Time to Reboot My Tank

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

Well, due to a losing battle with dinoflagellates, it is time to break down my 187 gallon tank and restart it. But before I go into details on what happened with the dinos, I want to provide some details on my setup, something I did not do in this forum when I started up the tank.

About 21 months ago I set up the tank and all of the equipment in the finished basement of my house. The tank, which measures 60″L x 30″D x 24″H, has euro-bracing, an external overflow and Starphire Low-Iron glass on the front & 2 end panels. The wood stand was custom built. Both the tank and stand were purchased from Coast To Coast Custom Aquariums.

dima · Mar 28, 2017

Beautiful tank

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

The sump is a Royal Exclusiv Dreambox and measures 59″L x 23-1/2″W x 13-3/4″T. Total volume is 280 liters or 74 gallons and it has 10 filter socks, including 3×800 micron socks, 3×400 micron socks, 4×200 micron socks.

PANONHAS · Mar 28, 2017

Amazing setup

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

I started the tank with a Bubble King Double Cone 250 skimmer with a RD3 Speedy pump but it turned out that the skimmer was just too big for my tank.

I ended up replacing it with a Deltec SC1456 and it ended up being a much better fit, producing more skimmate on a more consistent basis. The sump also contains two media reactors, with the 5L reactor used for GFO and the 2L reactor used for activated carbon.

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

I am a metal halide guy, perhaps you can call me old school

, so the tank is lit by two Giesemann Spectra 24″ fixtures (1 x Mogul and 4 x 24w T5s per fixtures). The two 400W Radium bulbs are driven by Luxcore 400w Dimmable Ballasts on the 400w Super Lumens setting.

Metal halides have certainly served me well in the past. Here is a picture of my former 225 gallon tank.

pelphrey · Mar 28, 2017

Watched your video on the restart over the weekend, hate that! I can't wait to see the new setup! What rock will you be using on the reboot?

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

I keep SPS dominated tanks so I use a calcium reactor since the calcium and alkalinity demands are high. Along with the calcium reactor I use a kalk reactor (my auto top-off runs through it) to keep my pH elevated since the C02 injected into the Ca reactor lowers the pH.

Marine Technical Concepts PROCAL Calcium Reactor

My Reef Creations Nilsen Kalk Reactor (medium)

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

For return pumps I use two Red Dragon 3 Speedy Pumps and for re-circulation inside the tank I use Gyres, although I have had some performance issues with these pumps.

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

Other pieces of equipment include a Neptune Systems Apex controller, a Spectrpure MaxCap 2:1 Manual Flush 180-GPD RO/DI System and a Tradewind Super 1/2 HP Inline Chiller.

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

A Coast to Coast Custom Aquariums 75 gallon frag tank is plumbed into the display.

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

And here is a video tour of the entire setup.

tigastt · Mar 28, 2017

My gosh....... making me drool

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

I started this tank with Marco Rocks dry rocks, a first for me since I had always used live rock with my tanks.

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

For some reason I was fighting stuff I had never encountered with a reef tank in the more then 20 years I have been keeping tanks, including bacterial blooms, diatoms and the dreaded dinos. At times things were doing well.....

But I wasn't getting the growth in SPS I was used to.

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

Now let's fast forward to today. A few months ago I noticed the dreaded dinos in my tank and I decided to dose some hydrogen peroxide to eliminate the buggers. At first it seemed to work but after a while I realized the problem was not going away. My next step was to do a three day blackout in conjunction with hydrogen peroxide dosing, a combination that eradicated the dinos for a number of weeks. But they persevered

Next up was raising the pH with kalkwasser. Well, the dinos just laughed this one off and kept spreading, while the kalkwasser seized up my pumps. I just couldn’t win.

I also tried to lower my nutrients by using GFO aggressively and skimming heavily. More frequent water changes were tried as well but the dinos seemed to get worse so I assumed they were feeding on the trace elements replenished during the water changes. Nonetheless, my SPS were stressed out from all these different treatments as well as the dinos covering their polyps. It was apparent to me I would lose them if things didn’t change soon so I tried some riskier approaches.

I decided to use Vibrant Liquid Aquarium Cleaner. I hesitated before using Vibrant since I was adding additional bacteria to my tank and had no insight into how it would effect my current bacteria bed. But I was desperate so I gave it a shot since I figured I had nothing to lose. After dosing for a couple of weeks the dinos did recede and eventually disappeared (at least to the naked eye), but the tank was overrun by a really bad case of cyanobacteria.

For a couple of weeks I tried everything in the book to rid the tank of cyano, relying on natural methods such as siphoning, nutrient control, more flow, etc, but to no avail. I reluctantly used ChemiClean to knock it out and it did work, although the dinos eventually resurfaced. Oh boy, what a vicious circle!

What to do now? Well, I heard some reef keepers had success using Seachem Metroplex, which apparently kept the dinoflagellates from reproducing. Despite these claims there was no real concrete scientific evidence this was true and that Metroplex was reef safe. But I was desperate so I gave it a shot. Unfortunately, after dosing Metroplex my dinos kept spreading and I soon started to lose a lot of SPS.

My last ditch effort was to go with the “dirty” method and add a lot of pods to the tank and to also raise nutrients. The theory here is that pods will help to consume dinos while additional nutrients will spur on algae growth, supposedly a plus since the algae would outcompete the dinos by consuming nutrients taken in by the dinos. In theory it sounds good but in my case it didn’t work.

As I surveyed my tank it was obvious to me it was time to start over since my corals had taken a lot of abuse from all of the different treatments. I have encountered a lot of problems during my twenty plus years keeping reef tanks, including the dreaded Acro Eating Flatworms, but in this instance a reboot made the most sense.

I am actually excited about starting over again. I get jazzed when I start up a new tank so I will use this as an opportunity to try some new things and learn from this bad experience. Resiliency is very important when it comes to reef keeping! I have some theories on how I can turn things around with the next version of this tank so I will be posting updates on my rebuild.

That is my story and I am sticking to it!

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

dima said:
Beautiful tank

Many thanks!

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

PANONHAS said:
Amazing setup

I appreciate that.....it took a lot of time to put together!

ReefBum · Mar 28, 2017

pelphrey said:
Watched your video on the restart over the weekend, hate that! I can't wait to see the new setup! What rock will you be using on the reboot?

Many thanks. I am going with live rock, no more dry rock only tanks for me. I do think that contributed to some of my troubles with this tank. I have talked to other veteran SPS folks and they too had trouble when using dry rock only....just had a hard time growing SPS like they had in the past. But I am sure there are a ton of folks out there who have 100% dry rock only tanks and have achieved great success....I was just not one of them