tattedreefer
New Member
Hello everybody, my name is Eric.
About 15 years ago, I had a marine aquarium. Back then, I was a student, and it lasted about a year. I finally had to take it down because I moved to university, and it was impossible to keep it.
In recent years, I've had a few freshwater shrimp tanks and a planted nano tank. A few months ago, I got bored with the planted tank because it no longer seemed challenging and had become too routine, so I decided to switch to a reef tank.
I currently live in a small apartment in a very humid area, so I decided to reuse the same tank I already had, since adding a sump would increase the humidity even more. Even with dehumidifiers in winter, the humidity inside reaches 70% (which isn't very healthy), and I didn't want to make it worse.
I'm telling you all this so you can understand where I'm coming from. I've maintained my last high-tech planted nano aquarium for two years. When I started it, I cycled it in complete darkness for three months, thinking that would prevent algae growth at the beginning. After so much waiting, the result was the same as if I had turned on the lights from day one and added several fish. I experienced several algae blooms and cyanobacteria outbreaks... Finally, I managed to control everything and achieve good growth.
Unfortunately, there isn't a large aquarium hobby community in my country, and many shops just try to sell you whatever product they have in stock. So this time I decided to do my research and do things my own way (as you'll see later, it's not going very well).
The aquarium consists of a 32L Blau tank (30*30*35cm) and an AquaEL UltraMAX 1500 external filter (In the external filter there are 2 liters of bioporex and the pre-filter sponge (I have removed the rest of the sponges). I have a JBL Protemp e300 heater. I also have an Fzone automatic top-off system and an STC 1000 external controller for temperature regulation, connected on one side to the heater and on the other to a 12V PC fan. For substrate, I used approximately 3.5L of Aquaforest Biosand, 3kg of Coralline brand rock (tinted pink), reverse osmosis water with 0 TDS, and Aquaforest Sea Salt (I later discovered I needed to use a different salt because this one had low KH, Mg, and Ca parameters, so I bought KH buffer, calcium, and magnesium to add). For lighting I used a 75w Chinese lamp with 3 channels (blue, purple and white).
I filled the aquarium with water on March 19th (after letting the bacteria in the sand settle for 24 hours). I added a little fish food and bacteria daily, and 15 days later, the nitrite, nitrate, and phosphate tests came back at 0.
That weekend I went to a local fish store and bought a small kauderni and a couple of LPS corals. They all took to it well (the kauderni only wants to eat frozen brine shrimp; it won't eat flake or pellet food). A week later, I placed an order from another country for some acropora and micromusa frags. A few days later, some brown algae started appearing. I was surprised but didn't think much of it, assuming it was diatoms. I bought a cleaning team (2 small turbo snails, 2 Nassarius snails, 1 Astraea snail, and a blue-legged hermit crab). A few days later, things got much worse. I measured silicates and they're at 3 mg/l (very high in my opinion, although I don't know where they're coming from. It's not from the water because I tested the ALK on reverse osmosis water and it's at 0, so it's either coming from the rock, the salt, or the sand. The salt has a code that shows the ICP of that batch, and the silicate content is very low compared to what I'm getting, so I understand it's coming from the rock). After a lot of research, I've concluded that they're dinoflagellates. Today I went back to the store (where, by the way, they confirmed they're having an outbreak now too) to have them confirm that they were indeed dinoflagellates. Dinoflagellates and what to do about it.
I've been told to siphon as much as possible through a mesh bag and return the water to the aquarium (some of the brown substance stayed in the bag, but some of it returned to the aquarium water). I'm also told to add half a capful of Seachem bacteria today and NP Out (a carbon source), as well as leave the aquarium in darkness for 3 days and add a dose of carbon every day.
The current aquarium parameters are as follows:
Salinity 1025 (measured with a refractometer)
Temperature 25ºC (measured with a digital probe)
pH 8 (Salifert)
KH 7.3 (Salifert)
Calcium 410 (Salifert)
Magnesium 1395 (Salifert)
Nitrites 0.1 (was at 0 until the dinoflagellate bloom). Nitrites/nitrates tested with Seachem:
Nitrates 0.2
Phosphates 0 (the test comes out orange-brown, even though the scale goes from yellow to green... :/) Easy-Life brand test
Silicates 3 mg/L (JBL brand)
Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. When I started, I added bacteria from 3 different brands to try to have a wide variety of them, as well as copepods and phytoplankton. I know I've been impatient, but right now there's no fixing it. I've attached a photo of the current state of the aquarium and the stand.
I've left some things out, but I've already written quite a bit. Thank you very much for reading.
The white light in the photos is only to show the current state
About 15 years ago, I had a marine aquarium. Back then, I was a student, and it lasted about a year. I finally had to take it down because I moved to university, and it was impossible to keep it.
In recent years, I've had a few freshwater shrimp tanks and a planted nano tank. A few months ago, I got bored with the planted tank because it no longer seemed challenging and had become too routine, so I decided to switch to a reef tank.
I currently live in a small apartment in a very humid area, so I decided to reuse the same tank I already had, since adding a sump would increase the humidity even more. Even with dehumidifiers in winter, the humidity inside reaches 70% (which isn't very healthy), and I didn't want to make it worse.
I'm telling you all this so you can understand where I'm coming from. I've maintained my last high-tech planted nano aquarium for two years. When I started it, I cycled it in complete darkness for three months, thinking that would prevent algae growth at the beginning. After so much waiting, the result was the same as if I had turned on the lights from day one and added several fish. I experienced several algae blooms and cyanobacteria outbreaks... Finally, I managed to control everything and achieve good growth.
Unfortunately, there isn't a large aquarium hobby community in my country, and many shops just try to sell you whatever product they have in stock. So this time I decided to do my research and do things my own way (as you'll see later, it's not going very well).
The aquarium consists of a 32L Blau tank (30*30*35cm) and an AquaEL UltraMAX 1500 external filter (In the external filter there are 2 liters of bioporex and the pre-filter sponge (I have removed the rest of the sponges). I have a JBL Protemp e300 heater. I also have an Fzone automatic top-off system and an STC 1000 external controller for temperature regulation, connected on one side to the heater and on the other to a 12V PC fan. For substrate, I used approximately 3.5L of Aquaforest Biosand, 3kg of Coralline brand rock (tinted pink), reverse osmosis water with 0 TDS, and Aquaforest Sea Salt (I later discovered I needed to use a different salt because this one had low KH, Mg, and Ca parameters, so I bought KH buffer, calcium, and magnesium to add). For lighting I used a 75w Chinese lamp with 3 channels (blue, purple and white).
I filled the aquarium with water on March 19th (after letting the bacteria in the sand settle for 24 hours). I added a little fish food and bacteria daily, and 15 days later, the nitrite, nitrate, and phosphate tests came back at 0.
That weekend I went to a local fish store and bought a small kauderni and a couple of LPS corals. They all took to it well (the kauderni only wants to eat frozen brine shrimp; it won't eat flake or pellet food). A week later, I placed an order from another country for some acropora and micromusa frags. A few days later, some brown algae started appearing. I was surprised but didn't think much of it, assuming it was diatoms. I bought a cleaning team (2 small turbo snails, 2 Nassarius snails, 1 Astraea snail, and a blue-legged hermit crab). A few days later, things got much worse. I measured silicates and they're at 3 mg/l (very high in my opinion, although I don't know where they're coming from. It's not from the water because I tested the ALK on reverse osmosis water and it's at 0, so it's either coming from the rock, the salt, or the sand. The salt has a code that shows the ICP of that batch, and the silicate content is very low compared to what I'm getting, so I understand it's coming from the rock). After a lot of research, I've concluded that they're dinoflagellates. Today I went back to the store (where, by the way, they confirmed they're having an outbreak now too) to have them confirm that they were indeed dinoflagellates. Dinoflagellates and what to do about it.
I've been told to siphon as much as possible through a mesh bag and return the water to the aquarium (some of the brown substance stayed in the bag, but some of it returned to the aquarium water). I'm also told to add half a capful of Seachem bacteria today and NP Out (a carbon source), as well as leave the aquarium in darkness for 3 days and add a dose of carbon every day.
The current aquarium parameters are as follows:
Salinity 1025 (measured with a refractometer)
Temperature 25ºC (measured with a digital probe)
pH 8 (Salifert)
KH 7.3 (Salifert)
Calcium 410 (Salifert)
Magnesium 1395 (Salifert)
Nitrites 0.1 (was at 0 until the dinoflagellate bloom). Nitrites/nitrates tested with Seachem:
Nitrates 0.2
Phosphates 0 (the test comes out orange-brown, even though the scale goes from yellow to green... :/) Easy-Life brand test
Silicates 3 mg/L (JBL brand)
Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. When I started, I added bacteria from 3 different brands to try to have a wide variety of them, as well as copepods and phytoplankton. I know I've been impatient, but right now there's no fixing it. I've attached a photo of the current state of the aquarium and the stand.
I've left some things out, but I've already written quite a bit. Thank you very much for reading.
The white light in the photos is only to show the current state
