Please help. Don't want my tank overrun.

gipa21982 · Oct 14, 2018

This definitely looks alot what I was dealing a few weeks ago. I noticed first on my sand bed then it started to creep up to the rocks. Soon enugh it was smothering my corals. The only difference Between your parameters and mines phosphate was undetectable both on salifert and api kit, nitrate was at 30. My LFS recommend to cut back on my light schedule to 4 or 5 hrs. Which it made sense because i notice the slime would be more problematic during the day but die down during lights out. Every morning I would turkey baste the rocks and all this gunk would float around. I also bought a uv sterilizatior. Read some thread that the uv helps by getting rid of unwanted bacteria, dinos, and parasite. Been a week of being free of this stuff, never found out what is was dealing either. I still have a short light schedule and on occasion days I run a full light schedule, no problems.

biophilia · Oct 14, 2018

A relatively simple way to deal with dinoflagellates is to dose a little silica so that diatoms can out-compete them. Might be worth a try before taking steps like pulling out rock and sand.

Dj City · Oct 25, 2018

Per ati icp test, my silicates are elevated already. That has not helped.

In my never ending quest to defeat dinos, I have employed a UV sterilizer.
9w Green killing machine to be exact. Installed it this past Sunday.

It's an eyesore but since I don't have a sump, it's the best I can do.
I do not plan on using it long term and I am hoping against hope that it works because I do not have a large breakout of dinos.

Dj City · Oct 25, 2018

I hope I've turned a corner on this tank.

I have not seen dinos since Sunday.
It's too early to say they are gone and I can't say the U.V. killed them.
U.V. takes a while to get rid of algae because it does not kill them. It alters the DNA so they can't reproduce.
I would not expect that to have happened within 4 days.

If I don't see any into next week I will begin to call it a success between H202 dosing and the U.V.

Im glad I did not have to rip the tank apart. It can be done but it's a lot of work even for a nano tank.
I will if I have to but so far, I seem to be dino free.

I will update after Sunday.

brandon429 · Oct 27, 2018

There isn’t one post from me on the web about UV being bad in fact I’m a uv fan man nice updates so far

DFR · Oct 27, 2018

Dj City said:
I hope I've turned a corner on this tank.

I have not seen dinos since Sunday.
It's too early to say they are gone and I can't say the U.V. killed them.
U.V. takes a while to get rid of algae because it does not kill them. It alters the DNA so they can't reproduce.
I would not expect that to have happened within 4 days.

If I don't see any into next week I will begin to call it a success between H202 dosing and the U.V.

Im glad I did not have to rip the tank apart. It can be done but it's a lot of work even for a nano tank.
I will if I have to but so far, I seem to be dino free.

I will update after Sunday.

Happy that you have seemingly gotten this under control. Nice that you didn’t have to rip your entire tank apart (even though it’s smaller). Unless your system has already collapsed and there is NOTHING that is still alive, it’s never a good idea to drastically interrupt or alter both the biology and chemistry in your system. All this will do is cause more problems in the future, and there’s no guarantee that it would even eradicate the problem. Many times the problem would return and your already stressed livestock would be less capable with dealing with the issue.
Call me old school, but I found the best method of dealing with a lot of these invasive problems to be routine, manual removal with a toothbrush. Depending on what it is, also run carbon to deal with whatever organic toxins could be released. So far this has served me well.
Also I’m sure you already know this but once everything normalizes, go ahead and schedule a good cleaning of pumps, UV, powerheads, etc. Your tank isn’t Dino-free, but with it’s reduction, other less problematic/beneficial microbes are able to outcompete it for the available resources.

brandon429 · Oct 27, 2018

Rip cleaning is never harmful, it’s regenerative and the reason why the oldest micro reefs in the world are still alive.

To not rip clean eventually, means we have an average lifespan nano reef which goes through various invasions, and doesn’t escape some. Hands off requires luck as a big factor

Uv never removes detritus, only storms do that.. this tank needs manually cleaned one day for sure. Rip cleaning also allows people to hand remove set-in invasions like valonia or brush algae things that don’t comply with easy uv.

Work examples
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/page-16

There are some invasions that take work to remedy, so far he got lucky on this one.

A hands off nano reef requires luck to age, but a hand guided hand cleaned one is ageless and uninvaded each decade. Agreed that reefkeeping styles differ, but never hesitate to clean based on upset, as a full clean is never upsetting it’s just work compared to buying something. promise not trying to flame post with all that, it’s just to keep that intervention option handy and fully reviewed as one day a nano reef may require it to avoid being lost. I wanted to show in that thread how I rip cleaned my own 12 yr system over and over with nothing wrong, among the invaded tanks we were working, just to show it’s harmless and ideal way to clean.

Subsea · Oct 27, 2018

Dj City said:
I hope I've turned a corner on this tank.

I have not seen dinos since Sunday.
It's too early to say they are gone and I can't say the U.V. killed them.
U.V. takes a while to get rid of algae because it does not kill them. It alters the DNA so they can't reproduce.
I would not expect that to have happened within 4 days.

If I don't see any into next week I will begin to call it a success between H202 dosing and the U.V.

Im glad I did not have to rip the tank apart. It can be done but it's a lot of work even for a nano tank.
I will if I have to but so far, I seem to be dino free.

I will update after Sunday.

Glad things are going your way concerning Dino.

I am curious as to where you came up with “UV does not kill algae, it alters DNA to prevent reproduction”.

If UV dwell time & intensity are sized properly, algae spores will be killed and bacteria outer membrane will be ruptured spilling their guts into the water column. In a mature reef tank, these organics become food. You will never kill all of the algae because not all spores will pass thru sterilizer.

Subsea · Oct 27, 2018

Rip cleaning is never harmful, it’s regenerative and the reason why the oldest micro reefs in the world are still alive.

@brandon429
Depending on the end goal, I disagree with “never harmful”. For certain, with my focus on filter feeders, I would never consider rip cleaning. Document “oldest micro reef in the world” because of “rip cleaning”.
I know numerous nano reefs that are 15 plus years with no rip cleaning. Yes, sand bed vacume replaces rip cleaning for longevity.

DFR · Oct 27, 2018

brandon429 said:
Rip cleaning is never harmful, it’s regenerative and the reason why the oldest micro reefs in the world are still alive.

To not rip clean eventually, means we have an average lifespan nano reef which goes through various invasions, and doesn’t escape some. Hands off requires luck as a big factor

Uv never removes detritus, only storms do that.. this tank needs manually cleaned one day for sure. Rip cleaning also allows people to hand remove set-in invasions like valonia or brush algae things that don’t comply with easy uv.

Work examples
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/page-16

There are some invasions that take work to remedy, so far he got lucky on this one.

A hands off nano reef requires luck to age, but a hand guided hand cleaned one is ageless and uninvaded each decade. Agreed that reefkeeping styles differ, but never hesitate to clean based on upset, as a full clean is never upsetting it’s just work compared to buying something. promise not trying to flame post with all that, it’s just to keep that intervention option handy and fully reviewed as one day a nano reef may require it to avoid being lost. I wanted to show in that thread how I rip cleaned my own 12 yr system over and over with nothing wrong, among the invaded tanks we were working, just to show it’s harmless and ideal way to clean.

Just skimmed through the thread, too many pages to more thoroughly read thru. In new setups or setups with ONLY corals this may be fine, but reef tanks that include fish or larger animals that produce waste, this is a definite no no. The bacteria in our system removes nutrients, same as the zoox that reside within the corals. So if you were to completely disrupt the biological load, the corals would act as a nutrient export source. Fish on the other hand can not do this, so if you were to disrupt this biological load, the waste produced by the fish would accumulate causing severe stress to the fish.
The best maintenance is regular routine maintenance because depleting massive amounts of bacterial colonies as you explain is stressful to aquarium inhabitats. This is the reason we never do 100% water changes, clean ALL substrate, and clean ALL equipment. Also, I can speak from past experience on this matter.
And as an individual that lived on an island until I left for college, I can tell you that hurricanes (storms) do massive amounts of damage to the reefs and introduce more silt and “detritus”.