Dinos! Oh no!

[xthunt]

Try taking out that purigen too

[Genie382]

 

So just a quick update. Did the three day black out. I had to resort to cutting up a cardboard box as we didn't have a single black garbage bag in the house. Kept on all the equipment (except for the light), but evidently, the light from a Smart Micro ATO is enough to encourage these buggers to grow 😓. So, that had to be shut off a day after the black out began. 

It's been about 24 hours since I uncovered the tank, I've reduced my photoperiod to about 4 hours. I plan on ramping it back up slowly by an hour a week (depending on how happy my tank inhabitants are). 

 

I've also been switching out my filter floss daily and added in a culture of phyto and copepods to the tank as well. So far none spotted, but it's too soon to tell. Fingers cross.

Oh and in case any one was curious my current tank parameters are:

 

pH: 8.1

Temp: 78

Salinity-1.024

 

Ammonia-0

Nitrite- <0.01

Nitrate-<0.01

Alkalinity 3 (?!)- not sure I trust this, I was struggling with the test, will retest at the local fish store later. 

I need to pick up a phosphate test kit (I know, I know), but perhaps my tank is a bit too clean. It don't know if I should be proud or not, my last two tanks constantly had nitrate issues and the last tank I had to shut down to a bad bryopsis outbreak. Does this mean I'm maturing as a reefer? 😅

[Orangutran]

On 6/17/2018 at 10:22 AM, Genie382 said:

 

So just a quick update. Did the three day black out. I had to resort to cutting up a cardboard box as we didn't have a single black garbage bag in the house. Kept on all the equipment (except for the light), but evidently, the light from a Smart Micro ATO is enough to encourage these buggers to grow 😓. So, that had to be shut off a day after the black out began. 

It's been about 24 hours since I uncovered the tank, I've reduced my photoperiod to about 4 hours. I plan on ramping it back up slowly by an hour a week (depending on how happy my tank inhabitants are). 

 

I've also been switching out my filter floss daily and added in a culture of phyto and copepods to the tank as well. So far none spotted, but it's too soon to tell. Fingers cross.

Oh and in case any one was curious my current tank parameters are:

 

pH: 8.1

Temp: 78

Salinity-1.024

 

Ammonia-0

Nitrite- <0.01

Nitrate-<0.01

Alkalinity 3 (?!)- not sure I trust this, I was struggling with the test, will retest at the local fish store later. 

I need to pick up a phosphate test kit (I know, I know), but perhaps my tank is a bit too clean. It don't know if I should be proud or not, my last two tanks constantly had nitrate issues and the last tank I had to shut down to a bad bryopsis outbreak. Does this mean I'm maturing as a reefer? 😅

Feed the tank more often while you're doing all this. 🙂  And yeah, I ran my tank too clean as well, and also because my previous tank had algae issues which made me think that all nutrients is bad. I went crazy with the nutrient export, but there must be a balance. And just out of curiosity, did you start this tank with dry rock? 

[Genie382]

2 hours ago, Orangutran said:

Feed the tank more often while you're doing all this. 🙂  And yeah, I ran my tank too clean as well, and also because my previous tank had algae issues which made me think that all nutrients is bad. I went crazy with the nutrient export, but there must be a balance. And just out of curiosity, did you start this tank with dry rock? 

• Yah, I typically feed coral frenzy twice a week and every other day I’ll feed the fish. I’ve bumped it up to once daily feeding. The fish seem happy at least.
• First big loss to the tank (I am not counting the candy cane pistol shrimp that my watchman inhaled as a tasty treat when I introduced it to the tank), my fire shrimp had gone missing. He’s been in the tank for about 2 months. Don’t know if it had anything to do w the dino’s (My glass shrimp is fine), but he had been hiding more a few days before the blackout. I figured he was molting. I guess not. 
• Yes, it was with base rock and live sand (Carib Fiji pink)

[Orangutran]

On 6/19/2018 at 4:41 PM, Genie382 said:

• Yah, I typically feed coral frenzy twice a week and every other day I’ll feed the fish. I’ve bumped it up to once daily feeding. The fish seem happy at least.
• First big loss to the tank (I am not counting the candy cane pistol shrimp that my watchman inhaled as a tasty treat when I introduced it to the tank), my fire shrimp had gone missing. He’s been in the tank for about 2 months. Don’t know if it had anything to do w the dino’s (My glass shrimp is fine), but he had been hiding more a few days before the blackout. I figured he was molting. I guess not. 
• Yes, it was with base rock and live sand (Carib Fiji pink)

I thought gobies and shrimps are friends! 😄 Did you find your fire shrimp?

 

Not sure how true it is, but as you know, the R2R thread has a theory that dry rock doesn't have all the good stuff to fit dinos. Interesting.

 

Dinos getting better?

[Genie382]

1 hour ago, Orangutran said:

I thought gobies and shrimps are friends! 😄 Did you find your fire shrimp?

 

Not sure how true it is, but as you know, the R2R thread has a theory that dry rock doesn't have all the good stuff to fit dinos. Interesting.

 

Dinos getting better?

I did too 😭. I got the pistol to pair w the shrimp mudering goby. I hear they can get fiesty when mature, I’d say that’s true in my tank. He’s the meanest fish in the tank (and I have 2 clowns!)

 

The fire shrimp is still MIA. I wonder if it’s unrelated to the Dinos tho, I have a small glass shrimp and Pom Pom crab that are still going strong and I don’t  appear to have lost any snails...

 

In regards to the Dinos, none have reappeared so far. Have some whitish algae on the glass but no slimey, stringy brown stuff so far. Unsure of when I can declare an official victory but I plan to up the photoperiod to 8 hours tomorrow, so we’ll see!

[Genie382]

Update on the Dinos. So far none have reappeared. I’ve been checking the area where they have previously gathered heavily and don’t seen any evidence of them recurring. A quick google search indicates that dormancy periods can last from a few days to a few months, so I figure if I see no growth after 2 months or so I should be in the clear.

 

I also stopped water changes over the last 2 weeks (down from twice weekly) and for the most part all of my corals seem happy. Actually got some great growth out of my zoas and my frogspawn is really plumping up. Only thing is that I noticed that I had some cloudiness to my water on Friday and my Xenia seem to be ticked off (always have to have something unhappy in the tank it seems).

 

Testing of the water showed no ammonia and nitrates/nitrites barely detectable. No other parameters had changed. I suspect I was probably getting a bacterial bloom due to all of the changes to the tank.

 

That prompted me to perform a 30% water change, which helped reduce the cloudiness.  I performed about 10% change today when it appeared that the Xenia was still unhappy. Another loss to the tank is a small gorgonian frag I had purchased a bit ago. Unsure if the species but was told it was of the photosynthetic kind, it seemed to be fairly stable but after the black out I noticed small areas along the branches that had tissue recession. 

 

Anyho that’s it for the update. I’ve been trying to start a tank thread for my little Nuvo but photobucket has been awful to work with (most of my images are from my phone, when I down load them onto the site it compresses them down to thumbnail size and re-sizing just causes a lot of pixelation. Any alternatives to posting images?)

[Melfy77]

Update on my tank. I put my ocellaris pair and BTA in my IM 10. The tank was fishless so I thought why not they will look nice in my tank. And of course less than 48 hours post transfer the female clown took the bta as a host hahaha. Did a 72 hours black out with peroxide as well as a chemiclean because of one cyano patch I saw. Thought might as well do it now. Tank is now spotless, no clue if it will last but we shall see

[Aqua noob]

Hey guys that great news, so in short blackout and peroxide dosing cured the problem within a few days ? Great job! 

[Melfy77]

22 minutes ago, Aqua noob said:

Hey guys that great news, so in short blackout and peroxide dosing cured the problem within a few days ? Great job! 

It did, but only time will tell if it'll stay that way. Fingers crossed!!!

[Genie382]

So far so good, but like Melfy said, time will tell!

[Melfy77]

And to make things better, my ocellaris clownfish (well the female for now) FINALLY showed interest for my BTA!!! She's now madly in love with it lol