Sdoutreefer's Cube Build - Red Sea Reefer 200 G2+

[2Plus2]

Im jealous you can host coral lol.

My rock sitting for 15 years in my garage didnt help, Im fighting dinos and winning now, my rocks and sand are clean white now, but the culprit was no nutrients.

Im fighting an extremely high level of phosphates do to the rocks leaching, once at 2ppm, now currently 1.2ppm.

Is your rock leaning up against the glass on the left side?, your tank is coming along nicely and those zoas are <3, my fav coral.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

Im jealous you can host coral lol.

My rock sitting for 15 years in my garage didnt help, Im fighting dinos and winning now, my rocks and sand are clean white now, but the culprit was no nutrients.

Im fighting an extremely high level of phosphates do to the rocks leaching, once at 2ppm, now currently 1.2ppm.

Is your rock leaning up against the glass on the left side?, your tank is coming along nicely and those zoas are <3, my fav coral.

75% of my rock sat in my garage for at least 12-13 years (maybe longer). I was worried I'd have some nasty algae, which I did, but removing all spectrum from my lighting seemed to get the algae in a manageable spot for my CUC. Do you have a positive ID that it is Dyno?

The rock is not leading up against the glass. It does look like it, but there's room between rock and the panels. I might actually trim some rock out of my scape. It's too full and I want more swimming room.

I love those Zoas as well. Super cool. I've never seen any like that in person before. And both frags for $75 felt like a good deal! Those specific frags are doing super well and sprouting new heads.

Stay tuned for an update in the next couple days; it's been a while since posting

 

[2Plus2]

75% of my rock sat in my garage for at least 12-13 years (maybe longer). I was worried I'd have some nasty algae, which I did, but removing all spectrum from my lighting seemed to get the algae in a manageable spot for my CUC. Do you have a positive ID that it is Dyno?

The rock is not leading up against the glass. It does look like it, but there's room between rock and the panels. I might actually trim some rock out of my scape. It's too full and I want more swimming room.

I love those Zoas as well. Super cool. I've never seen any like that in person before. And both frags for $75 felt like a good deal! Those specific frags are doing super well and sprouting new heads.

Stay tuned for an update in the next couple days; it's been a while since posting

Yea the dinoflagellates came from very little diversity in bacteria, along with no nutrients.
I made a terrible mistake once my tank was done cycling, I thought it was a good idea to introduce chaeto because of my extremely high nitrates.

The chaeto took off without looking back, doubling in size weekly, then I noticed it not growing anymore and that's when I saw the brown slime slowly building up, I was too late in reversing what was already started.

Luckily I had the easy ones to fight only appeared on the sand and a little on the rocks but every night would disappear due to no light.

I won by lowering light % to 10%, and adding bacteria on a weekly basis:
Using Bacto Therapy once a week along with leaving Bacto Balls seemed to have cleared it all up for me.

I was able to knock down my phosphates with Phosphate RX, I tried using Phosphate-E but it was completely useless, nothing happened using that.

Tested my phosphates today and theyre sitting at .73 which is great since I havent dosed Phosphate RX in a few days. When I first dosed it dropped then up within 2 days, it seems to be holding now which means the rock is almost done leaching.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

It’s been a minute since I gave an update, so here we go!!

Everything was going super well in the system. Coral was growing, fish were happy. Alk, cal, mag all stable. Then I started to get some cyano on my sand. I fought them for a while and they just wouldn’t go away. So, I pulled out the chemi-clean and voila! No more cyano.

A couple weeks went by, thinking I was in the clear, and one day my sand started getting diatoms. I kind of just let the diatoms do its thing, because it was just in my sand bed. A few weeks went by and the diatoms got thicker and thicker. I started running some tests to see what was going on. My No3 was about 2.5ppm and Po4 was 0.04ppm. I started to panic, as I started seeing some bubbles appearing in these diatoms.

I continued to let the “diatoms” do what they wanted, all while trying to get my nutrients up. I was skipping weeks on water changes while lowering the volume on my water changes. After my most recent water change (around 3 weeks ago) my Po4 hit 0.0ppm. Panicking, I started throwing in reef roids, trying to get my Po4 up. Finally my Po4 was up to 0.09, but my No3 was still low, around 3.0ppm.

I went to my LFS, showing him what was going on. At this point I knew the supposed diatoms was not diatoms, but instead dinoflagellates… ugh.

Long story short, my system is sick. It’s plagued with dinos and holy cow is this stuff aggressive. Ive added some pictures to show what’s going on… I am unfortunately in a bad spot.

Soooo, here I am pumping my system with a boat load of food, coral frenzy, reef roids, BRS chile, trying to get my nutrients back up. I just tested tonight and No3 is 4.0ppm. Po4 is 0.04ppm. It’s been about a week of heavy feeding and I still can’t get my Po4 to get to an acceptable level.

My current plan is to keep hammering my tank with over feeding, with the ultimate goal of getting my Po4 to around 1.0 and No3 to about 10.0ppm. I am dosing Microbakter7 daily (roughly 7.5ml). I do have a bottle of Microbacter Clean coming and plan to dose that as well.

Once my nutrients are at an acceptable level, I’ll be siphoning out what I can of the diatoms, and getting the system ready for a 3-day blackout…

This is pretty discouraging but I think I’m ready for the fight. If anyone has any tips or tricks, please let me know. I don’t know what species I have quite yet, but will be taking a sample to my LFS this weekend to be sure…. For what it’s worth, it is the super stringy kind, growing everywhere lol.

Thanks for the read, and please please please wish me luck!

 

[2Plus2]

It’s been a minute since I gave an update, so here we go!!

Everything was going super well in the system. Coral was growing, fish were happy. Alk, cal, mag all stable. Then I started to get some cyano on my sand. I fought them for a while and they just wouldn’t go away. So, I pulled out the chemi-clean and voila! No more cyano.

A couple weeks went by, thinking I was in the clear, and one day my sand started getting diatoms. I kind of just let the diatoms do its thing, because it was just in my sand bed. A few weeks went by and the diatoms got thicker and thicker. I started running some tests to see what was going on. My No3 was about 2.5ppm and Po4 was 0.04ppm. I started to panic, as I started seeing some bubbles appearing in these diatoms.

I continued to let the “diatoms” do what they wanted, all while trying to get my nutrients up. I was skipping weeks on water changes while lowering the volume on my water changes. After my most recent water change (around 3 weeks ago) my Po4 hit 0.0ppm. Panicking, I started throwing in reef roids, trying to get my Po4 up. Finally my Po4 was up to 0.09, but my No3 was still low, around 3.0ppm.

I went to my LFS, showing him what was going on. At this point I knew the supposed diatoms was not diatoms, but instead dinoflagellates… ugh.

Long story short, my system is sick. It’s plagued with dinos and holy cow is this stuff aggressive. Ive added some pictures to show what’s going on… I am unfortunately in a bad spot.

Soooo, here I am pumping my system with a boat load of food, coral frenzy, reef roids, BRS chile, trying to get my nutrients back up. I just tested tonight and No3 is 4.0ppm. Po4 is 0.04ppm. It’s been about a week of heavy feeding and I still can’t get my Po4 to get to an acceptable level.

My current plan is to keep hammering my tank with over feeding, with the ultimate goal of getting my Po4 to around 1.0 and No3 to about 10.0ppm. I am dosing Microbakter7 daily (roughly 7.5ml). I do have a bottle of Microbacter Clean coming and plan to dose that as well.

Once my nutrients are at an acceptable level, I’ll be siphoning out what I can of the diatoms, and getting the system ready for a 3-day blackout…

This is pretty discouraging but I think I’m ready for the fight. If anyone has any tips or tricks, please let me know. I don’t know what species I have quite yet, but will be taking a sample to my LFS this weekend to be sure…. For what it’s worth, it is the super stringy kind, growing everywhere lol.

Thanks for the read, and please please please wish me luck!

Don't give up, I fought them for a month straight. You'll win, I added bacteria also to assist.
I used 3-4 different types from different manufacturers.

 

[2Plus2]

Im currently fighting hair algae.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

Im currently fighting hair algae.

I’d prefer the hair algae over this nasty stuff! Have you tried dropping all lighting spectrums, except for blues? I had some GHA pop up early on (at least I thought it was GHA) and I dropped all lighting spectrums for about a week. The suspected GHA just whithered away and turned white. I took a brush to it after the week and it didn't ever come back.

I won't be giving up lol. My ultimate plan is to now become TikTok famous and document my fight

I just ordered Dr. Tim's Dino Treatment Bundle from BRS. I'll be following their recommendations during my blackout. Going to get some more pods and phyto ordered as well to feed during that time.

What worked for you to rid the dinos?

 

[Patx]

I don't have the magic solution, I've done a lot of things, brushing the rocks, siphoning in a 1micron filter sock, uv, some black out.
all that with "yes/no/maybe/not clear" results.

- but for the one on the sand
what helped and which became my back pocket trick is,

at the end of the day, siphoning a region of the upper layer of sand (the most affected place).
Thoroughly rinse the sand with hot tap water. then put the sand in a container as large as possible and put no more than 1 inch of sand.
let it sit at the bottom of the sump (no light) for at least 1 week.
then I rotate I replace the siphoned sand with the one from the sump.

Dino's **** big time

 

[Sdoutreefer]

Don't give up, I fought them for a month straight. You'll win, I added bacteria also to assist.
I used 3-4 different types from different manufacturers.

Did you ever use something similiar to Microbacter Clean? I ordered a bottle and read somewhere that this stuff does help quite a bit.

The big challenge is going to be getting most of it siphoned out of the tank. It has a pretty good hold on my rockwork currently. I plan to scrub and siphon the rock, with tubing into a filter sock and straight back into the sump.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

Hopefully someone sees this…. BUT as I’m getting my nutrients up, is it counter-productive to be dosing bacteria? My thought is it won’t hurt, and will help nutrients slowly build over time instead of spiking, all while colonizing and fighting the dinos.

Can anyone confirm that?

 

[2Plus2]

Did you ever use something similiar to Microbacter Clean? I ordered a bottle and read somewhere that this stuff does help quite a bit.

The big challenge is going to be getting most of it siphoned out of the tank. It has a pretty good hold on my rockwork currently. I plan to scrub and siphon the rock, with tubing into a filter sock and straight back into the sump.

I used all sorts of bacteria, it does not hurt to add bacteria.
I've used microbacter7, bacto therapy, pink & purple coraline algae, anything bacteria related.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

I used all sorts of bacteria, it does not hurt to add bacteria.
I've used microbacter7, bacto therapy, pink & purple coraline algae, anything bacteria related.

Good deal. What does your dose look like? Are you just following instructions on the bottle, or just getting after it? Lol

 

[2Plus2]

Good deal. What does your dose look like? Are you just following instructions on the bottle, or just getting after it? Lol

so daily would be 1ml of microbacter or bacto, for the coraline i would do 20ml, just whatever the super minimum was.

When you start doing water changes I would add maybe 3-5ml to the new batch of water but do not add anything daily if you go the water change route.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

so daily would be 1ml of microbacter or bacto, for the coraline i would do 20ml, just whatever the super minimum was.

When you start doing water changes I would add maybe 3-5ml to the new batch of water but do not add anything daily if you go the water change route.

I’ve held off on water changes. Has been maybe 3 weeks. I’ve been dosing a cap (5ml) of microbacter nightly. Could that be too much? Kind of new to the whole bacteria dosing stuff. They didn’t have that 13 years ago, at least I can’t remember they did lol

 

[2Plus2]

I’ve held off on water changes. Has been maybe 3 weeks. I’ve been dosing a cap (5ml) of microbacter nightly. Could that be too much? Kind of new to the whole bacteria dosing stuff. They didn’t have that 13 years ago, at least I can’t remember they did lol

lol same! So I come now with some terrible news, I dosed phosphate RX some more a few days ago and noticed..... something that looks like dinoflagellates returning!!!!

So it looks like were about to battle them together, again for me.

 

[2Plus2]

No 5ml daily is not alot, but remember you only do that for the first 2 weeks of dosing. Then to sustain you reduce the dosing to 1ml. You also have to help the beneficial bacteria win, turn skimmer off for an hour or 2 when dosing, reduce lights by alot.

I started dosing again, and have reduced my lights from 35% to 5%, what seems odd to me is them returning with a UV running.

Also remember dosing bacteria reduces nutrients, so it's a balance you have to figure out.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

No 5ml daily is not alot, but remember you only do that for the first 2 weeks of dosing. Then to sustain you reduce the dosing to 1ml. You also have to help the beneficial bacteria win, turn skimmer off for an hour or 2 when dosing, reduce lights by alot.

I started dosing again, and have reduced my lights from 35% to 5%, what seems odd to me is them returning with a UV running.

Also remember dosing bacteria reduces nutrients, so it's a balance you have to figure out.

Thanks for the advice!!

I dosed Microbacter Clean two nights ago, and holy cow. That stuff works. All my stringy snotty stuff is totally gone. My skimmate is now a rusty color, super weird, but the clean definetly suppressed the dinos, at least it looks that way.

I tested my Po4 last night and was at 0.04ppm, No3: 4.0ppm.

I cannot get above those numbers for whatever reason. I am feeding an awful amount too lol. something must be consuming all of it.

Last night I dozed some Neo-Nitro and Neo-phos. Tested my Po4 like 30 minutes ago… Po4 is at 0.00! Ugh…

Testing my No3 now.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

Phew! I mis-tested my Po4. Just retested and I’m at 0.06ppm.

No3: 5.9ppm

Praise the lord and pass the ammunition!

 

[2Plus2]

dosing those bacteria’s can* reduce both no3 & no4. some are designed to lower nutrients. u can specifically dose nitrates and phosphates, i use nyos and its super simple

 

[Sdoutreefer]

dosing those bacteria’s can* reduce both no3 & no4. some are designed to lower nutrients. u can specifically dose nitrates and phosphates, i use nyos and its super simple

For sure, which in the end is what I want. I need that bacteria to grow like wildfire. I’m about to do a 3-day blackout in a couple days to hopefully rid of the dinos. This was the status of the tank last night. It looks much better from the clean. I know dinos are still present but it looks like I’ve got a decent shot of getting them battered down. The microbacter clean seemed to have hit my coraline too, which sucks.