Asureef Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 Well its been a while since I posted. Dr. Tim's nitrifying bacteria worked great and I got the tank up and running right after we moved and since then I've been settling in to a new house and new jobs and haven't had a chance to update. That and my tank has been looking horrible and I'm embarrassed about it since it was looking pretty good before the crash. Problem 1: algae everywhere. I am using RODI water and finally purchased a Reef Octopus BH-1000 HOB skimmer. It's fantastic! It helped a lot. Then problem number 2 hit. Problem #2. Dinoflagellates. Enough said. Covering everything, along with bits of GHA. I turned up the skimmer to an even wetter skim and ordered a great pack of cleaners from Reefcleaners. I'll do a writeup on that order later. In a word, fantastic. Problem #3. I did some hunting over the forums and talked to my LFS and am trying to raise my magnesium to 1700 to get rid of the dinos. Now I have a GHA outbreak and I am getting really tired of all this. I have very few corals anymore because I didn't want to invest a lot after the crash until I got the alage under control. It's just getting frustrating. Any tips or help would be great. Right now I am trying to work up enough will to stay in this hobby and survive all this. It's to be expected, especially since you started with dead rock. Also, you need to make sure you actually have dino and not cyanobacteria. You'll be in for a long fight, so hang in there. Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 Did you start w/dry dead rock? Cause I've been reading lately that that kind of rock can leach phosphates into the water for quite a while. That might be a possible source of your problems. You can find some good info on this by googling something like "dry rock and phosphates". Link to comment
beau13 Posted November 3, 2012 Author Share Posted November 3, 2012 Did you start w/dry dead rock?Cause I've been reading lately that that kind of rock can leach phosphates into the water for quite a while. That might be a possible source of your problems. You can find some good info on this by googling something like "dry rock and phosphates". I did technically start with dead rock. I say technically because a lot of it was large chunks of dead coral that washed up onto the lava and baked for several months after the tsunami in Hawaii a couple years ago. My in-laws gave me a box of it and I washed it and let it soak in fresh water with frequent changes for about a week then put it in and used Dr. Tim's on it. I'll look into the leaching part of it. I never had this problem before with it. I used part of this box for my tank before the crash and it looked great and never had problems. It's to be expected, especially since you started with dead rock. Also, you need to make sure you actually have dino and not cyanobacteria. You'll be in for a long fight, so hang in there. Thanks! I've confirmed that it is dinos. It overgrows very fast and the long strings are a classic unfortunately. I wish it was cyanobacteria! Hopefully it is a fight I can win. Any tips on winning? Link to comment
beau13 Posted November 3, 2012 Author Share Posted November 3, 2012 September FTS before the dino outbreak Novemeber FTS after cleaning most of the rocks with a toothbrush and blasting them with a turkey baster to get all the slim off the corals and everything. The layer that grows over everything is less now that I've raised the magnesium. It takes more than a day to cover everything in my tank now. It's a far cry from what it used to be... Link to comment
beau13 Posted November 5, 2012 Author Share Posted November 5, 2012 Today was the first day I added some GFO. I decided to go with RowaPhos. Since phosphate levels in my tank are a bit high I put 100 mL in the filter sock it came with and put it near my MP10 for high flow. We'll see how it goes! Link to comment
beau13 Posted November 6, 2012 Author Share Posted November 6, 2012 My skimmer has been pulling a ton of junk out since I put the RowaPhos in and my GHA doesn't look as green and happy, which makes me happy! Link to comment
Sahin Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 Did you manage to get rid of the Dinos? Makes me sad because your tank was so awesome looking... Link to comment
beau13 Posted November 7, 2012 Author Share Posted November 7, 2012 Did you manage to get rid of the Dinos? Makes me sad because your tank was so awesome looking... They are going away slowly. I am not sure what kind of an impact the GFO will have immediately but it seems to be cutting down on my phosphates. My GHA doesn't look so good! Link to comment
beau13 Posted November 9, 2012 Author Share Posted November 9, 2012 Seing a decrease in dinos and a little bit of decrease in my GHA. Hopefully the cycle continues. Water change an pictures tomorrow! Link to comment
beau13 Posted December 9, 2012 Author Share Posted December 9, 2012 My tank is finally looking better. I'll have a FTS shot up tomorrow hopefully. I need to clean up the glass. I got rid of the dinos by raising my magnesium to about 1700. I had some interesting swings in Ca and Alk with that but things look a lot better now. Still have some GHA problems but overall things are better. I just picked up a frag/mini colony of ORA Red Planet from my local FTS for a good price. Things are coming along finally. My ORA Red Planet My nifty little tuxedo urchin that has been helping a lot with algae control The left side of the tank Not sure what kind of coral this is. ID anyone? Side view of my clam that has started growing again. It seems to love the high magnesium Link to comment
Sahin Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Glad that your tank is on the mend. The coral you are asking to ID looks like a War Favia. Keep up the updates. Link to comment
beau13 Posted December 9, 2012 Author Share Posted December 9, 2012 Glad that your tank is on the mend. The coral you are asking to ID looks like a War Favia. Keep up the updates. Thanks Sahin for the ID! Now I just need to get the rocks to color up with coralline algae. Link to comment
beau13 Posted January 30, 2013 Author Share Posted January 30, 2013 Some new pictures, a little late. January FTS A slightly different angle My lone colony of acans Link to comment
rb1685 Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Not sure what kind of coral this is. ID anyone? Looks like a War Coral (Favites pentagona). I've got one just like it. Link to comment
beau13 Posted January 31, 2013 Author Share Posted January 31, 2013 Thanks! It has been growing very well for me! Link to comment
akma Posted January 31, 2013 Share Posted January 31, 2013 Coming back slowly but nice. I just switched my tank to sps route after losing my chalices. Got the new radion and i'm loving it. What settings are you running? Link to comment
beau13 Posted April 19, 2013 Author Share Posted April 19, 2013 I am running it at about 65% intensity in the middle of the day with the color temp set at 12K. My basic curve goes from 20K to 12K in the middle and back to 20K with intensities ranging from 40% at each end to 65% in the middle. I did the 12K because I am gone in the middle of the day and I thought they could use a little less blue in the spectrum but the 14K and 18K look the best I think. Link to comment
beau13 Posted April 19, 2013 Author Share Posted April 19, 2013 February FTS http://s1235.photobucket.com/user/beausnyder13/media/file_zps8a838138.jpg.html'> Link to comment
beau13 Posted April 19, 2013 Author Share Posted April 19, 2013 March FTS http://s1235.photobucket.com/user/beausnyder13/media/file_zps5467a81d.jpg.html'> Mid March http://s1235.photobucket.com/user/beausnyder13/media/file_zpscbfb98a7.jpg.html'> April FTS http://s1235.photobucket.com/user/beausnyder13/media/file_zps731e43a9.jpg.html'> Tons of Montipora growth! http://s1235.photobucket.com/user/beausnyder13/media/file_zps9b987eea.jpg.html'> The Shrimp! http://s1235.photobucket.com/user/beausnyder13/media/file_zps4eb11cfd.jpg.html'> Link to comment
beau13 Posted April 23, 2013 Author Share Posted April 23, 2013 Has anyone tried running magnesium kind of high for a long period of time? By kind of high I mean around 1650 or so? Any ill effects? Good ones? I noticed a huge drop in algae on my glass and a seemingly instant bump in coraline and SPS growth when I did it and I've kept it at that for several months. Thoughts? It cleared up all the dinos I had going on. Link to comment
beau13 Posted April 26, 2013 Author Share Posted April 26, 2013 No magnesium high runners? Anyone? Link to comment
SouthFlorida_Tron Posted April 26, 2013 Share Posted April 26, 2013 i accidently had it like that.... it will just let you run hella high levels of alkalinty and ca.... thats what deckoz does to keep his alk at like 12ish and ca at 550 or something crazy.... Link to comment
beau13 Posted May 6, 2013 Author Share Posted May 6, 2013 I think I am going to dial back my Radion. I looked at the video from MrSaltwater where he checked out the PAR in a pretty accurate way and I noticed that blue or pink birdnests and branching montipora have been loosing their color and not growing and that even the coraline algae is not growing much at all anywhere the light touches. My light is about 8 inches above the tank but coraline is doing best on the sides and in the shade. I moved my bird of paradise birdsnest down four inches and it colored right up. Thoughts? I dialed it back to 50% maximum with 45% on each end and changed it to 14K in the middle of the day instead of 12K. Link to comment
beau13 Posted July 27, 2013 Author Share Posted July 27, 2013 Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on how to get purple montipora digitata to color up? it was beautiful at the LFS a couple months ago under MH but under my Radion has browned out. I've tried it at three different tank levels. My bird of paradise did great when I moved it away from the light some and I've dialed back my Radion. Thoughts? Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.