Dino's & Bleaching Oh My!

T-J

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So, as a 20+ year experienced reefer, I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around some issues I'm going through with my tank.

In the last week, I had a single colony of Monti Digi die overnight, and I have a Purple Bonzai that has lost some serious color. Everything else in the tank seems ok.
On top of the coral issues, I've got Dinos coming back. I'll post my parameters below, but for the life of me I don't know why this is happening.
The only change I've made is I've started to dose All For Reef. I can't think of a reason how dosing this could cause any of these issues. But, I could be wrong.
Parameters
Nitrate: 6.1
Phosphate: .06
Alk: 8.61
Calcium: 498 (closer to 420, since Trident is very inaccurate with this reading)
Magnesium: 1204
Salt: 35
Temp: 78
PH: 8.1-8.3
Lights have not changed since tank was established. Flow hasn't changed in about 6 months since installing MP40s.
 

attiland

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Apart from ca is higher end and mg is low I can’t see reason for dinos to popping up however if there was a sudden change in water it can trigger such a thing due to competition die off.
If corals are affected I would put activated carbon in and UV may help too but would be good to have a proper ID with microscope.
 
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T-J

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Apart from ca is higher end and mg is low I can’t see reason for dinos to popping up however if there was a sudden change in water it can trigger such a thing due to competition die off.
If corals are affected I would put activated carbon in and UV may help too but would be good to have a proper ID with microscope.
I run carbon and a large UV. Yesterday I added the Dr. Tim's time-release gel, as I've read that can help with a number of issues.
Again, calcium is actually around 420. The Trident test is inaccurate on calcium.
 

attiland

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I run carbon and a large UV. Yesterday I added the Dr. Tim's time-release gel, as I've read that can help with a number of issues.
Again, calcium is actually around 420. The Trident test is inaccurate on calcium.
Fingers crossed it will go soon then
 

Cory

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So, as a 20+ year experienced reefer, I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around some issues I'm going through with my tank.

In the last week, I had a single colony of Monti Digi die overnight, and I have a Purple Bonzai that has lost some serious color. Everything else in the tank seems ok.
On top of the coral issues, I've got Dinos coming back. I'll post my parameters below, but for the life of me I don't know why this is happening.
The only change I've made is I've started to dose All For Reef. I can't think of a reason how dosing this could cause any of these issues. But, I could be wrong.
Parameters
Nitrate: 6.1
Phosphate: .06
Alk: 8.61
Calcium: 498 (closer to 420, since Trident is very inaccurate with this reading)
Magnesium: 1204
Salt: 35
Temp: 78
PH: 8.1-8.3
Lights have not changed since tank was established. Flow hasn't changed in about 6 months since installing MP40s.
Have you checked you mp 40s for magnet rusting/swelling or other magnets? Also how old is your uv bulb?
 

dwest

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Dinos can cause the bleaching IME. I don’t use AFR but doesn’t it also do some carbon dosing? I’m wondering if carbon dosing caused a low PO4 situation long enough to allow dinos to take hold. Just a thought…
 

brandon429

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if this is a 40 cube you're missing out bigtime not running a rip clean and foregoing all this waiting and loss, the last 3 dinos tanks we ran are still fixed and we werent even expecting a one pass fix. 40 = rip clean it from our method logs before its all dead. it should have been option one at the start, before loss, on a tank that size...reefing peers are not aware of its power is why they don't start there. we are taught to handle all dinos invasions via chemistry testing and response, but nanos have a different way, a much much better way.

partial cleaning and partial water changes are opposite of full one pass cleaning, rip cleaning, which skip cycles your entire setup into looking brand new all at once. when its all set back up, the dinos were excluded out of the cleaned tank and only sparkling clean rocks and sand are put back, it looks wonderful btw.

you'd start the chemistry detailing as preventative efforts, not mass-removing efforts, that's the key realignment we do.

post a full tank shot and you can easily save this tank, we get custom details for each job from the pics and even if you want to wait longer, which I wouldn't, you can get core strategic control details for later on/ to save the very last coral if its waited that long
 
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T-J

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Have you checked you mp 40s for magnet rusting/swelling or other magnets? Also how old is your uv bulb?
MP40s are less than 6 months old. They were in tact when I cleaned last month.
UV is less than a year old.
 
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T-J

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Dinos can cause the bleaching IME. I don’t use AFR but doesn’t it also do some carbon dosing? I’m wondering if carbon dosing caused a low PO4 situation long enough to allow dinos to take hold. Just a thought…
If it does carbon dose I wasn’t aware of that. PO4 has dropped in the last month from .17 to .06.
 

attiland

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Dinos can cause the bleaching IME. I don’t use AFR but doesn’t it also do some carbon dosing? I’m wondering if carbon dosing caused a low PO4 situation long enough to allow dinos to take hold. Just a thought…
No carbon dosing in AFR
 

dwest

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No carbon dosing in AFR
I don’t use it, but calcium formate in AFR does a small amount of carbon dosing. It very likely is negligible and not the cause of dinos in the OP tank.

RHF mentions formate as a carbon source a couple of times in this thread and others
 
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