Taller is better: Kev's 80g column

[Dj City]

With the water changes you do, you might want to take a look at the automatic water change system.
It makes life soooooooo much easier and keeps parameters stable.

I swear by mine.

 

[Janci]

Good update and sorry about the yellow tang.
The tank looks great.

Careful with the new coral. Once it takes off, it is hard to stop.

 

[Kevin Jaako]

You might want to take a look at the automatic water change system.
It makes life soooooooo much easier and keeps parameters stable.

I swear by mine.

Man, I’ve considered it!! The main problem for me is that I have no room near the tank for a reservoir and there’s no convenient route to plumb supply/drain lines into an adjacent room ether... I’ve got a 5g ATO reservoir at the moment which is good for under a week. I need a new solution.

What’s your tank volume to AWC reservoir ratio? My display is 80g (plus sump, minus rocks)

I’m aiming to slow down my water changes as the tank matures. But for now, with diatoms and algae... I’m be staying in top of it for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for checking in, by the way, @Dj City [emoji3] I enjoy keeping up with your nano! KJ

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Thanks, @Janci. So I'm told!

Salinity: 34ppt
Temp: 79º
pH: 7.8
dKH: 7.3
NO3: 2.5ppm
PO4: 0.03ppm
Mag, Ca: not tested.

It's time to get kalkwasser dosing up and running...
KJ

 

[Kevin Jaako]

 

[najer]

"Nemos!"

 

[Janci]

Lovely picture with the kids.
That urchin looks dangerously big.

 

[Dj City]

Man, I’ve considered it!! The main problem for me is that I have no room near the tank for a reservoir and there’s no convenient route to plumb supply/drain lines into an adjacent room ether... I’ve got a 5g ATO reservoir at the moment which is good for under a week. I need a new solution.

What’s your tank volume to AWC reservoir ratio? My display is 80g (plus sump, minus rocks)

I’m aiming to slow down my water changes as the tank matures. But for now, with diatoms and algae... I’m be staying in top of it for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for checking in, by the way, @Dj City [emoji3] I enjoy keeping up with your nano! KJ

Display is 15gal
Saltwater holding tank is 20gal high.
The holding tank is directly behind the display.
It works very well for me.

I had my ato reservoir about 25 feet from my display tank with no problems. You can run a long(ish) tube with the system and feel safe.

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Lovely picture with the kids.
That urchin looks dangerously big.

It is!! I haven’t jabbed myself yet, but that day is comin’... I know it.

One of the things I like most about my column tank is that I’ve got 3 viewing sides, or 6’ total... I think my favourite way to watch the tank is from the side, seeing right through to the kitchen in the back. Then I pretend my family is swimming in my tank

KJ

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Time for the diatoms, cyano or dinos game...

I’ve had the pleasure of growing this stuff for about two months now, it’s been slowly but surely getting worse. It’d been isolated to the sandbed until a day or two ago; I’m now starting to see the beginnings of a dusting on the rockwork. Nothing on the corals yet.



It could be dinos. God I hope not. It’s kinda stringy and it disappears overnight & reappears over the course of the photoperiod.

Or maybe it’s cyano. It’s not “snotty” and I’ve yet to see a single bubble in it.

Or it could even be diatoms. It’s definitely rust-coloured, and doesn’t form a mat. In fact, it seems to only really “string up” into filaments when the tank flow is high enough to roll it over on itself and form long stringy clumps. In the lower-flow areas, it’s definitely more of a “dusting” than anything else.

Whatever it is, it’s consuming nutrients... I’m at 1 ppm Nitrate and 0 ppm phosphate (I haven’t started carbon dosing or employed chemical filtration)

Maybe it’s time to buy a microscope. I’m hesitant to try things like Chemiclean without a positive ID first.

Bah!
KJ

 

[Dj City]

Time for the diatoms, cyano or dinos game...

I’ve had the pleasure of growing this stuff for about two months now, it’s been slowly but surely getting worse. It’d been isolated to the sandbed until a day or two ago; I’m now starting to see the beginnings of a dusting on the rockwork. Nothing on the corals yet.



It could be dinos. God I hope not. It’s kinda stringy and it disappears overnight & reappears over the course of the photoperiod.

Or maybe it’s cyano. It’s not “snotty” and I’ve yet to see a single bubble in it.

Or it could even be diatoms. It’s definitely rust-coloured, and doesn’t form a mat. In fact, it seems to only really “string up” into filaments when the tank flow is high enough to roll it over on itself and form long stringy clumps. In the lower-flow areas, it’s definitely more of a “dusting” than anything else.

Whatever it is, it’s consuming nutrients... I’m at 1 ppm Nitrate and 0 ppm phosphate (I haven’t started carbon dosing or employed chemical filtration)

Maybe it’s time to buy a microscope. I’m hesitant to try things like Chemiclean without a positive ID first.

Bah!
KJ

Still looking good!
Believe me, problems and persistent pests show up for us to deal with. It's inevitable. These are the things that make us better "Reefers".

I don't believe it's diatoms. I'm 99% certain it's not.
It could be Cyano and I really hope it is. Cyano is relevantly easy to deal with compared to what else it could be which is...
Dinos!
The fact that it disappears with lights out and reappears with lights on (photoperiod) leads me to lean towards dinos.

I've dealt with them for over 5 years in my 110gal reef. 4 of the 5 years, I thought it was diatoms (silly me). I have dealt with cyano too. Chemiclean works WONDERS! Don't be afraid to use it if needed but PLEASE follow the directions and ADD MORE AIR while using. No negative effects to anything other than canyo.

Question for you. If you touch it, does it disappear where it was touched? For example, you take a feeding stick or something like that and poke it. Not disturbing the sandbed, just touch the stuff in one place. Does it disappear in that one spot then slowly come back?

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Question for you. If you touch it, does it disappear where it was touched? For example, you take a feeding stick or something like that and poke it. Not disturbing the sandbed, just touch the stuff in one place. Does it disappear in that one spot then slowly come back?

I dunno! I know when I use my pokin’ stick (tm) to turn over a snail, I clear a fresh, clean trail in the sand, wherever I disturb it. It eventually grows back, of course. I’ve never tried delicately touching it, though.... is that a thing?

So many signs point to it being dinos... except no bubbles. I dunno what to make of that. I hear that’s pretty common for dinoflagellates. In any case, I’m thinkin a blackout period might be in order. Be gone!!



You’re lookin’ rough, but I still love ya, tank...
KJ

 

[SPR1968]

That’s a beautiful looking tank Kevin, very nice indeed!

The problem you have at the moment looks very much like what I had a year or so ago, and what I believed to be dino’s

It started off in the sand exactly looking like yours, and then over a period of a few months crept onto the rockwork, and then the bubbles started to appear. It sort of crept up on me, as although I could see it, I thought it was just some form of algae

What worked for me, was a 3 day total blackout (lights off curtains and doors closed), and also and importantly I increased water flow/movement to the areas affected.

When the lights came back on the tank looked spotless and with the increased flow the problem never reappeared.

It won’t affect your corals as it’s just like a tropical storm in the ocean

 

[Dj City]

I dunno! I know when I use my pokin’ stick (tm) to turn over a snail, I clear a fresh, clean trail in the sand, wherever I disturb it. It eventually grows back, of course.

So many signs point to it being dinos... except no bubbles. I dunno what to make of that. I hear that’s pretty common for dinoflagellates. In any case, I’m thinkin a blackout period might be in order.



You’re lookin’ rough, but I still love ya, tank...
KJ

I hate to say it but it looks and sounds like dinos.

I've been fighting them for 5 years in my 110 gallon tank and I have not won the battle yet.
There are two LARGE threads on dinos that go into a whole lot on fighting these prehistoric pests. There are some good ideas, some bad ones and some ideas that seem absolutely crazy.

In my case, I decided to remove the sand and basically re- do the tank. Im still removing sand. Im doing it slowly so I don't crash the tank by removing too much bacteria at once.
Im still deciding on whether or not to add new sand or add starboard once all the sand is gone. Im not a fan of the bare bottom tank look but it makes maintenance soooooo much easier.

My advice is to remove as much of the brown stuff off the sand as you possibly can.
Suction it up and out.
Try to get it under control before it completely turns your reefing life upside down.

Good luck my friend.
Keep us posted.

 

[Dj City]

Also, go ahead and get that microscope. You will wind up needing it now and/or in the future.

The other thing you should do is raise your phosphate.
Bottoming out nitrates and phosphates is bad and promotes things that are worse than algae. Dinos being just one of those worse things.

 

[G_Lows]

Any updates?

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Any updates?

Yea man - it's been 3 months... so what's new? Let's just start with this. Dinoflagellates can go to hell.



I pulled my sandbed for starters. That was step one in my death-to-dinos 3000 plan. I never imagined myself not having a sandbed. Sand was just part of having a reef tank, to me- but it had to go. My sand was like dinohangout central. My tank at least has a black acrylic backing and bottom, so it was ready to be bare bottom, even if I wasn't. I scooped it, syphoned it, syphoned it again (and again and again) and now it's gone. To tell you the truth, I've grown accustomed to the look. It actually puts more focus on the rock work and the fish, so... i'm okay with it. Kinda like it, actually.

I started dosing Vibrant, on recommendation from LFS guy. I followed the instructions on the label and noticed no effect on the dinos. Something was happening- I stopped having to clean my glass, but nothing with the dinos. LFS guy said "you're double dosing, right?".
"-Eh?"
"-Yea, that's the secret. Double the dosage. It worked for me."
Okay. Did that for a few weeks, and yea- started seeing a little reduction. Then I decided to do another black-out period. 4 days this time.

Holy smokes. Dinos gone. 3 days later (and a way, way-reduced photoperiod) ...nothing. 4 days later, nothing. Ramped up the photoperiod. 6 days later, nothing. I started to celebrate to a local reefer friend of mine and he said - "not to rain on your parade, but I've had dinos disappear for 2 weeks and come back. Just go buy a UV, dude."

So I did. I bought a (way, way antique; $40 dollar) 36w UV sterilizer off a local reefer and threw it on my tank a few nights ago. I'm now well past 1-week post-dinos and still nothing... I'm too scared to be optimistic, but... they're gone so far.

So that's the good news, but here's the flipside. My corals took a major beating. I lost an acro, a torch & a few acans. One of my hammers is dead and the other is closed up and limp, I've got major tissue necrosis on my favia, my pipe organ won't open anymore and my chalice has lost some of its colour pop... so, not great in the coral department. I think it was primarily the Vibrant dosing. Anyway, if it ends up costing me a few hundred dollars in corals to get rid of my dinos, I'll take it.

Okay, what else...

I lost my long-spined urchin. Overnight he dropped half his spines, stopped eating and within a week was gone. After months of living in a dino-infested tank, he must've finally taken a nibble. I woke up one morning to find my fire shrimp trying to pry him open for a meal. Oh, and one of my clownfish went carpet surfing– my son found him in the morning. It was the first night after I pulled my sand bed, so it's too much to be a coincidence. I guess he got spooked...

In more positive news, I had a new clownfish and a royal gramma graduate through QT successfully. The new clown and the existing one fought pretty aggressively for dominance for about 48h but they're buds now. I've got a 6-line wrasse and a cardinal fish in QT now, that'll bring my total to 6 + inverts.

I sold my two Kessil a360W's for the new a360X. I wasn't using the second one, so I basically self-funded the 2-1 upgrade. Oh man. I'm so happy with it. During the day, there's really no difference, but now I finally have moonlights (and sunset/sunrise effects). I'd been dreaming of having moonlights since I started in the hobby, but I also knew I wanted the shimmer and colour blending that comes with kessils... well, now I have both. The lights gradually dim to 1% overnight, which means that I've essentially doubled the enjoyable viewing hours of my tank. Just before bed? still lit. Wake up in the middle of the night? still lit. Kids up early and we're downstairs before 7? still lit. I've even got sunrise and sunset effects, using the new colour channels. I'm so happy with it.

Well, that's about it. I'm planning on doing a WC this weekend. I'm nervous, because I know WC's can trigger dino blooms, but my corals have taken such a beating I just want to do a reset and move on. I really, really hope the UV can keep things at bay! I've got a bunch of hair algae and cyano in the tank but man... who cares. If the dinos aren't back, I'm fine doing some turkey basting every few days for now...

This hobby sure tries your patience from time to time...



Cheers, @Grant Lowry, @Dj City, @SPR1968! Hope you guys are well,
KJ.

 

[mch1984]

Glad to see your coming back around from the troubles. My only advice on dynos is don’t freak out to bad over them. A very experienced reefer told me to get what I couldn’t off the sand bed during water changes and manage it best i could. He said it will pass your tank is still young, and sure enough it has. Just spent a couple of months looking at the ugly stuff.

 

[sikorskys]

It's not dinos that killed your urchin. It might be chemicals overdose or very high PO4 levels due to dinos/GHA die off.

My urchin lost it's spines after DinoX dosing, but survived.

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Cheers, @mch1984. Day 9, no dinos

It's not dinos that killed your urchin. It might be chemicals overdose or very high PO4 levels due to dinos/GHA die off.

I'm not so sure... I know how toxic dinos can be to echinoidea and my tank's pretty consistent @ between 2.5 - 5.0 NO3 & 0.03 - 0.08 PO4. I hadn't started dosing anything by that point either. His behaviour was pretty normal until literally overnight, when he lost half his spines, picked a corner and stopped moving around. I can't wait to get another urchin, i miss that guy a lot. My kids named him "Funny"

KJ