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The secret to algae control in the nano reef: stop growing your invaders on purpose. i dare you to post a challenge


brandon429

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Right now, in a large forum near you, nano tankers are still choosing to take weeks to possibly hopefully win a light dinos invasion. 

 

Bump for those who opt out in about an hour's work. The whole invasion was never required, but we had no permission to act nor huge reference threads to see the outcome possibilities (reef2reef sand rinse thread got some pics, so does disease forum here)

 

No nano reefer needs to put up with dinos, diatoms or cyano invasions unless they like the challenge. All they require to thrive is a hands off approach to reefing, a reason that sandbed waste is important enough to risk the entire system and left to compile 

 

 

 

Large tankers have serious serious challenges posted webwide managing coral health vs nutrients vs invasions. 

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So, speaking as someone completely new to this - my tank is 2 weeks old, I just bought a little electric blue leg crab and an astrea snail to help clean up a minor diatom outbreak on my sand bed.

Is a nano approach I should be taking to just vacuum the daylights out of that stuff?  I have done so much reading - and have heard my tank is just low on life at the moment and every tank goes through dino outbreaks and to just wait it out...?  This is the first I've heard that diatoms are bad.  I would have no idea if I had a dinoflaggelate outbreak.

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the old school way is to let things run its course, its true that alternation of generations will take place and eventually, hopefully, wind up as coralline and coral so thick you can't chip it off with a hammer. the special way I like to reef shows up right at the hopefully part :)

 

 

 

we simply opt to quit taking chances. the way I see it, who cares what an invader ID's as... if you like them, keep them. if you don't want to chance, we can rip clean any tank in the world top to bottom and never recycle them (the sand rinse thread/proof) so all this does is empower any keeper to opt in, or opt out, of either the potential invasion or the full blown one.

 

 

 

 

 

 some of the things I thought were harmless diatoms might have been dinos, not sure, cuz I never took the chance. Two things Ive never required on large tank recue threads: and ID of the invader, or the nutrients found in the water column at the time of invasion. we don't need to know them to produce rescued tanks, its been mostly sandbed arresting so far to get there. People still like that muddy bed, hard to let go of for sure...

 

from a few rounds of hand guiding, there's literally no room for algae to grow in my reef its all coral and coralline. and Ive quit taking chances with importing new frags, all filled up currently.

 

Though this post may seem kinda like poking fun at the big tanker issues, its really just a reframing of how tank invasions work regardless of system volume.

 

All these slow, methodical dosing and stripping of water is how invasions have always been handled, and it doesn't work very well or the large tankers wouldn't be having such problems. They often start a tank in the ideal, import an invader that doesn't require specific params to grow, then they try and alter params further in hopes it'll starve it out or boost competition

 

and then somewhere in a distant universe, a pico reefer got the same invasions, did a rip cleaning, and never saw the invader again.

 

we're able to use our little reefs, and total system accessibility, to show how direct competition against invaders is not only natural, its something the masses often wont even consider as a first go approach.

 

The nano general forum here has few sustained invasions I ever see...there are a few. The picos forum has none though, that means something about patterns of invasion across the entire hobby of reefing since we all pretty much source our corals, and invaders, really similarly

 

only the outcomes are varying, with the hand-guiders taking all the win consistently.

 

The habit, the trait, of allowing no persistent invasion is what makes an aquarium invasion bulletproof. in that mode, we may overshoot a time or three but it doesn't matter... Its all about how much risk we want with our money, and, can we stand to lose a couple worms in the procedure.

 

the top trait 99% of invaded tanks have in common on the internet: the keeper sat right there and watched the mass build while taking indirect actions via the water. our rescue threads are simple reversal of all that

 

 

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On 11/21/2017 at 5:07 AM, ajm83 said:

I had dinos across 3 tanks :angry:

 

First a pico (19L - spec V) then a 55L then an 85L. 

 

Here's how it started in my pico:

 

LaTd9V9m.jpgiqAnkCzm.jpg

 

It was identified incorrectly as cyano and diatoms numerous times, but I finally confirmed it was dinos using a microscope.

 

The thing is, I used all new equipment and transferred no livestock between the 55 litre and the 85, so I firmly believe it was my methods causing the issue.  Mainly that I kept reading you want 0/0 for nitrate/phosphate,  so I ran rowa/phosguard, fed very sparingly and used large water changes to keep nutrients extremely low.  I also regularly vac'd and turkey basted out all detritus. 

 

My personal opinion is that dinos are present in small numbers in every tank, but keeping the tank too clean means you don't get the proper ecosystem set up which normally keeps them in check.  

 

And the reason why it is more commonly seen in larger tanks - well I guess it is more common to use vodka/vinegar/sugar, rowaphos reactors to drive nutrients very low.  Tools we often don't have the room for in our little (and generally sumpless) tanks. :)

I was going to post the exact same thing as this! Think you nailed it, most nano tanks do not employ GFO, carbon dosing, biopellets, etc, which creates the perfect environment for dinos if not done properly. Nano tanks are generally more "natural", which makes it harder for dinos to establish. That's my thought anyways, based on what I've learned battling dinos in my 29g. 

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If you beat them using any approach that's gold, I rate em as number one scourge, and not surprised at all if some rare strains are so virulent even our sandbed wash would be challenged. (but not ever ever bested heh)

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Im going to step up claims on this thread to be a bit harsher, and call for invaded tank challenges as they present hopefully, by saying that to have a persistent invasion in a nano reef is by direct choice to not act for one or more reasons. Post up a challenge here and we'll begin a fresh cure round like the peroxide thread in the disease FM

 

 

A keeper is either unaware of cure options or simply willing to not use them for some reason, and for large tankers mere access to apply the known cures becomes the real challenge...reefkeepers usually demand a natural-only fix to the condition (though ironically their invasion is likely natural for a reef, to be invader free is unnatural) and the natural-only fix is allowed to be: nutrient starving/chasing and adding of one or more CUC members. Both of these are indirect dealings with the invader. They're rooted in the old premise of tank upsets and other fallacies stated from being assertive within the confines of a nano reef, and if these worked reliably we'd have no persistent invasion threads to study.

 

 

That a nano reef versus a large tank is easy to keep invader free reveals the real true cure to invaded conditions, direct action. A parrotfish or a hawksbill turtle takes direct action on a bryopsis patch on the reef. we know it works well in curing tank invasions too, we become directed and thorough like those nature models do on the discovery channel

 

 

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/

 

 

The sand rinse thread is a collections of large and small tanks being cured by direct action and skip cycle cleaning. This is the best known cure for cyano on the internet.

 

The cause for cyano invasions is doing the opposite of that thread above.

 

 

At no point do we require people's nitrate or phosphate levels to beat and sustain any invader, given verified 0 0 topoff/source water (always cover the basics, its why we remove detritus from a bed, there's basically no other way to deal with it as well)

 

Any tank with a GHA challenge already by default needs the sandbed worked as above, and then we step into test rock modeling on how to kill off that GHA before work is upscaled to the larger tank. When we arrange order of ops like that, we force wins. We make a test rock behave in the invaded reef before we subject the whole system to guesswork/ that  type of guesswork and indirect action is the entirety of our algae training as new reefers and it only works about 1/4 of attempts, or no forums would be having invaded tanks all the time as they do. Something is wrong with current tank invasion approach and nano reefers don't have to subscribe.

 

 

 

Nobody likes the hard work manual clean method, we all want something we add to water to correct a condition. Until that time comes, manual cleaning is what you have and it always works and we can clean as deep as needed without loss. You can simply use the right kind of work to be algae free from day 1 to day 3000, though your nutrients and other variables w set how often you work on the tank to be the final say.

 

For large tank keepers, to hesitate when the invasion is the size of a pencil eraser is beyond costly.  For nano reefers, even if you did hesitate, we love that challenge post up and we'll fix.

 

**one thing reefers don't always consider, but affects our algae challenge threads massively, is that leaving any invader in place is to actually feed that invader though you aren't intending to do so (again, this is indirect vs direct action impacts)

 

A tuft of algae, or bryopsis, is a wick broom that sticks up into the water and grabs detritus.

 

It then sits there in the tuft, degrading on site into algae feed, independent of what your nutrients tests show (which is one reason why I don't use nutrient numbers in tank correction threads, the other reason is because all these tests are ballparking such that my total guess based on cruddy or clean after pics is about as accurate given all subtle confounds)

 

organisms gain resource in numbers, for example a huge sticky mat of cyano left in place traps feed particles for later dissimilation as associated organisms break down those foodstuffs caught and retained on the mat.

 

 

Direction action is at the heart of tank correction after pics

 

 

indirect action attempts is what brought them to the thread, find and exploit these constant invasion traits so that your nano never has the invasion. one of these days when the magic pill (impossible to build resistance in the targets, my concern for fluconazole rage)  is invented they'll look back and laugh at the Neanderthal ways we used to guide our tanks into compliance. ATS keepers already think that :)

 

 

 

 

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It got so bad for me that I'm now switching tanks and removing all of my sand. It would cover all my rocks and sand with this thick sludge, I'd remove it and it would be back the next day, for a year and a half I battled it. I later found that a magnet had been rusting and releasing iron, silica and nasty heavy metals, causing an almost constant dino bloom. It almost drove me out of the hobby, but It'll be wonderful to get a fresh start. I'm sure there was something else causing it as well, still kind of a newbie after 3 years.

(I sucked out most of the sand and did some major deep cleaning of everything after the magnet disintegrated inside when I found it, so far, things are happy)

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7 hours ago, Lypto said:

I sucked out most of the sand

I'd run a magnet through the sand (what's left of it) to try and cleanup any remaining bits.

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I'm at the point where I don't really feel like using the sand anymore, just going to finish taking it out,dry it out for now. I've got some better sand now of a larger grain so the current can't blow it away for the new tank. 

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It just dawned on me I spend more time convincing a keeper to take action than it takes to end a given invasion.

 

Reefkeeper traits are harder to change course compared to most invasions

 

In a thread titled how much trouble they're having, they hold onto the invasion for one or more reasons.

 

Nano reef tank invasion is a psychology, not a biology.

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yes, twofold:

 

fixtanks + collect after pics and wade through various hesitations. any tank that can be made uninvaded live time gives me a chance to save my own tank one day.

 

and, during the day, thankfully a digital industry desk job who allows multitasking including light reefing/typing

 

how bout we fix up that rascal invasion (this is invasion reversal thread)

 

 I had that type of growth before it would respond well to a single rest rock run. a mini assessment of conditions that either support or hinder its comeback. this is basically round two of I dare anyone to post a challenge invasion in a nano thread. Yours is tricky due to the quality of coral growth around your anchor points, all in between set corals. Surgery time...so that whatever is done to the target stays on target, only, in my opinion. 

 

before pics w show either anchored invaders (rasp and test rock) or unanchored invaders (sand rinse thread from above) on every type of invasion a nano will see. That is the reason we don’t have to identify an invader in nano reefing to be free of it, because two sets of actions covers the gamut of possibles. 

 

 

 

 

I believe surgery is your best option and that a test rock proves or disproves the claim before any risk is commuted to your tank. In that context, anything other than targeted removal seems like a big ole gamble with no accessible proof threads for the particular group (rhodophyta in my opinion)

 

the number one approach I’d never do to a tank with corals as robust as yours is change the overall nutrient profile around a pure happenstance requisite hitchhiker. I think we could turn around your invasion. It only roots so deep, once that point is discovered and we work it,  growback will stop by rule of its own physiology. can you post before pics

 

 

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HarryPotter

 

You posted in here to get a cure, right?  Id waited a bit for the response above

 

your sandbed rinse was our first go last year or so I recall.

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16 minutes ago, brandon429 said:

HarryPotter

 

You posted in here to get a cure, right?  Id waited a bit for the response above

 

your sandbed rinse was our first go last year or so I recall.

 

Never rinsed my sand. 

 

Have you ever been wrong in one of your theories? Just trying to understand something here.

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This thread is about fixing a tank

 

 

 

 

I quite purposefully faming algae in 2007.

 

 

 if you don't want it fixed this way, ok. If you do, post the before pics I already saw,  and prepare to stop growing it on purpose :)

 

 

How can someone be wrong about using a test rock to see how a specific organism responds

 

to make yours stand out, lets have you run another method first and then post here only if it doesn't work, select the best you have researched. There is some grazer that'll mow it, margarita snails perhaps not sure

 

 

 

You want your rhodophyta invasion fixed?

B

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I agree with not allowing algae to get a foothold.

 

It doesn't go away on its own, only diatoms get exhausted and there are ways to get that gone quickly too.

 

The secret to getting rid of it

 

- find cause and correct cause

- aggressive removal

 

My most recent 5g had the worst algae blooms out of my 4 current sw tanks.

 

I had diatoms, a bryopsis type algae, and some other type of algae.

 

I immediately added purigen(always helps with diatoms), phosguard, and cuc.

 

I also spot treated the bryopsis with peroxide.

 

On top of my waterchanges and sand vacuuming, it's all gone after 2 weeks

 

 

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I’ve always just used chemiclean on cyano, every 5 months or so. My issue stems from that the posts sound too confident with no scientific testing, just anecdotes and references to 300 pages of success. I am more critical minded. Of course I want pest algae gone. I’ve tried a lot of methods and nothing has worked for me. 

 

But for a method to be proven, there must be times where it does not work, or else it sounds unreasonable. When I read the “solutions” that have 100% success I think of fanatics and the close minded. 

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I had a severe gha and cyano outbreak in my 10g. I had 1 fish lightly fed.

 

I worked on it for mnths. 

 

Multiple waterchanges with aggressive sand vacuuming

Added more cuc

Added media

Manual removal

Reducing sand bed depth from 2.5" to 1"

Added more flow

 

It helped but not enough.

 

The solution was dumping the sand and replacing it with a smaller grain sandbed that was only 1" depth.

 

It worked and I've never had the problem return

 

 

Scientific proof isn't always available or necessary.

 sometimes the proof is just in the multitude of people's experiences with successful eradication of a problem. 

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I know how brazen it sounds Harry. At least Im willing to be accountable/present/we w harm nobodys tank and if a tank does beat us, crow w be baked and served to me but that's only after we use the bootcamp method of assessment on your tank.  

 

 

the only point here is to illuminate the fact either a reefkeeper has total control, always, of their tank's condition or they don't. If they don't, im going to be pissed because that means my 12 yr old reefbowl is about to come down with something and make me dislike it.

 

The truth is, from working with ultra tiny tanks (and the feedback from a thousand others live time) its totally easy to stop any invasion the smaller a tank gets, and if there was an external locus of control at work, then we'd have lots of invaded picos

 

Lots of algae cure threads are philosophical debates, yet Im just daring for the hardest challenges someone wants to post, that's fun stuff if you ask me. If I was a reader, Id want to see if there's any reality to whats being claimed here

 

we do battle with invaded pics, predictions, test rocks, and outcomes earned or not, all real concrete stuff, no words.

 

 

 1 tiny test rock, no big commitment.

 

 

im in sales, and no its not cars 

 

  itching for 2018 challenges, a rude dare might bring out the mean ones, just spicing reefing up a bit.

 

 willing to take full accountability in daring someone to post a nano challenge, to then pass off accountability onto them as we use disallowance to turn around their tank

 

 

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I had my first outbreak of Dino's in my 10 gallon tank, which last for about 3 months. The outbreak occurred when the tank was about 3 months old. I tried less water changes, more water changes, reducing lighting, blackouts... they would aggressively return. I lost 2 colonies of zoas and many other corals never returned to normal.

 

The Dinos eventually went away after a routine of bi-weekly water changes and turning the lights off whenever I saw signs of them returning.

 

My tank was started with dry pukani rock from BRS and dry sand - it had 2 fish and a few frags in it when the outbreak happened. I cured the rock for a month before putting it in the tank. I never missed a single weekly water change with this tank and could never get a reading on nitrates or phosphates. I believe that the outbreak occurred simply because the microfauna/flora was not present in the proper ratios. I have had 3 other nano tanks that were started with well-established live rock and had never had a problem with Dinos before this tank.

 

 

 

 

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Nice

 

I thought reeferfox at reef2reef today posted a really keen response on a dino invasion thread for a 90 gallon tank (they declined firmly my direct intervention offer)  when she said that back in the 90's people weren't running GFO and mucking up their po4 levels like we do nowadays, so that's why we never saw the scourge of dinos until about 10 yrs ago in the hobby, widespread.

 

Dinos are so mean, so unruly depending on strain, its really kinda crazy of me to becon them w blanket statements but im still open to the challenge (*would I put ostre in my own tank as a test, nope, admitted realist)

 

A new movement is coming about for large tankers, especially since they cannot access substrates like we do, where they meticulously boost nutrients in order to boost pods and microflora and fauna that directly eat and outcompete dinos

 

 

they are getting some results, which is why the method is growing, not dying off, and they have found a true something in that.

 

The reason this thread isn't that, is because Ive always relied on hand intervention to make my reefs and planted tanks do my bidding, and I think others can as well, so we're testing that ideally here as possible. Their method is currently suffering from counterinvasions, cyano chiefly, due to the changing in nutrients and they also do no practice any form of manual removal which is why their after pics are painfully slow to emerge and not enough to sell me yet. Im getting quicker and more sustained results in the sand rinse thread posted above changing nothing.

 

 

 

**what I see in my opinion is a blended teamwork option, possibly. Old school beat out the invader, now, and then get fancy with this and that param as a preventative

 

I can live with that because the locus of control for the actual invasion is still in the reefers hands, and the fancy stuff is only for ideal growback prevention/icing on the cake.

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theres the thread

 

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ongoing-algae-problem.337565/page-2#post-4277795

 

 

I sure hate to see the goo grow :( 

 

 

the only way to get off the train is to lose some tanks, lose some $, hit bottom basically, then get mean, in my opinion.

 

 

I feel sorry for all large tankers who hesitated past that first spot, the size of a thimble. We are told with every training we have in reefing to hesitate, test, post a guess reading, delay, ID, double check (invader has tripled now) test again, source some guesses that work your nontargets along with your targets, gain more invasion mass from other opportunists, external after external after external locus of control.

 

We should track this thread to see how it plays out, and how long it takes, and primarily if the reefkeeper who has invested two grand or better so far is happy.

 

I would have beaten the invader senseless with a UV baseball bat, and owing to the peroxide thread in the disease forum here, UV rocks and we wield it well

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I like macroalgae., and personally am willing to let interesting things be. If it becomes a problem, yank it and don't let it recover, or, make it tiny again if you want to keep it around for a bit. Then again, Maybe that didn't work so well the first time, so perhaps next will be a bit more draconian. 

 

Maybe it's time to make a tank of pure evil.. bobbit worms, aptasia, GHA, diatoms, anthelia, the works. 

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I went back and reread the edits: Harry has an invasion, and posted in an invasion thread, but by the mechanism of doubt, not accepting the challenge. Next time I’ll open with the links below so it won’t seem like I’m going haphazard into someone’s $ box

 

Refusal to act keeps the invasion going, across all tanks on the web and especially in nanos, hence the title of this thread, and continued use of chemiclean medication indicates that something isn’t working with the mode chosen. Who wants to be hooked on that stuff for a year or more? How many posters in the sand rinse thread said anything but yay/thanks/fixed/I’m off the wagon and for good this time?

 

 

 

This thread below makes chemiclean useless.

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/

 

 

 

If claims so far are snake oil, how’d we get out to two hundred pages here:

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef2reef-pest-algae-challenge-thread-hydrogen-peroxide.187042/

 

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2082359&page=51

 

 

 

that’s all before test rocks technique came about...it’s just to show a collection of wins using older techniques. I’d love to see more prep and science posted from the method you wind up choosing.

 

 

team, post up a challenge, or let us know how you beat one. Don’t be invaded and hesitant at the same time, that’s what every post I’ve written here is about. It’s awkward and uncomfortable for any reefer used to blaming an external reason for their invasions to look inward. I’ll take responsibility for that feeling, and for churning out the fixed tanks in droves. 

 

Im trying to change reefing as a whole by changing the brains that grow the invasions on purpose. They don’t post their help threads on day 2 of an invasion, it’s on day 400 after pure hesitation all the way, not a single game plan.

 

 

 

the dare stands. Harry, I’ll honorably accept your link here when another method cures your red algae challenge using the other means. Frankly if anything other than surgery works I want to catalog it in case someone with a 300 gallon tank comes down with it

 

This thread needs to be more pictures and less wording, we deal only in results. 

 

b

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