Restart and nuke dinos

[KathCH]

Hi,

After long and careful consideration, I'm opting to restart my Elos 160. I have started 3 years ago with some life rock and dead rock mix in a small 100l tank without skimmer. Over the time it has grown to the 550l of today. My observations over this time were, that whatever measure, I always struggled with elevated nitrates and a imbalance between nitrates and phosphates. My conclusion is, that 4 system moves in 3 years as well as stored dirt in the rocks makes me struggle with an old tank. My corals have shown little growth and alkalinity consumption. They survive but won't thrive.
Now this summers heat wave and the existing condition has now after move number 4 led to a horrific dino outbreak. All of my sand and rocks, zoas, it is all covered. I feel like I have to pull the plug before I start loosing more than just a few zoas. To answer the question on paramters: Alk 7.7, NO3 25, PO4 0.03, Sal 35ppm. Salifert, Hannah etc. no ****** tests.
I have made mistakes in the past and had some bad luck now, so I decided to tear down my existing system and simply start from scratch using reef ceramics, new sand and starter bacteria of course.
Now my question: how do I make sure, that dinos won't be imported to the new set-up with frags etc? Do I dip them? Also I need to save 3 life rocks full of corals and anenomes, how do I prepare those the best? Same issue, I'm horrified to just reintroduce the dinos.
Would love to hear from people who have taken the same measure with success, trust me, I have read through R2R on the dino topic

 

[ilikefish69]

Hi,

After long and careful consideration, I'm opting to restart my Elos 160. I have started 3 years ago with some life rock and dead rock mix in a small 100l tank without skimmer. Over the time it has grown to the 550l of today. My observations over this time were, that whatever measure, I always struggled with elevated nitrates and a imbalance between nitrates and phosphates. My conclusion is, that 4 system moves in 3 years as well as stored dirt in the rocks makes me struggle with an old tank. My corals have shown little growth and alkalinity consumption. They survive but won't thrive.
Now this summers heat wave and the existing condition has now after move number 4 led to a horrific dino outbreak. All of my sand and rocks, zoas, it is all covered. I feel like I have to pull the plug before I start loosing more than just a few zoas. To answer the question on paramters: Alk 7.7, NO3 25, PO4 0.03, Sal 35ppm. Salifert, Hannah etc. no ****** tests.
I have made mistakes in the past and had some bad luck now, so I decided to tear down my existing system and simply start from scratch using reef ceramics, new sand and starter bacteria of course.
Now my question: how do I make sure, that dinos won't be imported to the new set-up with frags etc? Do I dip them? Also I need to save 3 life rocks full of corals and anenomes, how do I prepare those the best? Same issue, I'm horrified to just reintroduce the dinos.
Would love to hear from people who have taken the same measure with success, trust me, I have read through R2R on the dino topic

Your parameters don't sound unreasonable? What kind of flow do you have in your tank, and what kind of lighting?

Restarting just sounds like a major pain in the butt. I've seen systems where nitrates are at 25, but on purpose. Phosphates also not out of control.

Also do you have cats? My cats will go do their business and them immediately start playing in my refugium water. When I found this out, I had to completely encase my stand. The back of the stand is open for wires and such. Once the cats stopped dipping their paws in the water, stuff really started to improve.

If you're dead set on restarting, you'll get good advice. I would just hate to see you tear down and set back up if you don't really need to. Wait for others who are more intelligent of course.

 

[KathCH]

Your parameters don't sound unreasonable? What kind of flow do you have in your tank, and what kind of lighting?

Restarting just sounds like a major pain in the butt. I've seen systems where nitrates are at 25, but on purpose. Phosphates also not out of control.

Also do you have cats? My cats will go do their business and them immediately start playing in my refugium water. When I found this out, I had to completely encase my stand. The back of the stand is open for wires and such. Once the cats stopped dipping their paws in the water, stuff really started to improve.

If you're dead set on restarting, you'll get good advice. I would just hate to see you tear down and set back up if you don't really need to. Wait for others who are more intelligent of course.

Haha, I do have cats but my sump isn't accessible for them, neither the tank. So far, tearing it down was my onlz approach to not spend months and months improving I don't even know what exactly

 

[ocncheffy]

Did you ever try raising the temp to 82-83 (Fauna Marin recommends 84)? I Have a minor case of dinos currently and I can literally see them disappearing each day with the increase in temp. Easy fix if it works for you.