Himbo's Dragon Fantasy IM 40L AIO

[Jay Hemdal]

Just got back from a weekend camping trip and the tank is UUUUUGLY. Autofeeder dispensing pellets every 12 hours.

So many different algae variations and whatever else brown, green, and red. Sand is relatively clean, I believe thanks to the marginella snails and tiger conch stirring stuff up. All other snails (lightning dove, dwarf trochus, dwarf cerith, and ninja star astaea) and the small scarlet reef hermit crab in there better step up their game on the rockwork.

Following Firefly's unfortunate adventure, I noticed a white raised spot on the black cardinalfish's right eye. It kinda looks like a pimple and that eye seems to have gotten a bit cloudy... Came back today and she's not behaving like she used to: "hiccuping" at the bottom of the tank and not interested in any frozen food or reacting to any stimuli. She floated around back to the fire shrimp and then floated back out front. No other white spots on the fish. What could this be?

Nitrates: 0.8ppm
Phosphates: 0.04ppm
Salinity: 1.025

I no longer want to put anymore fish in this tank At least the invertebrates and algae are thriving.

Can you post a video of the cardinalfish? Not eating is really serious. It could be flukes.....

Edit - I see you already started a thread on this, I'll look at that.

Jay

 

[trophyhimbo]

Would be interested to see pics with the algae. I feel like it's tough to find 'progress pics' of tanks sometimes. Gotta know what to prepare myself for hahaha.

I can totally relate to the invert thing. It feels like my margaritas are constantly and quickly gobbling stuff up. The trochus will sit around for 4 hours then clean, then rest, then clean. They almost seem lazy compared to the margaritas hahaha.

Oh no!!!! Over to the fish disease forums. I'll keep my fingers crossed for the little guy.

Fish Disease thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/raised-white-dot-on-eye.985504/#post-11370111

I have a pretty old phone so this is as good as it gets! Hope it helps

Now that I'm looking at it after being away for a few days, perhaps what I was thinking was brown algae or long diatoms is maybe dinoflagellates? I've been manually trimming and pulling stuff out, but now there are a bunch of bubbles at the ends and middles of the brown string... Could dinoflagellates be the cause of this random black cardinalfish's issue?

I have my lights dialed back to 50% and am getting readable phosphates and nitrates. Haven't witnessed any invert death yet... Any advice or just be patient and hope the tank rides it out? I could just black out the entire thing for a few days because there are no corals in there?

Note to self for dino remediation: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/a-dinoflagellate-treatment-guide.841/

 

[trophyhimbo]

Definitely thinking have a pretty bad dinoflagellate outbreak on the top of my Marco rocks after watching/reading about more examples and pictures. I had been assuming it was just a lot of brown algae... Guessing it's because I only had one or two fish in 40g, was lightly feeding, doing weekly water changes, and Hydra LEDs were on full blast for 10 hrs/day. Microscope should arrive tomorrow to confirm and identify species.

Starting parameters: 0.04ppm phosphate and 0.8ppm nitrate (A couple weeks ago this was holding steady at 8ppm...).
Tank finished initial ammonia cycle about 5-6 weeks ago.

Plan of attack:

1. Manually trim the growth back as much as possible and blast rocks with turkey baster.
2. Fully cover tank in foil to black out for 72 hours and raise temperature to 82F over the course of 3 days.
3. Alternately dose Brightwell Microbacter7 and Dr. Tim's Eco-Balance probiotic bacteria during/after blackout (depends on shipping) to aid in biodiversity.
4. Copepods are currently all over my glass, but I can dose another bottle of Algae Barn Galaxy pods if recommended.
5. Dino X treatment if previous steps have not made a dent.
6. Purchase UV sterilizer and install if previous methods did not work.
7. I don't know... chuck live rock in there and see what happens??

Additional attack notes:

• No water changes and no removing filter balls or filter sock. I do not own a skimmer or UV.
• Eheim autofeeder dispensing pellets every 12 hours as if feeding 2 fish.
• Carbon is on hand to remove residual Dino X post-treatment if necessary.
• Current inhabitants: No corals or fish are present in the system. Invertebrates include snails, a hermit crab, a fire shrimp, and a tiger conch. Dragon's Breath macroalgae is in display.

Questions:

• Any additional plan recommendations or a change in operational order?
• Do you guys think I can/should be more aggressive since there are no corals or fish? Should I just go straight to Dino X?
• Should I throw in carbon during this process to remove any potential toxicity issues or will that only hurt trying to accumulate more nutrients?
• Assuming this resolves, do I just keep my temperature at 82F forever or is the hope that other organisms will have established to outcompete the dinos so they do not arise again at 78F?

 

[JoJosReef]

Definitely thinking have a pretty bad dinoflagellate outbreak on the top of my Marco rocks after watching/reading more and had been assuming it was just a lot of brown algae... Assuming it's because I only had one or two fish in 40g, was lightly feeding, and hydras were on full blast for 10 hrs/day.

Microscope arriving tomorrow to confirm and identify species. Starting parameters: 0.04ppm phosphate and 0.8ppm nitrate (A couple weeks ago this was holding steady at 8ppm...).

Plan of attack:

1. Manually trim the growth back as much as possible and blast rocks with turkey baster.
2. Fully cover tank in foil to black out for 72 hours and raise temperature to 82F over the course of 3 days.
3. Alternatively dose Brightwell Microbacter7 and Dr. Tim's Eco-Balance probiotic bacteria during/after blackout (depends on shipping) to aid in biodiversity.
4. Dino X treatment if previous steps have not made a dent.
5. Purchase UV sterilizer and install if previous methods did not work.
6. I don't know... chuck live rock in there and see what happens??

Additional attack notes:

• No water changes and no removing filter balls or filter sock. I do not own a skimmer or UV.
• Eheim autofeeder dispensing pellets every 12 hours as if feeding 2 fish.
• Carbon is on hand to remove residual Dino X post-treatment if necessary.
• Current inhabitants: No corals or fish are present in the system (sorry fishies). Invertebrates include snails, a hermit crab, a fire shrimp, and a tiger conch. Dragon's Breath macroalgae is in display.

Questions:

• Any additional plan recommendations or a change in operational order?
• Do you guys think I can/should be more aggressive since there are no corals or fish? Should I just go straight to Dino X?
• Should I throw in carbon during this process to remove any potential toxicity issues or will that only hurt trying to accumulate more nutrients?
• Assuming this resolves, do I just keep my temperature at 82F forever or is the hope that other organisms will have established to outcompete the dinos so they do not arise again at 78F?

Dinos are no fun, and no joking matter. Getting an ID is def step#1. If it is ostreopsis, then you are in luck, because UV will do the trick. Just run UV 24/7 for a week and they should disappear. Problem is that prorocentrum or worse, amphidinium species can replace them, and UV has lower and no effect on those, respectively.

I don't know anything about Dino-X, and blackouts work for getting the current population down but won't fix the problem, as they will just bounce back if there's no competition. A lot of people dose silicon to bring up the much preferable diatom population to compete against dinos. Then a conch will have a field day eating all of them.

My experience with winning the battle with dinos was to establish a *presumably* highly competitive environment for them, i.e. fill up that sterile space, aka dino real estate, with more desireable bugs. Depending on your tolerance for pest introduction, live rock/sand from the ocean did the trick super fast for me--haven't seen dinos since. Next best IMO would be live rock from an established tank and maybe some sand if their sand bed is clean. Can also try additives like fiji mud to get sand bed biodiversity, but you'll have to deal with the water clouding up and taking a long time to clear/settle--I think it still helps the sand bed, though. I tried dosing microbacter a lot and can't say if it ever did anything. The only visible direct effect I've seen is from adding live rock/sand.

 

[trophyhimbo]

Dinos are no fun, and no joking matter. Getting an ID is def step#1. If it is ostreopsis, then you are in luck, because UV will do the trick. Just run UV 24/7 for a week and they should disappear. Problem is that prorocentrum or worse, amphidinium species can replace them, and UV has lower and no effect on those, respectively.

I don't know anything about Dino-X, and blackouts work for getting the current population down but won't fix the problem, as they will just bounce back if there's no competition. A lot of people dose silicon to bring up the much preferable diatom population to compete against dinos. Then a conch will have a field day eating all of them.

My experience with winning the battle with dinos was to establish a *presumably* highly competitive environment for them, i.e. fill up that sterile space, aka dino real estate, with more desireable bugs. Depending on your tolerance for pest introduction, live rock/sand from the ocean did the trick super fast for me--haven't seen dinos since. Next best IMO would be live rock from an established tank and maybe some sand if their sand bed is clean. Can also try additives like fiji mud to get sand bed biodiversity, but you'll have to deal with the water clouding up and taking a long time to clear/settle--I think it still helps the sand bed, though. I tried dosing microbacter a lot and can't say if it ever did anything. The only visible direct effect I've seen is from adding live rock/sand.

That gif is surprisingly comforting haha Baymax is the best

I posted in the newbie forum and was told to not do anything. This will be a lot more difficult than I imagined with the black cardinalfish dying mysteriously yesterday... I will still ID what all this growth is though

I do want to establish a very diverse and competitive environment in the tank! Thought I could do it piecemeal and avoid live rock, but do you have any vendor recommendations? Or did you literally just go to the ocean, pick up some rocks, and throw them into your tank?

 

[JoJosReef]

That gif is surprisingly comforting haha Baymax is the best

I posted in the newbie forum and was told to not do anything. This will be a lot more difficult than I imagined with the black cardinalfish dying mysteriously yesterday... I will still ID what all this growth is though

I do want to establish a very diverse and competitive environment in the tank! Thought I could do it piecemeal and avoid live rock, but do you have any vendor recommendations? Or did you literally just go to the ocean, pick up some rocks, and throw them into your tank?

It can be a really tough fight. I'm about to throw in the towel in my non-chemical fight with bubble algae. It's an office tank and every Monday I come back to worse Valonia than before, so it is iteratively gaining the upper hand.

RE: do nothing, I would take second opinions on that. If you ID it to be dinos, and especially ostreopsis or prorocentrum, I think UV is a very good approach to knocking it down. For prorocentrum, I blow off the rocks and sand especially at night to kick it up into the water column--ostreo will do it themselves at night and get sucked into the UV. Problem with dinos is that they *allegedly* out-compete other bugs in zero nutrient environments, but they can also grow just fine with nutrients if they have the space for it. So doing nothing can also just let them take over. They don't just go away like diatoms.

Once the dinos are beaten down, the immediate next steps are turn off UV and any chemicals, and replace their territory with something else. Going to the ocean and picking up rocks/sand in the water can run into issues with legality. Cheapest option, though! I'd check before going to your beach--for instance, if I were to go to the tidepools here in Crystal Cove, CA, it would be illegal to take anything out of the water, shells, rocks, anything, without a valid Scientific Collecting Permit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Other vendors: Tampa Bay Saltwater, KP aquatics, Gulf Live Rock.. There's also Aquabiomics, which is an interesting pest-free-more-likely option: https://aquabiomics.com/product/live-reef-sand and https://aquabiomics.com/product/live-reef-rubble but they are out of stock a lot of the time. Might be worth giving them a call.

I've also thought in the past of using Florida Pets, but ended up with TBS:

Live Sand

Choose Golden color dolomite/silica based or White calcium/aragonite based Sand.

floridapets.com

A lot of people like IPSF, too, but I am not 100% fan of the idea of purposefully introducing bristleworms:

: : : : Indo-Pacific Sea Farms : : : :

Indo-Pacific Sea Farms produces captive-bred marine life for healthier reef aquariums: invertebrates, detritivores, live sand, snail grazers, amphipods, beneficial worms, macro algae, plankton, corals, coral food and beneficial bacteria.

www.ipsf.com

I will say that if you go with any of the above companies, I would sift sand before adding it to the tank. You can catch a few baddies before they get into the display that way. Ocean rocks also do a good job of seeding dry rocks so that they pick up more quickly with coraline.

 

[JoJosReef]

How about this guy? Doesn't he look like a dragon?

Griessingei Goby (Discordipinna Griessingeri) Shop Fishfor $130.00 - - large selection of WYSIWYG coral frags and colonies , quality inverts and beautiful fish for sale | Reef Exclusive

Griessingei Goby (Discordipinna Griessingeri) Shop Fishfor $130.00 - Online retailer of tropical corals, exotic marine fish, quality inverts and marine aquaculture. We are 20+ years in the industry. We use only best salt and additives on the market.

reefexclusive.top

 

[tbrown]

• They will need a tank size minimum of 10 gallons and should not be in a tank larger than a nano as they could get lost in larger tanks or being consumed by larger fish.

 

[trophyhimbo]

Shut off the lights for 3 days and covered the sides with foil while continuing a 2x/day feeding of pellets... tank looks very different! Long brown stringy things full of bubbles that were all over the rocks and glass seem to have receded and the tank is a lot more green. Diatoms are less numerous too. I am hoping this means some green algae has established itself enough to compete with whatever the brown stringy stuff was?

Microscope was a bit delayed and came in today. If I see the brown stringy, bubbly stuff resurface, I'll take a look under the scope.

However, now I am a bit perplexed because my nitrates and phosphates are now at zero point zero with continued feedings and zero water changes... I am going to up the feedings, throw some frozen mysis shrimp in there, keep the lights off for now, and see what happens.

All inverts are alive and accounted for! This makes me happy

 

[trophyhimbo]

How about this guy? Doesn't he look like a dragon?

Griessingei Goby (Discordipinna Griessingeri) Shop Fishfor $130.00 - - large selection of WYSIWYG coral frags and colonies , quality inverts and beautiful fish for sale | Reef Exclusive

Griessingei Goby (Discordipinna Griessingeri) Shop Fishfor $130.00 - Online retailer of tropical corals, exotic marine fish, quality inverts and marine aquaculture. We are 20+ years in the industry. We use only best salt and additives on the market.

reefexclusive.top

Hold up that thing is incredible looking! Consider my interest piqued... Research time!

I have at least a month before I can put anything new in there. Hopefully by that time I can figure out what happened to that black cardinalfish and make sure it doesn't happen to the next fish.

• They will need a tank size minimum of 10 gallons and should not be in a tank larger than a nano as they could get lost in larger tanks or being consumed by larger fish.

Is the 40L considered a nano? The largest fish I am looking to put in here should only get to about 4 inches.

 

[tbrown]

Is the 40L considered a nano? The largest fish I am looking to put in here should only get to about 4 inches.

Probably.

 

[JoJosReef]

Hold up that thing is incredible looking! Consider my interest piqued... Research time!

I have at least a month before I can put anything new in there. Hopefully by that time I can figure out what happened to that black cardinalfish and make sure it doesn't happen to the next fish.


Is the 40L considered a nano? The largest fish I am looking to put in here should only get to about 4 inches.

Yeah, pretty cool. Also called the flaming prawn goby or flame goby. Love the way it hops around across the sand. I think it would be fine in your tank--nothing too big that would eat it. Also really unique! I might think twice though if planning to get an arrow crab or a coral banded shrimp.

 

[trophyhimbo]

It can be a really tough fight. I'm about to throw in the towel in my non-chemical fight with bubble algae. It's an office tank and every Monday I come back to worse Valonia than before, so it is iteratively gaining the upper hand.

RE: do nothing, I would take second opinions on that. If you ID it to be dinos, and especially ostreopsis or prorocentrum, I think UV is a very good approach to knocking it down. For prorocentrum, I blow off the rocks and sand especially at night to kick it up into the water column--ostreo will do it themselves at night and get sucked into the UV. Problem with dinos is that they *allegedly* out-compete other bugs in zero nutrient environments, but they can also grow just fine with nutrients if they have the space for it. So doing nothing can also just let them take over. They don't just go away like diatoms.

Once the dinos are beaten down, the immediate next steps are turn off UV and any chemicals, and replace their territory with something else. Going to the ocean and picking up rocks/sand in the water can run into issues with legality. Cheapest option, though! I'd check before going to your beach--for instance, if I were to go to the tidepools here in Crystal Cove, CA, it would be illegal to take anything out of the water, shells, rocks, anything, without a valid Scientific Collecting Permit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Other vendors: Tampa Bay Saltwater, KP aquatics, Gulf Live Rock.. There's also Aquabiomics, which is an interesting pest-free-more-likely option: https://aquabiomics.com/product/live-reef-sand and https://aquabiomics.com/product/live-reef-rubble but they are out of stock a lot of the time. Might be worth giving them a call.

I've also thought in the past of using Florida Pets, but ended up with TBS:

Live Sand

Choose Golden color dolomite/silica based or White calcium/aragonite based Sand.

floridapets.com

A lot of people like IPSF, too, but I am not 100% fan of the idea of purposefully introducing bristleworms:

: : : : Indo-Pacific Sea Farms : : : :

Indo-Pacific Sea Farms produces captive-bred marine life for healthier reef aquariums: invertebrates, detritivores, live sand, snail grazers, amphipods, beneficial worms, macro algae, plankton, corals, coral food and beneficial bacteria.

www.ipsf.com

I will say that if you go with any of the above companies, I would sift sand before adding it to the tank. You can catch a few baddies before they get into the display that way. Ocean rocks also do a good job of seeding dry rocks so that they pick up more quickly with coraline.

The Aquabiomics products look interesting but seems they are not readily available... Thoughts on this TSA product to increase biodiversity without introducing live rock?

https://topshelfaquatics.com/product/maxspect-nano-tech-pre-seeded-biospheres/

Description:
Jump start and speed cycle your marine aquarium with our pre-seeded bio spheres. Each item is matured in one of our long-standing cryptic raceways containing a diverse blend of natural live rock for a minimum of two months to supply you with an excellent base of various bacteria for nitrification and denitrification. As an added benefit, these will contain beneficial microfauna. Nano-Tech BioSpheres are a durable dense arrangement of smaller spheres creating an ultra-high surface area. Each Sphere has a surface area of 580 square feet and can stabilize 17 gallons. 10 Spheres is roughly equivalent to 20+ pounds of Live Rock. This is a must with today’s man made and base rock that are primarily used to start reef aquariums. Wild Reef Pre-Seeded Bio Media must be put in aquarium water upon arrival to maintain its live benefits.

edit: made separate post about it in general forum - https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tsa-maxspect-nano-tech-pre-seeded-biospheres.986257/#post-11386595

 

[trophyhimbo]

Any idea what these red spots are on my rock? I can't blow it off with a turkey baster and it's popping up a lot at the bottom of the tank where there's less green stuff. Now that the brown stuff is gone I can actually take some good pictures!

I'm thinking there are no measurable phosphates or nitrates because the green stuff is removing them from the water column... but I am legit afraid to stop auto-feeding as much in case the brown stringy stuff comes back... but I also want less green stuff... and I also want my lights back on Gotta keep trying to find that balance I guess!

 

[tbrown]

Any idea what these red spots are on my rock? I can't blow it off with a turkey baster and it's popping up a lot at the bottom of the tank where there's less green stuff. Now that the brown stuff is gone I can actually take some good pictures!

I'm thinking there are no measurable phosphates or nitrates because the green stuff is removing them from the water column... but I am legit afraid to stop auto-feeding as much in case the brown stringy stuff comes back... but I also want less green stuff... and I also want my lights back on Gotta keep trying to find that balance I guess!

Red stuff - hard, soft?

 

[trophyhimbo]

Red stuff - hard, soft?

Difficult to tell... I tried poking it with my finger but it may have been too small to sense and just felt like part of the rock. I tried poking at it with some metal tweezers but it didn't budge. I also tried blasting it off with a turkey baster but it didn't move. However, the green stuff around it also didn't move with the turkey baster either

 

[tbrown]

Difficult to tell... I tried poking it with my finger but it may have been too small to sense and just felt like part of the rock. I tried poking at it with some metal tweezers but it didn't budge. I also tried blasting it off with a turkey baster but it didn't move. However, the green stuff around it also didn't move with the turkey baster either

The green stuff will mostly disappear in blue lights. It will still be there but it won't be visible as much under the blues.

 

[JoJosReef]

The Aquabiomics products look interesting but seems they are not readily available... Thoughts on this TSA product to increase biodiversity without introducing live rock?

https://topshelfaquatics.com/product/maxspect-nano-tech-pre-seeded-biospheres/

Description:
Jump start and speed cycle your marine aquarium with our pre-seeded bio spheres. Each item is matured in one of our long-standing cryptic raceways containing a diverse blend of natural live rock for a minimum of two months to supply you with an excellent base of various bacteria for nitrification and denitrification. As an added benefit, these will contain beneficial microfauna. Nano-Tech BioSpheres are a durable dense arrangement of smaller spheres creating an ultra-high surface area. Each Sphere has a surface area of 580 square feet and can stabilize 17 gallons. 10 Spheres is roughly equivalent to 20+ pounds of Live Rock. This is a must with today’s man made and base rock that are primarily used to start reef aquariums. Wild Reef Pre-Seeded Bio Media must be put in aquarium water upon arrival to maintain its live benefits.

This seems like pre-seeded matrix, like Seachem Matrix that's been in an established system for a while. As someone said in your thread, quite a high price for it. Have you tried calling the Aquabiomics people? Good sand and rubble is hard to beat.

 

[tbrown]

White light spectrum has more spectrum than what corals can use. The more white you have the more algae will readily grow. Now that you have algae growing though, consider adding a Starry Blenny or (if you don't want SPS) go with a Black Sailfin Blenny. Either should be great with your Dragon Theme. The Starry gets bigger though I think. A Hector's Goby or Court Jester is another good option that stays smaller but may not fit with your desired theme as readily.

 

[trophyhimbo]

This seems like pre-seeded matrix, like Seachem Matrix that's been in an established system for a while. As someone said in your thread, quite a high price for it. Have you tried calling the Aquabiomics people? Good sand and rubble is hard to beat.

I would LOVE to use that Aquabiomics product. I shot them an email since they do not have a phone number listed. Hoping to hear back about an estimated restocking window!