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No, your not. Let's get that out of the way.
Reef tanks are a balance and sometimes it takes a bit to get it back in.
I have a hard time with this statement. Everyone says it nobody has proved it.
How is it a chemical can decipher what bacteria is good and which is bad to only kill the good?
I think.....
It's better to say they kill both equally. Maybe the bad bac are better at getting a foothold on real estate. I'm not 100% sure.
Coral love ammonium. Testing for nitrate is what's left over in the water column.
Bacteria eat phosphate, coral eat bacteria.
I try to keep the po4 above 0.05.
It runs @ about 0.1 +/- 0.03.
My nitrates, undetectable with my hanna. It's been this way since April when I stopped dosing nitrates. I started feeding heavy instead.
My recommendation;
Water change to get the chemical out and stop water changes. Dinos loves the new water so don't do them.
They also hate elevated no3/po4.
So then raise it up. Sodium nitrate and sodium phosphate cheaper than Neophos/neonitrate. You can mix it yourself with a cheap scale.
More fish would help. Or shut down your skimmer. Get that tank dirty.
Keep feeding heavy.
Let's get that microscope and figure out what you got.
Sounds like a plan.Thanks for the encouragement. I started skimming into a bucket and replacing manually with fresh water. I'll do a bigger WC tonight to try to get the skimmer under control and then stop WCs and turn the skimmer down so it only aerates.
Microscope turned out to be a bust. It's old and looks like a film coating is giving up on one of the pieces. I'm working on another option now and if that doesn't work I'll order one.
I'll pull out the RowaPhos I started recently and put carbon in the reactor instead.
I'll also get the QT tank up and running and get fish when I can.
I'll also figure out what I need to get to mix the sodium nitrate and phosphate. I assume I should target about 0.1 on phosphate, but how high for nitrate?
Is it worth trying the Dr Tim's dinos treatment or no?
I know not that long ago a lot of people used that stump remover. But it's a question of quality and what's in it. If you can pick up loudwolf trisodium phosphate or sodium phosphate. It's much more pure than the stump remover. They sell it on Amazon or I think you might be able to get it Direct.I did a 25% WC and got the skimmer under control. It's running 24/7 now but only high enough to skim what's left of the ChemiClean. Once that's done I'll lower it so it's not skimming, just aerating. Is it a good idea to shut it off for several hours every night?
I've also seen people mention raising the temp of the tank. Should I do that to 80-81? I can do that pretty easily.
I also deep cleaned both MP-10 wet sides in citric acid and flow in the tank is a lot higher. The sandbed is certainly staying clearer today. I also reduced the lighting duration by a few hours. It feels like I'm changing a lot, so hopefully it's not too much.
I picked up a 1200x microscope for $20 on facebook marketplace. I'm about to go read up on the ID thread to figure out how to get a good sample and what I'm looking for. Here's the first thing I found looking around:
I dosed enough Seachem Phosphorous (I had it around already) to raise the tank by 0.03. I'll start measuring daily and target 0.1. I'm going to get the Spectracide stump remover granules today and try to bring Nitrate up as well, targeting 10ppm over a week or so.
Is there anything else I should be doing in the near term other than not changing water and actively skimming?
I know not that long ago a lot of people used that stump remover. But it's a question of quality and what's in it. If you can pick up loudwolf trisodium phosphate or sodium phosphate. It's much more pure than the stump remover. They sell it on Amazon or I think you might be able to get it Direct.
@taricha is real good at identifying types of dinos.
I found getting them to go into the water colunm is best. Blackout 3 days helps. Dosing H2o2 at night will also help.
PO4 gets soaked up in the rocks/sand until it's in equilibrium with the water. If the water has less than, rocks will release, if the water has more than, the rock/sand soak up.I'm in day 2 of a blackout and Dr Tim's Dinos program. Turns out I got the freshwater version of Re-Fresh on accident and didn't realize it until I already dosed it, so that day was probably a wash. I got the marine version and started it today. I'll probably extend the blackout to 4 days with 3 days of the Re-Fresh.
I took a peek in the tank and things have improved slightly but not a whole lot yet.
Nitrates have been 16, 18, 16 the last 3 days with no additional dosing. Phosphates have been 0.13, 0.12, 0.13. Is it normal for them to stay so steady with no dosing? I was surprised by that. Maybe it's a sign the dinos are dying off, maybe it's because the lights aren't on, or maybe it's just wishful thinking. Any ideas?
Checking to see if you have any updates on your progress @BradVol?