Lawnman Posted September 20, 2015 Share Posted September 20, 2015 Damn you Lawn... maybe if I get drunk enough I'll write the eulogy tonight. Link to comment
Pinner Reef Posted September 20, 2015 Author Share Posted September 20, 2015 Ya, dinos got the better of me... I'll do the farewell post tonight. [Grabs a shot] Here's to the 40 Link to comment
ReefWeeds Posted September 20, 2015 Share Posted September 20, 2015 Bump! What a shit stirrer Ya, dinos got the better of me... I'll do the farewell post tonight. [Grabs a shot] Here's to the 40 Link to comment
Lawnman Posted September 20, 2015 Share Posted September 20, 2015 What a shit stirrer You have to have shit to stir ow thanks for stopping by Link to comment
markalot Posted September 20, 2015 Share Posted September 20, 2015 Ya, dinos got the better of me... I'll do the farewell post tonight. [Grabs a shot] Here's to the 40 Sorry But starting over is always an option. Link to comment
Pinner Reef Posted September 22, 2015 Author Share Posted September 22, 2015 Ok, I've put this off for too long (3mos); the tank crashed In mid-June. When I last updated I was working at trying to kill my dinoflagellate outbreak with Silica dosing. Sadly, I saw no improvement for the 5 weeks that I was able to test the theory. I was keeping the Silica level between 1 and 2ppm. This proved really difficult as it was taken up by something in the aquarium rather quickly. I found it was chewing through about 25% of the silica every 1-2 days. This is actually lower than what I was expecting from research but still seemed like a ton of additive. Once a week I would pull a sample of glass scrapings and examine them under the microscope. I did find more diatoms towards the end of the five weeks however it didn't seem like there were enough to be able to out-compete the dinos. Perhaps a longer more heavier dosage was necessary because whist I was aiming for 1-2ppm the level of silica can be as high as 180ppm. In early June all the remaining corals were still holding on. Then my Blenny died and shit got real bad real fast. I can't say how long he was in there but his body was beginning to flake apart when I pull the lil guy out. I dosed a crapload of bacteria but the Dinos took care of the ammonia spike in no time flat. A couple days later and I couldn't see the back wall thru the front. Apparently the Dinos reached a toxicity level enough to overcome my sixline and he too perished. I caught this within a day but by then it was too late. All the corals were already starting to slough off skin. And so it went with all the rest of the coral. I did decide to leave the tank running and just dump a metric shit ton of Silica in there for the week... I went with ten times the normal dosage. It pushed the silica level up to about 14ppm. This dropped down to half that level in the week and there were a lot more diatoms. Again this was not enough to say that I was beating out the Dinos. After that week I took the tank down, it was just to heart wrenching to stare at the Ramen noodle broth that was once my aquarium and I was going on vacation at the end of the month. Ultimately I proved that diatoms can reproduce in a Dino infested aquarium. The added silica did nothing positive or negative to the Dinos. And that you would need LOTS of Silica to get them going. Guh, It's been 3mos and already I miss my tank more than I'd thought possible. This might be the reason I've been running around the site so much recently. Of course it's left me plenty of time to plan my next system so watch for that setup's thread. The last thing I wanna show you is my dead Blasto colony. It might be morbid, but look at how many cuts I've made on that rock. I'm usually pretty generous and just give away lots of frags. I texted around and this (my favorite coral) and several others are still alive in the valley. Furthermore the owners are willing to give me replacement frags. So I'll still have most of my favorite corals. Thanks for following along guys, it's been a fun run. I'm working on a memorial vid so maybe wait for that. Definitely not done with this hobby yet... come November I'll be back in it Farewell 40b Link to comment
Lawnman Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Ok, I've put this off for too long (3mos); the tank crashed In mid-June. When I last updated I was working at trying to kill my dinoflagellate outbreak with Silica dosing. Sadly, I saw no improvement for the 5 weeks that I was able to test the theory. I was keeping the Silica level between 1 and 2ppm. This proved really difficult as it was taken up by something in the aquarium rather quickly. I found it was chewing through about 25% of the silica every 1-2 days. This is actually lower than what I was expecting from research but still seemed like a ton of additive. Once a week I would pull a sample of glass scrapings and examine them under the microscope. I did find more diatoms towards the end of the five weeks however it didn't seem like there were enough to be able to out-compete the dinos. Perhaps a longer more heavier dosage was necessary because whist I was aiming for 1-2ppm the level of silica can be as high as 180ppm. In early June all the remaining corals were still holding on. Then my Blenny died and shit got real bad real fast. I can't say how long he was in there but his body was beginning to flake apart when I pull the lil guy out. I dosed a crapload of bacteria but the Dinos took care of the ammonia spike in no time flat. A couple days later and I couldn't see the back wall thru the front. Apparently the Dinos reached a toxicity level enough to overcome my sixline and he too perished. I caught this within a day but by then it was too late. All the corals were already starting to slough off skin. And so it went with all the rest of the coral. I did decide to leave the tank running and just dump a metric shit ton of Silica in there for the week... I went with ten times the normal dosage. It pushed the silica level up to about 14ppm. This dropped down to half that level in the week and there were a lot more diatoms. Again this was not enough to say that I was beating out the Dinos. After that week I took the tank down, it was just to heart wrenching to stare at the Ramen noodle broth that was once my aquarium and I was going on vacation at the end of the month. Ultimately I proved that diatoms can reproduce in a Dino infested aquarium. The added silica did nothing positive or negative to the Dinos. And that you would need LOTS of Silica to get them going. Guh, It's been 3mos and already I miss my tank more than I'd thought possible. This might be the reason I've been running around the site so much recently. Of course it's left me plenty of time to plan my next system so watch for that setup's thread. The last thing I wanna show you is my dead Blasto colony. It might be morbid, but look at how many cuts I've made on that rock. I'm usually pretty generous and just give away lots of frags. I texted around and this (my favorite coral) and several others are still alive in the valley. Furthermore the owners are willing to give me replacement frags. So I'll still have most of my favorite corals. Thanks for following along guys, it's been a fun run. I'm working on a memorial vid so maybe wait for that. Definitely not done with this hobby yet... come November I'll be back in it Farewell 40b Look forward to a new tank. Link to comment
markalot Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Damn dinos. Also looking forward to a new tank! Link to comment
vlangel Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Very sad that you had such a crappy summer tank wise but looking forward to the re-start! I can't wait to see it. Link to comment
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