Dino ID + Treatment

[martin.a]

It is scary, thats a lot of phosphate being consumed. Interesting that it stopped eating nitrate but continues with phosphate.

Sump looks totally normal, I have some detritus build up, but no signs of algae or dinos. Not even on the live rock in one of the chambers. I'm sure this would be a different story if it was lit though.

Hang in there, we will see clean sand once again!

You have mentioned they are visual nuisance in your case. They were like this for me for over a week. (This is also why I assumed they were diatoms.)
Then, my sandbed started bubbling, which again I originally missed due to having very dirty glass (I was very busy, OK) and then it was boom, and it went from a 'visual nuisance' to dying snails practically overnight. Interestingly, my bright sump stayed clean all that time. I have live rock and good 7-9 kg of sand in the sump. Maybe a tiny bit of darkening at one spot on the sand. Nothing comparable to what has happened in the display.

I decided to follow Jonas suggestion and go with 3 days of blackout as I was away past 2 days, and going dark was the safer solution. UV on all the time. Today the tank looks almost pristine. Sand is white, rocks are much cleaner, GSP - my only coral stays closed, BTA looks rather upset but clearly alive, Decora goby seems less active, but got excited with food, snails are much better, peppermint shrimps and cope/amphi pods are more than fine. Today is the 3rd day of blackout. A new culture of diatoms is ready. Silica already dosed, Hanna silica checker should arrive today. Ready for tomorrow. The game is on.

 

[mcarroll]

[...]Mostly because I have it, as opposed to Neophos, but also a bit because Brightwell doesn't disclose what they put into Neophos.[...]

NeoPhos is fine for what it is, but it's VERY low concentration since it's intended for nutrient reduction in ULNS systems. Flourish Phosphate is better for a commercial product, but what you have is also pretty ideal.

It is scary, thats a lot of phosphate being consumed. Interesting that it stopped eating nitrate but continues with phosphate.

Makes me wonder about ammonia and other N sources besides NO3. Too bad there's no way to test a wider range of N than just ammonia OR just nitrite OR just nitrate. That's only three forms out of....potentially LOTS of other forms!

But if you can test ammonia and nitrite, I'd be slightly curious if anything showed up. (Might not due to all the dosing you've been doing....this would have been a better point for me to make about 20 posts ago. LOL)

 

[JonasRoman]

You have mentioned they are visual nuisance in your case. They were like this for me for over a week. (This is also why I assumed they were diatoms.)
Then, my sandbed started bubbling, which again I originally missed due to having very dirty glass (I was very busy, OK) and then it was boom, and it went from a 'visual nuisance' to dying snails practically overnight. Interestingly, my bright sump stayed clean all that time. I have live rock and good 7-9 kg of sand in the sump. Maybe a tiny bit of darkening at one spot on the sand. Nothing comparable to what has happened in the display.

I decided to follow Jonas suggestion and go with 3 days of blackout as I was away past 2 days, and going dark was the safer solution. UV on all the time. Today the tank looks almost pristine. Sand is white, rocks are much cleaner, GSP - my only coral stays closed, BTA looks rather upset but clearly alive, Decora goby seems less active, but got excited with food, snails are much better, peppermint shrimps and cope/amphi pods are more than fine. Today is the 3rd day of blackout. A new culture of diatoms is ready. Silica already dosed, Hanna silica checker should arrive today. Ready for tomorrow. The game is on.

Happy that it seems to work for you so far. Remember that UVC must be in displaytank and of proper size, because now, when the black out made dinos goes up in water column, the UV have to kill them. Maybe not focus so much in dosing living things like copepods until UV is tuned of, some of them maybe just will die? (but not a big deal) . After my black out 3 days I continued with UV another 3 days. After that I dosed some beneficial bacteria, copepods etc to restore the balance. But not so sure thats important (a lot of those creatures have probably survived), but doesnt hurt.

Will follow you:-)

Jonas

 

[martin.a]

Happy that it seems to work for you so far. Remember that UVC must be in displaytank and of proper size, because now, when the black out made dinos goes up in water column, the UV have to kill them. Maybe not focus so much in dosing living things like copepods until UV is tuned of, some of them maybe just will die? (but not a big deal) . After my black out 3 days I continued with UV another 3 days. After that I dosed some beneficial bacteria, copepods etc to restore the balance. But not so sure thats important (a lot of those creatures have probably survived), but doesnt hurt.

Will follow you:-)

Jonas

UV treats all return water, Pods have well established populations before the drama started, they do not seem affected too much. Especially amphipods got bolder, if anything.

We will see how effective the blackout was in my case. I am not surprised that those dinos 'got lost', as they normally 'disappear' for the nights.

 

[martin.a]

@Mas0n, I hope you are OK with all my posts in your thread. IHMO, its more convenient to keep all the info together.
I only wanted to report that my tank stopped consuming nitrates and phosphates on 3rd day of blackout. It's not that surprising: No photosynthesis, plus the turf algae growing on the back wall started dying off. Tomorrow lights back on. With nitrates at 11 ppm and phosphates at 0.12 ppm I expect an explosion of nuisance algal/cyano growth. I will also dose phytoplankton. Silica should now be at ~1.2ppm (Hanna failed to deliver the silica checker...)

 

[Mas0n]

@Mas0n, I hope you are OK with all my posts in your thread. IHMO, its more convenient to keep all the info together.
I only wanted to report that my tank stopped consuming nitrates and phosphates in 3rd day of blackout. It's not that surprising: No photosynthesis, plus the turf algae growing on the back wall started dying off. Tomorrow lights back on. With nitrates at 11 ppm and phosphates at 0.12 ppm I expect an explosion of nuisance algal/cyano growth. I will also dose phytoplankton. Silica should now be at ~1.2ppm (Hanna failed to deliver the silica checker...)

Absolutely! Threads like this are great, could be a valuable resource for others at some point.