Hello everyone,
As a newbie reefer of six months I thought id share my path so far, hope its not too boring
After the cycle of the reefer 425xl a few fish were added, the standard clowns and cardinals. I also got a scooter blenny by accident (beginners mistake but shes still there and doing fine but that's another story), and a couple of beginners corals, leather cabbage, gsp.
From about 3 months in I had been struggling a little with brown algae. not too bad and from all I had researched I guessed it would go eventually. Guess what, it didnt.. it just got worse. Regular syphoning, cleaning the rocks that could be removed at every water change, 10% every week.
LED lighting (Giesseman Vervve) 50% blues 30% white 0% red. water parameters all in line with what I had learned over the year of research previous to actually getting a tank.
but still getting worse..what was i doing wrong. I kept calm and read some more and realised the algae was dinoflagellates.. OH NO!! Slime with bubbles everywhere.what id read about other reefers with this made my heart sink, was i going to have to start again?
My last resort was purchasing a bottle of Fauna Marin Dino X.
I didn't have time to start dosing a few weeks ago but read the instructions and it said, run blue light for no more than 10 hours and white no longer than 6 hours, so I set that up first. I was running on a 12 hour cycle, 1 hour sun up and 1 sun down and moonlighting till an hour after i went to bed.. yes i can see all you experienced guys shaking your heads i turned moonlighting off completely by the way.
After my week away (family looking after tank for top off and feed) I noticed something. was this algea receding? filter socks blocking!! huh? after that another water change, Dinos just releasing and floating around, got out as much as I could.. this stuff was melting like snow in the sun, I couldn't believe it, Yesterday evening water is crystal and algae is gone and i didn't dose a drop.
Moral of the story. Don't forget to learn about the photo period of your reef tank, and Dinoflagellates are not the end of the world.
I hope this helps any other beginners.
Happy Reefing
Gary
As a newbie reefer of six months I thought id share my path so far, hope its not too boring
After the cycle of the reefer 425xl a few fish were added, the standard clowns and cardinals. I also got a scooter blenny by accident (beginners mistake but shes still there and doing fine but that's another story), and a couple of beginners corals, leather cabbage, gsp.
From about 3 months in I had been struggling a little with brown algae. not too bad and from all I had researched I guessed it would go eventually. Guess what, it didnt.. it just got worse. Regular syphoning, cleaning the rocks that could be removed at every water change, 10% every week.
LED lighting (Giesseman Vervve) 50% blues 30% white 0% red. water parameters all in line with what I had learned over the year of research previous to actually getting a tank.
but still getting worse..what was i doing wrong. I kept calm and read some more and realised the algae was dinoflagellates.. OH NO!! Slime with bubbles everywhere.what id read about other reefers with this made my heart sink, was i going to have to start again?
My last resort was purchasing a bottle of Fauna Marin Dino X.
I didn't have time to start dosing a few weeks ago but read the instructions and it said, run blue light for no more than 10 hours and white no longer than 6 hours, so I set that up first. I was running on a 12 hour cycle, 1 hour sun up and 1 sun down and moonlighting till an hour after i went to bed.. yes i can see all you experienced guys shaking your heads i turned moonlighting off completely by the way.
After my week away (family looking after tank for top off and feed) I noticed something. was this algea receding? filter socks blocking!! huh? after that another water change, Dinos just releasing and floating around, got out as much as I could.. this stuff was melting like snow in the sun, I couldn't believe it, Yesterday evening water is crystal and algae is gone and i didn't dose a drop.
Moral of the story. Don't forget to learn about the photo period of your reef tank, and Dinoflagellates are not the end of the world.
I hope this helps any other beginners.
Happy Reefing
Gary