Battling hair algae; now dinos

NShirke

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I have hair algae problem; right off the bat, you can say Nitrate is high. In order to curb that, I'm dosing Vibrant twice per week in 1st through 3rd week, followed once per week. In 4th weeks, hair algae has started to diminish. However, I'm seeing dino's bloom. Has anyone had same issue using Vibrant? To be fair, after two weeks of treating vibrant, I introduced a few more bacteria strain.

In 3rd week, Prodibio reef digest and Dr tim's nitrifying bacteria + Vibrant; not used on same day. Spaced out 2 days apart. I'm due to add next vial of Prodibio, which is every 15 days but a bit hesitant now. I have not added Prodibio or Dr tim's nitrifying bacteria.

In 4th week(current week), I added one dose of Vibrant(Tuesday), followed by PNS bacteria strain, and yellow yesterday. PNS bacteria and yellow (120ml - 1ml*120G total water volume).

here are my water parameters
Ph - 9.45(well this is high, but I have to check if PinPoint probe needs recalibration)
Total water volume - 120G
Phosphate - 0.16ppm(Hanna ULR)
Alk - 9.3dkh (Hanna)
Ca - 450ppm (Salifert)
Nitrate - not tested yet
Use of Carbon/Skimmer/GFO - yes
Corals - Yes
LED - AI hydra 32 * 2
Schedule - AB+ modified.
Photo hour- 11hours
UV - No

I was thinking to introduce UV, but want to see if this can be treated by bacteria.

Any suggestion?
 
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Quietman

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I went that route at first too. Didn't really beat dinos until I started with UV and even then I had to go DinoX to completely eradicate (well, I'm sure they're still there but I don't see them at all anymore). They about destroyed my tank (that and the dinox I'm sure). All in build thread, but lost 4 fish and all but 2 original zoas.

Good luck. Maybe the treatments will work for you without UV. I'll never run a tank without UV again though. And a big enough one to handle both dinos and ich at the same flow rate.
 
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NShirke

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I went that route at first too. Didn't really beat dinos until I started with UV and even then I had to go DinoX to completely eradicate (well, I'm sure they're still there but I don't see them at all anymore). They about destroyed my tank (that and the dinox I'm sure). All in build thread, but lost 4 fish and all but 2 original zoas.

Good luck. Maybe the treatments will work for you without UV. I'll never run a tank without UV again though. And a big enough one to handle both dinos and ich at the same flow rate.
Just curious, which UV did you go with? I have Jebao 36W but not sure if the bulb has enough juice. Well, its rated for 2000G water; really cant trust that assessment.
 

Quietman

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I should add some advice I suppose...a couple things I found that I would do a bit differently.

Make sure the first time you treat is successful - I think the secondary outbreak killed more fish because the first one weakened them. I had thought I got rid of them, but when I dialed back down on UV flow - boom, there they were again.

Keep that UV flow high. I think Dino-X is good, but I didn't use it until the second time and again...everything was already weakened so it was devastating.

Keep the UV flow high for months afterwards (and like I said - I have 8x flow with sufficient UV dosage and don't plan on ever dropping it again). You need the high flow because dinos (at least the ostreopsis strain) reproduce like mad - double in twenty minutes. I walked away from a slide on my microscope with just a few on there - came back in an hour and the view window was full of them. Like some virus apocalypse movie - turns out it was - just in my tank.

Good news is....been gone for a months now. Had a GHA outbreak after all that but it's all coming back. Bought new fish, new corals - never did a reboot. Pretty proud of that. Looking back - if I wasn't going to buy UV - think I'd reboot early and save myself a lot trouble and expense.
 

Quietman

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Just curious, which UV did you go with? I have Jebao 36W but not sure if the bulb has enough juice. Well, its rated for 2000G water; really cant trust that assessment.
AquaUV - 15W - I have RSR 170 - ran about 350 gph through it (and still do).

Ratings depend on type of UV light, flow through, contact time etc. I'm suspicious of tank size except as a very rough estimate.

For disease (ich) - it takes a low flow and high exposure (75,000 - 130,000 uw/cm2 are the ranges I've seen for AquaUV and Pentair). Algae (including dinos) is much lower (30,000 uw/cm2) but the key there is high flow to over come the reproduction rate. After that it's just math and pump sizing (or adjustable speed).

I have a dc tunze pump - so if I ever see ich (or anything) I'll dial down my flow just a hair, but so far - nothing like that.

Mine.
1624640686637.png
 

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