Need Help: Fighting what I believe are Dinos

[zapa]

Hey Everyone,

Could use a little help. I have a 5 year old Red Sea Max Nano, that was doing well up until a couple months ago when I got a little busy and stopped testing and doing water changes. I believe I allowed the nutrients in the system to crash and it seemed like out of no where I had an explosion over night of this brown stringy algae/Dino. I have lost a fair amount of coral and inverts in the last 2 months trying to battle it.

When I first noted it, I decided to test found the following parameters Dkh 10.5 Cal 400 Phos 0ppb Nirtate 0
I started by trying to raise the nutrients to try and allow other algae to out compete the presumed dino. I have been able to get my phos to .07ppm, but even dosing nitrate I cant get it up. Dosing 7ml of Neonitrate and 24 hours later still at 0ppm.


I have tried all the following 1. constantly blowing off the rocks with a turkey baster 2. Re-added copapods 3. Dosing phytoplankton 3. Multi day Blackouts 4. Started dosing micobacter clean 5. Added New live rock from a healthy tank 6. Yesterday did a first dose of Dino-X

I have included a picture of the tank. It is taken through an orange lens to help with the blues.

I'd appreciate any help.

 

[KrisReef]

Bump. I don't fight dino's since Chuck kicked them out once and for all.

 

[brandon429]

May I have that job (remotely) please.

I wrote two different threads detailing fixing that. Want

Degree of confidence, upper nineties. Who's getting better odds is the real question

 

[brandon429]

All I need is this.

You agree to rip clean better than any man has ever done in his best dreams before

Then after the rip clean we reduce your lighting power it's too much for that selection and the first thing we'll fix, from the clean condition

At no time will species ID or any test parameter we could be guessing at factor. You rip clean it then you do three or four basic things in prevention.

Another thing we do is target feed your corals, from the clean condition.

And in a month new growth is on their edges


Results? Tomorrow if you're ready to rock.

 

[brandon429]

There's only one thing that can beat us.

Failure to select an option with 260 results already on file


1/260

1 Day later when ripped clean it will look like

 

[brandon429]

Its simple. You take it apart

Rinse the sandbed the way we do

Fix the rocks the way we do, not the way anyone else does.

Put it back using skip cycle biology. We won't test for anything other than temp and salinity of your new water. Skip cycling is easy

The before and after 24 hours apart and the tank turning out exactly as written ahead of time is the part we make articles off of

I have about four large work threads I'd link this to.

what we're building right here is a work thread. It'll go as predicted if you run the order of ops

 

[CHSUB]

started by trying to raise the nutrients to try and allow other algae to out compete the presumed dino

Unfortunately you did the exact opposite of a successful elimination of nuisance algae, this only works for George Costanza or in the Matrix.

 

[CHSUB]

All I need is this.

You agree to rip clean better than any man has ever done in his best dreams before

Then after the rip clean we reduce your lighting power (disagree here) it's too much for that selection and the first thing we'll fix, from the clean condition

At no time will species ID or any test parameter we could be guessing at factor. You rip clean it then you do three or four basic things in prevention.

Another thing we do is target feed your corals, from the clean condition.

And in a month new growth is on their edges


Results? Tomorrow if you're ready to rock.

Notwithstanding the difficulty understanding the delivery, this is excellent advice!

 

[brandon429]

That's what insulates me from ever getting accused of lifting from gpt

Asked to audit my findings gpt says what alien arranged this

The best part is the beauty of prediction playing out on file. It's true if you scrape every area of rock with precision using a detailing knife and you rinse the detailed areas with directed controlled peroxide, while sitting on the counter outside the reef, this is real reef dentistry that's a big tooth we worked on above.

We rinse off the scraped areas, brushes aren't used here those pestle bits of algae and smash them into the rock. A knife tip digs in then out to pull away and dislodge tendrils and holdfast with steel and scrapes away adherents that plug up rock pores and prevent expression of waste and floc

Unrestricted clean live rock expresses small bits of waste constantly into the tank. This kind above is plugged, withholding, and of lesser surface area than ripped clean rock seen above. Nitrification rates increase on these jobs because blanket covering reduces surface area presentation to waste water. We restored that surface area interface for sure.


Its detailed macro rock dentistry


The peroxide applied to the scraped clean areas instead of patches of rough growth is among the ways doing opposite of the masses gets those results by Monday at worst. Not in eight months with hope... when you have the new water made up we can go. It's a knife, some peroxide, plenty extra saltwater ready heated and salted, some totes to hold fish.


For example
That caulastrea is really a worthy nice specimen. You set it on the counter and using a scalpel ordered off zon, reach in there carefully and scrape every tubular stalk free of adherents as it sits on your counter in the air

Go right up to the tissue line/gumline/ you can scrape the calice sides carefully to dislodge these plaques. Rinse off with directed peroxide

And this whole time you never touched the polyps. Rinse it all finally in saltwater and set aside for reinstall

You'll take the tank apart and razor blade clean all walls then dry the tank and ensure no haze anywhere. New tubing where applicable. We assemble the cleanest system ever seen, no Prime used and no bottle bac and no ammonia testing.




The candy coral opens better when the whole tank has its chemically irritating cells immediately gone. Those heads will begin dividing in a year if you feed them like we do.

We clear your system then force run clean protein through the water it induces coral hypertrophy.

 

[brandon429]

As you uncover areas of quality coralline growth, don't scrape those. Work around


We don't dip rocks that exposes nontargets to the treatment. By working on the counter we never did anything bad to the good parts of the rock, so those areas can become - selected for-

We're becoming the grazer you wish you could always get.

You can use rip cleans to cheat your reef into 20 years of forced compliance excellent behavior. When you get the balance right you won't need surgery.

 

[zapa]

so everyone thinks I just need to do a hard reset and basically drain tank clean everything and start fresh?

 

[CHSUB]

so everyone thinks I just need to do a hard reset and basically drain tank clean everything and start fresh?

No! Clean the rocks with a toothbrush, turkey basting and large WC that includes vacuuming the sand. Use a canister filter to vacuum the sand and remove detritus if available. If you can remove rock clean them outside the aquarium with tank water to remove all the algae and crud. Clean all the glass and equipment of algae, but don’t start over….this is just a vigorous cleaning. I personally don’t remove the rocks because they’re glued but I scrub hard. Continue weekly, reduce feeding fish to only the amount they consume in a few seconds. Get nutrients low and when very low slowly increase feeding to fish and directly feed corals. I’m 1 year in on my most recent tank, this is what I do…now no algae and only corals growing on top of each other!

 

[brandon429]

Everything C just told you to do is dangerous for your setup. I recommend you choose carefully which method to apply, these are opposing methods for a reason.


Handling that sandbed with your tank stocked and running can harm your tank. Here's one of many times it's occurred.


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cloudy-water-dead-fish.1060132/

#1 kill cause of eutrophic tank fix attempts: cleaning a packed sandbed in the tank opposite of how I said to clean it

Wherever there's hazy after pics, danger of loss occurred and someone got lucky



Taking to the tank apart to clean it isn't a hard reset

that implies there's something bad we're doing in the pic provided. Removing pent up waste isn't a hard reset. it is helping your tank vs harming it.

since you own a nano, taking it apart and cleaning it is easy

if it was a reset we would be recycling the tank, but we covered skip cycling in detail above.


We don't use brushes because that puts suspended bits of plant into the half cleaned tank and ruins the after pic.

see how taking the tank apart makes the after pics good and bright and not hazy

A_Poythress had a sick rip clean. Notice how laser clear the after pics are. That's from not using a brush anywhere in the job and from taking the nano apart to clean it vs a sandbed siphon.

Additionally, in your case failing to disassemble and clean the tank will leave millions of target cells still in the sandbed for regrowth.

 

[brandon429]

Zapa

In yesterday's post it was covered in detail how to run a rock cleaning.

Take one rock from your stack this morning, not the whole scape but one easy rock, and run that method. Set it back all fixed nestled in right where it was prior and post that contrast pic lemme see how well the paragraph about rock dentistry above worked.
It should stand out well among the not cleaned rocks


A simple chunk test rock let's see it/ curious to see how well you can detail it. Don't pick a rock from the bottom scape to dislodge sand, right off the top is good. It will take five minutes start to finish.

 

[CHSUB]

I wouldn’t and have not completely removed the sand. Vacuuming the top layer is very effective in removing detritus. I do it weekly and replace some occasionally when I have removed too much. Regardless, we are both suggestions a vigorous cleaning and following exactly B’s method is fine. Using or not using a brush is not going to be a “make it or break it” decision….

 

[zapa]

Thank you all for the input,

I have multiple times pulled out rocks and brushed them clean (no hydrogen peroxide used) as well as have vacuumed the sand bed multiple times throughout this process running it through a filter sock then reusing the water.

I have also gone into the all in one sump and cleaned the back and siphoned out the detritus in the back (there was more than I am happy to admit) as well as cleaned the sponge on the filter return and rinsed out some of the media in fresh mixed salt water I had in the back

None of this has worked.

But I cleaned a fair amount of the tank again and removed one of the rocks to clean. Will keep the lights out today and send a new photo tomorrow

I am thinking maybe this is time to start a slightly larger tank from fresh. maybe the nano 33gal

 

[CHSUB]

Thank you all for the input,

I have multiple times pulled out rocks and brushed them clean (no hydrogen peroxide used) as well as have vacuumed the sand bed multiple times throughout this process running it through a filter sock then reusing the water.

I have also gone into the all in one sump and cleaned the back and siphoned out the detritus in the back (there was more than I am happy to admit) as well as cleaned the sponge on the filter return and rinsed out some of the media in fresh mixed salt water I had in the back

None of this has worked.

I am thinking maybe this is time to start a slightly larger tank from fresh. maybe the nano 33gal

That is the tank I have now RS xl g2 33 gal, but regardless you must learn how better to deal with nuisance algae imo. I use the same principles in all my tanks regardless of size or inhabitants, fresh or salt, big or small…GL!

 

[zapa]

Okay here is what we look like 24 hours later after pulling two rocks out.

 

[Kershaw]

Okay here is what we look like 24 hours later after pulling two rocks out.

I tried pulling rocks with no luck. Here is a thread I just went through dino that killed most of my coral. As of right now I have no signs of dinos and coralline is started to show up.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lps-dying-need-advice.1101703/

 

[CHSUB]

I owned restaurants before I retired, when I told my team to clean the restaurant I expected it to be clean. However, I needed to show them my expectations of what clean was. Your picture is not clean, tank is covered in filth. Cleaning two rocks is worthless, you need to spend a day scrubbing, removing algae, WC, and continuing doing it weekly.