6k Setup and Still Issues...

[Fish_Sticks]

In a perfect world, one would wait until the tank is super duper established before introducing fish and coral.

2 Months is a perfectly commendable time compared to what I see other people do, but I would rather be experiencing these issues with no fish or corals in the system.

An empty tank with rock, sand and algea problems is much prettier than a tank with rock, sand, fish, struggling corals, and algea problems.

Its most likely your rock establishing itself, compounded by fish waste. I wouldnt worry yourself too much about it. If youre following proper procedures, it will solve itself.

 

[brandon429]

distilled water is ok, ro di isn't better

I edited that part in above. Most pico reefs use distilled as topoff, I used to use it for total makeup water for five years (reconstituted with salts is preferred for better alk balance) and I used distilled water from wal mart or any gas station that had it. All name brands, distilled.

You have a vectoring issue, a hitchhiker issue, not a single param is out of whack or you'd have concurrent invasions alongside we could see


If you took those cells out and inoculated anyone's tank here, they'd be infected and up against the same choice, action v inaction.


The specific cause of invasion here is buying frags in 2018 vs 1998 (show me dino aquarium pics from back then, modern tanker's tank transmitted disease) and no quarantine protocol in place for hard scape items.


Even fish vector dinos in on their slime matrix...poster DNA has high res photography of this proof at reefcentral, chem forum, second largest dinos thread on the web. Could be 1st by now, it's the longest running.


Whether or not it persists in your tank as a mass of cells housing, feeding and insulating each other is fully unrelated to the vectoring that brought it in

the battle has now shifted into mass or no mass allowed.

 

[MrTang13]

Okay, we’ll let’s see how it turns out. I’ll keep you updated.

A big part of my strategy right now is elevating the pH. If my dKH is 7 and ph 7.8, does anyone know what the ph will be once alkalinity is raised to 11?

Thanks,
Michael

 

[brandon429]

Not sure on alk chemistry someone will chime in.



Second best dinos thread still has resounding key terms below

Peroxide<- new entrant into discussion
UV
Blackout
Action
Not much wins, but some, all dinos challenges are trying and winning is a matter of luck

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2307000&page=162


In my opinion the two largest resources on the internet are now linked to your thread for compare and contrast. DNA and his work on slime matrix vectoring is there

* we share similar findings, the two communities, though communication only works one way between the two forums. shows what resourceful reefers can accomplish in spite of maturity roadblocks

They're getting help there from Reef2Reef, but can reference us only cryptically. can't link to us, yet the science still bleeds through and all readers know who they're referencing as if it was allowed to be typed.

 

[W1ngz]

There is a relationship, but no direct correlation of alkalinity value to pH value. It's likely to be more influenced by the quantity of CO2 in the air.

pH rises and falls in a day-night cycle. Is 7.8 the value first thing at lights on, closer to the end of the light cycle or is it consistent during your blackout regardless of time of day? pH will also be lower when a lot of people are home, breathing and expelling CO2. When I got my dog, he cost me .1 off my pH baseline so I have to leave the bathroom fan running 24/7.

A better option would be to target ~8 or 9 dKH and learning to keep it stable, and ventilating the room to lower CO2 thereby raising the pH baseline. Raising the pH will also increase your consumption of KH buffer, so you'll have to increase that depending on what your measurements tell you.

 

[Burrito]

slow down.... a quick browse of the thread and there are ALOT of options flying around. i wont get into RODI vs distilled but i would say 99% of people here (except for the picos) use RODI.

buy a cheap microscope and figure out what you actually have, if its dinos, the type of dino will determine your course of action. i got dinos back in december because my tank got too clean, hit zero po4 and no4 and BAM dinos overnight, i was upset and panicked too but its beatable. my strain responds very well to UV so i bought one, while "dirtying" up my tank, fed more, skimmed less, fuge lighting less, i had to put nuetrients back into the tank. took about 8 days but it cleared up completely. no black out, no boiling stuff, no giving up.

there is a huge thread on dinos, read the first post and then hit up the links from there.

get a microscope...

 

[Cory]

Isn’t distilled water better than RO/DI?

I would assume the distilation procedures of a company like Poland Spring outperform a home 3 stage RO/DI filter.

My plan is to complete a 3 day blackout. After 1 full day, I’ve seen nitrates rise from undetectable to 2 PPM.

Once the blackout is complete, I’m going to be hooking up an Apex DOS, which I will use to elevate my pH from 7.8 to hopefully 8.2 consistently.

I also am going to decrease the intensity of my lights and dose Microbacter 7.

Also, after a 1 day blackout, I noticed virtually all the Dino’s are gone. Good sign or bad?

Do you think this is sufficient?

If the distilled water says 0 tds there shouldnt be any minerals. Only possible contamination in distilled water with 0 tds could be organics that travelled with the steam. Activated carbon would rempve it though. But its unlikely there is organics.

 

[reefwiser]

Is there a home Distilled water system one can purchase That can distill enough water that an RO/DI unit can in the same amount of time?
https://www.waterfiltermag.com/best-water-distiller-reviews/
Most are set up for human consumption of water. So a gallon in 5 hour range.
RO/DI gives you and easy way to process large amounts of water in your home. I get 20 gallons of RO/DI water in an hour with my system. An its very easy to maintain.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

Is there a home Distilled water system one can purchase That can distill enough water that an RO/DI unit can in the same amount of time?
https://www.waterfiltermag.com/best-water-distiller-reviews/
Most are set up for human consumption of water. So a gallon in 5 hour range.
RO/DI gives you and easy way to process large amounts of water in your home. I get 20 gallons of RO/DI water in an hour with my system. An its very easy to maintain.

The energy cost to distill water would be nuts.

 

[MrTang13]

For anyone else that goes through this I’ll be providing updates.

2 Day Blackout Update: I checked in the tank and see next to no signs of the Dino’s. I also checked nitrates and they are back down to 0. The skimmer isn’t really picking anything up at all.

I’m thinking this is because the fish have been sleeping and their metabolisms slowed. To me, it’s a good sign that something else is uptaking the nitrates while the lights are off and the algae can’t.

Later tonight I’ll be testing phosphates.

I’m excited to get the Apex DOS setup to start raising the pH and lowering the available C02 tomorrow.

I have the DinoX ready in case all else fails.

 

[Burrito]

remember... do too many things at once and you cant attribute results to anyone one thing. zero nitrate is not especially a good thing when dealing with dinos.

either way, glad some things are turning around for you

 

[MrTang13]

Update:

Nitrates are actually around 4 ppm, so slite increase from yesterday. This concerns me because it looks like nothing is uptaking the nitrates in absense of dinos.

I tested phosphates; color looks like zero to me.

Hopefully once I add the microbacter I’ll see nitrates drop.

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/i...ated-dinoflagellates-overnight.316126/page-11

just relaying notes from the field here

see saltyhog's very last post.

 

[jhOU]

I was in the same situation recently. Had dinos for months, and tried just about all the “cures” without success. I had what i believe we’re amphidinium dinos, which were mostly just on the sand. I tried uv, but it didn’t help with this type of dino. UV is very effective on types that go into the water column. So it’s very helpful to figure out what type you’re dealing with.

Just take a step back and accept that it is just an ugly phase. I did not see any improvement until i stopped all the “cures”. Focus on maturing your tank. What finally worked for me was siphoning out dinos every couple days (and most of my sand in the process). Use something like 3/8” ID tubing to minimize amount of water change. Maintaining po4 & no3 above 0. I fed phytoplankton and oyster feast which I think was one of the most beneficial things. Adding pods and bottled bacteria to help the biofilter. And just maintaining stability to allow all the good stuff to out compete the dinos. I would not recommend elevating alk just to boost ph. I would use kalkwasser to maintain ph around 8, and co2 scrubber to boost ph. Also try to remove any detritus, turkey baste rocks and clean sump if it’s accumulating. And... patience

 

[MrTang13]

Update: Now that Nitrates have raised further, I can’t see any trace of the algae at all.

Isn’t the conclusion then that the nitrates are being used by the Dino’s?

My strategy is resource denial so I’m skimming hard, denying light, and will be limiting c02 by elevating ph.

I see no reason to not up the alkalinity to 11 if I have a dosing pulp and am able to keep it stable there.

According to BRSTV, limiting C02 and a blackout alone should do the trick. Well I’m putting there claim to the test..

 

[brandon429]

well great Im glad some direction has been found for it. good deal.

 

[MrTang13]

Update: I’m attaching a screenshot of my Apex P.H. probe.

I noticed now the blackout stopped the pH increases I would typically see in the day. Im wondering if that’s because the dinos cannot undergo photosynthesis and strip c02 from the water.

So far, the blackout has caused an increase in nitrate and a decrease in pH.

https://imgur.com/GMY3Ddy

 

[brandon429]

the tank itself is a massive collection of both respiring and photosynthesizing organisms, sans light its a co2 party/carbonic acid emitted with no uptake going on as usual during the light cycle/net effect is lower pH

it would occur even wo dinos in the system during extended lights out


wont be too harmful to miss out on a few days. the nitrate Im not sure of, surprised photosynthesis commands enough to matter / not sure

if any form of physical contact might have stirred up bits of sand or detritus that would be a better source for the mild nitrate

 

[MrTang13]

What’s interesting to me is is that I still see those daily cycles even during a blackout, just to a much lesser degrees

PH is now below 7.8 :/

 

[brandon429]

its not a prob, Randy's chem forum has tons of posts in the 7.6 area and he's having them assess CO2 in the water column via sample bubbling, but we know that to be your cause. He has them verify alk is in range, then the pH impacts from co2 tinkering aren't a huge deal once balances are reset

The specific cure if you want to muster it up is to bubble air in your tank. A water pump isn't the same, laminar flow from air bubbles is specifically how they degas the water for co2 in aquaculture. Id leave it, but if you want the pH up then bubble it and wipe a lil saltcreep down nbd

I have never ever seen lights off cause a tank loss issue. Worst case scenario is the target comes back. never seen any associated pH impacts from doing so

Im assuming its still as open-topped as it was pre-blackout (to allow for same venting) did you seal that top up any? if so, how are you doing the blackout