Gravity’s Biocube 14G

[Gravity]

The cyano/dino eventually returned. Which I attribute to having 0 to 0.02 phosphate through the blackout and shortly after. So I did another 3 day blackout over the weekend. This time my phosphate has been higher, around 0.07 to 0.14 ppm, for about a month now, and added Dr Tim’s Waste Away along with the Microbactor 7, that I have been using. Hopefully this gives the green hair algae a leg up and prevents regrow the of cyano/dino. 

[Gravity]

After the second blackout the corals took a big hit. Ended up loosing all the duncans, the hammer, the war coral and a few of the acan heads. The cyano/Dino came back after a few weeks again. So I tried more of a hands off approach. Skipped some water changes to get the nutrients up. I’m pretty certain what I have is mostly cyano now given my nutrient levels (NO3 10ppm/PO4 0.15 ppm) and less stringy appearance. My current action plan is to resume regular water changes to bring down the phosphate to 0.10-0.05 ppm and clean the sand bed, along with weekly waste away dosing. And frequent blasting of the rocks to remove the cyano with filter change after tank has cleared then a daily hydrogen peroxide dosing. 
 

The remaining hard corals (acans and blastos) have been moved to a frag tank I recently setup. Making this tank, a softie tank! This was done to reduce my overall maintenance by having a single tank with hard corals and automatic dosing. 

[Gravity]

Here is how the tank currently looks. GHA is starting to come in but cyano still takes over. 
 

[Gravity]

Removed the box of corals from the back of the tank. Placed the Yuma mushrooms on the right rock island. Moved the toadstool back to the right rock as well. Did a water change and the tank is looking good today. 
 

[Gravity]

Still battling the cyano, stopped dosing hydrogen peroxide as it didn’t seem effective. Decided to follow the Dino treatment method from Dr Tim this week. The method involves a blackout with Refresh dosing followed by a water change and Waste-Away dosing. Although, I believe I’m currently battling cyano I decided to follow the Dino method. Since the blackout periods have proven to be temporary beneficial and the dosing rate is a bit higher. The down side here is that I don’t have a skimmer. To compensate I will be running my backup air pump continually and adding in some water changes. 
 

Here is the tank photo from last night. Following the 3 day blackout and Refresh. I did a large water change and the first dose of Waste-Away. 
 

 

[Gravity]

Just finished with some back to back Dr Tim’s treatment. Started with the Dino recipe then followed up with the cyano treatment. I saw a light cyano dusting in at the end of the first treatment but now things are looking clear. It really seemed to knock back the hair and film algae too. 

Blue Light

White Light

[Gravity]

Here is my treatment schedule.

10/28/2020	Refresh / Blackout
10/29/2020	Refresh / Blackout
10/30/2020	Refresh / Blackout
10/31/2020	Blackout / Water Change / 1.5 mL Waste-Away
11/1/2020	2.0 Waste-Away
11/2/2020	2.5 Waste-Away
11/3/2020	3.0 Waste-Away
11/4/2020	Water Change
11/5/2020	Refresh
11/6/2020	Refresh
11/7/2020	Refresh
11/8/2020	Water Change /Waste Away 2ml)
11/10/2020	Waste Away (2ml)
11/12/2020	Waste Away (2ml)

[farkwar]

The idea of a blackout, for heterotrophs(not phototrophs) never made any sense to me

 

Especially in a system with very expensive phototrophs

 

Turning whites, reds, and greens all the way off, sure maybe, and that will reduce macro algae pests at least. But not blues,  not blackout

 

I am still incredulous to the notion that increasing N and P, and not doing water changes, decreases cyano, dinos, or diatoms.  I need to see some science on this, it's completely counterintuitive and against my personal experience. Those are all heterotrophs, they need N and P to live

 

I have seen counterintuitive stuff happen, don't get me wrong. I just need to see it

[Gravity]

3 hours ago, farkwar said:

The idea of a blackout, for heterotrophs(not phototrophs) never made any sense to me

 

Especially in a system with very expensive phototrophs

 

Turning whites, reds, and greens all the way off, sure maybe, and that will reduce macro algae pests at least. But not blues,  not blackout

 

I am still incredulous to the notion that increasing N and P, and not doing water changes, decreases cyano, dinos, or diatoms.  I need to see some science on this, it's completely counterintuitive and against my personal experience. Those are all heterotrophs, they need N and P to live

 

I have seen counterintuitive stuff happen, don't get me wrong. I just need to see it

I think it makes sense. Autotrophs and heterotrophs both need the same nutrients so if the lights are out the heterotrophs have the advantage and the autotrophs will start to die back, feeding the heterotrophs.

 

I agree that it may not be preferable with corals but I have since removed my stony corals, as they seem to struggle the most. All blues may be sufficient but the Biocube blues are probably closer to a cool blue. 

 

My finding on nutrients are low N and/or P lead to Dino. High P leads to cyano since they can pull nitrogen from the air. High N leads to hair algae bloom.
 

For my tank I started out with GFO leading to low P and a Dino bloom, beginner mistake. To solve this I stopped water changes and fed more resulting in high N and P (40 and 0.15 ppm) with hair algae and cyano. Now my water is more balance (5 and 0.08 ppm) and the bacteria just helped to clear out residual bad algae.  

[A.m.P]

Unfortunately most of the hobby is anecdotal, you're correct in dino's being both auto and heterotrophic. 

I believe the working theory is simply that they get out competed in nutrient rich environments, dino's thrive in low nutrients because they are heterotrophic whereas the autotrophs need a P04 and N03 source in the water column to not be limited in growth and to ward-off being consumed themselves.
On the whole, larger, more complex, organisms seem to be well-equipped to reclaim the surface area dino's cover when conditions allow for it.
There's an additional possibility for predation by ciliates and copepods which only thrive when there's more food in the system.

At the moment the overwhelming experience and majority consensus leans in the direction of most varieties of dinoflagellate being slowly beaten-out in higher-nutrient systems, they never go away entirely because they were always there however.

I don't really think blackouts are a great solution either, but it's possible a slower reproduction rate and less ability to store energy means that some dino's encyst or go dormant and give everything else a chance to take back over.

As far as cyanobacteria is concerned, some strains legitimately do not care if your nutrient levels or flow are high or low (lyngbya and calothrix immediately come to mind).

[farkwar]

I probably should stay out of these threads

 

I'm old school. From Theil books

 

Always worked for me

 

This new stuff is weird and doesn't make any sense, and goes against experience and observations

 

 

[Gravity]

On 11/14/2020 at 7:04 PM, A.m.P said:

Unfortunately most of the hobby is anecdotal, you're correct in dino's being both auto and heterotrophic. 

I believe the working theory is simply that they get out competed in nutrient rich environments, dino's thrive in low nutrients because they are heterotrophic whereas the autotrophs need a P04 and N03 source in the water column to not be limited in growth and to ward-off being consumed themselves.
On the whole, larger, more complex, organisms seem to be well-equipped to reclaim the surface area dino's cover when conditions allow for it.
There's an additional possibility for predation by ciliates and copepods which only thrive when there's more food in the system.

At the moment the overwhelming experience and majority consensus leans in the direction of most varieties of dinoflagellate being slowly beaten-out in higher-nutrient systems, they never go away entirely because they were always there however.

I don't really think blackouts are a great solution either, but it's possible a slower reproduction rate and less ability to store energy means that some dino's encyst or go dormant and give everything else a chance to take back over.

As far as cyanobacteria is concerned, some strains legitimately do not care if your nutrient levels or flow are high or low (lyngbya and calothrix immediately come to mind).

I agree, Dino and Cyano will always be present but can be managed with the proper ecosystem. 

A blackout is defiantly not ideal and my hard corals did really struggled. Most Dino species tend to move into the water column over night and similarly without light Cyano dose the same. They tend to do this when stressed so in this form they are most vulnerable to common treatment methods (UV, Hydrogen Peroxide, heterotrophs ....) So the goal was to significantly reduce the population to allow other microbes to get a footing. 

 

[Gravity]

The tank is still doing good. The zoas have started to grow again.  I got a new polyp on the AOI and Pink Zipper and 5 more polyps on the Fire and Ice. My Yuma is getting very large. I still get a little cyano dusting mid week but it usually disappears by the end of the week. Continuing to dose refresh once a week and 1/2 dose of Waste Away twice weekly. 
 

 

 

 

[Gravity]

Looks like I did it again... The Dino and Cyano are both back now. After a few weeks of stable nutrients I began to back off the refresh and waste away dosing. Unfortunately, this is what seemed to have been holding back the green hair algae. As dosing slowed gha took hold and dropped my nitrates to zero. Now Dino has spread over the sand and Cyano spread a bit. 
 

 

On a better note, everything seems to be doing well and  my Yuma made a baby. 

 

[Gravity]

It has been quite some time since this tank has received any new additions. But yesterday I picked up this new Yuma!

 

 

I am also considering a small algae eater for this tank. I’m currently leaning towards a Rainford Goby but also interested in Hectors Goby or Tailspot Blenny.
 

Anyone have experience with these fish and their ability to eat green hair algae? Most of what I have found on the gobies are mixed from eating algae to only eating copepods. The blenny seems like a better choice but when I upgrade down the road I would like a starry blenny which wouldn’t be compatible. 

[A.m.P]

I believe the hector/rainfords/court jester/old glory goby is a misnomer, they pick at algae to get at pods, I do not believe there's much evidence of them caring for algae at all in our systems.

My recommendation is odd, get a healthy shortfin common-molly.

And that's quite a pretty yuma.

[Gravity]

1 hour ago, A.m.P said:

I believe the hector/rainfords/court jester/old glory goby is a misnomer, they pick at algae to get at pods, I do not believe there's much evidence of them caring for algae at all in our systems.

My recommendation is odd, get a healthy shortfin common-molly.

And that's quite a pretty yuma.

Thanks for the info. I have heard mollies do a good job but not something Im looking at for this tank. But perhaps would be a good fit for my frag system. 
 

Yeah, happy I found this one. I had a similar Yuma before but I knocked it off the rock then it floated away somewhere. 

[Gravity]

The new R. yuma has settled in nicely. I have turned off the powerhead to give it time to attach to the rock. It is currently attached to a small rock/pebble but don’t want it floating around. 

 

My other yuma was curled up for 10 mins or so in the late morning. Not sure what it was doing, maybe moving a bit? The foot looks a bit stretched. 

[Gravity]

It looks like the yuma is dropping off some babies. 

(Orange and Macro Lens)

[debbeach13]

Sweet