Had Dinos, tried Dr Tim’s and now things are worse....

Did Dr Tims work for you to clear up your tank?

  • Yes, would greatly recommend

    Votes: 1 50.0%
  • No, situation unchanged

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • A little bit

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Gave me different problems

    Votes: 1 50.0%

  • Total voters
    2

Oceanis

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Hi all,

Long time reefer and big time user of Reef Aquarium Guide forums back in the day.
Once I started college my mom sold all my tanks and I’ve only now just gotten back into the hobby. Anyway, started my first tank since 2008 back in January and everything was going fine until I moved and had to leave the tank in the care of family for a couple months.

Fast forward when I finally get my tank back and at the new house, it’s covered in dinos and bubbly red cyano. Nutrients basically 000 so I get some fish over a few weeks and start feeding heavily, all the while constantly manually removing anything I see anywhere. It usually comes back the next day and it eventually got my beautiful Euphyllia (red/ brown stringy dinos that once I blew them off with a turkey baster would come back within an hour or two).

I didn’t want this to happen to the rest of my corals so I did some research and tried the full 2 week Dr Tim’s refresh and waste away program (did the 3 day total wrap blackout and everything).

Fast forward and I’m at the end of the treatment and the dinos and cyano are back (although not as much so far), but now I have green stringy looking stuff surrounding almost all of my corals - it looks like it almost exclusively grows on or around the base of my frags. If I had to describe it, it looks like hair algae but it hurting my corals and when I brush it off, it’s back within a day or two, yet even bigger than ever! I can’t keep brushing my corals or I could be the one who ends up killing them...

My polyps are all refusing to open and I fear I’m going to lose all of my corals if I don’t do something. This is getting really disheartening because I heard so many great things about Dr. Tims and I thought it would help, not make things worse. It almost makes me regret getting back in the hobby and wishing I just got another Fish Only tank.

Any advise greatly appreciated. I’ve got a Waterbox Peninsula 25, just got a tunze skimmer, and AI+ light. All nutrients in normal/ normal low levels.

32E6DD34-DB98-4320-9BF3-558374BC8CEE.jpeg 3365C43A-0110-40F6-8AFF-56040DF5E9D9.jpeg
 

Steve and his Animals

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I don't know much about Dr. Tim's, but it looks like you had success with it, however, the resulting nutrient "bomb" in the tank after the rest of the "algae" died off resulted in some green hair algae. Did you do a hefty water change after the treatments? That's usually the best place to start after doing something so drastic.
 
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Oceanis

Oceanis

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That’s the thing. I did a water change even though nutrient levels were already pretty low. N and P are now almost too low. What do I do to get rid of this stuff?
 

Reef.

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That’s the thing. I did a water change even though nutrient levels were already pretty low. N and P are now almost too low. What do I do to get rid of this stuff?

Very easy to do, I have just cleared dinos in 4 days.

Clean the tank, pumps etc, then remove the rock scrub in a bucket of tank water, also turkey bast the sand with the powerheads/ turn all the way up, this will get the dinos into the overflow where it can be removed with filter floss.

Do this for the first couple of days, a few times a day, (just once for the rock scrubbing per day) you’ll see the dinos near enough clear by day one, keep this up till you don’t see any at all, remember to clean the powerheads after each clean as the dinos will cover those and go back into the tank.

Feed heavy to help with low nutrients and add live phytoplankton daily too if you can get it.

The key is the rock scrubbing daily in tank water, and the sand blasting.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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This way is great, it’s safer for corals:


study the entire post, read updates, a mere five pages of read fixes your dinos. The last job ran has great work detail included
 
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brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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The dosers added have created a chemical soup


look how clean the four tanks are there, zero dosers

you can see how rocks are detailed differently than the sand
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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You need to create frags of the remaining sps tips and install them into a rip cleaned tank with lower light levels

this clean run allows you to spot feed the corals better vs withholding feed, Reef was right w need calories in there but in the clean condition not the soup/mixed doser condition
 

zuri

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Hi all,

Long time reefer and big time user of Reef Aquarium Guide forums back in the day.
Once I started college my mom sold all my tanks and I’ve only now just gotten back into the hobby. Anyway, started my first tank since 2008 back in January and everything was going fine until I moved and had to leave the tank in the care of family for a couple months.

Fast forward when I finally get my tank back and at the new house, it’s covered in dinos and bubbly red cyano. Nutrients basically 000 so I get some fish over a few weeks and start feeding heavily, all the while constantly manually removing anything I see anywhere. It usually comes back the next day and it eventually got my beautiful Euphyllia (red/ brown stringy dinos that once I blew them off with a turkey baster would come back within an hour or two).

I didn’t want this to happen to the rest of my corals so I did some research and tried the full 2 week Dr Tim’s refresh and waste away program (did the 3 day total wrap blackout and everything).

Fast forward and I’m at the end of the treatment and the dinos and cyano are back (although not as much so far), but now I have green stringy looking stuff surrounding almost all of my corals - it looks like it almost exclusively grows on or around the base of my frags. If I had to describe it, it looks like hair algae but it hurting my corals and when I brush it off, it’s back within a day or two, yet even bigger than ever! I can’t keep brushing my corals or I could be the one who ends up killing them...

My polyps are all refusing to open and I fear I’m going to lose all of my corals if I don’t do something. This is getting really disheartening because I heard so many great things about Dr. Tims and I thought it would help, not make things worse. It almost makes me regret getting back in the hobby and wishing I just got another Fish Only tank.

Any advise greatly appreciated. I’ve got a Waterbox Peninsula 25, just got a tunze skimmer, and AI+ light. All nutrients in normal/ normal low levels.

32E6DD34-DB98-4320-9BF3-558374BC8CEE.jpeg 3365C43A-0110-40F6-8AFF-56040DF5E9D9.jpeg
stop the phyto it feeds dinos, what are currently feeding putting into the tank? I would highly suggest using only frozen until it breaks. when you feed prepared foods flake, pellet etc. dinos are very good at pulling that from the water column better than algae. but frozen foods don't break down readily for dinos an will feed you're bacteria strains need them for those nitrates this is how we do
phtyo will also feed the dinos but will also clean the tank we don't want that. 3 days lights out when you need to really curb stomp it right in teeth if its getting ahead of you
above all don't be using any gfo's, chemi pures etc plus skimmers
 

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