Bacterial imbalance?

[12gallonsofhex]

Hey all, I am pondering what may be going on microscopically with my reef. Heres a little background, I started my 20 long with refugium and skimmer 11 months ago and made the mistake of adding the macro algae too early. Because of that mistake I fought low nutrients and dinos until month 5 or 6 when I pulled the macro and let the nutrients raise to 15ppm no3 and almost .5ppm po4. I then started doing 20 percent water changes and my average measurable nutrients are 5-10 and .03-.1. I have been removing GHA and cyano ever since. I vacuum the sandbed regularly and have a lot of sand moving flow. The corals and fish look and act healthy, not merely surviving. I am thinking the low nutrients early on slowed the maturity of my biology and am wondering what more experienced reefers think about that thought and how to remedy the imbalance of beneficial and nuisance bacteria. I usually research these answers for myself, but have not found many good articles on this subject except for the sites that are trying to sell me snake oil. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.

 

[Crustaceon]

I know it’s anecdotal but in my experience, I’ve always had issues the moment my nitrates dipped to the 2ppm mark. At least in my system, this was the tipping point where other critters like dinos and cyano could start to compete with beneficial bacteria. How do I know this? Well, I tried dosing vodka, to give the bacteria a boost which had no effect. Typically I would’ve seen a bacterial bloom with the dose used (It was a lot, lol). I waited a few hours past that and then I had the idea to dose a little bit of nitrate. An hour later I had a bacterial bloom.

 

[brandon429]

there's a way to fix your tank that has nothing to do with the stated order of causatives or ops above.

everything posted in this thread applies to your tank, and everything you posted he can see for patterning the two tanks.

post updated full tank pics pls


*you have no bacterial imbalance

we can fix your reef, its not hard. by cleaning it differently than you did.

Help with dinos in fluval evo

Hi all, in January I set up my fluval evo, all going well, other than the dinos i am currently watching fester. From what Ive read, the solution seems to be to raise phosphate and nitrate, mine currently being 2ppm nitrate and 0.1ppm phosphate, however am unsure of the best way to do this with...

www.reef2reef.com

because your tank is 20 gallons it can be fully restored and fixed, not for any other reason. Not by ID of invader, or param measures, or calcium/alk levels but because its a nano means you can opt out of being invaded, if thats permissible. it is usually not permitted, reefers nearly always want to keep the invasion longer. but if you didn't, we could fix your tank just by cleaning it the right way and the after pics would show it, by Saturday in fact (if you started now lol)

fixing your tank by following the rules for large, inaccessible tanks might work. but if you want to make use of its size, and access, treating it like a nano will work better and much faster.

key terms in his thread: direct access, dentistry, cloud, retention, sand bacteria, rock plugging, tap water

 

[12gallonsofhex]

there's a way to fix your tank that has nothing to do with the stated order of causatives or ops above.

everything posted in this thread applies to your tank, and everything you posted he can see for patterning the two tanks.

post updated full tank pics pls


*you have no bacterial imbalance

we can fix your reef, its not hard. by cleaning it differently than you did.

Help with dinos in fluval evo

Hi all, in January I set up my fluval evo, all going well, other than the dinos i am currently watching fester. From what Ive read, the solution seems to be to raise phosphate and nitrate, mine currently being 2ppm nitrate and 0.1ppm phosphate, however am unsure of the best way to do this with...

www.reef2reef.com

because your tank is 20 gallons it can be fully restored and fixed, not for any other reason. Not by ID of invader, or param measures, or calcium/alk levels but because its a nano means you can opt out of being invaded, if thats permissible. it is usually not permitted, reefers nearly always want to keep the invasion longer. but if you didn't, we could fix your tank just by cleaning it the right way and the after pics would show it, by Saturday in fact (if you started now lol)

fixing your tank by following the rules for large, inaccessible tanks might work. but if you want to make use of its size, and access, treating it like a nano will work better and much faster.

key terms in his thread: direct access, dentistry, cloud, retention, sand bacteria, rock plugging, tap water

You led me to this thread before and I have seen that it helps some tanks. However it is a massive change to a system that is growing coral well. I am worried that this approach is akin to rebuilding an engine because the water pump is leaking. If I cannot identify the issue then I am relegated to doing ripcleans every time I am faced with whatever is causing this cyano growth with historical low nutrients.

 

[brandon429]

I realize a rip clean isn't the go-to for every offense a small reef will display.

this will be the first time you've implemented one, then you can arrange clean up crews, nutrients, and competitor strains of fancy pods after the offending mass/plug/and invader is removed, via storm action


this thread shows you updates, how tanks fared after our jobs:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

following the common rule led to the current outcome for your reef.


that link above, patterns bigtime. we put real earnest work into that science. I haven't seen a noncompliant nano emerge from that


all pico reefs are compliant, dinos free, because of something they do that is very atypical compared to large tanks

 

[brandon429]

post your full tank shot too, all diagnostics threads deserve full pics, so that unspoken details can be seen.

 

[Katrina71]

I personally think time is the answer. (Not to say Brandon's method isn't correct)

 

[brandon429]

I agree. in 3 years many reefs wind up looking similar

that journey tho

fork-in-road option one: perpetually explaining to viewers why uglies happen, and when things might get better, and that this is all actually good, and potentially taking till August. spouse secretly hates the setup, but says nothing/contains contempt for the aquarium my personal life says.


FIR option 2: shocking the hound out of all your viewers with a gem of a tank. by Saturday.

how you handle growback and future work: by reefing differently than you did leading up to today. I get you the clean start and not kill stuff. by having no detritus in rocks/sand your next invasion wont have the abilities of the current ones

post pics

 

[12gallonsofhex]

Its only on the left 2/3 of the tank where the peak par is about 250 at the sand. I realize its a bit high for the sand bed, but its necessary for the Sps to get 325 at the top.

 

[brandon429]

ok then, that tank is already a gem why'd you hint it was all ##$$^#&^%&#^% lol

wow

so on that note, nice job starting your concern when there is only .5% invader coverage and the rest of the reef looks perfect. Kat called it, just be removing that lightly/topically and give it time



no rip clean needed, and darn that. next round!!!


*bluing up your light and changing white balance down and sustaining that two weeks can make amazing changes to small challenges like that. I wouldnt dose bac or do anything other than hand guide it out, weekly maintenance, keep your reef as is until .5% coverage becomes something like I was envisioning 20 mins ago.

 

[sde1500]

there's a way to fix your tank that has nothing to do with the stated order of causatives or ops above.

everything posted in this thread applies to your tank, and everything you posted he can see for patterning the two tanks.

post updated full tank pics pls


*you have no bacterial imbalance

we can fix your reef, its not hard. by cleaning it differently than you did.

Help with dinos in fluval evo

Hi all, in January I set up my fluval evo, all going well, other than the dinos i am currently watching fester. From what Ive read, the solution seems to be to raise phosphate and nitrate, mine currently being 2ppm nitrate and 0.1ppm phosphate, however am unsure of the best way to do this with...

www.reef2reef.com

because your tank is 20 gallons it can be fully restored and fixed, not for any other reason. Not by ID of invader, or param measures, or calcium/alk levels but because its a nano means you can opt out of being invaded, if thats permissible. it is usually not permitted, reefers nearly always want to keep the invasion longer. but if you didn't, we could fix your tank just by cleaning it the right way and the after pics would show it, by Saturday in fact (if you started now lol)

fixing your tank by following the rules for large, inaccessible tanks might work. but if you want to make use of its size, and access, treating it like a nano will work better and much faster.

key terms in his thread: direct access, dentistry, cloud, retention, sand bacteria, rock plugging, tap water

I understand why you advocate this for some but I don’t understand it here. He’s not asking about how to rid himself of anything. Just worried over a potential bacterial imbalance

*edit ok missed the mention of gha and cyano in main post. But pics show nothing worth reacting to.

@12gallonsofhex I’d say there’s not many good ways to know. But likely you won’t have to worry. You could do one of those test from Aquabiome I think the name is. That would at least give you data though at this point very little action plan from said data.

 

[brandon429]

I did the 180 upon seeing pics. fessed up to everything~

that's no imbalance, its lacking one single grazer X who nature would assign to control that light, light growth.

What is shown is a healty reef, productive, not in challenge<--that's why you don't need bacteria supplement.

a good old ripping wouldn't have hurt though... jon opens our thread with a 5$k reef getting ripped twice in one month, for scientific fun only. there was nothing wrong with it when he began.

this tank is in bell curve prime just light guide it and hand guide lightly.

 

[12gallonsofhex]

ok then, that tank is already a gem why'd you hint it was all ##$$^#&^%&#^% lol

wow

so on that note, nice job starting your concern when there is only .5% invader coverage and the rest of the reef looks perfect. Kat called it, just be removing that lightly/topically and give it time



no rip clean needed, and darn that. next round!!!


*bluing up your light and changing white balance down and sustaining that two weeks can make amazing changes to small challenges like that. I wouldnt dose bac or do anything other than hand guide it out, weekly maintenance, keep your reef as is until .5% coverage becomes something like I was envisioning 20 mins ago.

I have been sucking out the cyano daily. That is a days growth. It would look much worse if i didnt attend to it. I am looking to do something that would stop the daily cyano removal

 

[brandon429]

experiment away. you wont be stacking dead invaders on top of apparent waste/has room for work inside. really nice job on refusal so far. there's no telling what doser might rid that small degree of challenge. I didn't read if you used UV or not/not easy to plumb them in. people sure like smaller sized turbo twists that's for sure if the space was there, and those get a high degree of clearance on such small coverage invasions

bac strains not for cycling= maybe one of those w work

 

[12gallonsofhex]

I did the 180 upon seeing pics. fessed up to everything~

that's no imbalance, its lacking one single grazer X who nature would assign to control that light, light growth.

What is shown is a healty reef, productive, not in challenge<--that's why you don't need bacteria supplement.

a good old ripping wouldn't have hurt though... jon opens our thread with a 5$k reef getting ripped twice in one month, for scientific fun only. there was nothing wrong with it when he began.

this tank is in bell curve prime just light guide it and hand guide lightly.

I guess I may be overreacting. Just wanted to reduce my daily tasks to feeding and running the magfloat. It may just take more time. Thanks everybody

 

[12gallonsofhex]

experiment away. you wont be stacking dead invaders on top of apparent waste/has room for work inside. really nice job on refusal so far. there's no telling what doser might rid that small degree of challenge. I didn't read if you used UV or not/not easy to plumb them in. people sure like smaller sized turbo twists that's for sure.

I have one that I got used just in case. Have not run it yet because like everything else, there is no consensus between good reef keepers if they truly help. I guess it wouldnt hurt to try it

 

[brandon429]

I never see pre work like yours. we always get full-on jobs. complete takeover systems is the forum way, I wrongly assumed

*if you find a doser, a supplement that works when in low coverage like that pls let us know--there are large tankers out there who couldn't take apart the reef for cleaning even if they wanted to, they need patterns of water dosers that work.

 

[Katrina71]

Can you increase flow in the area giving you trouble?

 

[Katrina71]

Brandon knows his stuff. I just don't get tore up about uglies. It will eventually balance.

 

[brandon429]

I wanted his tank to be much worse than it is

not to harm his reef but bc deep dive surgery is just plain fun, dinos challenges are usually full mass pics.

he's guided a perfect reef.

I bet what eats that in nature is a six pound conch scooting across the sea floor