Beware the Shallows

[hey]

If you want stuff with very little output and a high failure rate, sure.

 

That doesn't actually work. Light is light and they'll use anything to photosynthesize, but at any rate they are mixotrophic, so they don't rely on light.

bummer like I was pretty sure you've read everything there is to read about these boogerbeasts by now.

[Paleoreef103]

Good luck with the UV sterilizer. It should help, but it definitely won't cure the problem. Hopefully it will at least keep them in check! What make/model of sterilizer are you going with?

[NorthGaHillbilly]

Yo Ben, along the lines of what Alex was asking, would a CF bulb be the way to go over a warm a white par 38 like the ones on amazon for ~$25

[jedimasterben]

Good luck with the UV sterilizer. It should help, but it definitely won't cure the problem. Hopefully it will at least keep them in check! What make/model of sterilizer are you going with?

Two Jebao 55w units.

 

Yo Ben, along the lines of what Alex was asking, would a CF bulb be the way to go over a warm a white par 38 like the ones on amazon for ~$25

The issue with the cheap PAR38 bulbs is that they don't have any output advantage over the CFL.

 

 

 

 

So, after the large potassium dose I did on Wednesday, I've lost quite a bit of my invertebrates - astrea snails, stomatella snails, cerith snails, nassarius snails, a brittle star, my porcelain crab, my lone hermit crab, and, unfortunately, my hawkwing conch

 

Beyond that, everything else looks ok. My big anemone was very upset but has full tentacles now (still hasn't stretched back out to full size, but that will come with time), and I have not noticed any fish loss, though I was not home at all yesterday to be able to observe that. The lights will start turning on in an hour or so and I'll relay the rest of my findings then.

[NorthGaHillbilly]

Two Jebao 55w units.

 

The issue with the cheap PAR38 bulbs is that they don't have any output advantage over the CFL.

 

 

 

 

So, after the large potassium dose I did on Wednesday, I've lost quite a bit of my invertebrates - astrea snails, stomatella snails, cerith snails, nassarius snails, a brittle star, my porcelain crab, my lone hermit crab, and, unfortunately, my hawkwing conch

 

Beyond that, everything else looks ok. My big anemone was very upset but has full tentacles now (still hasn't stretched back out to full size, but that will come with time), and I have not noticed any fish loss, though I was not home at all yesterday to be able to observe that. The lights will start turning on in an hour or so and I'll relay the rest of my findings then.

hate to hear about the invert loss, hopefully everyone else will be fine once the lights kick on.

 

Sounds like I'll just get a CFL and a good reflector till I'm feeling like a baller and get a decent led setup going

[jedimasterben]

Eh, not quite everything. Looks like I lost one chromis and both of the springeri damsels, I only see the one that I added last night. All the other fish look ok. The anemone has full extension now.

 

This is the ATS growth for just the past few days. I looked at it Monday or Tuesday and it was still pretty uncovered.

 

 

[metrokat]

Why did you add a fish last night when you were having potassium overdose related deaths in the last 2 days?

[jedimasterben]

Didn't know if it affected fish. As of yesterday morning what I could see everything besides inverts was normal.

[metrokat]

I'm not overly cautious by any means but whenever I do something new whether it is adding a supplement, food, fragging, replacing media, adding new coral, adding new fish, etc; I stop everything else for a few days to allow whatever was new a chance to settle, and for the tank to show me that it can handle it. It took a while for the potassium to show results, it wasn't instant like pouring h2o2. And because the results that showed were negative, it would have been better to wait and watch.

[jedimasterben]

Got bored yesterday and decided to siphon the sandbed into a 1 micron sock. It was a lot cleaner than it was last time, since it had almost filled it up just once, not several times. I then cleaned out the sock and put it under the drain, letting it catch everything that was left. Still hasn't filled it up, which is surprising considering how much gunk I stirred up. I also cranked the gyre up - currently running it at 25w (7/11) and it's really pushing a lot more water than at 15w (5/11) that I had it at. Two issues, though - it's almost blowing water out of the tank, and it's pushing the sandbed out of the opposite end of the tank. Everything seems to like this extra flow, though, so I'd like to keep it there, but I don't think I can unless I change out the sandbed.

 

 

Anyway, the remaining inverts that were only shocked by the potassium dose and not killed are starting to move around with more vigor. I saw one of my money cowries moving about with its mantle fully extended, very happy to see that!

 

My leopard wrasse is mad at me, though, for doing that to the sandbed. Always hides for a day or two afterwards. Such a pissy little thing! Little does she know I'm trying to clean up after her lol.

[Jstn]

You must of added a ton of K, IIRC my solution which is similar in concentration to brighwells, 10 mLs raised 10 gallons by 21 ppm.

[jedimasterben]

I dosed 15 tablespoons of the Brightwell powder. Brightwell says that 5g is two teaspoons of powder, and each gram raises one gallon by 129ppm.

 

Ok, so, since I'm home sick today, I just made sure my gram scale was calibrated. Capacity is 100g, and I have calibration weights at 5g, 10g, 20g, 50g, and 100g, and it read within 0.02 of each.

 

One level tablespoon is 15.1 grams. If one gram raises one gallon by 129ppm, then for 90g volume, one tablespoon will raise K by 21.64ppm. 15x tablespoons is 324ppm. Hmm. Well, I raised by a shitload more than I had originally calculated.

[Jstn]

Math it sucks

[jedimasterben]

Yes, it'll be the death of me

 

(but luckily so far it's only meant the death of some inverts)

[jedimasterben]

Dinos attacked my katropora, skewing the results of my insane potassium dose

 

 

More dinos

 

 

I need to beef up my CUC asap.

 

 

more pretty zoanthids, think these are Z. gigantus from kat.

[Nano sapiens]

Dinos! Horror classic come back to life just in time for Halloween. Sorry to see this, again ;(

[Alex B]

Man...I think maybe it's time to toss it in.

 

New tank time!! Your never going to be able to have a flourishing reef if you got Dino's coming back all the time. I would cut my losses and start from scratch.

[jedimasterben]

My 55w UV sterilizer has shipped.

[gus6464]

Ben,

 

Have you tried dosing other stuff besides K? I came across this "review" for Continuum Bacter Clean-M. Has pictures so I would say it's legit.

 

http://www.3reef.com/threads/new-continuum-aquatics-bacter-clean-m-marine-depot-review.150778/

[jedimasterben]

All that is is a bottle of different denitrifying bacteria, doesn't actually do anything to established dinoflagellates. That dude got lucky that his species encysted for him, but they'll be back.

[jedimasterben]

Well, the fish list continues to shrink. All I saw last night were my two clowns, leopard wrasse, sailfin blenny, rabbitfish, watchman goby, and the three dragonets. No chromis, no springers damsels. On top of that, dinos have been just coating everything, so most of the gorgonians are not extending any polyps, and three of them are rapidly losing flesh. Hooray. That UV sterilizer can't get here sooner.

[jedimasterben]

After finding and reading through several incredibly long and in-depth articles on UV sterilization, it's safe to say that the SunSun CUV-155 that I bought instead of the 55w Jebao unit will do what I want and more. Sunsun, though Chinese in origin, at least makes quality UV units with proper low-pressure UVC bulbs. With the ~370-400GPH that i'm pushing through my return (set to 2/6) gives just over 7GPH per watt of UV. For 'stage one' sterilization, which is for parasites, basically anything 'large' and more complex than something like phytoplankton, between 8-12GPH per watt is recommended, so with 7.2GPH/w dinos will definitely be killed, it's just a matter of getting them to go through it. At night, ostreopsis become pelagic, so that should help get them towards the overflow and into the sterilizer.

Like I've mentioned before, with dinos, there is nothing that is 100%. I will never be 100% rid of them, but with the sterilizer, this should significantly hamper their growth and hopefully allow me to have a semi-normal tank again.

[4x5]

Good luck man. What a pain.

[metrokat]

I need to beef up my CUC asap.

Not sure this is a good idea. Dinos kill CUC as you know. If that doesn't do it, your potassium dose will.

[Mr. Microscope]

Ben, just a heads-up. I took out my ostreopsis (before my change over), though a series of heavy water changes, extremely light feeding, and several 3 day blackouts over the course of a couple months. This is also when I took out my sandbed. I'm sure that was another factor in play.