Overwhelmed beginner...

[Nroddot]

Hi,

My Reefer 350 is approaching four months of age (3 months since livestock first added)

I have a handful of soft corals, and a few fish. My tank was in its "ugly" phases but it was still exciting to me to see my corals growing and visibly spreading to nearby rock.

My nitrates were pretty high at around 30 ppm and I had a large bloom of green algae covering the sand,rock, and even the glass.

I tried vibrant and it did wonders at eliminating the algae over the course of a few weeks. But dosing vibrant also caused my nutrients to bottom out. Phosphates are undetectable on my Red Sea test kit and I believe I have dinos now. I'm seeing stringy/snotty brownish colored algae growing along the sand, rocks, and even coral. Although, it seems to lack the micro bubbles I see in pictures of dinos.

My corals are also not doing well. About half of them look unhappy and/or closed. Even my xenia which was growing rapidly has withered and shriveled -- it doesn't even pulse now. Feeling sad and overwhelmed right now. Experienced reefers struggle at beating dinos, and here I am taking it on as a beginner.

What I'm doing now, I've started dosing Dino-X last night. Turned off my skimmer, removed chemi-pure elite, and started overfeeding in an attempt to raise nutrients. I'm also target feeding coral daily with Red Sea AB+ because I know they're probably starved of nutrients.

Here are my parameters from when I tested merely an hour ago. All tests besides salinity and PH are done by Red Sea test kits.

Salinity: 35.7

PH: 7.8

Magnesium: 1600 ppm

Alkalinity: 9.5 dKH

Calcium: 320 ppm

Nitrite: 0

Ammonia: 0

Nitrate: Nearly undetectable but looks like it's about 1 ppm

Phosphates: Undetectable


I don't know why calcium is low and magnesium is high. I don't dose anything and have only been using the Red Sea Coral pro salt. The handful of soft corals I have shouldn't be consuming calcium very fast at all, right? I do a 10% water change every week to replenish any lost trace elements. Does Dino-X lower nitrates or something? Nitrates were at about 5 ppm when I tested last night and now they're nearly 0.

I really don't know what to even do right now besides try and raise phosphates and nitrates. I was on the verge of setting up a refugium for chaeto, but I stopped because I feel like the chaeto is just going to take what little nutrients there are left in the water from my corals. Would really appreciate any guidance. I have some Brightwell Neophos on the way. Going to dose it and try to raise my phosphate levels, but I don't know if this is the best course of action.

 

[Drew Halliday]

Your magnesium is high. I would try and bring that down. Although I don’t know how much harm it is doing. In a low nutrient system your alkalinity could be a bit high. I wouldn’t worry about the calcium at the moment if you have softies. You could try slowly bringing your salinity down to 1.022 to dilute the alkalinity and magnesium or do a water change.

If you are going to dose phosphates I would get a Hanna checker. You don’t want to go too high and the test kit you have now probably doesn’t have very good resolution that low. Try feeding heavy and see if that helps.

You could also have diatoms and that might go away with more phosphates. I would try and suck as much out as you can. You can put a filter sock in your sump or a bucket and siphon into that or do a water change with the water you take out depending on how much of it you have.

 

[piranhaman00]

Stop Dino x for sure.
Reefing is about patience quick fixes always have consequences.

Start dosing NO3 and PO4, you still have vibrant active that is why nutrients still dropping.

 

[Seanb1]

4 months is pretty new.
Your experiencing what a new tank goes thru.
Lay off buying more corals for awhile and let your tank mature.
Get in there and pull out the gha and do some water changes.
It just takes time, sometimes many many months.

 

[Aqua Man]

Sounds like Cyano, lots of people get it after using Vibrant.

Let’s see some pics

 

[Aqua Man]

Also suggest turning down intensity on lights Clean water is letting in more light.

 

[Nroddot]

Hi,


I appreciate all the responses. After reading the responses here, I decided to stop dosing Dino-X and I haven't dosed Vibrant in over a week. I've learned my lesson about "magic in a bottle" products. Ultimately it's my fault for not keeping track of nutrient levels while dosing, but I think these products did more harm than good for my system.

As for pictures, I just took a couple of pictures of the algae with my whites turned up. You can kind of make out the stringy/snotty formations of algae along the sand.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Without a microscope identification, it's tough to identify what it is. Looks like dinoflagellates though. A lot of reefers have had success using a UV sterilizer to combat Dino's, me included.

 

[Jamesrup0411]

+1 on uv, also get you’re nitrate and phosphate up

 

[Nroddot]

I am looking at purchasing the Coral life turbotwist 9w UV sterilizer.

Also, I have a bunch of marinepure cubes in the sump. I was told that "you can't have too much of this stuff." but could it be part of the reason as to why nutrients are so low? Should I remove some?

 

[Jamesrup0411]

Ya the 9watt should be sufficient and theres a lot of debate about using Sterilizers but for me personally it helped with getting rid of Dinos along with dosing kno3 and po4 if it’s undetectable. As far as the marine pure cubes I can’t comment on them because I’ve never used them

 

[Jamesrup0411]

How often are you doing water changes?

 

[Idoc]

3 month old tank...it would be odd to have dinos in a tank that young. But, you have been adding corals, so you may have introduced them that way. Diatoms can look very much like dinos, though.

Definitely get the NO3 to around 10ppm and the PO4 to around 005-0.1ppm -- I have found the easiest way to do this was to dose these individually...I used Loudwolf Sodium Nitrate powder and Seachem Flourish phosphorous. After dosing for a few weeks, my system stabilized and I didn't really need to dose much any longer.

Stop Vibrant and DinoX for now....system is too young for those things!

I'd hightly recommend putting your next $100 purchase into a good microscope...I have the Amscope M150C and it is awesome and has helped me to determine exactly what I am fighting against without just guessing. Once you know what you have, then a treatment can be determined.

 

[Jamesrup0411]

How often are you doing water changes?

Sorry read above, switch to bi weekly water changes

 

[Jamesrup0411]

James' Planted Tank - Dosing Calculator

 

[mitch91175]

Hi,

My Reefer 350 is approaching four months of age (3 months since livestock first added)

I have a handful of soft corals, and a few fish. My tank was in its "ugly" phases but it was still exciting to me to see my corals growing and visibly spreading to nearby rock.

My nitrates were pretty high at around 30 ppm and I had a large bloom of green algae covering the sand,rock, and even the glass.

I tried vibrant and it did wonders at eliminating the algae over the course of a few weeks. But dosing vibrant also caused my nutrients to bottom out. Phosphates are undetectable on my Red Sea test kit and I believe I have dinos now. I'm seeing stringy/snotty brownish colored algae growing along the sand, rocks, and even coral. Although, it seems to lack the micro bubbles I see in pictures of dinos.

My corals are also not doing well. About half of them look unhappy and/or closed. Even my xenia which was growing rapidly has withered and shriveled -- it doesn't even pulse now. Feeling sad and overwhelmed right now. Experienced reefers struggle at beating dinos, and here I am taking it on as a beginner.

What I'm doing now, I've started dosing Dino-X last night. Turned off my skimmer, removed chemi-pure elite, and started overfeeding in an attempt to raise nutrients. I'm also target feeding coral daily with Red Sea AB+ because I know they're probably starved of nutrients.

Here are my parameters from when I tested merely an hour ago. All tests besides salinity and PH are done by Red Sea test kits.

Salinity: 35.7

PH: 7.8

Magnesium: 1600 ppm

Alkalinity: 9.5 dKH

Calcium: 320 ppm

Nitrite: 0

Ammonia: 0

Nitrate: Nearly undetectable but looks like it's about 1 ppm

Phosphates: Undetectable


I don't know why calcium is low and magnesium is high. I don't dose anything and have only been using the Red Sea Coral pro salt. The handful of soft corals I have shouldn't be consuming calcium very fast at all, right? I do a 10% water change every week to replenish any lost trace elements. Does Dino-X lower nitrates or something? Nitrates were at about 5 ppm when I tested last night and now they're nearly 0.

I really don't know what to even do right now besides try and raise phosphates and nitrates. I was on the verge of setting up a refugium for chaeto, but I stopped because I feel like the chaeto is just going to take what little nutrients there are left in the water from my corals. Would really appreciate any guidance. I have some Brightwell Neophos on the way. Going to dose it and try to raise my phosphate levels, but I don't know if this is the best course of action.

You are putting yourself through a roller coaster. I think you might just want to slow down a little. Your tank is new and yeah there are things to do to help but it's gonna go through it's process.

You first dose to bring levels down, but over shot your mark. When using these types of chemicals to reduce nutrients, you must be aware of their affect on other nutrients, NO3 and PO4. You were focus so much on your NO3, that you let the PO4 get to undetectable (which is prime for causing dinos). Get your PO4 back detectable for a few weeks and clean up the dinos you see. They will go away.

Figure out the source of NO3 (too much feeding, detritus, etc). You can decrease NO3 with a carbon source (vinegar, vokda, sugar), but ideally have it maintain itself through other means if possible (chaeto, water change).

Starting out try to only use temporary fixes when absolutely necessary. Because the things you are doing are all temporary fixes until you really understand the source of your nutrients.

 

[bryanfuel]

Good advice in this thread so far. One thing I would say is be careful about making too many micro adjustments too quickly. Make a change, then let your tank react to it over the course of a week or two. Fiddling with your maintenance schedule or additives day by day to chase magic number will get you into more trouble.

Edit:
Also, try not to beat yourself up about it too much. This is a tricky hobby at times and we've all been there. Your tank will recover

 

[bryanfuel]

You are putting yourself through a roller coaster. I think you might just want to slow down a little. Your tank is new and yeah there are things to do to help but it's gonna go through it's process.

You first dose to bring levels down, but over shot your mark. When using these types of chemicals to reduce nutrients, you must be aware of their affect on other nutrients, NO3 and PO4. You were focus so much on your NO3, that you let the PO4 get to undetectable (which is prime for causing dinos). Get your PO4 back detectable for a few weeks and clean up the dinos you see. They will go away.

Figure out the source of NO3 (too much feeding, detritus, etc). You can decrease NO3 with a carbon source (vinegar, vokda, sugar), but ideally have it maintain itself through other means if possible (chaeto, water change).

Starting out try to only use temporary fixes when absolutely necessary. Because the things you are doing are all temporary fixes until you really understand the source of your nutrients.

+1 to everything here. Well said.

 

[Seanb1]

.

 

[Valhalla Reefer]

Sounds like Cyano, lots of people get it after using Vibrant.

Let’s see some pics

I also started having growing spots of cyano on my rocks after using Vibrant.

I managed to siphon it away over the course of a few regular water changes.

Good luck and hopefully it’s cyano instead of dinos.