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MrObscura's Nuvo 10 When It Rains It Pours


MrObscura

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Are you sure it is cyano and not dino ?

 

Got pics?

 

I feel ya...I bought a bunch of crap on Black Friday since tank was running well and then it went to shit a month or so later.

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And it's back within minutes of blowing it off. Chemiclean did reduce it, will a 2nd dose hurt? I just don't know what's causing it. I've gone back to my old schedule, before I had issues, feeding fish once a day, and corals once a week before water change. And all parameters are the same as they were. So, I'm at a loss. 

 

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Some forms of dino are stringy. A 10 dollar toy scope would give you an ID. The fact that it seems to be smothering the corals makes me suspicious there is at least some dino in there but can't be certain.

 

What is your nitrate and po4? Do you use any phosphate removers?

 

I have never used chemiclean. 

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I run chemipure blue. Before this started my po4 read 0 or 0.03 on the test(can't see a difference) and no3 was between 5-10.

 

I started feeding benereef which is advertised as having probiotics that will reduce nutrients and I did see no3 drop to 0. So my guess is feeding it either raised nutrients too high allowing this stuff to take hold, therefore showing a false reading of 0, or it really did bottom out no3 causing an imbalance. 

 

I originally added a skimmer thinking nutrients were high, but things didn't change. But now with running chemi blue and the skimmer after stopping the benereef no3 has gone back up to around 10. Yet the issues persist. Even corals that aren't physically being effected by the stuff are not happy at all. 

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I had some red stringy cyano that chemiclean wouldnt touch. Used API erythromycin to knock it out. I followed the instructions on the box, but used a quarter packet...maybe half...for each ‘dose’. One dose would probably do it, though.

 

I had some pop up recently, just a few small spots on rocks. Theyve been there for about two months and didnt spread, so didn’t worry about them. I noticed today both spots are totally gone. Only recent changes was a water change with reef crystals  (was using fritz) and put in a bag of carbon. Don’t know if either had anything to do with it, I wasn’t actively trying to clear it. 

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Most likely it was just coincidence, but I thought I would mention I switched from Chemipure Elite and Purigen to Chemipure Blue in the past around the same time I tried to use Benepets by Benereef and I had some tank issues and losses at the time... switched my filter media back and stopped using the Benepets for a while. Now I occasionally use the Benepets and haven’t noticed any further problems. 

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Ok, it's going on a week since the chemiclean and the stuff is back to about the same level as it was. And with going back to my old routine no3 has raised from o to a steady 10 or so, while po4 is remaining at 0. Something must have been consuming no3 and now it's leaching because with my feeding schedule and WC routine I don't see how it's at 10 steady regardless of when I test, whether right after a wc or right before. This, plus some comments by others, as well as more research leads me believe that what's left might be dinos. 

 

I'm going to have to test to find out for sure, but a few steps I'm going to take regardless at this point is remove all red and green lighting(since it seems at its worse during the full spectrum period), and remove the rest of the sand. And if it is in fact dinos I'll remove the chemi blue to see if I get a raise in po4. Which I might try anyway. Might also switch to carbon only after that depending on results. 

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Don't have a microscope, or poroxide, on hand, so I did the filter test, taking some of the algae with water, shaking it up and straining it through a paper towel. It regrouped, meaning it's likely dinos. 

 

The plan of attack for now is pulled chemipure, run blue and uv only, get the sand bed out, and try to rise po4(which is still at 0), by feeding more. Once I get the sand bed out(had to order a new siphon) I'll probably do another water change, and try a 3 day black out. Depending on how that goes I'll then try either adding a bunch og phytoplankton and pods and/or dose poroxide if need be. 

 

On a bright note, the Dinos I have don't appear to be toxic as snails and fish are fine. Knock on wood. 

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15498728528717908791193061689350.thumb.jpg.c46b51145c2413bd39086909fd6b0fe5.jpgSome observations...  it's only been a couple days since I stopped running chemi blue, and I've upped feeding in that time, and I have more algae on my glass than I ever have, meaning I think the dinos might be getting some competition. And despite the dinos a number of corals are showing more color and PE than they have in a long time. 

 

I'm thinkng my problem was too clean of a tank. Despite no chemical filtration and upped feedings I still have 0 po4. I think from this point foward I'm going to take a dirty kiss approach. Filter floss and skimmer while keeping no3 below 25ppm and po4 below 0.1 and that's it. 

 

Next up is removing the sand bed and getting the po4 up to create more comp for the dinos, and then a blackout if need be. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just a bit of an update... 

 

The tanks coming around. Glass is dirty as hell but dinos are pretty much gone and if anything dinos might have been a blessing because they taught me that my tank was too clean from the beginning. Corals are already looking brighter and fully than they did before the dinos and I really think some of my nagging issues was lack of nutrients. 

 

I've since pulled the chemipure, and I'm feeding nls pellets in the morning along with reef roids, and at night nls along with rods food and everyone is loving it. 

 

Ive come to the conclusion that nutrients are not to be feared but welcomed, and while researching dinos came across threads on forums with numerous people talking about how back in the day they had thriving tanks, even sps dominant, and never worried about nutrients, especially phosphate, but then with new tech and advancements tanks never looked as good as they use to. So they've  gone back to basics. 

 

Look at the majority of issues people have, I mean major issues, not just a liitle harmless algea/cyano, which aren't the enemy as often believed, they almost all boil down to one of two things, or a combination... Alk swings, and/or low nutrients. 

 

Now look at the most successful reefers, not just hobbiest, but big names in the industry and farmers(fox, WWC, Sanjay, etc. ) not a single one of them run anything near low nutrient systems. 

 

And the low nutrient systems that are sucssesful have a ton of equipment, follow a "system," and dose a ton of shit. So, really they're going out of their way to over complicate things and constantly replace what they take out. 

 

Sorry, for they long winded post, but this has been a real eye opener. 

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Really glad to hear things are looking up with your tank! A lot of people overlook the fact that zooxanthellae is only able to provide corals with carbohydrates, fats. and a reaallly tiny amount of nitrogen in the form of amino acids via photosynthate. Corals need nitrogen in the form of inorganic NO3 in the water or bound up in food capture from regular feedings to not starve and, especially, to grow. It's no coincidence that many of light pastel-colored "ULNS" tanks look not unlike bleached wild reefs. A lot of the big, successful ULNS tanks probably also have a large population of sponges that are providing corals with a source of organic matter to feed on. Much easier to just keep some nutrients in the water and let a bunch of herbivores eat the algae that grows IMO

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We're almost there. Tanks looking pretty good. Not 100%, I'm still leaving the sides dirty, there's a little cyano, and dinos took their toll on some corals, but overall the higher nutrients are making everyone happy and dinos are gone. In fact things are growing so well my Alk has dropped from 8.4 to 7.5 over the past week despite the same kalk dosage. I need to get it back up. 

 

Before cleaning front glass and after. Still haven't done a wc. 

 

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And as far as acros go, pc rainbow is a champ. The rest all suffered, but it wasn't fazed. Dino literally didn't even touch it. 

 

Lost most of my tenuis and the tip of my milli died. I'm hopefull I can trim the milli and save it since the rest looks pretty good, the tenuis will be hit of miss. I'll frag whag I can and we'll see. 

 

Like I said above I think this was a blessing and going foward I'll be much more successful growing happy colorful corals. 

 

Oh, and on a side note I spent all day on REEF2REEF in the wwc sale and didn't come away with a damn thing. 

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13 hours ago, MrObscura said:

And as far as acros go, pc rainbow is a champ. The rest all suffered, but it wasn't fazed. Dino literally didn't even touch it. 

 

Lost most of my tenuis and the tip of my milli died. I'm hopefull I can trim the milli and save it since the rest looks pretty good, the tenuis will be hit of miss. I'll frag whag I can and we'll see. 

 

Like I said above I think this was a blessing and going foward I'll be much more successful growing happy colorful corals. 

 

Oh, and on a side note I spent all day on REEF2REEF in the wwc sale and didn't come away with a damn thing. 

 

It's funny cuz PC rainbow was the one thing that STN on me, though I still have a nub alive. My Oregon tort is my most hardy coral atm.

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Well, actually managed to get a couple corals through the wwc live sale. I usually don't have any interest in buying online but bought into the hype thinking it be more like an online swap, having never participated in one before, but instead got more of a black friday sale with people actually competing for the chance to pay 30 bucks for gsp and xenia. And were excited about it.  I also managed to get my posting privileges revoked somehow. Apperantly, they didn't like me sharing some of my thoughts about the sale. Lol

 

Anyway, got a king kiwi acro for $55 and a toadskin acro for $5. So, it wasn't a total waste. 

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haha... I have never done a live sale because I like to put a lot of thought into my purchases and see what all I can find to make shipping worth it. I figure its to get people hyped up and maybe buy purchases they regret. 

 

You should try a battlebox for acro, can not go wrong and he will try and fill requests. 

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Here is a snip of two of the corals I got in my battlebox, most of my stuff isn't glued down yet and chilling on the frag racks. I think they are going to grow into something impressive! The bottom one especially seems like its about to throw some dazzle colors out. 

 

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Yea, if you only want specific corals at the right price it's almost impossible to get anything. Most people seem to just try to buy anything and everything. Or go for the more expensive stuff thats has less competition like the guys spending 1-2k. I don't want to have to luck out in order to buy corals I want. 

 

I honestly don't get it. It wasn't at all what I expected and the whole things kind of stupid when you can just buy most the corals offered at equally good prices. People getting excited about competing for some  39 dollar gsp. Lol

 

And I like battle corals stuff. He has awesome corals. 

 

Usually, between my local guy and swaps I can what I'm looking for in person so I don't bother with online purchases. 

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In the process of doing the first waterchange in a few weeks. No3 is up and po4 is detectable, so I think it's a good time to clean up the tank and do a small WC since dinos haven't showed themselves in a while and there's plenty of other competition now. 

 

I'm also about to pull corals that were hit the hardest and dip them while trimming off the dead sections. 

 

Lastly here's a few pics of the corals(king kiwi acro, toadskin acro and blow pop Cyphastrea) I got through the wwc live sale.

 

On a side note I'm also the proud uncle (3x over now) of a brand new baby girl who just entered the world. 

 

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