ADA - the 2 island reef

[ninjamyst]

I suffered the same for a long time.  0 nitrate and 0 phosphate despite overstocking on fish and feeding heavily.  Then I got hit with dino and it took me months to clear it out.  I finally beat it by DOSING nitrate to 2ppm and keeping it there for a month.  I had to dose nitrate almost daily.  I used stump remover.  IMO, feeding heavily to raise nitrate is NOT a good solution.  You end up adding more unwanted stuff to your tank vs just dosing nitrate directly.  

[Andreww]

10 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

I suffered the same for a long time.  0 nitrate and 0 phosphate despite overstocking on fish and feeding heavily.  Then I got hit with dino and it took me months to clear it out.  I finally beat it by DOSING nitrate to 2ppm and keeping it there for a month.  I had to dose nitrate almost daily.  I used stump remover.  IMO, feeding heavily to raise nitrate is NOT a good solution.  You end up adding more unwanted stuff to your tank vs just dosing nitrate directly.  

I remember reading your thread battling dinos....

I agree on feeding more is not the best to add nitrate to the water.  I really think that’s one reason large tanks are easier than nano at least on this aspect. 

Possibility to have a way larger fish load to take care of that where in a nano you’re limited to just a few that don’t really add much to it.

I will start dosing more nitrates and start slowly with the phosphates.

Should be interesting to see where this goes...

[Andreww]

Well, started off with a 0.5ml dose of this product.

Hopefully things will start going in the right direction cuz I hate dinos. You blast them off and 5 minutes later they’re in the same spot.

No bubbles yet but brown stringy stuff showing its ugly head once again. Ugh

Wish me luck!

[Andreww]

[Tamberav]

You sure it is dino?

 

Man I hate dino 😥

[Andreww]

Haven’t checked under a microscope yet but it behaves like it.

Hopefully I’ll be able to stop it in its tracks before it spreads too much.

[Andreww]

The starry blenny is too funny. There are bare spots on the bottom from the flow and he sees his reflection in the glass and starts to puff up and spike his fins and attacks the intruder lol

Quite entertaining😆

[vlangel]

O no, I hope it's not dinos!  Hopefully you stop it before it gets a foothold.

 

I wanted a starry blenny in my A,B,C tank but I read they can get a bit aggressive and was afraid a starry might beat up my more docile blennies.

[Andreww]

2 hours ago, vlangel said:

O no, I hope it's not dinos!  Hopefully you stop it before it gets a foothold.

 

I wanted a starry blenny in my A,B,C tank but I read they can get a bit aggressive and was afraid a starry might beat up my more docile blennies.

Mine is a feisty one. My very aggressive clown, once the boss of the tank, is now very careful around the blenny.

Even my male lyretail Anthias who behaves like a dictator lately, tries to nip the blenny once in a while but gets it back 2 fold. 

Id say my fish are all somewhat aggressive and the blenny fit right in.

At some point the lyretail will have to be taken out and probably replaced by a pair of pink streaked wrasses or possum wrasses.

[Andreww]

Something is definitely happening from dosing Nitrates and Phosphates. Chaeto started growing again. Has been stagnant for at least a couple weeks now. 

 

Bad news is, I’m almost 100% sure it’s dinos, bubbles started forming on some brown strands.

Going with 2ml Nitrate and 0.5 ml Phosphate a day didn’t raise the levels one bit.

Still at 0 PO4 and 0.5 Nitrate.

 

I didnt know if I should still dose like this for another week or two and hope the levels rise somewhat or just start dosing more right away to combat the dinos in the shortest time possible.

 

Maybe a bad choice but upped the daily Nitrate to 5ml and Phosphate to 1ml for now.

Maybe once I reach some type of reasonable levels on both of these, to downsize the dose.

 

Really wish I was able to do this with fish instead of dosing but it’s just not doable in a nano.

 

EDIT: I should note that test kits look like they’re actually working.

Dosed some concentrated nitrate and phosphate in the test vials and colors turned a very deep blue and pink so at least I know they’re working to some extent.

My 0.5 nitrate could very well be 0 but oh well, I need to get it in the 5ppm range ASAP.

[Tamberav]

Wait, is there iron in that Po4 thing? On the website it says iron?

 

 

[Andreww]

1 hour ago, Tamberav said:

Wait, is there iron in that Po4 thing? On the website it says iron?

 

 

Doubt it. Could be a label description mix up from the iron supplement. 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/aquavitro-activate-for-phosphate-dosing.291042/

[Tamberav]

15 minutes ago, Andreww said:

Doubt it. Could be a label description mix up from the iron supplement. 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/aquavitro-activate-for-phosphate-dosing.291042/

 

I just saw it here on their site:

 

https://www.aquavitro.com/activate.php

 

Was trying to look it up since my po4 is pretty much 0. I will give that a read.

[ninjamyst]

I mainly dosed nitrate to 2ppm.  Didn't bother with PO4 much.  Try to get your nitrate higher.

[Andreww]

12 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

I mainly dosed nitrate to 2ppm.  Didn't bother with PO4 much.  Try to get your nitrate higher.

That’s the plan. But from my understanding, raising nitrate will drive phosphate into the ground.

So I’m trying to get a balance.

[Andreww]

19 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

 

I just saw it here on their site:

 

https://www.aquavitro.com/activate.php

 

Was trying to look it up since my po4 is pretty much 0. I will give that a read.

I bought dry sodium nitrate for NO3 and will most likely use that once the Seachem Nitrogen is gone.

Havent looked into any dry stuff for phosphate though, but liquid makes more sense for small tanks and will likely last a very long time.

[Andreww]

In an effort to deal with the self shadowing on my SPS, even though they’re still small frags, (it’s very noticeable), I sold my Hydra 26 and got the 4x24w ATI sunpower T5 fixture.

Im planning to add the ReefBrite XHO Actinic LED strip to complement the T5 and get more coral pop that way.

I am pretty excited to grow me some healthy sticks. Lol

[teenyreef]

On 1/1/2019 at 1:36 AM, Andreww said:

I bought dry sodium nitrate for NO3 and will most likely use that once the Seachem Nitrogen is gone.

Havent looked into any dry stuff for phosphate though, but liquid makes more sense for small tanks and will likely last a very long time.

I did pretty much the same thing @ninjamyst did to combat nasty brown algae (who knows if it was dinos...) in my 30g frag tank. Same problem, though, 0 nitrates and phosphates even though I was feeding heavily. I used Seachem Flourish since I had it on hand for my FW planted tank. I dosed every other day and tested on the off days. I increased the dose until I got detectable nitrates and then started backing it off when they started to increase further. After a few weeks I was able to cut back to nothing and it held stable. I had to repeat the process about two months later, and it's been stable ever since.

 

And yeah, within a week of getting detectable nitrates, the algae/dinos started dying. It was very satisfying. 🙂

[Andreww]

22 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

I did pretty much the same thing @ninjamyst did to combat nasty brown algae (who knows if it was dinos...) in my 30g frag tank. Same problem, though, 0 nitrates and phosphates even though I was feeding heavily. I used Seachem Flourish since I had it on hand for my FW planted tank. I dosed every other day and tested on the off days. I increased the dose until I got detectable nitrates and then started backing it off when they started to increase further. After a few weeks I was able to cut back to nothing and it held stable. I had to repeat the process about two months later, and it's been stable ever since.

 

And yeah, within a week of getting detectable nitrates, the algae/dinos started dying. It was very satisfying. 🙂

Thank you both for chiming in. I’m pretty much at 4ppm at the moment.

Did you notice any adverse reaction in corals from dosing ? My encrusting forest fire monti doesn’t like it...lost some color especially the skin .Everything else is fine.

 

Maybe I overdosed? I thought 5ppm at once was the maximum recommended but I don’t think that was the case based on my tests.

Im gonna have to run some carbon ...I haven’t at all, and these dinos are toxic.

 

My slimy brown algae developed bubbles on it, covering rock but not the sand...that’s how I diagnosed them being dinos...maybe the flow just didn’t allow it to grow on the sand?

 

Yeah I’m ready to move on and clean this up. 

 

 

[Tamberav]

I am pretty sure I have a little dino hanging around my tank too...also low nutient problem...mostly with phosphates...nitrate chills around 1-2 but sometimes po4 hits 0. I just keep blowing it off and is hasn't gotten very invasive yet 

 

 

 

[Andreww]

My heater went nuts and stuck open.

I had this heater since my freshwater days. Maybe it’s 6 years old. It’s a Fluval with digital readout.

It’s just a 50w heater...If I leave the balcony door open during winter, the heater has a hard time keeping the tank stable.

Well the darn thing has brought up my tank to almost 83 degrees from the regular 77. Checked with a glass thermometer I have in the sump.  

Throwing this Fluval out . I’m gonna do no heater for a while see how it does.

Glad I caught it. I put my hand in the tank and it reminded me of Hawaii. No good lol

[Tamberav]

I had two cobalt heaters go bad on me the past few months. One just stopped turning on and one was basically turning off and on almost at random... my tank was like 72/73-80 and back. My Jagers seem to have a much longer lifespan but don't have the 0.5 degree accuracy the cobalt had (before they break). 

 

 

[Andreww]

1 hour ago, Tamberav said:

I had two cobalt heaters go bad on me the past few months. One just stopped turning on and one was basically turning off and on almost at random... my tank was like 72/73-80 and back. My Jagers seem to have a much longer lifespan but don't have the 0.5 degree accuracy the cobalt had (before they break). 

 

 

I think heaters are the weak link in a reef tank if not used in joncunction with a controller of some sort. You just never know when it dies and if it’s stuck open, bye bye tank.

I was just watching a video of Sanjay ‘s tank and he was talking how his tank crashed because of heaters while being away.

 

[teenyreef]

17 hours ago, Andreww said:

I think heaters are the weak link in a reef tank if not used in joncunction with a controller of some sort. You just never know when it dies and if it’s stuck open, bye bye tank.

I was just watching a video of Sanjay ‘s tank and he was talking how his tank crashed because of heaters while being away.

 

I agree. I use the external controller on my Finnex to keep it in the right temp, but then turn it on and off with the Apex. Plus that way I get alarms/emails if it gets too high or low. 

[Andreww]

Display has minimal Dino growth.

But what is this in my sump?

I let the hair algae grow with the chaeto but now dinos on top of everything.

Oh man...Barely able to keep nitrates up.

Phosphates are 0. Like no change of color in the vial.

I dose one drop of PO4 in the vial and it turns the darkest blue known to man.

So I dose PO4 to the tank, again.

All this algae in the tank is probably sucking up the nutrients . But now dinos try to kill it...

It’s on , boys! (Rolling sleeves)