Reef Hypochondriac

[brandon429]

My goodness that tank is nice and matured thats rather shocking.

All the more reason to tread easy on dosing, agreed on not stripping nutrients hardcore in the face of those deep colors, I believe strongly your invader is nutrient independent (and your gha as well since its not widespread/controversy stmnt) No major stasis chg too quick imo
we've only test tinkered one day so far.

I also feel strongly that powerful, not correctly sized but oversized UV would be a key backup here post manual removal. So many invaders have a water transit phase during some cycle that you can intercept them, and mr slimes M.O. likely is one too.

On ten occasions or better in the threads I know of people able to borrow a pond sterilizer from a lfs contact who knows a pond owner not using one...burn target, return. UV does not have to be 24 x7 and owing to the rule of obligate hitchhikers, when the DNA is gone the problem is gone. Their chief mode of regain after a -hard- manual removal I'd bet is dispersal and reproduction from the water back onto the substrates

Should a tank larger than 50 gallons grace my living room I'll have a uv in the closet ready deploy rated minimum 2000 gallons pond rating for this and other rascals (dinos. Big water xmit phase as well) its neat how you can grossly overdo uv in the event of an emergency as a cheat so harmless to the ecosystem. Lose some pods in one? Incidental, they'll come back. A wrasse is meaner on them.

 

[twilliard]

My goodness that tank is nice and matured thats rather shocking.

All the more reason to tread easy on dosing, agreed on not stripping nutrients hardcore in the face of those deep colors, I believe strongly your invader is nutrient independent (and your gha as well since its not widespread/controversy stmnt) No major stasis chg too quick imo
we've only test tinkered one day so far.

I also feel strongly that powerful, not correctly sized but oversized UV would be a key backup here post manual removal. So many invaders have a water transit phase during some cycle that you can intercept them, and mr slimes M.O. likely is one too.

On ten occasions or better in the threads I know of people able to borrow a pond sterilizer from a lfs contact who knows a pond owner not using one...burn target, return. UV does not have to be 24 x7 and owing to the rule of obligate hitchhikers, when the DNA is gone the problem is gone.

You support UV Brandon?
I have read many mixed studies on UV in aquaria
Lets say bryopsis for instance. When a person manually removes bryopsis there are fine particulate strands left in the water column
I don't see where UV will sterilize this and make it a non performer.
Thoughts?

 

[brandon429]

I support it 1000 but its invader specific


Agreed not for bryopsis.

But for cyano they are home run cheats. Dinos. Whatever this slime is from RMS tank lol

In all bryopsis tanks I vote magnesium as a full water treatment if no rock removal. If can remove rocks I vote 35% p and lab safety gear and loud music.

If you run uv 24x7 or intermittent or not at all thats on the continuum of options...the reason its in my tackle box is because of the number of times we zapped dinos with it and logged the outcome in giant threads. Should those whip tail gametes of doom find their way in my reef I believe my UV oversized tank would stop them before I ever had an issue. I'd siphon the first strand, change out all water, and uv it for three months off the very first observation.

Nobody is sustaining their corals off natural planktors in our tank water. Whatever the uv burns doesn't matter, we are feeding as a replacement for not having them in beneficial mass in the first place

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Love your rockwork! Great planning went into your tank I see

Thanks man. I used PVC piping to build a frame to hold that rock on the left.

I will post up some better pictures to help identify this problem.

I notice your sand looks very fine. Do you have an issue with anaerobic bacteria building up in the sand bed. Just mention it because over the years I always have less problems with course sand than fine sand.

Hmm possibly. I do try to gravel vac once a month.

My goodness that tank is nice and matured thats rather shocking.

All the more reason to tread easy on dosing, agreed on not stripping nutrients hardcore in the face of those deep colors, I believe strongly your invader is nutrient independent (and your gha as well since its not widespread/controversy stmnt) No major stasis chg too quick imo
we've only test tinkered one day so far.

I also feel strongly that powerful, not correctly sized but oversized UV would be a key backup here post manual removal. So many invaders have a water transit phase during some cycle that you can intercept them, and mr slimes M.O. likely is one too.

On ten occasions or better in the threads I know of people able to borrow a pond sterilizer from a lfs contact who knows a pond owner not using one...burn target, return. UV does not have to be 24 x7 and owing to the rule of obligate hitchhikers, when the DNA is gone the problem is gone. Their chief mode of regain after a -hard- manual removal I'd bet is dispersal and reproduction from the water back onto the substrates

Should a tank larger than 50 gallons grace my living room I'll have a uv in the closet ready deploy rated minimum 2000 gallons pond rating for this and other rascals (dinos. Big water xmit phase as well) its neat how you can grossly overdo uv in the event of an emergency as a cheat so harmless to the ecosystem. Lose some pods in one? Incidental, they'll come back. A wrasse is meaner on them.

Thanks for the compliments. All the corals you see are from my 75g tank I once had. I made a slight upgrade and transferred my "lovelies" over. I wish I had taken shots of them as small frags. Especially the ORA Bali and the Montipora's.

As for the UV idea, I think I may explore this. I had a very small cheap UV in my 75g but I doubt it helped much. For a 125g tank, what would you recommend?

 

[brandon429]

Literally I've only owned pond rated ones. Once you are 10x over rating its good, or 4x over rates per gallonage its all subjective. I ran one occasionally on my 75 gallon planted tank in the 90s that came off my grandmothers koi pond. Crystal clear cheat for sure in a 75 g tank

Its simply not harmful to cleanly oversize one for a reef tank where we are battling an invader. I never thought they'd scrub the invader off the rocks...to me thats keepers work. The zapper is for the cast abouts imo

Since they weren't permanent the mount setup didnt matter much. Put a pump and recirculate opposite ends of tank = all good.

Totally agreed that a barely sized uv may not make a dent. I'd dose the hound out of the test cups before purchases tho, might get lucky. What if one tweak adjust makes the test colonies break down... It always seemed a fair offer to try simple focused repeated removal to see how the colony reacts to 95% mass loss before any chems or purchases as well. I've seen good hard elbow grease manual removal also work in some dino threads despite the more common reco not to change water or export. At least that was cost free, and some experimental thorough cleaning couldn't hurt anything as a trial run. I still couldn't put any chips on the ID yet.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Thanks Brandon.

Yeah the ID of this is quite weird. I actually think its Calothrix.

I truly believe the source came from my RODI container in my garage where its 115f+. The water just sits in that heat, but still given circulation with a pump.

I will do this:

1. May use some chemiclean today since I just did my water change.
2. Start making water and immediately brining it inside.

If I still get this problem, I will be purchasing a UV.

Sounds decent? Open to any suggestions.

 

[brandon429]

of all the boards we comb our friends at nr.com have an updated uv thread neat to see before/after

[[[EDITED: you cannot post links to other boards]]]

it's not your invader, but its the 15 hour turnaround for something with a water transition phase or a pelagic life cycle. Another interesting tie in here is the direct attack on colony vs nutrients/po4

in many many of these greenwater and brownwater threads the uv can be taken offline after a while and the bloom doesnt return. That speaks to colony support for the colony... it's very hard to not pin phosphates on every invader we have imo but so many threads show that direct cell kill also works to sustain kill in many cases as well.

I'm reading 9 watt uvs range anywhere rated 50-500 gal depending on brand and flow rate

so the use on the small nano in my opinion explains the 15 hour turnaround time, oversized UV.

if this tank was in my house the uv would have never been needed. 100% water change at first sign of colony, no prob. free fix or at least only the price of a few blue 5 gal containers of fresh sw. why anyone with nano reefs puts up with any kind of water imbalance is beyond me, rip re starts are fine cheats if you have enough water, its just precluded in large tanks due to amnt of work involved.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

of all the boards we comb our friends at nr.com have an updated uv thread neat to see before/after

EDITED to REMOVE LINK

it's not your invader, but its the 15 hour turnaround for something with a water transition phase or a pelagic life cycle. Another interesting tie in here is the direct attack on colony vs nutrients/po4

in many many of these greenwater and brownwater threads the uv can be taken offline after a while and the bloom doesnt return. That speaks to colony support for the colony... it's very hard to not pin phosphates on every invader we have imo but so many threads show that direct cell kill also works to sustain kill in many cases as well.

I'm reading 9 watt uvs range anywhere rated 50-500 gal depending on brand and flow rate

so the use on the small nano in my opinion explains the 15 hour turnaround time, oversized UV.

if this tank was in my house the uv would have never been needed. 100% at first sign of colony, no prob. free fix or at least only the price of a few blue 5 gal containers of fresh sw.

I will definitely do some reading today.

I watched this video as well which mimics your thoughts. Overpowered UV's will not hurt anything. The video does mention on doing little for Cyano on the sand but as you mentioned it can kill the water transition stage for dinos, cyano, and other nasty mats.

 

[brandon429]

hey thats neat not seen that one before.

i think the oldest arguments on the longest threads dating back to 98 era that exist on the internet regarding sw aquaria are in this order

-which salt and why
-uv or no uv
-tang or no tang.

 

[WetWhistle]

I tried everything to get rid of mine at the time. Changed lights, took out half the sand, water changes and tested everything etc and nothing worked. It drove me crazy. I did a shot in the dark fix and though why not switch out the container as a last resort fix. What do I have to loose I thought?!? It worked!

I had a buddy that had the same issue and it ended up he had his replacement water to close to the cat little. The cats would go in and kick up a fine dust that worked its way into the container. Once the water was put into his tank it started breaking down the contaminants from the cat litter. So if we tested the replacement water it showed nothing wrong but once in the tank it broke down and caused algae problems.

I also like UV but I don't recommend running it all the time unless you are using it as a treatment method. In the 90s I think it was UV and Ozone were very popular. We even tried a UV\Peroxide reactor for treatments, the mixture of the two acted like Ozone. But I found that constant running of the Ozone or UV led to a depressed immune system for the inhabitants because the tank was to sterile. In my experience if you ever took off the Ozone or UV all the fish got sick over the next few weeks and died as things got back to normal levels. After experimenting with them I don't run them except for a short period of time. But they are a good tool to use for short periods in some cases.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Thanks for the suggestion guys. Its been long day already filled with bad news from other stuff in my life but time to move on.

So I will start making RODI water and immediately bringing it inside.

UPDATE***

Cyano or whatever is back on the sand. I will go ahead with 50% of the instructed dose of chemiclean.

Carbon OFF.

Stand by.

 

[WetWhistle]

At least you have cool rock work so focus on that for some good.

Keep us updated.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Thanks Wet.

Added 50% Chemiclean and tank is happy as before. I noticed some of the "cyano" appearing to dull in the sand. I will add another 25% tonight. Last week I used 100% of the instructed amount that chemiclean stated with no issues. I just like doing things slow.

You can see some on the rocks and sand still.

 

[klla310]

When I was dosing carbon (po4x red sea) I ran into cyano and couldn't get rid of it. There have been articles out there and experiences that validate dosing carbon at times can negatively affect your reef by having these breakouts that eventually never go away. Also, you said your phosphates were undetectable but maybe the algae is consuming it to the

I have the same problem too, dosing carbon causing outbreak of nasty smelly brown strands of bacteria or algae.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Update:

Added 25% more Chemiclean. Hope to see some lighter colored "cyano" or whatever it is by tomorrow.

 

[CastAway]

Tagging along. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I have the same problem too, dosing carbon causing outbreak of nasty smelly brown strands of bacteria or algae.

What were you dosing?

Switching to a different type of organic may help.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Update:

Just under 24 hours later and the sand still has something all over it. I am at 100% instruction-dosed. Lets see what it looks like after 48 hours.

 

[saltyphish]

Usually it takes the full term of the full recommended dosage to get rid of it in my exp. After 48 hrs is when I see the stuff really letting go and disappearing.

 

[saltyphish]

Also while I have had great exp using chemiclean it does not seem to be helping much for me now. But mine is a yr old and have read that it loses potency over time fresh is best.