My 75 gallon reef

[Fishy888]

So I finally got to that point tonight. I decided it was time to clean the tank. I only cleaned half of the glass since I didn't want all those dinos to release their toxins. I also wanted to make sure I didn't destabilize things too much.

Several rocks got a peroxide dip. One of my shrimp decided to bury itself deep into a crevice in one of the larger rocks so it didn't get a peroxide bath. I also found a ton of amphipods in the water after I scrubbed the second rock that also got no peroxide.

Even the rocks that did get peroxide had amphipods. A few survived the treatment. Hopefully they will live. I can safely declare that I have more amphipods than I started with.

I finished the cleaning about an hour ago. The water is cloudy from everything I stirred up. Thankfully everything looks pretty good right now. I might have lost a hermit crab though. There looked to be some meat to the "molt". It also smelled like crab. I suppose it could still have been an actual molt. If it did die I will wait to replace it until I get more rock. I'll do a headcount later.

I did a partial water change since I used tank water to clean the rocks. I've noticed some of my rock getting brittle. With the carbon dosing and plenty of CO2 in the apartment I know my PH is low. This may be the only time you'll ever hear me say this but I am so glad I don't have LPS or SPS. That said I'll do a big water change once I get the rest of the glass cleaned.

I have been reading that copepods eat dinoflagellates. I don't know how true it is but many suggest dosing phytoplankton to the tank along with other dino fighting methods. I imagine it is to get pods and other bacteria to eat and out compete the dinos. It seems logical. Still I want to do more research on this subject before I make the plunge.

 

[Fishy888]

Things look much better tonight. I still have to clean the rest of the glass but no spread of dinoflagellates that I can see. White bacteria and some red cyano is developing though not taking over like wildfire. All corals, fish, and inverts are plugging along. I put some shrimp in a shell for all the critters. They have been all over it with the the exception of the shrimp (along with the pods and bristle worms).

There is a haze in the tank which I expected. If anything there is less cloudiness than I expected. I am encouraged by that since it means more bacteria that the corals can ingest and it also means less or hopefully no more dinos since the bacteria will out compete them. I hope to never see a bloom like that ever again.

I am maintaining the 1 teaspoon each of sugar and vinegar twice daily dosing schedule. I am seeing more of the "white algae" bacteria. I do see some cyano as well though. That can be managed also but the main goal is to force the dinos to die way down or altogether even, at least the toxic kind.

The corals are mainly closed up which doesn't surprise me. I still have the second half of the glass to clean but at least it is not as bad as the side I cleaned last night/this morning. Once that's done that and the water change to follow will be the last shock to the system for a long time.

After talking to my awesome wife I am going to build a whole new stand for this tank. I already have the wood to do it with and I can reuse most of the wood from the current stand. The stand I have now was for a different tank and it sits a few inches too tall. When I build this stand I am going to make a RO/DI station that can be rolled into the kitchen to make the water. It will hold a brute 32 gallon food grade trash can as well. When the water is made it will attach to the stand itself. There will be a place for the sump, salt, food, buckets and other dry goods. It will take a while to build but I was able to get the screws I need for the project. I have the glue and pretty much everything I need.

 

[ying yang]

Sounds like a big job you got coming up building stand and all over stuff you mentioned,sounds like it all will look great and be useful which is the main thing ,so good luck with that and you got everything you need ^_^

 

[Fishy888]

Yeah I can't wait to get going on it. Thank you.

 

[Fishy888]

I am happy to be able to say that the dinos are dying off. I haven't gotten to clean the second half of the glass yet but no new dinos where I cleaned the glass. The "dinos " on the glass have bacteria and algae growing over them now.

Please know that the methods I have been using the last 3 days are not for the faint of heart. If you have stony corals of any kind do NOT even THINK about it. It isn't that vinegar dosing is bad but I am dosing 4 teaspoons a day total of sugar and vinegar which affects PH, ALK, and CAL. I've also been using hydrogen peroxide on the smaller rocks and one of the larger rocks as well. That is even more exposure to low PH. Low enough in fact that the rocks I have been treating have become brittle and have even dissolved some. My GSP has come loose again from the rock I glued it to because of dissolution of the surface of the rock. The peroxide treatments of course were done outside the tank. Still it can affect PH drastically so don't make the sudden changes I am making unless you only have super hardy soft corals and super hardy fish and inverts.

Speaking of inverts and fish (and corals) they hanging in there. My cabbage leathers are getting ready to shed.The xenia are sulking. The GSP are closed as well. This is to be expected though after all this. My clownfish are acting normally and the hermits are doing well. I believe the dead hermit died due to the toxins from the dinos that died off so far as well as the lower PH. Hence the above paragraph.

The water is pretty cloudy today since I left the raw shrimp in overnight for the fish and inverts. They did eat half of the shrimp incidentally. Tonight I am going to clean the rest of the glass and do a partial water change. Once that's done I will keep dosing like normal until I see more green on both the rocks and glass. I am hoping to be able to go back down to half a teaspoon of sugar and vinegar twice daily but not until I can see that the dinos are truly gone then I'll gradually lower the dose.

 

[ying yang]

Can't remember If you said you using activated carbon?
If not maybe something to consider as clears the water up and can help you if any corals release toxins ( not sure about dino toxins tbh) and also if contaminate the tank a little by accident.
Just a thought as that water does look super cloudy .
If do use it,make sure to rinse it well to remove any of the fine particles first before adding in tank.
I just use the red sea reef stuff and just in single bag in high flow area of sumo and cleared my water up massively

 

[Fishy888]

I don't run it yet but I will be using GAC before long. I am going to do a partial water change after I clean the rest of the glass tonight. It will bring PH, ALK, and CAL up a bit and a lot of the bacteria will get exported. The tank was clearer than this before I cleaned the rocks and glass. The raw shrimp likely contributed to the cloudiness as well.

A quick side note here. My GSP have almost no algae on them since I cleaned them 2 days ago. Usually there is a film of dinoflagellates on them by the 48 hour mark. Hopefully that will continue to be the case.

 

[Fishy888]

I finished cleaning the rest of the glass with the exception of the green algae on the front glass. I did a 50% water change. After that I gave a new sugar and vinegar dose. The tank looks a bit better now though the dinos are in and on the sand bed now. Even so I strained quite a bit out of the water column with a net; not to mention what I vaccumed out with the water change.

The last dose before the water change was around 5:00 last evening. The water was super cloudy by the time I did the water change. It's still cloudy but not like it was. The post water change dose occurred at 2:00 this morning.

I noticed that the dinos were starting to gather in the sand bed. This time I didn't try to vacuum the sand bed itself. Instead I vaccumed close enough to the sand to get many of the dino pieces that were on top of it.

I know the fish were doing well after the water change. They started biting but my hands were in the tank a long time. I know a few hermits were in the front of the tank as well. I couldn't tell how well the shrimp were doing after the water change but I am sure they're ok too.

My next steps will be getting some Dr. Tims eco-balance. a pod culture, and some phyto. Once they're in I'll start backing off the dosing slowly.

 

[Fishy888]

So far everything is alive and kicking. Making huge changes in the tank scares me to death but it was rather necessary. The tank is still cloudy but it isn't as bad as last night.

I've been in overdrive researching dinoflagellates and how people have successfully rid their systems of them. One of the solutions I just came across suggests raising PH but doesn't specify how much. In order to lower PH I'll start lowering the vinegar/sugar dosing slowly. I am not sure if that would really work or not but at this point I need to think about lowering the dose or raising the PH through kalkwasser.

I am now fairly convinced I have both low or no phosphates and nitrates or that one or the other is low or 0. I am scared to raise nitrates and phosphates however. They get out of control fast. If doing that would get rid of the dinos though I would be all over that. I will try raising them slowly. More frozen food for the reef should do it.

The remaining dinos are clumped together in the sand and on my GSP. I really didn't want to have to use anymore peroxide on my GSP but I may have no choice. Thankfully payday is coming soon. I am getting a kid's microscope and Dr. Tims eco-balance. Once I can identify the dinos in my system I can start treating for that strain or the strains. If all goes well I will have them in hand by next Friday.

I thought about adding copepods and phyto to the system. It seems that often they die off because of the toxins from the dinos. I may still get some pods though. I want to culture them in another tank anyway as a backup.

Right now though bacteria seem like the best option at this stage of the fight against the dinoflagellates in my system. I might try a UV sterilizer as well depending on which dinos I have.

 

[Fishy888]

The sand actually looks good compared to where it was the other day. I decided to stop the dosing for now. The last dose was Wednesday night.

I have decided to wait a couple of months to get the RO/DI system so that I can get everything I need to hook up my sump. I am going to get a pod colony, some phyto, Dr. Tims eco-balance, and a microscope as well. There are two scopes I'm looking at. One is a basic kid's scope which is fine if it can resolve dinos and other microorganisms well enough to ID them (as several on here use for dino ID). The other was in a college lab but I need to research that scope more.

Earlier I posted wondering if my percula clowns and corals would survive in a 5 gallon tank if I had to nuke the tank to get rid of the dinos. I don't think it will come to that but it makes more sense to be prepared in case it ever came to that. It got me thinking about getting my 45 gallon sump plumbed and ready to go. With pods, eco-balance, and fresh new sand I believe things will turn around. As a result I'll wait a bit on RO/DI especially since I am likely low on nitrates, phosphates, or both.

I started feeding the tank more heavily last night. It may well be that the bacteria that resulted while dosing are taking the excess nutrients from the extra feeding and colonizing the sand bed; which resulted in the improvement I saw over last night even though the lights had been on for 6 hours. I won't celebrate yet but I am more optimistic about the chance of winning the fight.

 

[ying yang]

Whilst doing your research you've probably seen it yourself,that need microscope that goes to at least 400 x zoom is recommended I believe it is, and I see often people on r2r say these can be had for like $30-$40 .

I dont fancy getting dinos as I read others say they add something to tank to treat for dinos and win tje dino battle but then another pest algae comes and then end up fighting that lol,seems like get rid of one undesirable then another comes lol.
My tank at 1 year old stage ,started with dry rock and my ugly stage that I was expecting wasn't really ugly and last 4 months I don't even really have clean the glass and algae doesn't seem to grow bad in mine so far ,so not sure if this a good thing or bad thing ha ha .
Did I add just enough different coral frags from many different lfs to get a diverse microbial community ?
Did I add enough and right type of cuc when needed?
Did I add just the right flow to keep detritus suspended so goes to sump so foam pads and skimmer can remove ?
Is it because of all the different variety of micro fauna that hitch hiked into my system ?
Is it because I'm just lucky ?

I do not know and as I say I don't know if good thing or bad thing lol,only time will tell,I do know my nitrates are 40 on salifert tests and my phosphates are 0.25 so considered very high and not ideal,but apart from 3 torch corals,every fish and coral doing well so cant complain but I do wonder often why I'm not getting these ugly stages that others get lol
I know for last few months that had explosion of pineapple sponges in my sump so wondering if my rodi system letting through silicates,changed sediment and. Carbon block 2 months ago and di resin last week so again I do not know lol.

Anyway good luck with your dinos,I'm no expert on dinos but I don't actually see dinos in your tank on your glass like you say but I've never had them so again idk lol but goodluck ^_^

 

[Fishy888]

I cleaned them off the glass a few nights ago in order to have good bacteria colonize the glass and to allow green algae to spread for now. Dinos are on the rock and sand currently. I'll try to get some good pictures of it later today.

 

[Raphael Dalmeida]

I am happy to be able to say that the dinos are dying off. I haven't gotten to clean the second half of the glass yet but no new dinos where I cleaned the glass. The "dinos " on the glass have bacteria and algae growing over them now.

Please know that the methods I have been using the last 3 days are not for the faint of heart. If you have stony corals of any kind do NOT even THINK about it. It isn't that vinegar dosing is bad but I am dosing 4 teaspoons a day total of sugar and vinegar which affects PH, ALK, and CAL. I've also been using hydrogen peroxide on the smaller rocks and one of the larger rocks as well. That is even more exposure to low PH. Low enough in fact that the rocks I have been treating have become brittle and have even dissolved some. My GSP has come loose again from the rock I glued it to because of dissolution of the surface of the rock. The peroxide treatments of course were done outside the tank. Still it can affect PH drastically so don't make the sudden changes I am making unless you only have super hardy soft corals and super hardy fish and inverts.

Speaking of inverts and fish (and corals) they hanging in there. My cabbage leathers are getting ready to shed.The xenia are sulking. The GSP are closed as well. This is to be expected though after all this. My clownfish are acting normally and the hermits are doing well. I believe the dead hermit died due to the toxins from the dinos that died off so far as well as the lower PH. Hence the above paragraph.

The water is pretty cloudy today since I left the raw shrimp in overnight for the fish and inverts. They did eat half of the shrimp incidentally. Tonight I am going to clean the rest of the glass and do a partial water change. Once that's done I will keep dosing like normal until I see more green on both the rocks and glass. I am hoping to be able to go back down to half a teaspoon of sugar and vinegar twice daily but not until I can see that the dinos are truly gone then I'll gradually lower the dose.

Some times might be worth leaving any algae that is gha or diatoms even if it looks dirty, while the tank is recovering.

It will help with the dinos/cyano.

Good luck with the task, it's a pain, a whole lot of elbow grease work but it's quite rewarding.

 

[Fishy888]

Some times might be worth leaving any algae that is gha or diatoms even if it looks dirty, while the tank is recovering.

It will help with the dinos/cyano.

Good luck with the task, it's a pain, a whole lot of elbow grease work but it's quite rewarding.

I agree it can be rewarding, not only from an accomplishment standpoint but also from what we learn through things like this. I did leave the green algae alone intentionally. Soon I hope to have as many organisms as possible, large and small, colonize every part of the system and pig out on dinos.

 

[Fishy888]

It seems that dinos are spreading again but more slowly than before. I noticed that the green algae is also spreading and thickening a bit. I took pictures of the different algae in my system.

The dinos that were stirred up when I cleaned the glass and pumps/filters settled onto my GSP and cabbage leathers. The xenia thankfully haven't had that happen to them that I have ever seen. I didn't get a chance to clean the GSP until tonight but that is now done. There haven't been any polyps out since the water change and glass cleaning. As for the cabbage leathers I was able to blow some of the dinos off of them but they will shed if they get irritated by the dinos.

 

[Fishy888]

I seem to have a red algae starting to grow now. As far as I know the red tide is a type of dinoflagellate. I highly doubt I have that. As much frozen food as I have been feeding the last several days I am pretty sure I have cyano taking over. I took a few pictures of the area where the cyano is the thickest. The dinos look more dense as well.

The tank got yet another shrimp-in-a-shell dinner. This time it is in the cave because I want the live shrimp to get some too.

Now that the nutrient levels are coming up I am going to keep them above 0. I don't want to go to the other extreme however. I will be ordering everything I need to get my sump up and running within the next few days. Having non-zero nutrients will be important since I'll be dosing Dr. Tims eco-balance and copepods to the sump.

When I set up the sump I'll dose the eco-balance first. After a day I'll add the copepods. Of course I will dose phyto to the sump. Even though the plumbing will be in place I won't start the siphon until I see the pods are settling in and doing well. At that point the good bacteria and the pods should start making a dent in the dino infestation.

A friend of mine has an old 10 gallon tank he is giving me. I will use it to culture some of the apocyclops pods I am ordering. I'll also culture some of the nannochloropsis phyto I am ordering. Eventually I will add isochrysis to my culturing station. I also want to add a second pod species to my culturing station though I am not sure which species yet.

Despite the condition of the display tonight the animals are all doing OK. My GSP had 3 polyps open tonight. My cabbage leathers are shedding. The dinos were starting to grow on them. The xenia colonies are doing quite nicely considering the dinos and/or cyano are trying to take them over.

 

[Fishy888]

As of this evening I have ordered the return pump, overflow box, microscope, eco-balance, copepod cultures (tisbe and apocyclops in separate bottles), phyto (nannochloropsis), and f/2 fertilizer. All I need now is the PVC pipe and fittings, and the salt.

The only fly in the ointment is that the eco-balance won't get here until the end of March or early April. Thankfully the pods will get here a couple of days after the phyto gets here. My return pump gets here on Wednesday. Everything else except the eco-balance will get here around the middle of next week which gives me time to get the skeleton of the new stand built. Hopefully the skeleton of the culturing station will be done by then also.

 

[Fishy888]

When I left home this afternoon all was normal. When I came home sand was everywhere and the water was cloudy. One of my pums was blowing almost straight down and dangling from the power cord. Yup, it lost suction. I fixed it, blew the sand off rocks and coral, and re-scaped the sand bed.

I am beyond grateful that I do not have a deep sand bed. A circulation pump blowing all that sand has been known to crash perfectly healthy tanks much less a tank stressed by dinos. That said the corals look OK and the fish are swimming. Hopefully no hermits got trapped or shrimp. It was too cloudy to tell but I am pretty sure they are safe, especially the shrimp considering where they normally hide.

 

[Fishy888]

Cyano is making headway on my sand bed. It has no filaments flapping in the flow or anything and it is a maroon color. It is growing mainly in the front left of the tank. The rocks are starting to get a bit more green algae too. There are still many spots with dinos but it seems that they are once again receding.

I will NOT dose vinegar or sugar but I will keep feeding extra until nutrients are at a healthy level.

I got my return pump yesterday. I have the PVC pipe and elbows I need for a super basic plumbing setup. I also have the sand. All I need right now is the the overflow box which should be delivered Friday.

Since it appears the dinos are winding down, albeit slowly, it should be easier for the pods to deal with the dinos. I am seriously thinking about taking a small rock from the display and allowing the pods to colonize it in the sump. It has dinos on it still but I'll clean it before using it.

I got a free 10 gallon tank today. It needs a good scrubbing but once that's done it will be used to culture pods. I'll also culture some phyto. I want to culture 3 types of phyto and 3 types of copepods. I might try to culture amphipods as well.

A local reefer has some chaeto for me. It will go right into the phyto culture tank. I was told there were aiptasia (and berghia) in the tank they have chaeto in. I've dealt with aiptasia before and I would rather have them instead of dinoflagellates any day.

Of course if I see any aiptasia turn up it will get taken care of. The phyto tank won't get plumbed into the sump (and neither will any pod culture tanks) since I don't want cross contamination with other cultures. It will also keep any pests in there at bay and out of the main system.

My GSP had 8 polyps out yesterday. They are still dino/algae magnets. Hopefully soon that'll stop. The cabbage are doing better. They finished shedding and no dinos growing on them. The xenia is doing great. Even with low nutrients they managed to grow a bit. The fish are as active as ever. I haven't done a headcount on the inverts but I saw several hermits wandering about last night.

 

[Fishy888]

I got my tetraselmis and overflow box today. I also got a fist sized ball of chaeto from my local reefing friend. I now have everything needed to get the sump running. That will be a project for tomorrow.

It looks like my pods will get here Tuesday. I wish they hadn't delayed sending them until today. It was fairly mild this week but Tuesday's high will only be 44. I ordered Rasta Pods so hopefully they used a heat pack.

The microscope comes Monday. At long last I'll know which dinos I have. Their days are numbered. Now I just need to wait for the bottle of Dr. Tims eco-balance to arrive. It won't get here until the end of the month but it will still help things.

After seeing little growth with my corals the last few weeks it looks like the xenia are starting to grow again. My GSP had 11 polyps out today but it is getting covered with algae/dinos again. I am afraid I'll kill it if I keep dipping it in H2O2. I'll try to clean them without dipping them. The cabbage leathers are almost looking like they did before the hermits made it their home base a couple of months ago.

The clownfish and inverts look good tonight. I fed heavily just before lights out.

It seems like cyano tries to grow but the next day dinos have grown over the cyano or the cyano ran out of nutrients and died off.

Either way tomorrow is going to be a big time system maintenance day. I'll be doing a thorough cleaning of the sand bed in the display. The new sand will also get rinsed. I won't be able to start the sump for at least a day due to the pvc glue needing 24 hours to fully cure but I can fill it. I am on the fence about taking even a small rock from the display to seed the sump. While it should help with good bacteria it might also seed the sump with dinos. I want the pods to colonize the sand bed and rock first so that when dinos make their way into the sump the pods will overpower them. Eventually the pods will make their way into the display and help there too.