TeenyReef's 4g PicoParadise

[teenyreef]

Your Ricorida are huge! Or is the tank small? Either way inspired me to get into Florida Ricordia. I have a small garden going now, planning on mounting them on a flatish rock and hoping to eventually get something comparable

The tank is very small

Those rics are about 1 1/2" across - you can tell by looking at the sexy shrimp which is a little less than an inch long.

I've seen your rics and they are looking great, btw

[HarryPotter]

The tank is very small

Those rics are about 1 1/2" across - you can tell by looking at the sexy shrimp which is a little less than an inch long.

I've seen your rics and they are looking great, btw

Hmm mine are like 1/2" haha, pissed little mushrooms but thanks!

 

Would you recommend gluing them horizontally or sideways?

[teenyreef]

Hmm mine are like 1/2" haha, pissed little much rooms but thanks!

 

Would you recommend gluing them horizontally or sideways?

They like to lay flat, at least to get started. Some of mine have grown over the edge of their rock and will drape down sometimes, but if they're glued sideways they'll either let go, or grow up until they get room to flatten out (kind of like a plant).

 

The real trick for me is to get them going in low flow. Once they're happy they will sometime tolerate additional flow, but not always.

[vlangel]

I read your google words of wisdom on dinos and my head is spinning from all the contradictions. No wonder dinos dishearten folks so much. It seems like the luck of the draw if you choose the right treatment. Anyway my fingers are crossed that your tank is rid of them teeny!

[jedimasterben]

Today is day 3 of lights out. No sign of dinos, but that's because the lights are out

Here's what I've found about dinos based on the wisdom of Google:

- Periods of lights out, three days or more, seem to help in every case, whether they are eventually eliminated or not.

- Remove as much as you can mechanically.

- I believe JedimasterBen had success using a massively oversized UV light.

- Raising Ph is broadly considered a good technique.

- Raising Ph doesn't work well for some type of dinos that actually like higher Ph, and may kill your fish and corals.

- Decreasing nutrients and practicing good general reefing hygiene helps.

- Others say you should increase nutrients so that other organisms will grow and outcompete the dinos.

- You should do carbon dosing to encourage better parameters and make dino competitors grow.

- You should never do carbon dosing because it will encourage the dinos to grow.

- You should do regular water changes to reduce excess nutrients.

- You should discontinue water changes because something (maybe trace elements) in new water will encourage dinos to grow.

- You should add pods because they will eat the dinos (this one doesn't even make sense to me since dinos are highly toxic to inverts).

- You can dose peroxide but be careful about killing your inverts.

- You can use DinoX, which some people say works great and other say didn't do a thing. Oh yeah, and be careful with your inverts with this stuff too.

 

And of course there are a million recommendations about how to do the lights out. Fully dark with no light at all by wrapping the tank in a blanket, just running actinics, three days, ten days, every other day...

 

In short, they're hard to get rid of and it appears that a good treatment for one variety only encourages a different variety.

 

I'm going to do three days with the lights off, keep up carbon dosing, activated carbon, and GFO, based on the good reefkeeping theory. I'll consider more extreme measures only if multiple rounds of lights off don't get rid of them.

 

A few notes from what I've dealt with with my species, Ostreopsis.

 

Don't bother siphoning any out, if even a single cell is left they'll come back to plague proportions if conditions are right, just blow them off with a turkey baster to get them off the corals.

 

Regardless of species, though, they have little competition in low nutrient tanks, so dirtying it up really is the best way to avoid the plague proportions. Dinoflagellates that aren't symbiotic with corals are exceedingly poor competitors versus even diatoms. Those who say to reduce nutrients probably couldn't identify dinos if they were told what they were beforehand

 

Strong UV will help keep them from blooming, but will make your water piss yellow, even with running carbon, Purigen, AND an oversized skimmer.

 

For pH, it is less about raising it and more about having less CO2 in the water - dinoflagellates are carbon limited, so less CO2 = less dinos. However, that being said, less CO2 in the water can be a good thing for all your other inhabitants, as well, but I would not go out of your way to accomplish this. This may also be why water changes seem to fuel them, as water change water is typically CO2-laden.

 

Dinoflagellates do have natural predators, but the chance of any commercial copepod culture will likely contain mostly Tisbe biminiensis or Tigriopus californicus. There are some hobbyists in I believe Italy that have identified a predator from the waters there but their research is still ongoing.

 

Peroxide does work - it bursts their cell walls, I've verified that under a microscope, and those that do not burst stop moving, dead in their tracks. Bastards

[ReefWeeds]

The lights are back on today and everything looks fine, with no dinos in sight. Which I expected - if they are going to come back it won't be for a few days.

 

I pulled the frags off the frag racks and the racks are soaking in bleach for a while to make sure they're completely clean.

 

One pleasant surprise when the lights came on was that the Morphologics Vice zoas had a baby, at long last!!!

I've had these guys for about a year, and while they've done fine, they've never spread until now. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come!

 

Top Down Detail by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

Here's a zoomed in shot of the baby

 

Baby Zoa by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

These photos!!! Is that an acan to the left of the vice zoas? The red one? It's cool looking.

 

That pipe organ! I have the all white kind that looks like that but I love the green centers one.

[Nano sapiens]

I've been posting about what I think are dinos in the frag tank in my 10g thread. I moved a few frags from the frag tank into this tank last week, and just last night I spotted what looks like dinos in this tank now.

The lights are out now. Nutrient levels are already low, so I can't do much to improve in that area. I'll post later today about what I've learned from my research. Hint: most of the advice on the web is contradictory. Of course.

 

Sorry to hear about the Dinos This is one plague that I've been spared from (so far, at least).

 

Good luck on banishing the little devils...

[teenyreef]

I read your google words of wisdom on dinos and my head is spinning from all the contradictions. No wonder dinos dishearten folks so much. It seems like the luck of the draw if you choose the right treatment. Anyway my fingers are crossed that your tank is rid of them teeny!

Thanks, Dawn! Hopefully I won't have to get too extreme, and they'll go away due to the lights out treatment and the tank getting more balanced.

 

A few notes from what I've dealt with with my species, Ostreopsis.

 

Don't bother siphoning any out, if even a single cell is left they'll come back to plague proportions if conditions are right, just blow them off with a turkey baster to get them off the corals.

 

Regardless of species, though, they have little competition in low nutrient tanks, so dirtying it up really is the best way to avoid the plague proportions. Dinoflagellates that aren't symbiotic with corals are exceedingly poor competitors versus even diatoms. Those who say to reduce nutrients probably couldn't identify dinos if they were told what they were beforehand

 

Strong UV will help keep them from blooming, but will make your water piss yellow, even with running carbon, Purigen, AND an oversized skimmer.

 

For pH, it is less about raising it and more about having less CO2 in the water - dinoflagellates are carbon limited, so less CO2 = less dinos. However, that being said, less CO2 in the water can be a good thing for all your other inhabitants, as well, but I would not go out of your way to accomplish this. This may also be why water changes seem to fuel them, as water change water is typically CO2-laden.

 

Dinoflagellates do have natural predators, but the chance of any commercial copepod culture will likely contain mostly Tisbe biminiensis or Tigriopus californicus. There are some hobbyists in I believe Italy that have identified a predator from the waters there but their research is still ongoing.

 

Peroxide does work - it bursts their cell walls, I've verified that under a microscope, and those that do not burst stop moving, dead in their tracks. Bastards

Thanks, Ben! That all makes sense and helps explain some of the conflicting advice on the web

 

Sorry to hear about the Dinos This is one plague that I've been spared from (so far, at least).

 

Good luck on banishing the little devils...

Thanks! Fingers crossed

 

These photos!!! Is that an acan to the left of the vice zoas? The red one? It's cool looking.

 

That pipe organ! I have the all white kind that looks like that but I love the green centers one.

Thanks, Stella! I've always loved this pipe organ. It was one of the very first corals I ever got, and it's just continued to slowly grow more and more polyps.

[teenyreef]

The blue mushrooms were very nicely extended, reaching to the light from their shaded corner. The stalks looked really cool because I could see right though them. I tried my best to get a picture that captured that transparent look, but it looks more like all the stuff inside the stalk is painted on the surface.

 

Blue Mushrooms by TeenyReef, on Flickr

[Nano sapiens]

The blue mushrooms were very nicely extended, reaching to the light from their shaded corner. The stalks looked really cool because I could see right though them. I tried my best to get a picture that captured that transparent look, but it looks more like all the stuff inside the stalk is painted on the surface.

 

Blue Mushrooms by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

They can be most alluring, but beware the 'Takeover of the Mushrooms'

[teenyreef]

 

Thye can be most alluring, but beware the 'Takeover of the Mushrooms'

Yep! The red ones in the middle used to take over the middle of the top rock. I used to melt them with boiling water during water changes, then they'd come back a couple months later.

 

The last time did the trick and they haven't come back.

 

On that rock.

 

I have two now on the rock below.

 

But at least I know how to keep them under control!

[Nano sapiens]

Yep! The red ones in the middle used to take over the middle of the top rock. I used to melt them with boiling water during water changes, then they'd come back a couple months later.

 

The last time did the trick and they haven't come back.

 

On that rock.

 

I have two now on the rock below.

 

But at least I know how to keep them under control!

 

Looks like you've got it covered..."Reef On"

[Slowtwitch]

I can't make the red ones grow for the life of me. The BLUE ones though are a plague of locusts....

[teenyreef]

I can't make the red ones grow for the life of me. The BLUE ones though are a plague of locusts....

One of the very first corals I ever got was allegedly a blue coral, but he turned out to be a dark purple, but not a pretty dark purple. I've kept him in the back corner of the tank ever since. He gradually migrated a little further forward and higher, and has pretty much settled there for the last six months. In all that time, it hasn't grown much and hasn't dropped any babies ever.

 

The blue one is doing well but no babies so far. Which is fine with me.

 

The red ones have always multiplied like rabbits. Weird.

[teenyreef]

Dino update: after three days lights out, they slowly started coming back after a couple days. Yesterday was the first day they were present enough that I could really tell. I took this picture of a sexy shrimp cleaning algae off an acro that's growing back from one little tip. The rest of the acro has regular algae on it, but you can just see dinos with bubbles starting to form.

 

20160508_195429.jpg by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

Today, I spotted one of the tell tale little strands supported by bubbles forming on one of the healthy acros.

 

Acros with Dinos by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

And here's the same algae-encrusted frag from yesterday, with way more bubbles on it now.

 

20160509_180146.jpg by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

In all three pictures you can see all the bubbles starting to form on the underside of the frag rack. Based on my experience with the dinos in the frag tank, if I leave this unchecked, I'll have lots of long strands within a couple more days, and the zoas and other corals will start closing up due to the toxins in the water.

 

The good news is that after the second lights out treatment in the frag tank, the dinos have not come back in that tank after more than a week. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself!

 

The lights are going out for another three days starting tomorrow...

[teenyreef]

The good news is that after the second lights out treatment in the frag tank, the dinos have not come back in that tank after more than a week. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself!

 

The lights are going out for another three days starting tomorrow...

Well I jinxed myself

 

Ten minutes after I posted this, I took a good look at the frag tank and saw this:

 

Dinos in the frag tank by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

Guess I'll try lights out in the frag tank again. The first time, the dinos went away for two days. The second time they went away for well over a week. Hopefully the trend will continue.

[markalot]

Damn, stinking dinos anyway. I've had the bubbles before but it's never gotten worse.

[teenyreef]

Damn, stinking dinos anyway. I've had the bubbles before but it's never gotten worse.

For me the key is how the zoas react. Yesterday they were all fully open, no bubbles showing. Now there are bubbles and they are already closing up

[kimberbee]

[ReefWeeds]

Oh man. Teeny, I'm sorry about the dinos. How frustrating

[teenyreef]

Thank, everyone! Hopefully a few more rounds of lights off and some time will do the trick.

 

If not, I have an old UV unit plumbed into the 90g FW tank that I could hook up!

[teenyreef]

I turned the lights back on today but there still seems to be signs of dinos. I'm debating whether to just keep on with a conservative approach, hoping that things will balance out over time, or figure out a way to hook up the UV sterilizer, or try Dino X.

 

I've ordered the Dino X because I can always try it out in the frag tank if the dinos come back there, and there are no shrimp or crabs in that tank. From what I've read, you have to be really careful about inverts with Dino X, so I'd probably have to pull out the pom poms and the sexy shrimp first, if I get desperate enough to try it.

 

On the positive side, everything opened right back up when the lights came back on, and nothing lost color.

 

I took night shots just to see how they would turn out. My 100% failure record for night shots with the good camera remains unbroken, but a quick cell phone shot turned out OK.

 

2016-05-13 Cadlights FTS at night by TeenyReef, on Flickr

[teenyreef]

As I was going to work this morning I noticed a ton of precipitation in the tank. I manually dosed some Alk last night and the doser got stuck on. I know I turned it off but somehow it didn't take and the Apex was set to on instead of auto this morning.

 

Alk is at 16.8 which is the max measurable level on the Hanna checker.

 

The pom pom crabs and sexy shrimp look dead - I think all the inverts are probably gone.

 

I only had about 1/2 gallon of water made up so I changed what I could and added some vinegar to bring the Ph down a bit. Then I moved all the frags and most of the rocks to the 10g tank and the frag tank to see if anything can be saved.

 

I'll post later tonight when I get home and see what's left, but right now it looks like I'll have to do a complete reset in this tank even if anything survives

[natalia_la_loca]

Oh no

[Nano sapiens]

Sorry to hear about this...