fluconazole, vibrant and chemiclean all at once?

[Five.five-six]

J/K, not all at once but I have a real nutrient issue.  Someone in my house has a habbit of feeding the fish every time they look hungry which is always.  It hit critical mass about 2 months ago and my SPS tank started looking more like an alage farm. I started dosing vingar to bring down the nitrate (went from over 50PPM to20ppm Salifert)  and Po4 read 0 Salifert. 

 

I had been dong manual removal of GHA and turf alage but it was takeing 2 hrs a shot once or twice a week and I just want to enjoy my fish tank. Monday I gave up and hit the tank with 300mg of fluconazole.   I cut back on vingar to avoid a cyano outbreak with the extra nutrients from no skimming and alage dieoff

 

what has me conserned is that I’m finding small patches of green bubble alage under where the filimentious alagies were and some patches of beautiful burgundy Cyanobacteria.  

 

Now I’m considering vibrant once the fluconazole is done to deal with the bubble alage.  Of course, that will be the end of the chaeto in my fuge. 

 

I don’t mind doing some work and spending some money but I just want to enjoy looking at my fist tank 😞 

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Five.five-six said:

J/K, not all at once but I have a real nutrient issue.  Someone in my house has a habbit of feeding the fish every time they look hungry which is always.  It hit critical mass about 2 months ago and my SPS tank started looking more like an alage farm. I started dosing vingar to bring down the nitrate (went from over 50PPM to20ppm Salifert)  and Po4 read 0 Salifert. 

 

I had been dong manual removal of GHA and turf alage but it was takeing 2 hrs a shot once or twice a week and I just want to enjoy my fish tank. Monday I gave up and hit the tank with 300mg of fluconazole.   I cut back on vingar to avoid a cyano outbreak with the extra nutrients from no skimming and alage dieoff

 

what has me conserned is that I’m finding small patches of green bubble alage under where the filimentious alagies were and some patches of beautiful burgundy Cyanobacteria.  

 

Now I’m considering vibrant once the fluconazole is done to deal with the bubble alage.  Of course, that will be the end of the chaeto in my fuge. 

 

I don’t mind doing some work and spending some money but I just want to enjoy looking at my fist tank 😞 

Unless the cause is corrected all the removal methods are not going to work long term.

 

If someone is over feeding- hide the food from them. Unless they will listen to you, I see no other way to stop it.

 

 

Doing too much(chemically) can create issues as well.

 

Some products have a reputation of causing cyano. I believe Vibrant is one of them.

 

 

Personally the only thing I have ever done to get rid gha was peroxide dosing and it worked like a charm. But to prevent it from returning I had to find the cause.

 

It took some time but turned out to be my dosing of amino and vitamins.

 

If your rocks are covered it's remove the rocks. Scrub them with a toothbrush, rinse in sw. Do a short peroxide dip, rinse in sw and return to tank. This is the fastest way to get rid of the gha and picking off the bubble algae. It also prevents the spread of gha.

 

Bubble algae can be picked off the rocks

 

 

 

[HarryPotter]

Fluconazole and vibrant did diddily squat for me. Chemiclean works awesome for cyano and cyano only. Make sure to take cup off skimmer.

[Floundering_Around]

9 hours ago, Five.five-six said:

J/K, not all at once but I have a real nutrient issue.  Someone in my house has a habbit of feeding the fish every time they look hungry which is always.  It hit critical mass about 2 months ago and my SPS tank started looking more like an alage farm. I started dosing vingar to bring down the nitrate (went from over 50PPM to20ppm Salifert)  and Po4 read 0 Salifert. 

 

I had been dong manual removal of GHA and turf alage but it was takeing 2 hrs a shot once or twice a week and I just want to enjoy my fish tank. Monday I gave up and hit the tank with 300mg of fluconazole.   I cut back on vingar to avoid a cyano outbreak with the extra nutrients from no skimming and alage dieoff

 

what has me conserned is that I’m finding small patches of green bubble alage under where the filimentious alagies were and some patches of beautiful burgundy Cyanobacteria.  

 

Now I’m considering vibrant once the fluconazole is done to deal with the bubble alage.  Of course, that will be the end of the chaeto in my fuge. 

 

I don’t mind doing some work and spending some money but I just want to enjoy looking at my fist tank 😞 

having the same issues in my tank. Nasty mix of bryopsis, GHA/turf alagae, cyano on top, and bubble algae hidden underneath. Following along for progress. Good luck

[Five.five-six]

16 hours ago, Floundering_Around said:

having the same issues in my tank. Nasty mix of bryopsis, GHA/turf alagae, cyano on top, and bubble algae hidden underneath. Following along for progress. Good luck

From what I understand, the bryopsys gets it’s N from sources other than nitrate.  You can’t beat it with nutreant reduction and your pretty much stuck with either fluconazole or the dirty formula Kent magnesium at ~1800PPM because it will outcompete your coral and nothing we’ve found will eat it.  

[Five.five-six]

On 9/14/2018 at 7:34 AM, Clown79 said:

Unless the cause is corrected all the removal methods are not going to work long term.

 

If someone is over feeding- hide the food from them. Unless they will listen to you, I see no other way to stop it.

 

 

Doing too much(chemically) can create issues as well.

 

Some products have a reputation of causing cyano. I believe Vibrant is one of them.

 

 

Personally the only thing I have ever done to get rid gha was peroxide dosing and it worked like a charm. But to prevent it from returning I had to find the cause.

 

It took some time but turned out to be my dosing of amino and vitamins.

 

If your rocks are covered it's remove the rocks. Scrub them with a toothbrush, rinse in sw. Do a short peroxide dip, rinse in sw and return to tank. This is the fastest way to get rid of the gha and picking off the bubble algae. It also prevents the spread of gha.

 

Bubble algae can be picked off the rocks

 

 

 

The overfeeding is being addressed.  We have a 12’ Vlamingi tang so it’s a bit of a tightrope to feed him enough but we were puting about a pound of Asian market seafood mix in every month + other treats.  

 

The accuse issue is the alage encroaching on the SPS and dipping rock is not really an option as many of the rocks are rather large and encrusted with SPS bases.  

[Five.five-six]

He always looks hungry 

[Clown79]

Since you can't remove the rock for dipping you can do spot treatments. 

 

I did spot treatments with 3% peroxide on my gha and it worked like a charm.

 

what I did was :

 

turn off all water movement

manually remove as much of the gha with tweezers

with a syringe I spot treated the gha patches with the peroxide.

 

I used only 2ml at a time. 

 

I let it sit for 10 mins then turned all the water movement back on.

 

I also added a small amount of phosguard to help.

 

It got rid of the gha.

 

 

 

[paneubert]

3 hours ago, Five.five-six said:

dirty formula Kent magnesium

At least in my case 6 years ago, the mystery "dirty" ingredient/formula was shown to be just an old wives tale.  I jacked up mag with the lab grade BRS mag and it worked just fine.  By definition, the BRS mag should be much more "pure" and much less "dirty".

[Five.five-six]

Tank is just dying now.  I sent off a set of samples to ati for testing but it’s a complete mystery to me.  Been loosing a lot of SPS colonies 😞

[mcarroll]

You may want to reconsider the Vlamingi as a long-term resident....they get huge, so not only will the feeding problems increase, he'll outgrow the tank:

Aquarium Fish: Fish Ethics And The Vlamingi Tang

 

On 10/13/2018 at 12:01 PM, Five.five-six said:

Tank is just dying now.  I sent off a set of samples to ati for testing but it’s a complete mystery to me.  Been loosing a lot of SPS colonies 😞

Considering the treatments going on (past and present), there's no mystery IMO.  Do some water changes to ditch the weird chemistry going on.

 

Get back to basics.  2 hours is a lot of work to put in, but you were on the right track there....you just needed some tweaks.

 

Can you post a set of water test results?  Especially nitrates and phosphates, but everything would be nice.   If you can, tell us how much each of the parameters tend to vary from your most recent result.

[Five.five-six]

15 hours ago, mcarroll said:

You may want to reconsider the Vlamingi as a long-term resident....they get huge, so not only will the feeding problems increase, he'll outgrow the tank:

Aquarium Fish: Fish Ethics And The Vlamingi Tang

Problem solved, in the prosess of replacing the tank with a 225 gal starfire peninsula 😄.  Still a little cramped for him ultimately but may have to upgrade the tank again.  

15 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

Considering the treatments going on (past and present), there's no mystery IMO.  Do some water changes to ditch the weird chemistry going on.

 

Get back to basics.  2 hours is a lot of work to put in, but you were on the right track there....you just needed some tweaks.

 

Can you post a set of water test results?  Especially nitrates and phosphates, but everything would be nice.   If you can, tell us how much each of the parameters tend to vary from your most recent result.

Here is the thing, I had been doing 20% water changes every week or every other week for months.  Turns out the problem was caused by my dino treatment 6 months ago.  I was advised by one very well reefer, that another very well known reefer (won’t drop any names but anyone who has been reefing for more than a year knows who both of them are) had successfully killed the Dino’s in his 500 gallons SPS dominated mixed reef with cheep jebo UV serilizer.  It seems that many strains of dinoflagellates are very sensitive to UV.   Well it worked on my strain but had 2 flair ups where I hooked it back up and just decided to keep it running.   Well, the cheep Jebao plastic that the UV sterilizer is made of is also very sensitive UV light. The inside of the sterilizer had been decintigrating, the alage had been uptakeing the toxins and killing my herbivores.  The sterilizer has been out for about a month and the tank is turning around nicely.  Alk uptake is on the rise, the SPS that survived are coloring up and growing.   

 

Nitrates and phosphates are down to < 5 and 0 respectively.  It’s too low and I know it’s not healthy for the coral but at this point I am more conserned with finishing off the alage that has taken hold than health of the coral.  I can get more coral.  And it’s hanging on.   

[mcarroll]

THE FISH

That's an awesome upgrade for you, but it's still going to be TINY for that fish.

 

You may get a year or three before it's really, really cramped for him, but you should use that time to seek a better FINAL home for him.  Think zoos....plan for being patient in the search...but you could get lucky.

 

THE DINO'S

If you check out my dino thread on r2r (same username, search my threads) someone had the same thing happen with their Jebao sterilizer and they actually managed to fix it.

 

As far as dino's go, my dino thread (sorry it hasn't been remade here yet....it's planned) is still the only guide I've seen that I would recommend that anyone follow.   There are no miracle cures where dino's are concerned – you really need the whole strategy, as outlined on the first post.

 

While the Jebao-grindings were probably not great for your tank, they may not have been outright harmful....probably mostly inert.  Dino's, on the other hand, are known to be capable of generating a toxin that's closely related to palytoxin – one of the most dangerous around.  That is most likely what took out your CUC and the Jebao-powder was coincidental. 

 

It's just one point in the scheme of things, but there are no assumptions allowed regarding dino's either.  Lots of folks think they have them, but don't....so confirming what you have has been a big part of that thread's operation.  

 

MICROSCOPES

I think the during that thread, by asking folks to confirm what they were looking at in their tanks, we have gotten more people in the hobby using microscopes than in the whole prior history of the hobby.  (I had a pretty nice thread there on selecting a microscope too, which investigated good options from $10 on up....lots of good feedback from more advanced users too....I was the neophyte asking the questions.  I just recently upgraded from my toy scope to a Tasco LM400 I found used.)

 

Scope use has apparently become popular/normalized to the point that it has become a trend...even hobbyists who've historically been against talking about microscopes for various reasons are warming up to us users having and using them.  

 

There was a time where suggesting that a pest/pathogen be identified before action was taken nearly thought to be crazy.   @paul b was one of the only people I knew who was even familiar with using a microscope in such a fashion at the time.  

 

During my dino thread, within the scope of a year or two (and several thousand posts), we collectively increased the number of microscopes in use in the hobby by a mind-boggling factor.....dozens of participants bought scopes at least, maybe hundreds.

 

NURTIENT LEVELS

If you really did have dinoflagellates...

and if they really have subsided...

and if your N and P tests really are....

 

...then you're at risk of causing your dino's to re-bloom.  

 

That's a lot of "if's" so be sure on them.  If you're sure, then that risk is real.

[Five.five-six]

I have read  your R2R thread and I have a theory that the toxins released by the jeabo ABS is actually what has been killing the Dino’s, it’s just a theory though.   My Dino’s were scoped by anbother really well known coral farmer.  I actualy got a scope for christmas but AmazClaus’s sleigh is running late LOL.  

 

 

That fish is doing fine for the time being, I actually rescued it from a smaller and much more overcrowded tank.  He’s be fine for a few years and I have a buddy with a pair of 600 gallon 20’ tanks that will take him.  

 

My measurements have been confirmed with ATI ICP testing   If the Dino’s return, I’ll temp in the old jeabo for a week or two but as it wer, I have been doing a LOT of WCs which should cause outbreaks but has not.

 

 

my theory about dino problems as of the last 5 years is a lack of biodiversity.  20 years ago and up until not so long ago, we were using harvested live rock to start tanks, with all the dry rock tanks I believe that there is a severely limited diversity of competition in the “hobby herd”    It has allowed strains adapted to the captive reef to flourish and be propagated and distributed across the hobby.  

[Five.five-six]

On 9/15/2018 at 11:23 AM, paneubert said:

At least in my case 6 years ago, the mystery "dirty" ingredient/formula was shown to be just an old wives tale.  I jacked up mag with the lab grade BRS mag and it worked just fine.  By definition, the BRS mag should be much more "pure" and much less "dirty".

I was ran into one of the founders of Brightwell aquatics and he told me what the mystery impurity was.. forget what he said it was but it seems that it’s not effective on all strains of Dino’s.  

[mcarroll]

Wait...someone said magnesium would cure dino's???  Definitely not true if they did.

 

That's not even one of the "crazy cures" folks were trying on dino's before 2017.

 

But folks used to use a specific brand of magnesium on bryopsis algae.  That brand has since been reformulated tho. 

[Five.five-six]

On 1/1/2019 at 7:19 PM, mcarroll said:

Wait...someone said magnesium would cure dino's???  Definitely not true if they did.

 

That's not even one of the "crazy cures" folks were trying on dino's before 2017.

 

But folks used to use a specific brand of magnesium on bryopsis algae.  That brand has since been reformulated tho. 

No,  paneburt and I were discussing bryopsis.   

[mcarroll]

Makes sense!  This is what made me think dino's:

On 1/1/2019 at 9:56 PM, Five.five-six said:

I was ran into one of the founders of Brightwell aquatics and he told me what the mystery impurity was.. forget what he said it was but it seems that it’s not effective on all strains of Dino’s.  

 

[Five.five-six]

I added a 6” clown tang.  He is doing a fabulous job of picking at the alage 🙂

[mcarroll]

Awesome!  I need to find someone with a Tang for sale.  😉

[Five.five-six]

I ended up just scrubbing all the alage off the rock with a stainless steel welders brush and put everything in a new bigger tank. 

[mcarroll]

Keep an eye on PO4, NO3, Mg, alk and Ca to make sure are all consistently available and stable so that coraline algae will be more likely to overgrow that rock than pest algae.  

 

Instability will throw the advantage heavily over to pest algae.

 

• PO4 ≥ 0.03 ppm
• NO3 ≥ 5 ppm
• Alk, Ca and Mg should remain in balance and stable.  

Doesn't look like you have too many stony corals (any?) so AC, Mg and alk might not change much at first, but keep your eyes open.

 

One significant dip in numbers (as in from a coral growth spurt) that's left uncorrected for too long can wipe out a crop of coraline.

 

[Five.five-six]

On 2/4/2019 at 6:18 PM, mcarroll said:

Keep an eye on PO4, NO3, Mg, alk and Ca to make sure are all consistently available and stable so that coraline algae will be more likely to overgrow that rock than pest algae.  

 

Instability will throw the advantage heavily over to pest algae.

 

• PO4 ≥ 0.03 ppm
• NO3 ≥ 5 ppm
• Alk, Ca and Mg should remain in balance and stable.  

Doesn't look like you have too many stony corals (any?) so AC, Mg and alk might not change much at first, but keep your eyes open.

 

One significant dip in numbers (as in from a coral growth spurt) that's left uncorrected for too long can wipe out a crop of coraline.

 

Not much at the moment but the SPS are growing and they grow fast!  Right now I’m maintaining ca/alk with saturated limewater. And touching up Mg with epsoms salt and magnesium chloride.   I have a large cacl2 reactor that I will bring online once consumption outpaces kalkwasser.  But for now, I’m waiting for my carbondoser. 

 

 

 

This weekend I cleaned up my electronics.  Couldn’t do it the day of the transfer, just too much work transferring tanks.  That was with 13 people there to help 🙂