Bonsai Cube Mixed Reef Build

thatsruff · Sep 13, 2020

Confirmed amphidinium dinos, everything is doing okay so far, corals aren't thrilled but no real adverse affects yet. Alk consumption has all but ceased.

I have been siphoning the sand almost every night, have increased the temp to 80, got nitrates into the 5-10 range using stump remover first then sodium nitrate, phosphates are at 0.1, added more pods, continuing to dose live phyto and coral food, ordered sodium silicate, a silicate test kit, 10 micron socks for the siphoned water, and more snails.

Cheato is still growing as is other algae - the rocks have gone from a smattering of light green to being covered in a dark green film algae and the glass is covered in green/brown film. I am letting all of that go without cleaning for now.

thatsruff · Sep 13, 2020

jk_s124 · Sep 15, 2020

thatsruff said:
Confirmed amphidinium dinos, everything is doing okay so far, corals aren't thrilled but no real adverse affects yet. Alk consumption has all but ceased.

I have been siphoning the sand almost every night, have increased the temp to 80, got nitrates into the 5-10 range using stump remover first then sodium nitrate, phosphates are at 0.1, added more pods, continuing to dose live phyto and coral food, ordered sodium silicate, a silicate test kit, 10 micron socks for the siphoned water, and more snails.

Cheato is still growing as is other algae - the rocks have gone from a smattering of light green to being covered in a dark green film algae and the glass is covered in green/brown film. I am letting all of that go without cleaning for now.

Sorry to hear about the Dino’s! I have been fortunate and have not needed to deal with them. Great microscope photos. Did you put your sample water on a slide with or without a slip cover? It doesn’t appear that you did, but did you add any dye?

Also, sounds like you know what your dealing with and how to deal with it, but what are your thoughts on using a UV filter for this situation? The BRS guys seem to really believe in there effectiveness to rid a tank of dinos.

thatsruff · Sep 16, 2020

jk_s124 said:
Sorry to hear about the Dino’s! I have been fortunate and have not needed to deal with them. Great microscope photos. Did you put your sample water on a slide with or without a slip cover? It doesn’t appear that you did, but did you add any dye?

Also, sounds like you know what your dealing with and how to deal with it, but what are your thoughts on using a UV filter for this situation? The BRS guys seem to really believe in there effectiveness to rid a tank of dinos.

No dye, just sample water on a slide with a slip-cover. I just held the phone over the eye-piece and for the closer ones I zoomed-in with the phone camera.

It is a bummer for sure, everything was going quite well, I just didn't react quickly enough to the zero nitrates even though they were only there for about a week.

The consensus when dealing with amphidinium seems to be that the UV has little to no effect as they are tough to get into the water column. So for now I am hoping that the silicates and other competition wins out. I definitely have film algae and cheato still growing which means they aren't taking over fully yet so that is good. It is tough to tell really how well it is going though, the corals are starting to be a bit more agitated, especially the newer ones. I am hoping I don't lose them but there isn't a ton of investment in the corals yet so it wouldn't be the biggest loss. If I don't see signs of improvement in the next few days I will probably shift them into the observation tank in the basement where my pink-streaked wrasse is still hanging out.

thatsruff · Sep 28, 2020

Well my fight with the dinos is going fairly well, they are still around but I have them mostly at bay. Increased nutrients, lots of pods, and silicate mostly took care of the amphidinium, I have added a uv as there are also ostreopsis in there.

I lost the newly added birdsnest and acro, and my other stony corals are struggling a bit, especially the monti. I attribute this at least partly to decreased calcium and perhaps especially low magnesium (1080 at one time). I was so focused on nutrient testing that I let those slide for a while. I was using all for reef to keep them up but as my alk was stable I hadn't needed to dose and didn't think about the other two. So alk was good while calcium and magnesium dropped. I have been bringing them up over the last few days, hopefully this helps.

After a month in observation I also added the pink streaked wrasse into the display, happy to have a swimmer in there.

jk_s124 · Oct 20, 2020

How everything going?

thatsruff · Oct 21, 2020

jk_s124 said:
How everything going?

Hi! I think things are turning a corner. Dinos are pretty much gone, can only see them under the microscope now. I lost the monti and the new hammer and it seems like the pavona is a goner as well.

The original hammer and acan were struggling a lot as well. I have had the parameters in line but it seems like the trouble was because I hadn't been doing water changes because of the dinos. They seem much happier after doing a sizeable water change this weekend.

I also replaced my light. The old one had a high pitched noise and lost a bulb. So I upgraded and bought a Kessil A360X. I just installed it yesterday.

powers2001 · Nov 16, 2020

thatsruff said:

@thatsruff have you seen the thread in the Lounge forum about cats? Check it out:

Any cat people?

So, I've got a mama cat that I think is getting ready to go into labor. She's a stray, but my wife & I have been feeding her for the past year and trying to tame her. She mostly lives outside, but we keep her inside when it gets really cold. Anyway, she's been meowing like crazy all morning so I...

www.reef2reef.com

jk_s124 · Nov 18, 2020

thatsruff said:
Hi! I think things are turning a corner. Dinos are pretty much gone, can only see them under the microscope now. I lost the monti and the new hammer and it seems like the pavona is a goner as well.

The original hammer and acan were struggling a lot as well. I have had the parameters in line but it seems like the trouble was because I hadn't been doing water changes because of the dinos. They seem much happier after doing a sizeable water change this weekend.

I also replaced my light. The old one had a high pitched noise and lost a bulb. So I upgraded and bought a Kessil A360X. I just installed it yesterday.

Missed this post sorry man! The alerts on this site are strange sometimes. Good to here things are going well. Nice light!