JK1’s 7ft mixed reef
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OP
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JK1
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So, the care package from my friend gave me my next set of issues! Although I dipped everything, the monti later broke out with nudis, the acros broke out in aefw and the zoas introduced aiptasia! 3 of my worst nightmares!
I’ve managed to beat the nudis and aefw with regular dipping and the introduction of a wrasse and a mandarin pair. The aiptasia are an ongoing battle but I think I’m winning.
amazingly, I managed to save the monti below. I nursed it back to health over a few months and gave it to a local friend who killed it in a few days I lost a lot of the acro but the few I saved are now beginning to thrive.
I’ve managed to beat the nudis and aefw with regular dipping and the introduction of a wrasse and a mandarin pair. The aiptasia are an ongoing battle but I think I’m winning.
amazingly, I managed to save the monti below. I nursed it back to health over a few months and gave it to a local friend who killed it in a few days I lost a lot of the acro but the few I saved are now beginning to thrive.
count krunk
Valuable Member
If you have three drains I highly recommend running a bean animal drain setup.
I have this on my 40 Breeder, so it's running 3x 1" drains. It is pretty quiet (an old LED unit fan is the loudest) and I KNOW I never need to worry about an overflow.
It starts up again without fail everytime.
Running the drains to bulkheads in the sump looks very clean and provides additional support for the drain lines.
I have this on my 40 Breeder, so it's running 3x 1" drains. It is pretty quiet (an old LED unit fan is the loudest) and I KNOW I never need to worry about an overflow.
It starts up again without fail everytime.
Running the drains to bulkheads in the sump looks very clean and provides additional support for the drain lines.
OP
OP
JK1
Community Member
Right, back to the Dino. I recall the first traces appearing late in May. I assumed they were diatoms appearing which would be normal after the cycle. As the Dino began to take over, I took a lot less pictures. Here’s one from mid July. I don’t think I identified them as Dino until mid August. At this point I was thinking cyano. I’d never had Dino before.
Poseidon's snail
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I also have cyanogen and what I think is Dino 
OP
OP
JK1
Community Member
Unfortunately I don’t, it’s quite a strange one. My weir is tiny and has just 2 holes drilled into the back. I’ve thought of many options such as building an external weir or filling the holes and using an external overflow. I think I’m going to try a simple fix first, I’m going to try some flex tubing instead of the rigid down pipes. I don’t get gurgling, the noise comes from the water falling down the pipe and crashing into a 90 degree elbow. There is no valve, it’s more like kitchen sink plumbing not tank plumbing! I had flex tube one my last build which had x-Aquas. I expect removing to elbow will make it quite enough without any major work needed. It’s a cheap fix so worth a shot.
OP
OP
JK1
Community Member
So, battling dinos. I was determined not to use Dino X due to mixed success and some horror stories. I’m also a firm believer of fixing to root over a solution in a bottle.
I began with the elegant coral regime. Unfortunately this didn’t work out so well, as I began vodka dosing my corals began sulking and I started losing crabs and shrimps. I started to research the reasoning for each step in the regime and immediately stopped the vodka dosing. I continued bubble scrubbing from an outdoor source and continued dosing colony and waste away. I also continued aggressive manual removal. So I began to question the vodka dosing and the peroxide. By this point I’d learned that algae growth was the end goal. Encourage as much competition for the dinos as possible to starve them out. The vodka is contradictory to this. Vodka is used to eliminate nutrients thus taking away food from the algae’s I’m trying to encourage, I’m also actively over feeding to raise nutrients so I’m not sure how the vodka helps here. Looking at the peroxide, I know that the main purpose of this is to kill algae, again, something I wanted to avoid so I decided to avoid it all together. I believe I found success with the following method.
bubble scrubbing from an outside source to raise oxygen and ph levels. I put an air stone under my return pump drawing air in from outside. I also run airline from my skimmer intake to an outside window.
Manual removal. It’s important not to water change as the fresh water provides new trace elements to feed the dinos. I began siphoning the Dino from my display into a 5 micron sock in my sump. It has to be as fine as 5 micron or the Dino simply pass through. This started being a couple of times a day! They reform quickly! This has to be relentless, don’t give it time to grow. After about a week I’d got it down to multiple patches as opposed to the entire tank. I kept going for weeks. I kept this up for over a month! manual removal included taking to top layer of sand off. This was the most annoying part as it meant I’d have to rinse the sand in RO before putting it back.
bacteria dosing. I was dosing colony and waste away daily. I have 1000l of system volume and was adding 40ml of each per day. It’s import to keep this going for a few weeks after the Dino are gone. I found this out the hard way. As soon as I stopped, the dinos came back and I was back to siphoning! Thankfully I jumped straight on it so got them in check much faster. I continued dosing for another 2-3 weeks after beating them this time and was happy with the new growth of macro algae’s.
encourage algae growth. Raise your nutrients and allow algae to out compete the Dino. I spent a lot of time chopping coralline with a blade and encouraging it’s spread around the tank. I had almost now due to the age of the system.
UV - now I haven’t used UV as my strain doesn’t enter the water column at night. If your dinos disappear at night then I would recommend UV as your best chance of victory but I would still follow all the steps above.
I don’t believe it’s necessary to pin point the exact strain of Dino in order to beat it. Simply identifying whether it stays put or enters the water column at night will suffice.
I’ve been Dino free for almost 2 months now and I’ve never enjoyed the site of algae quite so much.
I began with the elegant coral regime. Unfortunately this didn’t work out so well, as I began vodka dosing my corals began sulking and I started losing crabs and shrimps. I started to research the reasoning for each step in the regime and immediately stopped the vodka dosing. I continued bubble scrubbing from an outdoor source and continued dosing colony and waste away. I also continued aggressive manual removal. So I began to question the vodka dosing and the peroxide. By this point I’d learned that algae growth was the end goal. Encourage as much competition for the dinos as possible to starve them out. The vodka is contradictory to this. Vodka is used to eliminate nutrients thus taking away food from the algae’s I’m trying to encourage, I’m also actively over feeding to raise nutrients so I’m not sure how the vodka helps here. Looking at the peroxide, I know that the main purpose of this is to kill algae, again, something I wanted to avoid so I decided to avoid it all together. I believe I found success with the following method.
bubble scrubbing from an outside source to raise oxygen and ph levels. I put an air stone under my return pump drawing air in from outside. I also run airline from my skimmer intake to an outside window.
Manual removal. It’s important not to water change as the fresh water provides new trace elements to feed the dinos. I began siphoning the Dino from my display into a 5 micron sock in my sump. It has to be as fine as 5 micron or the Dino simply pass through. This started being a couple of times a day! They reform quickly! This has to be relentless, don’t give it time to grow. After about a week I’d got it down to multiple patches as opposed to the entire tank. I kept going for weeks. I kept this up for over a month! manual removal included taking to top layer of sand off. This was the most annoying part as it meant I’d have to rinse the sand in RO before putting it back.
bacteria dosing. I was dosing colony and waste away daily. I have 1000l of system volume and was adding 40ml of each per day. It’s import to keep this going for a few weeks after the Dino are gone. I found this out the hard way. As soon as I stopped, the dinos came back and I was back to siphoning! Thankfully I jumped straight on it so got them in check much faster. I continued dosing for another 2-3 weeks after beating them this time and was happy with the new growth of macro algae’s.
encourage algae growth. Raise your nutrients and allow algae to out compete the Dino. I spent a lot of time chopping coralline with a blade and encouraging it’s spread around the tank. I had almost now due to the age of the system.
UV - now I haven’t used UV as my strain doesn’t enter the water column at night. If your dinos disappear at night then I would recommend UV as your best chance of victory but I would still follow all the steps above.
I don’t believe it’s necessary to pin point the exact strain of Dino in order to beat it. Simply identifying whether it stays put or enters the water column at night will suffice.
I’ve been Dino free for almost 2 months now and I’ve never enjoyed the site of algae quite so much.
OP
OP
JK1
Community Member
I think that’s all the bad news and drama out of the way. On to the good stuff.
One of the many things I’ve learned about this hobby is that planning goes a long way.
move learned not to care what my scape looks like. Mountability and prevention of dead spots / flow are way more important. I’ve built beautiful scapes in the past and had to rebuild them as they were built to look pretty and not with coral placement in mind. I really feel like I’ve nailed this scape. Firstly, there is no rock touching glass. There is a 1 to 2 inch gap between the back of the tank and the scape. The vertical gyre in the back right corner provides plenty of flow through the rock work. The base of the scape is one huge plate. This was previously used as a floating scape. I have it propped at the back for minimal contact with the egg rate it sits on. There is also no sand under it. The sand went in after I scaped. There is effectively a huge cave under it for my fish to hide. I built the scape knowing what I indented to keep and where. Each rock is placed with purpose.
Every tank I’ve ever kept, has started with a concept sketch. In my childhood these were far fetched sketches leading me to keeping brackish sharks, clowns, anemone, seahorses and softies together in a 4ft tank. Somehow it was pretty successful. I’ve now progressed through modern technology and create a digital goal using photoshop and google images.
So this is my rough goal
So far I’ve not deviated much. I basically aim to group each species to minimise coral warfare and maximise useable space.
here’s a recent shot for comparison
one change I have made, is I’ve reduced the size of my facial garden in favour of gonis. I want movement through the tank and the left side was lacking.
I’m probably about 2/3’s of the way there in terms of stock. I still have a lot of very pricey items to add though. I’ve not started on my scoly collection yet I also have a few designer euphillia, sps and trachy on my list. My next focus will be the sps as I want everything to grow out from frags and be similar in size. I don’t want to be adding tiny frags amongst colonies.
I think that’s me up to speed. Thanks for reading.
One of the many things I’ve learned about this hobby is that planning goes a long way.
move learned not to care what my scape looks like. Mountability and prevention of dead spots / flow are way more important. I’ve built beautiful scapes in the past and had to rebuild them as they were built to look pretty and not with coral placement in mind. I really feel like I’ve nailed this scape. Firstly, there is no rock touching glass. There is a 1 to 2 inch gap between the back of the tank and the scape. The vertical gyre in the back right corner provides plenty of flow through the rock work. The base of the scape is one huge plate. This was previously used as a floating scape. I have it propped at the back for minimal contact with the egg rate it sits on. There is also no sand under it. The sand went in after I scaped. There is effectively a huge cave under it for my fish to hide. I built the scape knowing what I indented to keep and where. Each rock is placed with purpose.
Every tank I’ve ever kept, has started with a concept sketch. In my childhood these were far fetched sketches leading me to keeping brackish sharks, clowns, anemone, seahorses and softies together in a 4ft tank. Somehow it was pretty successful. I’ve now progressed through modern technology and create a digital goal using photoshop and google images.
So this is my rough goal
So far I’ve not deviated much. I basically aim to group each species to minimise coral warfare and maximise useable space.
here’s a recent shot for comparison
one change I have made, is I’ve reduced the size of my facial garden in favour of gonis. I want movement through the tank and the left side was lacking.
I’m probably about 2/3’s of the way there in terms of stock. I still have a lot of very pricey items to add though. I’ve not started on my scoly collection yet I also have a few designer euphillia, sps and trachy on my list. My next focus will be the sps as I want everything to grow out from frags and be similar in size. I don’t want to be adding tiny frags amongst colonies.
I think that’s me up to speed. Thanks for reading.
OP
OP
JK1
Community Member
Time for an update!
Christmas always slows down the progress but momentum is officially back.
No real dramas since my last update which is just the way I like it. My Kamoer doser has decided to boycot administering KH at random intervals meaning I've had a couple of minor KH swings but I'm all over this now. I'll monitor my levels very closely until I call in the backup. I'm going to get myself a Reef Factory KH Keeper along with all of the other bits and pieces they offer. Just need to stop throwing all my money at coral!
So, onto the good stuff. I recovered from the financial ruin that Santa kindly delivers me each year and resumed coral hoarding. I didn't get a huge amount for my money but I think I found my favourite acan of all time! It was sold to me under the alias of Kermit but I think Rasta would have been more fitting.
Yellow filter
Balanced lighting no filter
I also got a unique golden acan.
I added 2 more blatos which meant a little re-shuffle was needed in the blasto garden. I don't know what I'll do when I see another flavour available!
Finally, I added a stunning gold and blue thing. I can only imagine that in a year or so, it will grow into a tiny frag. It's kinda hard to make a frag of a frag look impressive so please take my word for it.
In trying to capture a legible image of the micro chalice, I discovered a setting on my Tameron lens that I never knew existed. I've only had the lens 5+ years! So, apparently, it has 2 difference zoom ranges and I was only using 1. The other range is epic for capturing close ups from a distance. In the excitement I got a little trigger happy and open fired until I was out of ammo (camera battery in this instance). I then had to reconsider my life choices when I was 2 hours into editing with no sign of the end in sight.
Acans
Blasos
Cat
Chalice
Goni
Christmas always slows down the progress but momentum is officially back.
No real dramas since my last update which is just the way I like it. My Kamoer doser has decided to boycot administering KH at random intervals meaning I've had a couple of minor KH swings but I'm all over this now. I'll monitor my levels very closely until I call in the backup. I'm going to get myself a Reef Factory KH Keeper along with all of the other bits and pieces they offer. Just need to stop throwing all my money at coral!
So, onto the good stuff. I recovered from the financial ruin that Santa kindly delivers me each year and resumed coral hoarding. I didn't get a huge amount for my money but I think I found my favourite acan of all time! It was sold to me under the alias of Kermit but I think Rasta would have been more fitting.
Yellow filter
Balanced lighting no filter
I also got a unique golden acan.
I added 2 more blatos which meant a little re-shuffle was needed in the blasto garden. I don't know what I'll do when I see another flavour available!
Finally, I added a stunning gold and blue thing. I can only imagine that in a year or so, it will grow into a tiny frag. It's kinda hard to make a frag of a frag look impressive so please take my word for it.
In trying to capture a legible image of the micro chalice, I discovered a setting on my Tameron lens that I never knew existed. I've only had the lens 5+ years! So, apparently, it has 2 difference zoom ranges and I was only using 1. The other range is epic for capturing close ups from a distance. In the excitement I got a little trigger happy and open fired until I was out of ammo (camera battery in this instance). I then had to reconsider my life choices when I was 2 hours into editing with no sign of the end in sight.
Acans
Blasos
Cat
Chalice
Goni
ShepherdReefer
5000 Club Member
Great looking tank. Thanks for sharing
Nice pics!
Sleeping Giant
Proud Canadian Reefer
Looks great, need to know how you keep the bubbles on your anemone
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