- Joined
- Jan 16, 2019
- Messages
- 38
- Reaction score
- 29
Hello everyone, I'm having major frustration with a side tank (Biocube 32) that I setup 3 months ago in December. This is probably about the 5th tank I've setup and its giving me more problems than the first 4 combined. I originally first notice my new tank syndrome beginning with the diatoms as I started with dry rock to avoid any hitch hikers or parasites, however, after about 3 weeks and the persistent darkening of rocks, I began to get a bit worried and took to the web to find out what it could be. The moment I was informed of a possibility of dinoflagellates, especially in such a low nutrient environment, I immediately adjusted my light schedule, but wasn't aware that water changes accelerate their growth. However, about two days after turning the lights to the tank back on (I have no corals yet so nothing to worry about other than two clownfish and a coral beauty) the Dinos returned almost immediately. I don't have an exact picture but I'm almost 99% sure it was Dinos as it formed long brown strings with air bubbles attached to the ends and matched up with pictures from online and I will be testing this for sure tomorrow when my microscope arrives and I can ID them. I've stopped doing water changes for over a month, dosed peroxide, dosed chemiclean (as I was getting small patches of cyano in random spots), installed a UV Sterilizer, added new live rock, copepods, and phytoplankton to assist with biodiversity, installed a refugium with chaeto, AND done multiple 5 day blackouts, and THEY'RE STILL THERE. I believe they are also growing on my chaeto to which I've also reduced the lighting schedule on that as well. And what really frustrates me is that I can even see the rocks turning the golden brown in spots where no light even reaches... as in literally under a rock...? At this point I've spent quite enough trying to control these things and it all just seems like a waste of time and money. BTW my Nitrates are around 20 sometimes 30 yet phosphates are 0 no matter how much overfeeding I do. I'm gonna take only a few more steps to try and fix this before I bring this tank to an end as I have a VERY busy schedule. I've ordered higher quality live rock in a larger proportion and plan to mix it as a majority with my current "live" rock and hope theres no large ammonia spike, and add a gallon or two of mixed natural bacterially cultivated marine water from my local fish store and remove my filtration system (except for filter floss) to increase nutrients for competition. Deep down I'm hoping what I see is cyano and not Dinos but ill find out for sure tomorrow when I ID them. If anyone can please give me some sort of hope if you've been in a similar situation or have dealt with these before I would appreciate it. Here are some pictures of my rock AFTER reducing light schedule to under 3 hours a day: