through a filter sock into a bucket (I have no sump) then pour the filtered water back in. I have been doin this now once every few weeks and manually dosing nitrates and phosphates I think I'm slowly winning. I think I have a little dino issue. This is what my glass would look like after a week.

it is now looking better, this is now a weeks dusting with out all the brown on it

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

I think just dosing nitrates can drive down phosphates and vice versa.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Pictures of this algae shows possible dino.
You will need to do either a total blackout(lights out) for 4 days or at least turn off whites and 10% blues for coral. Dose liquid bacteria during the day and 1ml of hydrogen peroxide at night when tank is dark. Begin by blowing loose with a turkey baster and either netting or siphoning the loose material.
During this time,. . . Do Not use coral food or NoPox treatment which feeds the dino.

 

[NanoReef303]

Nope. You need carbon ASAP. The high nutrient method doesn’t work for all species of dinos.

Carbon? What do you mean? I run 4 packets of chemipure blue nano in one of my returns. I swap in 1 new packet weekly.

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Yes that is fine

 

[NanoReef303]

I think just dosing nitrates can drive down phosphates and vice versa.

Even if phosphates are currently detectable but nitrates are not? I figured I needed to add nitrates to get them back in balance.

 

[ScottB]

Even if phosphates are currently detectable but nitrates are not? I figured I needed to add nitrates to get them back in balance.

Just be aware that dosing nitrates will bring down your PO4 is what I think @Nicholas Dushynsky is suggesting.

Given that this is (apparently) not an exclusively sand-based dino (would mean probable Amphidinium) this is likely to be ostreopsis, procentrum, coolia, or small cell amphidinium. All of these are susceptible to UV. Deployed correctly, this is the fastest way to knock them back but I would also dose nutrients up.

1 watt per 3 gallons
Slow flow (3 X turnover per hour.)
UV should pull from and return to the display (not the sump)
For a Nano tank, even the affordable Green Killing Machine will suffice.

Sorry for the added expense, but you are fighting with a hand behind your back without UV on these species.

Good luck & hang in there!

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Even if phosphates are currently detectable but nitrates are not? I figured I needed to add nitrates to get them back in balance.

Yeah I believe this is correct, others can chime in as I'm still new to this.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Pictures of this algae shows possible dino.
You will need to do either a total blackout(lights out) for 4 days or at least turn off whites and 10% blues for coral. Dose liquid bacteria during the day and 1ml of hydrogen peroxide at night when tank is dark. Begin by blowing loose with a turkey baster and either netting or siphoning the loose material.
During this time,. . . Do Not use coral food or NoPox treatment which feeds the dino.

Is this to me? Or op. I know this is dino I'm not sure which breed. This has been on going slow process, I went from cyano to this.
It is about 90% better.now my blues are low and whites for photos only. The way I have been dealing with it, is the water filtering as mentioned above only occasionally. Then dosing nitrates and phosphates, I am purposely leaving the algae on the glass as that is helping a little with out competing dino (maybe). This is what it was like in October, all the rear box was covered with dino and patches on the sand.

this is tonight.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Is this to me? Or op. I know this is dino I'm not sure which breed. This has been on going slow process, I went from cyano to this.
It is about 90% better.now my blues are low and whites for photos only. The way I have been dealing with it, is the water filtering as mentioned above only occasionally. Then dosing nitrates and phosphates, I am purposely leaving the algae on the glass as that is helping a little with out competing dino (maybe). This is what it was like in October, all the rear box was covered with dino and patches on the sand.

this is tonight.

How those hammer glow under blues.
With clearer pic- Diatoms which are harmless and can be siphoned up

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

How those hammer glow under blues.
With clearer pic- Diatoms which are harmless and can be siphoned up

Cheers I thought as much, I just dont know why I had diatoms again though.

 

[NanoReef303]

Question...to deal with any toxins produced from the Dino’s, should I increase my use of carbon? I currently have 4 chemipure blue nano packets in one of my overflows and I swap in 1 new packet weekly. So over a month, all 4 packets get swapped out and any individual packet is only used for a month. That’s been my normal routine and I haven’t changed it. Should that be increased or changed?

 

[Greg P]

Aside from what feedback you get about using carbon/chemipure etc ...

I went through this last fall and was using a tank glove to protect my skin while manually stirring the sand and then turkey basting all the LR and corals, followed by a sock change.
Sometimes I did this 2-3 times/week.
Took over a month to get past it. It would cover my arm in brown 'dirt'.
And every time I added either/both nitrogen/phosphorus it got worse. I stopped dosing and waited it out with sock changes, and bi-weekly water changes. Lost a whole batch of snails during this time.
I got 'swimmer's itch' when i stirred the sand bare-handed so I suspect it was dinos.
Once the brown went away, I started heavily dosing phyto-plan powder and eventually green algae took over.
Then I switched to MB7 for 5 weeks and now I'm into the cyano 'phase'
I'm now slowly upping my feedings to bring my N&P up to see if I can naturally defeat the cyano.