Water changes.. I know not again?!

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My apologies for the confusion. I stated that as a short summary to say that even though I still had the ugly stages I was able to maintain nutrients. It was my way of saying that lower nutrients wasn’t the issue.

A more in depth timeline is . Plumbed the new frag tank and it went live in the first week of August.
gha showed up for about a week or two. Than dinos outbreak for about 2 weeks. Than battled cyano for the entire month of September.doubled down on wc the last week of September. Noticed some losses first week of October and decided to stop water changes. Corals are now thriving and cyano has been reduced by about 70%

When did the dinos appear and disappear in that scenario?

 

[dvgyfresh]

I like sponges, but sadly, there’s no evidence that they have a significant effect on doc in a typical reef tank.

I’ve always thought of sponges for eating the DOC that macro algae produces as I’ve read somewhere that nothing really eats the DOC produced by macro algae besides sponges but I still love the cryptic zone! I’m thinking of buying live rock rubble to put in my back chambers where the skimmer is

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

I like sponges, but sadly, there’s no evidence that they have a significant effect on doc in a typical reef tank.

Yes and also my tank is loaded with sponges. I still prefer water changes

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

When did the dinos appear and disappear in that scenario?

From the middle of August until the beginning of September. About a two week period it was nasty for sure

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

From the middle of August until the beginning of September. About a two week period it was nasty for sure

But the corals started to recover for a bout a week after dinos went away. I may have went a two week period with no water change in that time period. I don’t remember tbh, but the theory of Dino’s feeding off trace elements is something I knew about prior

 

[FishLvR]

Resident F Up here. I tried the no water change for dinos. Six weeks, then only 10% a week, then back to no water changes for 3 weeks. No difference. At all. So this time, screw it, manual removal and water changes 20% every week until I either give up or something changes.

 

[CHSUB]

From the middle of August until the beginning of September. About a two week period it was nasty for sure

To my surprise I still got the dinos and cyano outbreaks despite keeping elevated nutrients

Now I feel lrs frozen food daily which was never enough to maintain elevated nutrients so I dose ammonium bicarbonate and trisodium phosphate. Is it possible my tank was lacking on aminos and lipids?

Nutrients were 10n and about .15-.2 phos

Just curious from looking at this picture and your highlighted comments and concussions, you believe your nutrients were perfect and lowering them would have made the situation worse? This situation, in your opinion, was caused by a trace mineral deficiency exacerbated by increased water volume and water change that made “good” bacteria go dormant?

 

[Dogeatbird]

It can be an element that is now being used. It also simply can be uncontested space. Typically when setting up a petrie disk to culture an organism, steps are taken to sterilize to reduce the likelihood of contamination or competition in the disk.

Linking the system is essential an open door policy for an unoccupied space. You have stated that the undesirable organism came and mostly left. That the desired coral stuttered before claiming dominance.

Yes I was making a comparison between an established pasture, balanced by the various flora and fauna. To a cultured field where a desired product was being produced. By plowing the pasture, iE connecting a frag system, a new space was introduced. Uncontested, without a bio-film, that eventually self regulates.

If it was an inclusion of an element, every water change would potentially spark a bloom.

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

Just curious from looking at this picture and your highlighted comments and concussions, you believe your nutrients were perfect and lowering them would have made the situation worse? This situation, in your opinion, was caused by a trace mineral deficiency exacerbated by increased water volume and water change that made “good” bacteria go dormant?

No the issue I believe was linked to doing too many water changes after adding in a new frag tank. The dinos part is kind of irrelevant imo. It was cured about a month before I had issues with corals. I mean yes I had issues when I had dinos. But after I got rid of dinos the corals started to recover and look good. But than things turned again for a short period of time. Than I decided to double down on water changes to solve whatever the issue was, however the water changes made things worse. I decided to stop doing water changes and let things stay stable and things are back to thriving

 

[BeanAnimal]

My take? Both systems had a different bacterial balance and biological chemical balance. You plumbed them together and the balance was disrupted due to biological competition. Water changed never allows the underlying newish biome to settle.

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

My take? Both systems had a different bacterial balance and biological chemical balance. You plumbed them together and the balance was disrupted due to biological competition. Water changed never allows the underlying newish biome to settle.

ya know that’s kind of what I was thinking as well. And than just doubling down on the water changes was making it worse. They do say cyano comes from imbalances . Another thing is that i also have stopped dosing phos for about a week and now its actually climbing on its own

 

[Dogeatbird]

It is challenging to id a single point failure. It also may not be a single point failure.

Colonial organisms do share a pool resources. Fragging can increase demand simply by adding more colonies to supply register. Stressed colonies can require more of …

Lights do age. LED shift in spectrum. Water column can change intensity. Flow change can affect elemental uptake. Colony form can also impact elemental uptake.

Demand on electrical circuit can affect pump efficiency.

Everyone likes to say it is probably a water parameter issue. Sometimes it is just that, easy. Truthfully a number of factors typically play, start with eliminating what may be possible before buying the RV and cooking.

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

ya know that’s kind of what I was thinking as well. And than just doubling down on the water changes was making it worse. They do say cyano comes from imbalances . Another thing is that i also have stopped dosing phos for about a week and now its actually climbing on its own

It also makes me wonder though. Is there a type of bacteria or something in the water column that needs to stabilize or colonize?

 

[BeanAnimal]

It also makes me wonder though. Is there a type of bacteria or something in the water column that needs to stabilize or colonize?

Bacterial systems are always in competition for resources. Balance can be found, but can also be upset, sometimes drastically. This can easily cause a chain reaction into other stable parts of the system.

 

[CHSUB]

Over analysis leads to paralysis. ICP, maintaining nutrients, biodiversity, biome, trace elements….etc. nothing particularly unusual here. Bare surfaces, high available nutrients, and lack of maintenance it’s simply. Reefers are just to “smart” now a days. Not to long ago we maintained low nutrients, did WC and removed nuisance algae; today we have this. Secretly Richard Ross is laughing!

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

Over analysis leads to paralysis. ICP, maintaining nutrients, biodiversity, biome, trace elements….etc. nothing particularly unusual here. Bare surfaces, high available nutrients, and lack of maintenance it’s simply. Reefers are just to “smart” now a days. Not to long ago we maintained low nutrients, did WC and removed nuisance algae; today we have this. Secretly Richard Ross is laughing!

I’ve been in the hobby for over 10’years and I will say the low nutrients with waterchanges never worked for me lol

 

[BryanM]

Resident F Up here. I tried the no water change for dinos. Six weeks, then only 10% a week, then back to no water changes for 3 weeks. No difference. At all. So this time, screw it, manual removal and water changes 20% every week until I either give up or something changes.

Manual removal through a filter sock so you can reuse the water you vacuumed - That's one of the things I did, since water changes are not generally recommended while fighting dinos.

 

[dave001]

Silicate leach into water to saturation point feeding dinos, water changes reduce total saturation allowing a bit more to dissolve into solution...rinse/repeat until levels leaching out go down... .?? Just a thought

 

[X-37B]

I’ve been in the hobby for over 10’years and I will say the low nutrients with waterchanges never worked for me lol

You will get many different to approaches to WC's.
I did 10% a week for years.
In my 4 new tanks oldest 1.5 years after a move. I target no3<5 po4<.1 like I always have.
I see no difference visually with <5 or the current 16. Same with po4.
I see no difference at. 05 vs current .18.
So My new target is po4<.2. I just added 1/2 cup of p- to the 150 and it will bring no3 down to .1.
Watching no3 at this time to see how high it will go.
These system run on 5% WC per month and stability is very stable.
Anyway just how I handle WC's in my systems.
Current 150 for reference.

 

[FishLvR]

Resident F Up here. I tried the no water change for dinos. Six weeks, then only 10% a week, then back to no water changes for 3 weeks. No difference. At all. So this time, screw it, manual removal and water changes 20% every week until I either give up or something changes.

Manual removal through a filter sock so you can reuse the water you vacuumed - That's one of the things I did, since water changes are not generally recommended while fighting dinos.

I know but since no water changes did crud all we are going all in this time. But last night I just used my turkey blaster, my fancy turkey blaster, and put the dinos in a net and removed. Then blasted the rocks after. The filter sock in sump caught most of it and I replaced with a clean one after an hour.