DansReef New 180 Reef

So... I got a pretty cool little hitchhiker on one of the corals I got a few weeks ago. I always thought it was a dead clam shell on the Rock the coral was on. I also had dipped this coral when I got it...and fortunately it did not kill some small barnacles that are in the arms of the coral... If you look at the bumps and brown spots... Those are barnacles.

Well if you look at the pictures.... In the center of this first one...you will see the zig zag pattern of a clam.

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It appears to have grown a bit....and it is alive as I have sat with a magnifying glass and can see it open and close if a fish swims by.

Here is another picture from a few weeks ago... Funny I never noticed it really until a couple days ago.

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Anyway... I am hoping it will continue to grow out. What are the chances it is something cool like a baby maxima...or something like that... Maybe I am dreaming....both that it could be something nice like that....or that it will survive. The coral has been in the tank a few weeks...

Thoughts?
 
Warning…. This is a long update!

Wow! It is hard to believe that I have not updated my thread here since the end of March. I guess time flies when you are having fun…. I just wish I was really having fun with my tank(s). Where to begin….. How about one word…… DINOFLAGELLATES.

Yup… shortly after my last post…. Began my fight against the dreaded DINOs. At first, my thought was a Diatom bloom….then Cyno… I did the standard treatments for both to no avail. You then add the fact of having a crazy work, personal and travel schedule….. well things kind of progressed…

So… water parameter were all fine. Phosphates non-existent and tested by two different methods. Nitrates we about 1-2 ppm. PH stable. Temp stable. Salinity stable…. CA, ALK, Mg…. all good. No issues. The Dinos were not your typical snotty green, brown, redish…. Instead they are a dusty rust particulate in the sand bed….and at its worse…. All over everything; rocks, corals, sides, pumps…. Everywhere. I started with a 3 day blackout…. Not effective…. then 4,5,6 day blackout periods… including blacking out the sump in the basement…. All with a 4 hour light schedule post black out…. Still the Dinos come back. I lost all of the SPS, a bunch of LPS…in part from the blackouts…but mostly from the Dinos. I lost fish as they either were affected by the dinos as they died off and released toxins that were not taken out by the carbon reactor… Really quite frustrating. I fully understand people saying that a bad case of dinos has chased them out of this hobby. For me… I guess I am a glutton for punishment.

I have tried all sorts of remedies… you name them. Increasing PH… which is a PIA on 225 worth of volume… I have dosed Hydrogen Peroxide which did an ok job of reducing them….only to see them come back stronger…the little buggers are resilient. I used the various Dr Tim’s bacteria additives and also added a Bio Pellet Reactor as a tactic to add beneficial critters which would out compete the depleted Dinos…. Nope… The damn things came back in earnest. I even added a long planned fuge with Chaeto after I took the BP’s offline. In fact…. The BPs did little to take the Nitrates to zero… I wavered between 2-4 ppm when they were on line. When I took them off….and added a small fuge….and an LED light on 24 hours a day…. Nitrates went to zero… They are undetectable now. The Fuge also plays a role I have been told to draw the Dinos away from the Display that has a reduced light schedule when they are free floating in the water column…. It hasn’t worked out that way.

So a couple of weeks ago…. The tank went dark yet again. All possible light eliminated for a 7.5 day period. I had a Diamond Goby disappear… and lost some more cardinals. Other than that… it looked like success. I reduced my light schedule to 4 hours… I even programmed my Gen3 Radions for a deep sea reef with a 40% light intensity. Remember…. Dinos are Photosynthetic. This gives a great blue color…and a deep blue when they ramp up and down. Initially….this seemed to have worked. Unfortunately…. The damn DInos came back after a few days. Not a strong comeback…but they came back. They are limited to the sand bed….and yes some were in the fuge…

Since I had never actually ID’d the damn things under a microscope….and could not find one… I ordered one on Amazon. I also saw that Fauna Marine has been having some success with Dinos using their AlgaeX solution. In fact…. I think they re-branded it now as DinoX. I ordered a bottle… I also ordered some new RO/DI components… Though still showing zero on the TDS meter…. I decided to change everything out there too to make sure that system is working properly…

Well… I got the microscope… and sure enough… Dinos…. “Unarmored” roundish variety….as seen in this stock photo. No doubt about it. I took multiple samples….and confirmed.
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So, like I said… It has been a couple of weeks and the Dinos are in check….small patches on the sand. I have dosed DinoX for three days now… at night at the end of the light cycle. It has not wiped them out… but kept them in check.

My plan going forward right now… is to keep the lights at about 6 hours with 50% intensity on a deep water reef setting. Interestingly…. You can set the depth the lights should mimic…. And I have it set at 50 ft. The idea….is to starve the Dinos of light need to survive. Hit them nightly with DinoX. Keep Nitrates and Phosphates low… Run Carbon… etc. I am also thinking that I am going to go to more of a FOWLR model in the tank…with some softies and LPS. Current stock list include; 1 Bartlett Antias, 1 Disbar Anthias, 1 two lined cardinal, 1 Tomini tang, 1 new Diamond Goby, 1 Flame Hawk, 1 Naso 3-4” tang, 1 Yellow Tang and a Fox Face. All Fish are now doing quite well. The Goby is even sifting sand including the patches with Dinos. The last goby refused to sift that sand…most likely as they were toxic to him. He avoided any sand it was on. This one…. Has gone around the entire tank and has no issue with the Dinos. He is not eliminating them…. But I think he is doing an ok job of keeping the sand fresh. Perhaps this is a sign that I could be winning…. We will see.

So… there is an update worthy of the months of nothing! If anyone has any additional ideas…. I am open to suggestions. Here is a FTS…. As it sit. Sorry for the crappy cellphone picture. The only working camera I have at present.

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Good luck Dan. Keep your head up and keep battling on. Please keep us updatred, dinos are devasting to so many, if you can find a way to beat or atleast keep them in check others will surely love to know what you've done.
 
Damn. That sucks (dinos). I pray I never get it. It's worse than AEFW I think.


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Thanks Nino. It is hard to believe that the tank has been installed now for a year....I had a lot of plans for this thing and they just have not materialized. Oh well.. Hopefully over the next year we can get beyond these damn things and start growing this thing out a bit.
 
ColaAddict said:
Damn. That sucks (dinos). I pray I never get it. It's worse than AEFW I think.


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Take it from me...I've had AEFW and beat them with a Qt tank and weekly dippings...a bit of a PITA but success is guaranteed as long as the coral survives. This strain of Dinos (Dan got his from me) wiped out all my sps in 2014 and then again earlier this year....
 
Much to my chagrin.... They have returned.... Got back from a weekend in the Northwoods and noticed that even though it looked like I was making progress on them....as soon as the lights went on....they returned. I also inspected the new fuge and it too was overrun with them. So i took the fuge down...without the contents spilling in...and shut the lights off. I am planning to black things out now for 10.... Yup....10 days... ETR was able to knock them down with 8-9.... I guess that is the next step for me.

For those who will ask...I took samples from the display and the fuge...and reviewed them under the microscope and damn...loaded with DINOs...

So wish me luck. I am also planning to dose the rest of Fauna Marine DinoX and bumping up my PH. If this doesn't do it.... I am giving up...this crap is insane.
 
EricTheRed said:
Take it from me...I've had AEFW and beat them with a Qt tank and weekly dippings...a bit of a PITA but success is guaranteed as long as the coral survives. This strain of Dinos (Dan got his from me) wiped out all my sps in 2014 and then again earlier this year....
Click to expand...


Note to self...
Dinos bad. Eric= dinos
 
#theMatrix said:
Note to self...
Dinos bad. Eric= dinos
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LOL.... I would tell anyone....there is no blame here. I am not sure if ETR gave them to me or if we both got them from someone else.... Suffice to say folks these little "Fockers" are something you don't want to deal with. Dip.... Dip.... Dip....anything you buy... As my mom used to say an ounce of prevention... Yeah you get the idea.
 
I'm not sure if you can prevent dinos with dipping. Your best bet is to just starve them out. if you can QT fish somewhere else, do it. have absolutely no source of nutrients in your tank and no lights. that should kill them all off.
 
ColaAddict said:
I'm not sure if you can prevent dinos with dipping. Your best bet is to just starve them out. if you can QT fish somewhere else, do it. have absolutely no source of nutrients in your tank and no lights. that should kill them all off.
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You may be right. If you can't prevent via dipping then everyone had best pray you never get these.... I know from experience how tough they are. I cannot imagine what this would do to a tank that is full of SPS that have grown out.
 
ColaAddict said:
I'm not sure if you can prevent dinos with dipping. Your best bet is to just starve them out. if you can QT fish somewhere else, do it. have absolutely no source of nutrients in your tank and no lights. that should kill them all off.
Click to expand...

I beat them with a 9 day blackout after a 5 day didn't work. I had very high nutrients and Dan had almost none and there was no discernible difference with this strain.
 
So a quick update... Today is #10 of the latest blackout. My plan is to unwrap the tank tonight after dark and then let the tank and the inhabitants slowly acclimate to daylight tomorrow. I am very hopeful that this time around the DINOs will be whipped. As you can see in the pictures, I have taken down one layer of paper. I used two to get it nice and dark... I covered the canopy and the sump in the basement as it is near a small window.

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It will be a bit like Christmas for me. This has been a very long battle and I have lost a lot. I am expecting all remaining corals to be gone. I did not expect much to survive and did not want to spread the fun to any other tanks. As for fish... I fed sparingly but was able to look in and see many of them. That said, I am not expecting all to have made it.

If all goes well, I will turn lights on Friday but at a very low intensity.

Water parameters seem ok. Nitrates did rise to 4 ppm when I took down the fuge. I hope to get it back online this weekend. I need a nice ball of chaeto. I have also elevated my PH using Kalk as another attempt to rid the DINOs. It was a four day cycle. I also dosed DINOX from Fauna Marine. Other than that... If these damn things persist... I don't know what else to do.

Hopefully, all DINOs will be gone. I am then going to focus on getting the tank stable , lit, and the fish back in shape. From there...I am guessing after Christmas maybe start adding some new corals.

Wish me luck. More to come!
 
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